Death Trance (44 page)

The rumbling grew so loud that they could hardly bear it. Their teeth vibrated and their bones seemed to buzz, and it seemed as if the whole cemetery was going to be split apart. A huge granite tomb cracked with a report as sharp as gunfire and a tall spire shattered into pieces and collapsed. Dust rose into the air, the dust of broken marble mixing with the dust of long-dead lives.

Michael was shouting, 'Barong Keket! Barong Keket! Save me, Barong Keket!’

But the holy name of the Lord of the Forests was not enough to hold back the huge, dark apparition that now bore down on them. Across the cemetery, blotting out the twilight, blotting out the skyline, massive and black and rumbling and stinking of death, came something as huge as a tidal wave and as terrifying as hell itself.

Issa screamed. Marmie held her hands to her head and stared in hypnotic horror.

The apparition approached them and rolled back the darkness that covered its face. Then it roared - an appalling, shuddering roar - and more tombs collapsed.

Randolph had seen the face on the mask but he had not been prepared for anything like the face itself. A face as wide as a car, with bulbous eyes that were not painted this time, not varnished, but glutinous and real. A nose with cavernous, gaping nostrils. A dripping mouth with vicious fangs that were curved and gleaming and as strong as elephant tusks.

Most frightening of all was the apparition's crown. Around her forehead, instead of hair, hundreds of human heads protruded, living human heads, each screaming and weeping in endless torment. For one moment Randolph glimpsed the screaming face of Dr Ambara among them, and he knew that what Michael had said earlier had been true. Dr Ambara, rest his soul, had brought the leyaks here.

'What is it?’ Waverley asked querulously.

Michael slowly took his hands from his face. 'The Witch Widow Rangda,’ he said over the rumble of the apparition's arrival. 'It looks like she has come to collect her souls in person.’

Waverley was white. 'It's a stunt! It isn't true! It's a nightmare!’

Michael tautly shook his head. 'It isn't a nightmare, my friend. It's real and it's going to eat us.’

'God in heaven!’ Waverley cried. He covered his eyes with his hand.

At that moment, however, Ilona appeared beside him, materializing out of the darkness as if she had stepped through a photographer's curtain. She held out her hands and touched him, and he jumped and stared at her in terror.

She mouthed something, but the noise of Rangda's approach was so devastating that at first he couldn't hear her.

'What? What did you say? Ilona, for God's sake, help me!’

'Only you can save these people now,’
said Ilona.
'Only you can save my son.’

'Me? What do you mean? Ilona, for God's sake!’

‘
II
was your crimes that brought them here, Waverley. Only your sacrifice can save them.’

Waverley looked around in absolute horror; then up at Rangda. The Witch Widow's breath was stomach-churning, like a railroad car filled with rotten meat. 'You don't seriously expect me to -?’

Ilona was expressionless and white, a living statue. 'It's the only way, Waverley. It's the only way to prove that you love me. It's the only way that the gods of heaven and hell will ever forgive you, for what you've done. If you let my son die, I will never forgive you, not for all eternity. But if you sacrifice yourself now, and save him, then you and I will always be together, always at peace.’

Waverley was shaking. 'Ilona, you can't ask me that.’

Her face shifted and flowed as if they were looking at it through clear running water. 'I can, Waverley, it's the only way. Without this, you will never know any peace, ever; and you will never see me again.’

Without saying anything else, Ilona vanished.

Waverley looked at Randolph and then at Michael. At last, turning his back on the huge black bulk of Rangda, he approached Marmie, and John, and Mark, and Issa. He was pale but calm. He took off his glasses and tucked them into his pocket.

'I beg your forgiveness,’ he said huskily. 'If it were not for me, you wouldn't be here now, exposed to this danger. I cannot change myself; I cannot feel contrite. But I have been the author of everything evil that has happened to you, and if it is possible for me to put it right, I shall.’

He held out his hand to Randolph and said softly, 'Forgive me if you can. It may be no use.’

Waverley then turned back and directly confronted the huge, glaring presence hovering over them. The ground began to shake and thunder rumbled through the cemetery. Lightning crackled everywhere, illuminating in fitful flashes the distended, staring eyes and the long, curved teeth and the mouth that dripped with a distillation of human juices. Rangda, the goddess of death, the carnivore of the cemeteries, an ancient evil as old as the planet itself.

'Have me and all my malevolence!’ Waverley screamed up at Rangda. 'Have me and let these others free! You will have your fill with me, my lady. I will be enough to satisfy your appetite.’

'My God, he wants it,’ Randolph breathed. 'He
wants
Rangda to take him; he
wants
to suffer.’

Michael stood up and watched Waverley in fascination, still fearful for his own life but gripped by the spectacle of one man offering himself that others might go free. Waverley could see for himself what his punishment might be, that of crowning Rangda's forehead, and he suspected there were worse punishments that remained darkly invisible.

Rangda reached down from the blackness of her cloak and even the leyaks hissed and cowered back. Waverley, however, remained unflinching, his head lifted, his eyes still challenging the Witch Widow to take him as her sole sacrifice.

'Dear God,’ whispered Marmie, and at that moment the goddess seized Waverley in her scaly claws and lifted him to her mouth.

Her fangs gaped open. Waverley - perversely or bravely, or simply because he was too frightened by what was happening to him - remained silent. No scream as the first curved fang plunged into his stomach. No scream as his arms were ripped out of their sockets. No scream as the last of the old-style Southern gentry disappeared from sight between those voracious lips, leaving nothing behind but a momentary runnel of blood.

Randolph and Michael waited, numb and shivering, while Rangda loomed over them.

Michael said, 'She's going to take us too. I know it. Say your prayers, old buddy. This is eternity coming up.’

Rangda darkened the sky directly over their heads. Her power was so thunderous that the ground beneath their feet shook like an earthquake, and the air rumbled against their eardrums as if a 747 were passing directly over them. Michael dropped to his knees, but Randolph stayed where he was, rigid with terror. He could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck.

Rangda tossed her head, and as she did so, a beige string of half-chewed intestine was stretched between her jaws.

It was then, though, that a strange pale green glow began to suffuse the place where Marmie and the children were standing. Rangda visibly shied away from it, her grotesque head nodding like a black mastiff bitch. Randolph turned and stared at Marmie and the children, and already they were shining with soft phosphorescence. Marmie was smiling that sweet distant smile that he had always loved, and holding out her arms towards him, as if she were saying goodbye.

The rumbling of Rangda began to die down; and at last the Witch Widow drew down the blackness that covered her face and turned away. At that, the leyaks began to disperse, slowly at first, but gradually in increasing numbers, their eyes narrowed until they were nothing more than slits of orange fire.

'Michael!’ said Randolph. 'Michael, they're leaving! Michael, what's happened?’

Michael rose to his feet. 'Barong Keket, the Lord of the Forests. He has come to protect your family.’

Randolph watched in silence as Marmie and John and Mark and Issa moved closer together, holding hands. They were completely surrounded now by the steady pale green glow; and while Randolph was watching their feet slowly rose from the ground until they were floating three or four inches above the pathway.

'Barong Keket,’ Michael repeated, in a whisper. 'The lord of all that is good and green and peaceful. The lord of serenity and the lord of love.’

Randolph glanced towards the shrinking black cloud that was Rangda. 'You told me that Barong Keket was no match for Rangda.’

'On his own, no. But Rangda has been given a willing human sacrifice, and she's not entitled to take any more. Just as my father died to protect me from Rangda, so Waverley Graceworthy died to protect Marmie and the kids.’

'Marmie!’ called Randolph. 'Marmie, can you hear me?’

Michael took hold of his arm. 'I don't think she can. She belongs to Barong Keket now. Look - she's fading. They're all fading.’

'What the hell do you mean - she
belongs
to Barong Keket?’

Michael wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'She's all right, Randolph; she couldn't be better taken care of. I mean that. For all eternity, amen.’

'Marmie!’ called Randolph, in desperation. But Michael was right. Marmie and the children were dissolving in the pale green light. Soon he could see only the faintest shadows of his lost family. Then they were gone.

He stood for a long time with his head bowed. A light rain began to fall across the cemetery as dawn broke. Randolph looked up, and whispered, 'Wait for me, Marmie. I'll come back to you someday.’

Michael was waiting for him under the shelter of a tree. 'We'd better get back,’ he said. 'A new day. The death trance is over.’

Together they walked back in silence along Elvis Presley Boulevard until they reached Waverley Graceworthy's mansion. As they approached the entrance, walking under the dripping trees, they were surprised to see that OGRE 1 was still parked in the driveway, as were Chief Moyne's car and the Memphis police patrol car. There were also three other police cars, their lights flashing, and two station wagons from the Shelby County coroner's office.

They approached the front door just as four policemen and two medics struggled out of the doorway with a gurney on which a massive shape was covered with a heavily bloodstained sheet.

'What happened?’ Randolph asked. He lifted the sheet and saw that underneath it lay Orbus Greene, or what was left of Orbus Greene. His white suit was almost black with blood, and huge chunks of raw flesh had been bitten out of the side of his body. His face was like beaten beef. Randolph's stomach tightened and he let the sheet fall back.

'Ah, Mr Clare,’ said a familiar voice. It was Captain Ortega from downtown, a smart young career-detective with a handsome Latin face and a briskly clipped moustache. 'You came just in time for a terrible tragedy, I regret. I must please ask you to keep this confidential for the moment. We have kept it from the media so far, until we understand it better.’

A police officer came past carrying a dead Doberman in his arms. He threw it noisily into the trunk of his car and then went back into the house.

'What the hell happened here?’ Randolph asked. He was shaken and tired and bewildered.

Captain Ortega took his arm. 'Mr Graceworthy kept some very fierce guard dogs on the premises,’ he confided. 'It seems that last night Mr Orbus Greene and Chief Moyne, as well as several other persons, including two policemen, paid a visit to Mr Graceworthy, perhaps a social call after the Cotton Carnival Ball. Whatever it was, it seems that Mr Graceworthy was not here and the result was that the dogs attacked the guests and killed them. Nine dead people in all, each very seriously savaged. One of them even lost an arm, an arm we cannot find anywhere.’

He took out a small inhaler and squeezed it up each nostril. 'Of course we have put down the dogs. They were too dangerous to even take back to the city pound. But we are still anxious to trace Mr Graceworthy. You have no notion of his whereabouts?’

Randolph slowly shook his head. 'If I hear from him, do you want me to let you know?’

That would be helpful,’ smiled Captain Ortega as another gurney was wheeled past. Randolph recognized a silver-skull ring on the hand that dangled from underneath the sheet: one of Orbus Greene's bodyguards.

He asked abruptly, 'Do you mind if I use the phone? My chauffeur was supposed to meet me here and he seems to be late.’

'By all means,’ said Captain Ortega.

Herbert said he would pick them up in fifteen minutes. While they waited for him, they spent the time in Waverley's gardens, walking and talking.

'Leyaks, of course,’ Michael said quietly. 'No dogs could have done that.’

'You mean they went through the gate and came back here?’

Michael nodded. 'Waverley Graceworthy's living room is not sacred ground, after all. The leyaks were probably chasing Reece and came bursting into the real world right where all these people were sitting. Nobody had a chance.’

'And what about the leyaks now?’

'Well, that's the danger. They're loose in the real world, who knows where? And of course they have to kill to survive.’