Darkfall Part 45

He cast more of his blood into the chasm, and the tortured cries of the d.a.m.ned faded but only slightly. He blinked and squinted at the pulsing, s.h.i.+fting, mysteriously indefinable bottom of the hole, leaned out even farther to get a better look- -and with a whoosh whoosh of blisteringly hot air, a huge face rose up toward him, ballooning out of the s.h.i.+mmering light, a face as big as a truck, filling most of the pit. It was the leering face of all evil. It was composed of slime and mold and rotting carca.s.ses, a pebbled and cracked and lumpy and pock-marked face, dark and mottled, riddled with pustules, maggot-rich, with vile brown foam dripping from its ragged and decaying nostrils. Worms wriggled in its night- black eyes, and yet it could see, for Jack could feel the terrible weight of its hateful gaze. Its mouth broke open-a vicious, jagged slash large enough to swallow a man whole-and bile-green fluid drooled out. Its tongue was long and black and p.r.i.c.kled with needle- sharp thorns that punctured and tore its own lips as it licked them. of blisteringly hot air, a huge face rose up toward him, ballooning out of the s.h.i.+mmering light, a face as big as a truck, filling most of the pit. It was the leering face of all evil. It was composed of slime and mold and rotting carca.s.ses, a pebbled and cracked and lumpy and pock-marked face, dark and mottled, riddled with pustules, maggot-rich, with vile brown foam dripping from its ragged and decaying nostrils. Worms wriggled in its night- black eyes, and yet it could see, for Jack could feel the terrible weight of its hateful gaze. Its mouth broke open-a vicious, jagged slash large enough to swallow a man whole-and bile-green fluid drooled out. Its tongue was long and black and p.r.i.c.kled with needle- sharp thorns that punctured and tore its own lips as it licked them.

Dizzied, dispirited, and weakened by the unbearable stench of death that rose from the gaping mouth, Jack shook his wounded hand above the apparition, and a rain of blood fell away from his weeping stigmata. "Go away," he told the thing, choking on the tomb-foul air. "Leave. Go. Now Now."

The face receded into the furnace glow as his blood fell upon it. In a moment it vanished into the bottom of the pit.

He heard a pathetic whimpering. He realized he was listening to himself.

And it wasn't over yet. Below, the mult.i.tude of voices became louder again, and the light grew brighter, and dirt began to fall away from the perimeter of the hole once more.

Sweating, gasping, squeezing his sphincter muscles to keep his bowels from loosening in terror, Jack wanted to run away from the pit. He wanted to flee into the night, into the storm and the sheltering city. But he knew that was no solution. If he didn't stop it now, the pit would widen until it grew large enough to swallow him no matter where he hid.

With his uninjured right hand, he pulled and squeezed and clawed at the wounds in his left hand until they had opened farther, until his blood was flowing much faster. Fear had anesthetized him; he no longer felt any pain. Like a Catholic priest swinging a sacred vessel to cast holy water or incense in a ritual of sanctification, he sprayed his blood into the yawning mouth of h.e.l.l.

The light dimmed somewhat but pulsed and struggled to maintain itself. Jack prayed for it to be extinguished, for if this did not do the trick, there was only one other course of action: He would have to sacrifice himself entirely; he would have to go down into the pit. And if he went down there* he knew he would never come back.

The last evil energy seemed to have drained out of the clumps of soil on the altar steps. The dirt had been still for a minute or more. With each pa.s.sing second, it was increasingly difficult to believe that the stuff had ever really been alive.

At last Father Walotsky picked up a clod of earth and broke it between his fingers.

Penny and Davey stared in fascination. Then the girl turned to Rebecca and said, "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "But I think your daddy accomplished what he set out to do. I think Lavelle is dead." She looked out across the immense cathedral, as if Jack might come strolling in from the vestibule, and she said softly, "I love you, Jack."

The light faded from orange to yellow to blue.

Jack watched tensely, not quite daring to believe that it was finally finished.

A grating-creaking sound came out of the earth, as if enormous gates were swinging shut on rusted hinges. The faint cries rising from the pit had changed from expressions of rage and hatred and triumph to pitiful moans of despair.

Then the light was extinguished altogether.

The grating and creaking ceased.

The air no longer had a sulphurous stench.

No sounds at all came from the pit.

It wasn't a doorway any longer. Now, it was just a hole in the ground.

The night was still bitterly cold, but the storm seemed to be pa.s.sing.

Jack cupped his wounded hand and packed it full of snow to slow the bleeding now that he no longer needed needed blood. He was still too high on adrenalin to feel any pain. blood. He was still too high on adrenalin to feel any pain.

The wind was barely blowing now, but to his surprise it brought a voice to him. Rebecca's voice. Unmistakable. And four words that he much wanted to hear: "I love you, Jack."

He turned, bewildered.

She was nowhere in sight, yet her voice seemed to have been at his ear.

He said, "I love you, too," and he knew that, wherever she was, she heard him as clearly as he had heard her.

The snow had slackened off. The flakes were no longer small and hard but big and fluffy, as they had been at the beginning of the storm. They fell lazily now in wide, swooping spirals.

Jack turned away from the pit and went back into the house to call an ambulance for Carver Hampton.

We can embrace love; it's not too late.

Why do we sleep, instead, with hate?

Belief requires no suspension to see that h.e.l.l is our invention.

We make h.e.l.l real; we stoke its fires.

And in its flames our hope expires.

Heaven, too, is merely our creation.

We can grant ourselves our own salvation.

All that's required is imagination.

-The Book of Counted Sorrows

Berkley t.i.tles by Dean Koontz

THE EYES OF DARKNESS.

THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT.

MR. MURDER.

THE FUNHOUSE.

DRAGON TEARS.

SHADOWFIRES.

HIDEAWAY.

COLD FIRE.

THE HOUSE OF THUNDER.

THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT.

THE BAD PLACE.

THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT.

MIDNIGHT.

LIGHTNING.

THE MASK.

WATCHERS.

TWILIGHT EYES.

STRANGERS.

DEMON SEED.

PHANTOMS.

WHISPERS.

NIGHT CHILLS.

DARKFALL.

SHATTERED.

THE VISION.

THE FACE OF FEAR.