Graham Masterton: Revenge of the Manitou

Harry let out a long breath. “Okay. But next time, why not just duck when the bullets start flying? All right?”

Singing Rock nodded. There wasn’t tune for any more banter. The night was crisscrossed with flashing spotlights, and hideous with the whooping of sirens, but over it all they could still hear Misquamacus as he completed the incantation for calling down the first of the Indian demons. They could feel the rumble of thunder through their feet, and the lightning that had stalked the distant hills was now flickering closer.

“Listen,” said Singing Rock. “Between them, those medicine men are calling down Nashuna and Pa-la-kai and Coyote. The demons won’t be able to resist their summons, because they’re too powerful, all together like that.”

Neil, wiping a smudge of dirt from his face, said, “What are we going to do if they do call the demons down? How can we possibly fight them?”

Singing Rock took a look at the spirit cage he had left on the fence. So far it was quiet, and showed no signs of activity. He rearranged the ribbons and beads, and finished casting the powders he had brought with him.

Then he said, “What you have to remember is that almost every demon can be appeased. Some demons want blood, others want manitous. If you can offer a demon what he needs to survive and maintain his strength on the great outside, then you can usually succeed in dismissing him.”

“Usually?” asked Harry. “How often is usually?”

“More often than never,” replied Singing Rock. “And right now, we’re clinging on to every straw we’ve got.”

There was an ear-splitting burst of thunder, and they looked in fear up at the sky. All the way down the dark length of the lake, huge trees of forked lightning sizzled and crackled, and the air reeked of electricity. Then darkness swamped them again, and the heavy clouds rolled over the mountains and blotted out the stars and the moon and the night sky.

Misquamacus was calling now, at the top of his voice. “Nashuna, we summon you!

Nashuna, we command you! Nashuna, god of darkness, we summon you!”

Above the circle of medicine men, a hundred feet in the air, a roiling knot of darkness appeared, darker than the clouds. Out of its threatening, amorphous midst, Harry could make out scores of what looked like red glittering eyes, evil and ravenous, and from beneath its cloudy bulk, dark smoky tentacles trailed toward the ground. The spirit cage on the fence began to rattle and shake as if it were being’worried by a mad dog. ‘

There were heavy bursts of gunfire from police and soldiers on both sides of the bridge, and again both Highway Patrolmen and onlookers were cut down by slicing bullets. Over the transmitter, Harry and Neil could hear the National Guard colonel insisting on a cease-fire, and phoning Travis Air-Force Base for an air strike.

Singing Rock, though, was totally preoccupied by Misquamacus, and by the huge bulk of Nashuna the demon of darkness. He stepped forward now, through the lines of police cars, and walked to the end of the bridge. Harry, from where he was crouching, was sure that he could see Misquamacus bare his teeth and smile.

Singing Rock was caught in the floodlight, one man alone against twenty-two, and against all the terrible powers of the elder gods, and Misquamacus was at last going to get his revenge.

Misquamacus raised one arm. Singing Rock stopped, only thirty or forty feet away from the circle of wonderworkers.

In his distant, strange, echoing voice, Misquamacus called: “Why do you fight me, little brother? Why do you defy me?”

Singing Rock didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his medicine bones and beat them together over his head in a complicated rhythm. Then he pointed one bone up to the sky, up toward the dark bulk of Nashuna, and spun the other bone in his free hand.

Misquamacus suddenly understood what Singing Rock was doing, and raised his own arm toward Nashuna. But he was moments too late. Singing Rock’s incantation was completed, and he abruptly pointed his second bone toward Neem, the bringer of thunder, one of the most celebrated wonder-workers of all time.

There was a roaring, grinding, screeching sound like a cliff collapsing. Neem, a muscular Indian in a buffalo-horn helmet, crossed his arms in front of him to prevent Singing Rock’s spell from reaching him. For almost a minute, the two of them struggled against each other, with Misquamacus powerless to intervene. Branches of lightning spat and fizzed around them, with sparks showering across the road surface. From where he was standing, Harry could see that Singing Rock was hunched forward with effort, and that the arm which was still raised toward the grim shape of Nashuna was trembling with effort.

Suddenly, there was a horrendous scream. Neem, the bringer of thunder, had fallen to his knees. Singing Rock was almost standing over him now, pointing one bone toward his body and keeping the other bone directed at Nashuna. The rumbling noises were deafening, and Harry felt sure the whole bridge was going to collapse.

“Nashuna, demon of darkness, I give you this being’s darkness for your stores of night!” called Singing Rock, in a high, strained voice. “Take his darkness as my sacrifice, and go back to the great outside!”

Neem fell to the road. He tried once to claw his way toward Singing Rock, but he knew that he was defeated. Singing Rock had been too quick, too direct, and had used one of the most powerful sacrificial spells. Dying, the thunder-bringer shrieked in agony, as his skin peeled away from his body, transparent layer by transparent layer, and as his muscles and membranes and bones were bared. He fell apart like a dissected flower, while his inner darkness, the secret shadows inside his body, were drawn through Singing Rock’s steadily pointing bone and funneled into the black knots of Na-shuna’s maw by the other, upright, bone.

There was another peal of thunder, and Nashuna was gone. Singing Rock stepped away from the spread-out remains of Neem the medicine man, warily watching Misquamacus. No emotion showed on Misquamacus’ face, but he kept his arms raised as a protection against Singing Rock’s magic.

“You have defied me,” said Misquamacus. “Not for the first time, but for the second time. You will die for this, and your manitou will wander the great outside forever, in constant agony of mind and body. I, Misquamacus, promise you this!”

Singing Rock said nothing, but abruptly turned his back on Misquamacus and walked off the bridge. He came back to Harry and Neil and set his bones back in his case with almost casual professionalism. It was only when he turned to look at Harry that the strain on his face really showed. He was white with effort, and his eyes seemed to have lost all expression.

“How can you turn your back on him?” asked Neil. “Why doesn’t he strike you down?”

Singing Rock dabbed ‘at his forehead with his handkerchief. “He let me go because we’ve declared this a kind of contest. There are rules to any contest, and the rules to this one are that you don’t unleash your medicine on anyone whose back is turned.”

Captain Myers came across from the protection of his Highway Patrol car. He said briskly, “I thought I told you jokers to stay out of this. I thought I specifically ordered you out of here.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t,” Harry told him. “You’d all be lying around like cut-up frogs by now.”

“I demand to know what’s going on here,” said the captain.

Singing Rock sorted through his case. “What’s going on here is that I’m saving your life,” he said brusquely. “Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way and let me get on with it.”

“But what the hell did you do out there?” demanded Captain Myers. “What was all that stuff with the bone’s?”