William H. Hallahan - (22 page)

He'd beaten her.

She refused to accept that. She gathered her leaden wings and flew
into the storm, turning back to the waterfront, intending to fly back
across the harbor to Manhattan in pursuit of the fleeing Brendan
Davitt.

But over the docks she began to lose altitude. She fell, tumbling
in air, unable to make her wings hold even a short glide. She hit the
edge of a pier and clung to the piling. Her claws were so weak she
almost fell into the gurgling black water. She could barely hold her
head up.

The snow was beginning to relent. As she gazed across the harbor
she could get hazy glimpses of the lights of Manhattan. Festive,
abundant, the lights seemed to mock her.

You failed. You failed.

Satan sat upon his throne, brooding over Brendan Davitt. He had
escaped--the most dangerous man who had ever lived had completely
disappeared.

Satan's eyes roved over the great Hall of Pandemonium and
everywhere he saw the lords of hell standing in small groups, arms
crossed, talking softly and looking at him upon his throne. There was
Beelzebub, and Belial, Moloch and Ashtaroth, Thammuz and Dagon,
Baalim and Rimmon--all of them in fact, all murmuring, all staring at
him from a distance. Satan had a major revolt on his hands.

He was the leader, the one with all the skills and tricks, and
they wanted him instantly to eliminate this threat of extinction. And
how did they expect him to do that? The quarry had escaped. Wasn't
that clear enough? Disappeared. Wherever that old monk Joseph had
sent him, Davitt was beyond finding at the moment. And there was no
sense blaming the hawk. She'd performed superbly, beyond her own
endurance. And already she was back in the air, flying on the point
of collapse, searching for Davitt. Satan wished he had more hawks and
fewer critics.

He thought about the possibility of his own extinction with
growing awe. Could it really be near? And what was it, this final
punishment the Lord had promised? He gazed again at his sullen
lieutenants. In a way it would be a relief, having done finally with
this collection of carpers and slackers, the whole ungrateful pack.
If it hadn't been for him, they would still be sulking around in the
darkness and misery. And not one of them would lift a finger to help
search for Davitt. They just stood in the Hall in groups and waited
for
him
to do something.. It was
his
problem. He could
read their thoughts. One hawk on the point of collapse--was that the
best he could do to fend off their imminent destruction? A hell
filled with fiends, and all he could manage was one exhausted hawk?

Beelzebub stepped away from his group and approached the throne.
He had the merciless eyes of the true predator, like a cheetah who
could study a herd of gazelles and pick out the weak one, the slow
one, the one with a secret flaw. And now Beelzebub searched for a
flaw in Satan's eyes, a hint of weakness, a slackening of resolve, a
loss of leadership ability.

Satan nodded at him, giving him leave to approach the throne.

"Is it true, Satan, that the hawk has found Timothy?"

Satan nodded. "Timothy is halted in a seminary, stopped by
the snow and shin splints. He obviously has no idea where Davitt is."

Beelzebub nodded but continued to stare at Satan.

Satan sensed the challenge. "As long as Timothy hasn't found
Davitt, we have no problem," he said. "And I have Timothy
under constant watch."--

"Of course, Satan. But the old abbot from the monastery,
Joseph. He knows where Davitt went. Can we talk to him?"

"He's dead. He died from exposure, sitting in a church pew
with his rosaries wrapped around his hands. How saintly of him."
Satan shifted irritably in his seat. Joseph could become the leading
saint in heaven for what he did. "Soon enough, Beelzebub, the
hawk will find Davitt," he said in a tone of dismissal.

"But is that enough, Satan? If Davitt keeps his head covered
and stays indoors he'll be very hard to find, even for the hawk."
There was a tone of near contempt in his voice. "Finding babies
is easy. This Davitt is another situation entirely."

"Speak plainly, Beelzebub."

"Some of us think the hawk is losing her skill. This Davitt
was born and lived twenty-four years right in New York City and she
never discovered him."

"I explained that to you."

"But we are all dependent on that one hawk for our survival
Might there be other undiscovered Davitts?"

"Go on."

"We have no other eyes on earth because you ordered all the
demons back here."

"Of course. Without visible demons, man stopped believing in
hell and our success rate soared."

"But isn't it time, Satan, to send them back on earth to help
search for this Brendan Davitt?"

"They do incredible mischief--more harm than good."

"But they will give us many more eyes to search for Davitt."

The rebuke was clear. The hawk had failed. So Satan himself had
failed. They wanted more action now.

"Very well, Beelzebub. What did you have in mind?"

"Populate the earth with some chimeres again until Davitt is
found. Then you can bring them back here until the next time."

The next time. Another rebuke. Satan fixed his mad green eyes on
his lieutenant until Beelzebub lowered his gaze. "As you wish,
Beelzebub. A limited number though."

Beelzebub nodded and withdrew with a bow.

The chimeres were hideous, corpselike creatures who for
millenniums had exhibited a genius for finding and seducing weak men
into mad abandoned ways. Their excesses always raised armies of
witch-hunting do-gooders in reaction. Because of the chimeres on
earth, the churches had been packed, men believed fervently in
eternal damnation and were very wary of the seductive corruption of
Satan's other minions.

Satan had another reason for disliking the chimeres: They wore the
true face of evil and he found it repellent. But they were superb
hunters and soon a band of them was once more on earth. They searched
eagerly for Brendan Davitt.
 
 

It was snowing heavily again when Brendan stepped off the
Greyhound bus with his suitcase, in far-upstate New York near the
Canadian border. Opposite him were a country store and an old barn,
standing side by side. Next to them was the road he wanted: T 421. He
regarded it with dismay. It hadn't been plowed, it was filled with
snow and it looked impassable. Even its name--a letter and three
numbers--made it sound military and furtive, just the kind of
designation that would lead to a secret hiding place. An old
weathered sign said WOODMERE LAKE 2 MI.

Brendan walked across the road and past an assortment of cars and
trucks. The two great doors of the barn stood open and a group of men
were standing in a circle inside. In their midst lay a horse. It was
obviously dead; it lay on its side, just outside its stall, a sorrel
with three white feet. The neck had been broken, and the head had
been twisted completely around as if it were looking back over its
rump. There was something very familiar about the arrangement of the
head.

"How did it happen?" Brendan asked.

"Didn't do it itself, I can tell you," and old man
answered.

"Nothing human did it," said another man in a red
hunter's cap.

The group went on staring down at the dead horse for a few
moments. The animal was strikingly handsome even in death: sloping
flanks, splendid muscles, bulking power under a beautiful glossy
coat. The group was enveloped by the beast's smell of clean, innocent
horseyness.

Brendan turned his eyes away in pain. Wickedness. He looked out at
the snow-filled road, keeping his eyes away from the horse. "Any
of you thinking of driving down T Four-twenty-one?"

"Yes, for a fact." The man in the red cap made a merry
smile. "Next spring." He giggled.

"You have a gun with you, mister?" the old man asked.

"Shhhhh, Charlie! Don't scare the man."

"Should be scared. Damnedest goings-on I ever heard of.
Whatever it is, it ain't human. Did you ever hear of any force on
earth could twist a horse's head like that? Ever hear of one that
wanted
to?"

The man in the red cap examined Brendan's clothes. He looked from
the knee-high laced boots to the wool pants and the fleece-lined coat
and to the heavy ski mittens, finally to Brendan's wool hat.

"Where you going?"

"Woodmere Lake," Brendan answered.

"You walking in with that suitcase?" He shook his head.
"It ain't nothing but an old logging road full of ruts and
boulders. There's over a foot of snow down and there's drifts three
feet high. It's going to be a bitch kitty of a walk, mister. More'n
three miles through absolute wilderness. You could get lost and
freeze to death in there."

"Or get your neck broke," the old man said. He nodded at
the horse's head.

Brendan bought a length of line in the store and made a shoulder
sling for the suitcase. At best there were only a few hours of
daylight left, and he set off in face of a blinding, wind-driven
snowstorm.

T 421 bore off almost aimlessly, following the natural contours of
the terrain. Brendan felt a rising grade under his feet. He was
evidently walking up a high hill, but how high, how far he couldn't
tell for the snow cut visibility to a few feet.

It was going to be a long, difficult walk. He had to lift each
foot successively high over the snow, push it down until it reached
the ground. Often he stepped in a rut or on a boulder. With any step
he might break his ankle. If so, he knew he would freeze.

When he came to snowdrifts, he turned and pushed his back through.
Or sometimes he lay like a swimmer and bellied his way over. He felt
as ungainly and slow as a turtle. And with every step he was still
dogged with the feeling that had been with him since he left New
York; he kept looking over his shoulder for a pursuer. Something was
following and gaining on him. The blinding snow gave him
claustrophobia. Grimly he attacked the next drift. He was alone in a
limitless wilderness that stretched all the way to Canada, with only
the gentle sound of falling snow. When he tumbled out of one
particularly high drift, he paused to readjust the rope sling of his
suit-case. He heard a sound. He turned and looked back. It was the
crunch of a foot in the snow. He stood waiting. Then he shrugged and
told himself to calm down. Snow falling off the boughs of the trees
made occasional plopping sounds. It might even be a small animal--a
squirrel, a rabbit, a raccoon. He adjusted the case and struggled
onward.

The conditions seemed to grow worse, the snowfall heavier, and
visibility poorer, the grade steeper. He could barely find the road
under the snow, and he had to guard against wandering off in a
tangent. He lost all sense of direction. Abruptly, with barely any
leveling off, he found himself on what seemed to be the crest of the
hill. He paused to adjust his suitcase. He was concentrating on the
knots when he heard the steps. Three this time in clear sequence. He
fought down the impulse to bolt. The steps could have been no more
than twenty or thirty feet behind him. He was now convinced;
something was stalking him. He needed a weapon. A branch, a stone, a
club--anything. All he saw was a world of featureless white. He felt
as if he were blindfolded. He tried to increase his speed and soon
found himself galumphing downhill, slipping, sliding, the suitcase
pounding on his hip, ponderous as an elephant. He realized he was
frantically making an easy footpath for his pursuer. When he stumbled
on a boulder, nearly spraining his ankle in the process, he knew he
had to slow down.

He came to a downward sloping grade that had been in the lee of
the wind and was relatively free of deep snow. His descent became
more rapid until he encountered another deep drift. He flung the
suitcase over and rolled across it. He was considering abandoning the
suitcase. On the other side of the drift he lay and waited. Squeezing
his eyelids against the snowflakes he squinted intently backward. It
seemed he saw a looming form but it quickly disappeared in the snow.
He listened. Uncanny. He felt it was listening for his steps, waiting
just outside the range of visibility. Why was it waiting? Why didn't
it attack and have done with it? Was there another ahead of him?

Hefting the suitcase once more, he struggled downward, panting,
perspiring, still trying to make haste. His left foot struck a high
rock on an angle and he took a sliding header in the snow. To his
surprise he came up against a square pole stuck into the ground. He
stood up and saw a sign nailed to it. EALING 7 MI., it said. This was
the place he was looking for, the rendezvous point. Here he was to be
met. But there was no one there. "Hello," he called out.
"Is there anyone here?"

It would be the sheerest folly to go beyond this point in the
limitless wilderness that surrounded him. He simply had to wait with
something malevolent silently standing not twenty feet away.

He dropped the suitcase and looked around for a weapon. He scuffed
at the snow, seeking a fallen branch to use as a club. All he found
was stones. Quickly he rooted through his suitcase until he found a
sock and he put the stones in the sock and swung it tentatively. It
wasn't very reassuring. He stood by the pole and faced the path he'd
left and listened for the slightest sound. He waited for a long time
in complete silence. He began to feel foolish. There was no pursuer.
It had been a small animal. He looked anxiously in the other
direction. Where was his guide?

Now his body began to cool, and he felt the chill of the bitter
temperature penetrate his boots. The thermometer was dropping with
the oncoming darkness. His knees and thighs became cold.