Walkers (19 page)

Henry came very close to Gil, and
clasped his shoulder. Gil could smell the drink on his breath, and examine the
tracery of bloodshot capillaries in his eyes. ‘I think that Springer is what,
in medieval times, they used to call an angel.’

‘You’re kidding,’ said Gil, pulling
himself away. He turned around on his heel, and then stared at Henry again.
‘You’re kidding, right?’

Henry slowly and emphatically shook
his head. ‘Springer is an angel. You look up angel, in your dictionary, and see
how angel is defined. A messenger from God. And that is exactly what Springer
is. A messenger from Ashapola, who to all intents and purposes is God. So, my
friend, when you are talking to Springer, you are talking only one stage
removed with the Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe. You should
tremble! This is like Moses and the Burning Bush!’

‘You’re kidding me,’ Gil repeated.
Henry was being so theatrical, flinging his arms around and shouting out like
Laurence Olivier, that it would have been hard to believe him even if he had
been reading out the nutritional information on the side of a box of Granola.

‘Well, you can think what you like,’
said Henry. ‘The only way to find out is to confront Springer himself.’ He put
down his drink, and looked around the room, patting his shirt-pockets in an
imitation of jungle drums. ‘Now, where are my spectacles?’

‘I’ll call Susan,’ Gil suggested.

‘You really think that’s wise?’

‘We have to, Henry.’

Henry sighed. ‘Very well,’ he
agreed. ‘But I will tell Springer this – and I will tell him loud and clear –
Susan is not to come along with us if there is the slightest risk. I am not
having the life of a young girl on my conscience. Especially one so
personable.’

‘You like her, don’t you?’ smiled
Gil.

Henry frowned at him. ‘Yes,’ he
said, pugnaciously. ‘What’s it to you?’

While Henry rummaged around for his
spectacles and his shoes and his crumpled linen coat, Gil telephoned Susan. Her
grandmother answered and wanted to know who it was.

‘A friend, that’s all.’

‘A boy?’

‘The*last time I looked, ma’am.’

‘Don’t you be fresh with me. Susan’s
out right now. She’s having lunch with the Morgensterns. You can call back
later if you want to, but I’m not giving you any guarantees that she’ll be
here.’

‘Okay, ma’am. Thank you.’

Henry said, ‘Not in? Oh well – it’s
probably all for the best, you know. I wouldn’t like to see her get hurt.’

He thought about what he had said,
and then he added, ‘I wouldn’t like to see
me
get hurt, either, come to that.’

They drove down to Camino del Mar in
Gil’s yellow Mustang, parking right outside the house where Springer had showed
them the recreated memory of the girl they had discovered on the beach. They
climbed out of the car, and stared at the dark-windowed, run-down facade. For
the first time, they asked themselves whether Springer was going to be here. In
fact, Henry was asking himself if Springer had existed at all.

They walked up the weedy front
pathway and rang at the corroded doorbell. They could hear no sound from
within121 the house, no bell jangling, no chimes. The day was hot and bright
and humid, with a layer of high cirrocumulus, warning of unsettled weather to
come. Henry was sweating, and took out a balled-up handkerchief to dab at his
forehead. He loosened his necktie with his finger.

‘Don’t know what you’re wearing a
tie for,’ Gil remarked.

‘I’m a professor,’ said Henry, with
mock pomposity. ‘A necktie is my symbol of respectability. Besides, if I follow
it upwards it enables me to find my head.’

They waited and waited and there was
no reply. ‘Ring again,’ Henry suggested, but just as he was about to do so, the
front door swung open and Springer was standing in the hallway, white faced,
dressed in black.

‘You are early,’ he smiled.

Henry lifted his left wrist and
frowned at it. He had forgotten to put on his watch. ‘How can we be early if we
didn’t have an appointment?’

‘What I mean is, I didn’t expect you
so soon.’

They stepped inside. There was a
dusty, lingering smell of patchouli. The banisters were draped with sheets, as
if the house was being closed up for the summer.

‘You knew we would come, then?’
asked Henry.

Springer nodded. ‘Your friend is
here as well, she came even earlier than you. She is waiting for you upstairs.’

Gil and Henry exchanged glances of
surprise. Springer smiled at them, with all the mechanical humour of a clown,
and led the way upstairs to the large back room where he had shown them the
death agonies of the girl they had found on the beach.

Susan was standing by the window,
looking out over the overgrown yard. She wore a white tee-shirt and a simple
white skirt, and her hair was tied up with ribbons. As they came in, she turned
around.

‘Hello. Springer said that you would
come.’

Henry briskly rubbed his hands. He
found his own predictability rather upsetting; especially since he had
originally planned to do nothing more today than sit in a chair and listen to
Beethoven and get astonishingly drunk. Susan came over and kissed Gil on the
cheek, almost ceremonially, and then Henry. ‘Excuse my . . .’ Henry said,
rubbing his unshaven chin. ‘Prickles.’

Springer closed the door. ‘You have
come because it is your chosen destiny to come. You have come because there is
something within each of you that demands it. Susan, you have lost your
parents. Your mind is still asking for explanations, and you have a strong
feeling that if you embark on this adventure you will have many of your
questions answered. In some ways, this may be so.’

Springer approached Henry, and stood
looking at him benignly. ‘You, Henry, are afraid that your life may have been
wasted, that all your learning and all your intellect may have gone for
nothing. To track down this beast would be an achievement. And, apart from
that, you are glad of the company of these two young people. You would have had
children if your marriage had been happier. These two are quite an acceptable
substitute.’

Henry said nothing. He was too good
a philosopher to know that it was useless arguing against the absolute truth.
Springer moved on to Gil, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

‘ You seem to have a far more
contented life than Henry and Susan. You have parents who love you, a stable
home, and you are working hard at your schooling.

But still, you are discontented.
Unlike your father, you will never be satisfied with anything as mundane and
restricting as a store. You expect more. You expect excitement, and danger!
What did your father say, before you came to meet me?

What did he advise you to do?’

Gil flushed in embarrassment. ‘Guess
he didn’t realise how you were going to turn out. Guess I didn’t, either.’

Springer smiled. ‘Your father has
always told you to take precautions. Not just sexually, of course, but in
everything you do. Now you are tired of playing it safe.

You want to test yourself. Hunting
this beast, you think, will be a worthy test.’

Springer raised his hands. His face
was as smooth as a pebble, expressionless but peaceful. ‘Now you see why you
were chosen, why your footsteps were directed that morning towards the beach.
Now you see why you have all agreed to help me.’

Henry thrust his hands into his
pockets, and rocked backwards and forwards on his heels. ‘I was surmising
earlier this morning, that you were a messenger, of sorts. A
divine
messenger.’

Springer looked back at him with
interest. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Well, this may be preposterous. In
fact, it sounds completely lunatic now that I’m saying it directly to your
face. But I surmise that you are an angel.’

Springer seemed to take this remark
quite seriously, and in good part. He considered it for a moment or two, and
then he nodded, as if he quite liked it. ‘Not an angel perhaps in the sense
that .you understand it. No wings, no robes, no trumpets. More like a
collection of projected information, a living hologram. But if you wish to use
the word angel. . .then I would be flattered.’

Susan said,’ What I want to know is,
if Ashapola is so powerful, why can’t
He
find
this beast Himself? Why do we have to do it for Him?’

‘He is all powerful, but also powerless,’
Springer explained. ‘He created the world and everything in it, but for the
most part He allowed His creation to have freedom of choice. If humans choose
to believe in Him, then He is pleased. But He has allowed them
not
to believe in Him, to believe
instead in other gods, if that is what they find most comforting. Ashapola is a
god who does not intervene, as a rule, in the destiny of His creatures, and
cannot
intervene, any more than a parent
can intervene in the life of His children.’

‘He seems to have intervened quite
considerably in this particular situation,’ said Henry.

‘Yes,’ said Springer, ‘because this
situation is different. It is no exaggeration to say that this situation is a
direct threat to Ashapola Himself, and to the future of this world, and
everybody who lives in it. Without Ashapola’s guidance, there was a
considerable risk that you would not have discovered the nature of this threat
until it was far too late. Ashapola cannot grapple directly with the beast
itself, but through me he can give you the power that will enable you to do so,
and, with luck, to overcome it.’

‘The beast,’ said Susan, quietly.
‘Is the beast the same as the Devil?’

‘There has never been one single
Devil,’ Springer explained. ‘As it says in the Bible, the Devil is legion. But
today, most of the scores of demonic manifestations which used to plague this
earth have been destroyed, or somehow contained, and up until this poor girl’s
body was discovered, the only active Devil we knew of was Asmodeus, who has been
causing havoc in Israel and the Middle East for years now, in spite of the
efforts of the Hebrew exorcists to track him down and contain him.’

Springer’s face seemed to alter
subtly, from masculine to feminine. He walked gracefully over to the window, and
when he spoke his voice was much more high pitched and precise, although
neither Henry nor Gil nor Susan found his sudden change to be at all
disconcerting. They had accepted her for what she was, a living image, rather
than a real person.

Springer said, ‘It appears that a
Devil whom we usually call Yaomauitl has reappeared in Southern California.
Every Devil has his own way of spreading his evil. Yaomauitl is the emperor of
nightmares. By day, he is as ordinary as you or I.

By night, when people are sleeping,
he can enter their nightmares and do to them whatever he desires. He can kill
them in their sleep, he can infect them with terrible sicknesses, he can blind
them. He can also impregnate them with his own seed, and that is what happened
to the young girl you found on the beach. The seeds devour the womb which
nourished them, and make their escape. If they can find a hiding-place, they
grow, and after six months or so, they emerge as fully grown as their parent.’

‘And then what happens?’ asked Gil.

‘The same process is repeated,
through nightmare after nightmare, until there are sufficient Devils to
dominate the dreams of an entire nation. That is what happened in Iran. That is
what happened in Hitler’s Germany. Whoever holds a nation’s dreams, holds that
nation’s power. That is why Yaomauitl is so called: his name means Dreaded
Enemy.’

Susan asked,’ How do we find
Yaomauitl? Especially since he’s so ordinary during the day.’

‘I have no idea,’ Springer
confessed. ‘You will have to be detectives.’

‘Well, that’s up-front for you,’ Gil
admitted.

Susan said, ‘What do we do with him,
once we find him?
If
we find him?’

‘There I can help you,’ Springer
told them. Through me, you will be invested with the traditional powers of the
Night Warriors.’

‘The Night Warriors,’ Henry
repeated. He liked the sound of that. There was a magnificent warring darkness
to it; like black plumed horses and black-painted shields, and thunderous rides
across midnight fields.

Springer came away from the window.
‘Once, there were many Night Warriors.

There were enough of them to have a
secret society of their own – their own rules, their own legends, their own
particular chivalry. Of course, when Yaomauitl was finally defeated, there was
no longer any need for them – and although much of their secret lore was passed
down from one family to another, the Night Warriors themselves died out.’

She paused for a while, and then she
said, ‘Another reason you three were chosen was because all of you have
ancestors who were Night Warriors. Henry, your paternal greatgrandfather was
Kasyx, the charge-keeper, one of the greatest of the Night Warriors. Gil, your
great-great-greatgrandfather on your mother’s side was Tebulot, the
machine-carrier. And Susan, your great-great-grandmother was one of the last of
the Night Warriors, Samena, the finger-archer.’