This Present Darkness (43 page)

“Come on over,” said Hank.

The fence would have to wait.

On into the evening the angelic host waited, while Hank, the Forsythes, and several others prayed. Rafar continued to sit up in the dead tree, his eyes beginning to glow in the steadily thickening darkness. His taloned fingers continued to drum his knee; his brow stayed crinkled
with his intense scowl. Behind him a host of demons began to gather, primed with anticipation and rapt with attention, waiting to hear Rafar’s order.

The sun dipped behind the hills on the west side; the sky was washed with red fire.

Rafar sat and waited. The demonic host waited.

IN HER BEDROOM
Juleen Langstrat sat on her bed, her legs crossed in the lotus position of Eastern meditation, her eyes closed, her head erect, her body perfectly still. Except for one single candle, the room was dark. There, under the shroud of the darkness, she convened her meeting with the Ascended Masters, the Spirit Guides from the higher planes. Deep within her consciousness, far within the depths of her inner being, she spoke with a messenger.

To the eyes of Langstrat’s entranced mind the messenger appeared as a young lady, all dressed in white, with flowing blonde hair that reached nearly to the ground and was constantly in motion, wafted by the breeze.

“Where is my master?” Langstrat asked the messenger.

“He waits above the town, watching over it,” came the girl’s answer. “His armies are ready for your word.”

“All is ready. He may await my signal.”

“Yes, my lady.”

The messenger departed like a beautiful gazelle, leaping gracefully away.

The messenger departed, a filthy black nightmare of a creature borne on membranous wings; he departed to take word to Rafar, who still waited.

Darkness deepened over Ashton; the candle in Langstrat’s room dwindled to one round, ebbing flame in a pool of wax, the inky blackness overtaking its weak, orange light. Langstrat stirred, opened her glazed eyes, and arose from the bed. With a very small puff of breath she extinguished the candle and moved in a half daze into the living room where another candle was burning on the coffe table, the wax flowing and hardening into macabre fingers across the photograph of Ted Harmel on which the candle sat.

Langstrat sank to her knees beside the coffee table, her head held high, her eyes half shut, her movements slow and liquid. As if floating in space, her arms rose upward over the candle, stretching out an invisible canopy over the flame, and then, so very quietly, the name of an ancient god began to form itself on her lips again and again. The name, a guttural, harsh sound, spilled forth from her like the spitting of hundreds of invisible pebbles, and with each mention of the name, her trance deepened. Steadily, steadily the name tumbled forth, louder and faster, and Langstrat’s eyes widened and remained unblinking and glaring. Her body began to quiver and tremble; her voice became an eerie wailing sound.

Rafar could hear it all from where he sat and waited. His own breathing began to deepen and chug out of his nostrils like putrid yellow steam. His eyes narrowed, his talons flexed.

Langstrat swayed and quivered, calling out the name, calling out the name, her eyes fixed on the candle’s flame, calling out the name.

And then she froze.

Rafar looked up, very still, very attentive, listening.

Time stood still. Langstrat remained motionless, her arms extended over the candle.

Rafar listened.

Air began to slowly flow into Langstrat’s mouth and nostrils, her lungs began to fill, and then, with one sudden cry from deep within, she brought her hands down like a trap, clapping them on the candle’s wick, snuffing out the flame.

“Go!” shouted Rafar, and hundreds of demons shot into the sky like a thunderous flock of bats, rushing along a straight and level trajectory northward.

“Look,” said an angelic warrior, and Tal and his host all saw what looked like a black swarm silhouetted against the night sky, an elongated puff of smoke.

“Going north,” observed Tal. “Away from Ashton.”

Rafar watched the squadron disappear at great speed and let a mocking grin bare his fangs. “I’ll keep you guessing, Captain of the Host!”

Tal shouted out his orders. “Cover Hogan and Busche! Awaken the Remnant!”

A hundred angels soared downward into the town.

Tal could still see Rafar sitting in the big dead tree.

“Just what are your plans, Prince of Babylon?” he murmured.

THE PHONE STARTLED
Marshall out of a restless sleep. The clock said 3:48 A.M. Kate moaned at being awakened. He grabbed up the receiver and mumbled hello.

For a moment he didn’t have the slightest idea who was on the other end or what they were saying. The voice was wild, hysterical, high-pitched.

“Hey, simmer down and slow down or I’ll hang up!” Marshall snapped hoarsely. Suddenly he recognized the voice. “Ted? Is this Ted?”

“Hogan …” came Ted Harmel’s voice, “they’re coming for me! They’re all over the place!”

Marshall was awake now. He pressed the receiver to his ear, trying to understand what Ted was blubbering about. “I can’t hear you! What’d you say?”

“They found out I talked! They’re all over the place!”

“Who is?”

Ted started crying and screaming unintelligibly, and the sound of it was enough to make Marshall’s insides curl up. He groped around the bedside stand for his pen and pad.

“Ted!” he shouted into the phone, and Kate jerked with a start and turned over to look at him. “Where are you? Are you home?”

Kate could hear the cries and wailings squawking out of the receiver, and it unnerved her. “Marshall, who is it?” she demanded.

Marshall couldn’t answer her; he was too occupied trying to get a clear answer from Ted Harmel. “Ted, listen, tell me where you are.” Pause. Some more cries. “How do I get there? I said, how do I get there?” Marshall began scribbling hurriedly. “Try getting out of there if you can …”

Kate listened, but couldn’t make out what the party on the other end was saying.

Marshall told whoever it was, “Listen, it’s going to take me at least half an hour to get there, and that’s if I can find a station open to get some gas. No, I’ll get over there, just hang tight. All right? Ted? All
right?”

“Who’s Ted?”

“All right,” said Marshall into the phone. “Give me time, I’ll get out there. Just take it easy. Good-bye.”

He hung up the phone and bolted out of bed.

“Who in the world was that?” Kate needed to know.

Marshall grabbed his clothes and began to dress hurriedly. “Ted Harmel, remember, I told you about him …”

“You’re not going over there tonight, are you?”

“The guy’s going crazy or something, I don’t know.”

“You get back in bed!”

“Kate, I have to go! I can’t afford to lose this contact.”

“No! I don’t believe this! You can’t be serious!”

Marshall
was
serious. He kissed Kate good-bye before she could even bring herself to believe he was really going, and then he was gone. She sat there in the bed for a few moments, stunned, then flopped down angrily on her back, staring at the ceiling as she heard the car back down the driveway and speed off into the night.

MARSHALL DROVE ABOUT
thirty miles north, through the town of Windsor and a little beyond. He was surprised to find out how close to Ashton Ted Harmel still lived, especially after they both met in the mountains over a hundred miles further up Highway 27. This guy has to be crazy, Marshall thought, and maybe I’m just as crazy to be going along with this whole routine. The guy’s paranoid, a real space case.

But he sure sounded convincing over the phone. Besides, it was a chance to reopen communications with him after that one-time-only interview.

Marshall had to do some backtracking and groping around the maze of winding, unmarked backroads in his efforts to make sense of Harmel’s directions. When he finally located the little shake-sided house at the end of a long gravel road, a ribbon of pink light was growing on the horizon. He’d taken an hour and a half to get there. Yes, there was the old Valiant, parked in the driveway. Marshall pulled in behind it and got out of the car.

The front door of the house was open. The front window was broken. Marshall crouched just a little behind his car, taking a moment to check out the situation. He didn’t like the feelings he was getting at all; his insides had gone through this kind of a dance before, that night when Sandy had run off, and again there seemed no obvious, up-front reason for it. He hated to admit it, but he was afraid to take another
step.

“Ted?” he called, not too loudly.

There was no answer.

It didn’t look good at all. Marshall forced himself to make his way around his car, up the walk, and onto the front porch very slowly, very carefully. He kept listening, looking, feeling. There was no sound except his own pounding heart. His shoes crunched just a little on the shards of broken glass from the window. The sound seemed deafening.

C’mon, Hogan, get with it. “Ted?” he called through the open door. “Ted Harmel? It’s Marshall Hogan.”

No answer, but this had to be Ted’s place. There was his coat hanging on the rack; on the wall above the dining room table was a framed front page from the
Clarion.

He ventured inside.

The place was a mess. The dishes that had been in the corner hutch were now shattered all over the floor. In the living room a chair lay broken on the floor just below a large hole in the plaster wall. The bulbs were shattered out of the ceiling light fixture. Books from the shelves were thrown everywhere. The side window was also broken out.

And Marshall could feel it, just as strongly as before: that fierce, gut-wrenching terror he had felt that other night. He tried to shake it off, tried to ignore it, but it was there. His palms were slick with sweat; he felt weak. He looked around for a weapon and grabbed a fireplace poker. Keep your back to the wall, Hogan, keep quiet, look out for blind corners. It was dark in here, the shadows were very black. He tried to take his time, tried to let his eyes get used to the dark. He felt for a light switch somewhere, anywhere.

Behind and above him, a black, leathery wing quietly repositioned. Leering yellow eyes watched his every move. Here, there, over there, all over the room, in the corners of the ceiling, upon the furniture, clinging like insects to the walls, were the demons, some of them letting out little snickers, some of them drooling blood.

Marshall made his way stealthily to the desk in the corner and, using a handkerchief to prevent fingerprints, slid the drawers open. They had not been disturbed. Keeping the poker at the ready, he continued to move through the house.

The bathroom was a mess. The mirror was shattered; the shards
were in the sink and all over the floor.

He moved down the hall, staying close to the wall.

Hundreds of pairs of yellow eyes watched his every move. There was an occasional hacking from the throat of a demon, a short burst of vapor from its dripping mouth.

In the bedroom the most loathsome spirits of all awaited him. They watched the bedroom doorway from their positions on the ceiling, on the walls, in every corner, and their breathing sounded like the dragging of chains through gravel-filled mud.

From where he stood, Marshall could see just the corner of the bed through the bedroom door. He approached cautiously, making frequent checks behind and even above him.

When he reached the bedroom door a single image, like a photograph, was instantly engraved on his mind. One second seemed like an eternity as his eyes darted from the blood-spattered bedspread to the bullet-blasted skull of Ted Harmel to the large revolver still dangling from Harmel’s limp hand.

Shrieks! Thunder! Fangs bared to bite! The demons exploded from the walls, corners, every nook of the room and like arrows went for Marshall’s heart.

A blinding flash! Then another, then another! The whitest hot light traced brilliant fiery arcs, a searing edge that cut through the flock of evil spirits like a scythe. Parts of demons tumbled into nothingness; other demons imploded and vanished in instantaneous billows of red smoke. Waves of spirits still poured down upon the one lone man who stood there in reasonless terror, but suddenly this man was surrounded by four heavenly warriors robed in glorious light, their crystalline wings unfurled like a canopy over their charge, their swords blurring into waving, swirling sheets of brilliance.