The Necromancer (25 page)

Milton had blacked out for a moment, but was fully conscious again and opened his eyes, blinking to clear the blood out of them. He could hear something down below in the blackness as Nyle and William pulled him up, a whooshing sound, and it was getting louder.

His vision cleared.

“Help me!” he cried. “Help me up! Help me up now!”

Something was rushing up at him with incredible

speed, a hot, moist gust of foulness preceding it.

The Cranley boys pulled harder.

Nyle grabbed Milton’s other foot.

A grating hiss from below.

A tentacle, enormous, winding, and gray, whipped out of the darkness into the moonlight.

A rasping growl.

“PULL ME UP! DEAR GOD, PULL ME UP!”

Milton pressed his hands into the crannies of the wall and pushed off, walking his way back up to the lip of the hole and out, every movement reminding him painfully of his broken ribs.

The earth rumbled and shook, and the three men ran in staggers and falls down the hill away from the pit.

*****

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“Holy Mother of God!” Lawson gasped, looking

through the doorway.

“What is it?” Corwin asked, looking back into the other room.

But Lawson didn’t reply. He just stood there, gawking.

Parris turned toward the door and gaped.

Corwin backed away from Blayne, stepping over

Anster’s remains, and saw what had stricken Lawson and Parris with such awe. The colors had changed. Greens were white. Browns were blue. The sky and everything else that was black was now the brightest blood-red. And the shape of the landscape had changed completely. The house was no longer in the same place it was when they broke in. It was unnatural; ungodly. Blayne had perverted the pure and incorruptible. He had perverted nature itself.

“What have you done?” Corwin accused, turning back to Blayne. “What in God’s name have you done?” he hissed, trembling.

*****

The rumbling was deafening now. Neither Milton nor

the Cranleys wished to turn and face the source of the noise, but they knew something had to be done. They couldn’t simply cower idly by and watch as some unmentionable monstrosity was given birth in the world. They had to stand fast and fi ght.

Nyle grabbed Milton and William’s arms and stopped.

“You go down to see if Cedric can give us aid,” he said to Milton. “William and I will hold ground here until you return. Now go!”

Nyle gave Milton’s shoulder a shove and Milton was gone. He turned to his brother.

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“William, I know you do not like this—nor do I—but this is what we must do.”

He slapped William on the shoulder and raised his rifl e.

“Nyle, I...I do not know that I can—”

“You must. You must help me. I need you. We must stay our ground. For our

family...and friends.”

William swallowed dryly, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly up and down, and raised his rifl e with a weak smile.

“Good man,” Nyle said, and tapped William’s arm

lightly. “Good man,” he repeated lower as he turned back to the top of the hill and raised his rifl e again, and waited.

*****

“Now, have you any conception of the breadth of the power you face in me?” Blayne admonished. “Have you?”

Corwin could think of no way to respond to that question. He was still too befuddled to think at all. But he reminded himself why he was here and what his purpose was, and responded in the only way a sheriff could:

“We have come to bring you back to Salem where you shall be tried for treason, for traffi cking with the Devil and his hordes, and for practicing his damnable witchcraft. Come with us peaceably, or you shall be taken by force.”

Parris and Lawson looked at the sheriff with

astonishment, then at Blayne, but the warlock’s face could not be read. They stood there in silence for tense, interminable moments. Then Blayne burst out, not in tirades or violence...

but in laughter: haughty, hideous, demonic laughter.

*****

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“How is your arm?” Edward asked Roger, sitting up holding his bare and bloody chest as Cedric wrapped it with strips torn from Edward’s shredded shirt. Roger was likewise wrapping his acid-eaten arm, little more than bones, ligaments, and tendons now.

“It pains me grievously, and I do not think that I should be capable of working it again, but otherwise I am none the worse for it. But mind not my arm. How are you? It would seem the beast has had more than its measure of your fl esh.”

Edward held his head up and winced as Cedric secured a shirt strip snugly around his chest.

“Forgive me, Edward. But it must be tight.”

Edward nodded.

“My wounds burn hotly, but the blood makes it appear much worse than it is. I feel fi t enough to see our purpose carried out to its conclusion.”

“As do I,” Roger added.

“Let us go then,” Edward said, rising to his feet.

“Are you sure you are able?” Cedric asked the two of them.

“As long as my body draws breath I shall be able,”

Roger proclaimed. “Nothing shall keep me from saving my daughter. Nothing.”

“Come,” Edward said. “We mustn’t tarry. Our—”

The ground rumbled and trembled beneath their feet, and they held onto each other to keep from falling down.

“What—” Edward began.

“Earthquake!” Cedric yelled.

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“Earthquake?” Roger said. This could not be mere coincidence, he thought. No. Not at all.

“The earth quakes,” he said loudly. “But this is no earthquake. This is the Devil’s work. You can be certain of that.”

They stood there speechless and frightened for a long time, pondering Roger’s statement as the ground jostled them around like dolls in a box. Then an urgent voice threaded its way to them from up the hill through the noise of churning earth.

“Cedric! Roger! Dear God!”

Ramsey scrambled down at them from up the hill on wobbly legs holding his chest with one arm and fl ailing the other about madly. His face was red with blood.

He reached them in moments, gibbering, and grabbed Cedric’s shoulder.

“We are doomed!” he cried. “We are doomed! Oh

God...Oh God...” He held his chest with one arm as he rocked back and forth, looking around himself and especially back to the place on the hill he had just come from. His face was scrawled with fright.

Then Edward noticed something was wrong, and it

made his face run instantly white.

“What happened to the house?” he asked.

Milton shook his head.

Edward seized his arms and shook him, breaking

Milton’s grip on Cedric’s shoulder and making both arms fall helplessly to his sides.

“What happened to the house? WHAT HAPPENED

TO THE HOUSE!”

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“Gone.”

“What do you mean?” Roger asked. “What happened

to it?”

Milton shrugged, still shaking his head.

“It comes,” Milton said.

“What comes?” Cedric asked.

“It. That thing. We are doomed.” He began rocking back and forth again, holding his chest.

“Where are the others?” Cedric asked.

“William and Nyle are up there.” Milton jerked his head toward the top of the hill. A thick white fog billowed up from the ground where the house used to be at the pit.

“What about the rest of the men?” Roger asked.

Milton shrugged and shook his head.

The rumbling stopped.

“Come,” Edward said, picking up his rifl e.

Edward, Roger, and Cedric gathered up their weapons and trudged up the hill toward the pit. Milton followed them reluctantly, holding his chest and rocking back and forth as he whispered prayers to himself.

*****

Nothingness dissipated and was replaced by a black

fi eld through which remote yet clearly audible voices fi ltered through.

Susanna’s eye fl uttered in its socket. The initial trauma was abating, and she was resurfacing to consciousness. But something held her back. She still couldn’t move.

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She felt strange. That feeling of breaching the skin of a mossy pond returned again, but this time it was different.

This time it was reversed. She wasn’t leaving her body, and she didn’t feel lighter. She felt heavier, denser, fulsome.

She tried to move her hand, but to her surprise her foot moved instead, and complete consciousness—no matter how close she came to it—eluded her.

Her other foot shifted, and her hand moved. Her eyes closed then sprang open.

*****

Roger led the way up the hill. The fog had grown so great and dense that nothing could be seen more than a couple yards away in any direction since they had entered its perimeter.

“S-slow down, Roger,” Milton said. “The pit is just ahead of us.”

“How can you tell?” Edward asked. “I can see nothing through this fog.”

“The slope is not so steep now,” Milton replied. “We...

we must be at the top now. Take care and watch the ground.

And st-stay on your guards. That thing is here. I smell it.”

“Is that the rotten stench which assails me?” Cedric said.

“Yes.”

Cedric grunted and fell silent, searching, staying alert.

“William!” Roger called. “Nyle!” But the only

responses were the echoes of his own voice resounding in the foothills and valleys surrounding them.

Heavy footfalls came toward them louder and louder until William Cranley appeared in the whiteness, covered from crown to sole in blood. He lunged at Cedric, falling into his 233

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arms. He slumped down along Cedric’s body, trying to hold on, and collapsed at his feet, breathing laboriously.

“Wi-William,” Milton said.

“What happened?” Roger asked.

William moaned, sobbing, and said, “Nyle...Nyle’s dead. It caught Nyle. It...ate Nyle.”

Edward knelt down and opened William’s coat. His shirt was soaked and shredded. He peeled it off one bit at a time and tried to sop up the blood to get a better look at his injuries.

It was bad. One group of pectoral muscles was sliced away from the sternum and ribcage and was now nothing more than a fl ap of meat hanging on by a sliver of skin at the shoulder. Deep gashes covered the remainder of his torso.

The worst of William’s injuries had to be the deep laceration running vertically from his naval and disappearing beneath his breeches, his entrails threatening to spill out over his belt.

Edward looked up at the others gravely, silently announcing William’s chance of survival.

“What happened?” Roger asked again.

But it was useless. William gurgled. He made an

attempt to respond to Roger’s question, but belched up thick gobs and bubbles of mucous and blood instead. He choked, vomited more blood, and gasped, his eyes half-lidded. He sighed. His chest dropped suddenly

...and never rose again.

The four men stared at each other. Not far off, a sawing growl cut sharply through the stinking, white air.

*****

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Screams—the screams of men—and gunfi re came

from outside some distance away. Parris, Lawson, and Corwin turned back toward the door. Corwin and Lawson bolted outside.

Parris stood still, unsure what to do. He recognized one of the screams as that of Cedric Aldrich, one of his most loyal parishioners. He had volunteered to journey with the reverend and sheriff on the witch-hunt upon seeing the men riding toward the village limits on horseback, and now he suffered for his loyalty and good will. Parris turned back to Blayne with open mouth and trembling lips, a reverend of God confronting a priest of the Devil.

“Stop this!” he hollered. “You’re killing them!”

Blayne just stared at him heartlessly, with a sternness and severity that chilled the blood.

Parris glanced down at the pistol he was holding. (He had reloaded after shooting the dog, and it was ready.) He leveled it at Blayne and fi red.

*****

The growl grew louder, closer. The stench grew

stronger, and it bespoke of rot and death. Something stirred in the murk.

“What was that?” Cedric asked to no one or anyone.

“What?” Edward asked.

“I thought I saw something move there.” He pointed up and to his right.

The growling was thunderous. It was all around them now. They couldn’t tell where it came from.

“Stand back to back,” Roger said. “Everyone. And bear watch.”

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The four of them turned around and stood close, shoulders touching, creating a human circle. They held their weapons out in front of them as they rotated slowly, each of them looking anxiously in every direction, blind as moles in an open fi eld on a hot, sunny day.

“Oh God,” Milton mumbled, holding his pistol with one shaky hand and his chest with the other as his legs grew warm and wet with urine. “It...It’s going to get us and...and...

eat us.”

“Quiet,” Cedric whispered to him sharply.

“We...We’re going to die.”

Cedric turned to him and grabbed the lapels of his coat. “Your mindless babbling will make that a certainty,” he barked lowly. “Is that what you want? Is it? Whatever it is that stalks us may be able to see no more than we. All your gibbering will make it—”

Milton’s mouth fell open as he saw it appear over Cedric’s shoulder in the mist and lash out at him with one of its tendrils and skewer him in the back. Cedric screamed as the tendril burst through his stomach, its crab-like pincers snipping open the intestines it was snagged on, emptying their contents onto the ground as it hauled him up into the oblivion of whiteness that lingered on the hill.

Milton screamed and fi red as Cedric vanished amongst a fl urry of whipping tentacles, writhing tendrils, and fl apping wings. Roger and Edward turned and fi red as well, but the creature and Cedric were gone. The whole incident had taken but a few seconds, and now they were three.