Graham Masterton - The Manitou

"What I'm worried about is Karen, " said Jack Hughes. "If we're going to have a full-scale battle of wizards right here in her room, do you think she can possibly survive it?"

"Dr. Hughes," said Singing Rock. "This is all-or-nothing. If I win this battle, then she will survive. If I don't, then I can't give you any guarantees about who will survive. With a medicine man as strong as Misquamacus, we might all of us die. You don't seem to understand what these manitous are. When I say they're powerful, I don't just mean they can knock a man over. If they're released from limbo without any control on them at all, they could wipe out this hospital, this whole block, this city."

"Oh, come on, now," said Dr. Hughes. Singing Rock made a last check of his medicine circle, and then led us out of Karen Tandy's room. In the corridor, we peeled off our face masks and untied out robes.

"All I can say is — wait and see," said Singing Rock. "Now, I could use a meal and a beer. Is there anywhere to eat in this hospital?"

"Follow me," said Jack Hughes. "It's going to be along night, so we might as well fuel up now."

I checked the time. Five-oh-five. By this time tomorrow, we would know whether we had won. If we hadn't, I couldn't even imagine what five-oh-five on Tuesday evening would bring.

Lieutenant Marino of the NYPD was waiting for me in Dr. Hughes' office when we got back from eating. He was sitting patiently with his hands in his lap his black brush-cut hair sticking up like Mickey Spillane before his weekly visit to the barber.

"Mr. Erskine?" he said, rising to shake my hand.

I looked at him cautiously. "Did you want something, lieutenant?"

"Oh, this and that. You must be Dr. Hughes, sir," he said to Jack. "I'm Lieutenant Marino." He flashed his badge.

"This is Singing Rock," I said, introducing Singing Rock.

"Pleased to know you," replied Lieutenant Marino. There was hand-shaking all round.

"Is there any problem?" I said.

"You could say that," said Lieutenant Marino. "Do you know two people called Amelia Crusoe and Stewart MacArthur?"

"Of course, they're old friends of mine. What's the trouble?"

"They're dead," said Lieutenant Marino. "There was a fire in their apartment in the Village this morning, and they were both killed."

I felt weird and trembly all over. I found a seat and sat down, and Dr. Hughes fetched out his bottle of bourbon and poured me a glass. I swallowed a long mouthful. Lieutenant Marino passed me a cigarette, and lit it for me. When I spoke, my voice was dry and croaky.

"God, that's terrible," I said. "How did it happen?"

"We don't know," shrugged Marino. "I was hoping that maybe you had some ideas about that."

"What do you mean? What kind of ideas could I have about it? I've only just found out."

Lieutenant Marino leaned forward confidentially. "Mr. Erskine, on Saturday morning, an old lady called Mrs. Herz fell down a flight of steps and died. This is Monday. Two people are caught in a strange kind of flash fire in their apartment, and they die. All of these people have something in common. They're all friends of yours. Now, do you think I'm right to make a routine inquiry, or don't you?"

I sat back. My hands were shaking like two old men with the palsy.

"I guess you're right But I have a witness who can tell you where I was this morning. I was up at La Guardia collecting Singing Rock here from his flight from South Dakota."

"Is that true?" Lieutenant Marino asked Singing Rock.

Singing Rock nodded. He seemed to be thoughtful and preoccupied, and I wondered just what was turning over in his mind.

"Okay," said Lieutenant Marino, standing up. "That's all I wanted. I'm sorry I had to bring you such bad news."

He got ready to leave, but Singing Rock held his arm.

"Lieutenant," he said. "Do you know what actually happened — with these two people?"

"It's hard to tell," replied Marino. "It seems as though the fire was instantaneous — more of a bomb than a fire. Both of the bodies were cindered up. We're checking for explosives now, but there wasn't any blast damage, so I don't know whether we'll find any. It may have been some kind of freak electrical fault. We won't know for two or three days."

"Okay, lieutenant," said Singing Rock quietly. "Thank you."

Lieutenant Marino went to the door.

"Mr. Erskine, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't leave town for a day or so. I'd like to know where to reach you in case there are any further inquiries."

"Sure," I told him softly. "I'll be around."

As soon as he'd gone, Singing Rock came over to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Harry," he said, "I'm sorry. But now we know exactly what we're fighting against."

"You don't think that…"

"No, I don't think it," he said, "I know it. Your friends annoyed Misquamacus by calling him up at that seance of yours. He probably only appeared to find out who it was that was daring to call him out of limbo. Misquamacus is quite capable of invoking fire like that. In plains medicine, they used to call it the 'lightning-that-sees,' because it was completely selective. It only hit those people that the medicine man wanted to kill."

Dr. Hughes frowned. "But Harry here was at that seance as well. Why hasn't Misquamacus done the same to him?"

"Because of me, " said Singing Rock. "I may not be the greatest medicine man there ever was, but I am protected from simple sorcery like that by my amulets, and those who are friendly to me and who are around me will be protected as well. I imagine that because Misquamacus isn't properly reborn yet, he isn't able to work his full magic. I'm only guessing, of course."

"I can hardly believe it," said Jack Hughes. "Here we are in a technological age, and a creature from four hundred years ago can destroy someone miles away in the Village with a flash of fire. What the hell is it all about?"

"It's about magic," said Singing Rock. "Real magic is created by the way that man uses his environment — the rocks, the trees, the water, the earth, the fire and the sky. And the spirits, too, the manitous. Today, we've forgotten how to call on all these things to help us. We've forgotten how to work real magic. But it can still be done. The spirits are still there, ready to be invoked. A century to a spirit is like a millisecond to us. They're immortal and patient, but they're also powerful and hungry. It takes a very strong man and a brave man to call them out of limbo. It takes an even stronger one to send them back there, and seal the gateway they came through."

"Do you know something, Singing Rock?" said Dr. Hughes. "The way you talk, you really give me the creeps."

Singing Rock looked at him pragmatically. "You have every reason to have the creeps. This is probably the creepiest thing that's ever happened."

Throughout Monday night, Singing Rock and I were to take it in turns to watch over Karen Tandy. We both agreed that Dr. Hughes ought to go home and get a full night's sleep, because if we did manage to restore Karen's manitou to her body, then he would need to be as fit and fresh as possible to deal with any resuscitation that might be urgently needed.

We commandeered the hospital room next to Karen's, and while Singing Rock slept, I sat in the corridor on a hard chair, watching the window of our patient's firmly closed door. There was a male nurse inside with her, in case she needed medical attention, but he had been warned that if he saw anything at all unusual, he was to bang on the door and call me.

I managed to find a copy of Dr. Snow's book about the Hidatsa Indians in the library, and I read it by the bald fluorescent hospital light. Most of it was pretty dry, but he was obviously well up on the sorcery of medicine men.