Graham Masterton - The Manitou

I stepped softly and gingerly over the last few yards, pointing the flashlight into the gore-spattered doorway of Karen Tandy's room. I could hear something stirring and moving in there, but I dreaded to think what it was. I came closer and closer, keeping to the far side of the corridor, and then I rushed forward and shone the light full and square into the room.

It was Singing Rock. He was on his hands and knees on the floor. At first I thought he was all right, but when I shone the light toward him, he turned slowly in my direction, and I saw what Misquamacus had done to his face.

Crawling with terror, I flickered the light around the whole room, but there was no trace of Misquamacus at all. He had escaped, and was somewhere in the pitch-black twisting corridors of the tenth floor. We would have to find him, and try to destroy him, armed with nothing but a flashlight and a small glass vial of infected fluid.

"Harry?" whispered Singing Rock. I walked across and knelt beside him. He looked as if someone had lashed him across the face with seven strands of barbed wire. His cheek was ripped up and his lips were split, and there was a great deal of blood, I took out my handkerchief and gingerly dabbed at it.

"Are you hurt bad?" I asked him. "What happened? Where's Misquamacus?"

Singing Rock wiped blood from his mouth. "I tried to stop him," he said. "I did everything I knew."

"Did he hit you?"

"He didn't have to. He gave me a faceful of surgical instruments. He would have killed me if he could have."

I rummaged in the bedside cabinet and found Singing Rock some gauze and bandages. When the blood was wiped away, his face didn't look too bad. His own self-protective magic had managed to divert most of the scalpels and probes that Misquamacus had sent flying in his direction. Several of them were stuck in the wall, right up to the handles.

"Did you get the virus?" asked Singing Rock. "Just let me stop this bleeding, and then we'll go after him."

"It's here," I said. "It doesn't look like much, but Dr. Winsome says this little lot can do the job a thousand times over."

Singing Rock held the vial up and squinted at it. "Let's just pray it works. I don't think we have much time."

I picked up the flashlight, and we stepped quietly over to the door of the room and listened. There was no sound at all, except for our own suppressed breathing. The corridors were deserted and dark, and there were more than a hundred rooms in which Misquamacus could have hidden himself.

"Did you see which way he went?" I asked Singing Rock.

"No," said Singing Rock. "Anyway, it's been five minutes. He could be any place by now."

"It's very silent. Does that mean anything?"

"I don't know. I don't know what he plans to do next."

I coughed. "What would you do, if you were him? I mean — magically speaking?"

Singing Rock thought for a while, still patting his ravaged cheek with a bloodstained pad of gauze.

"I'm not sure," he said. "You have to look at it from Misquamacus' point of view. In his own mind, he left Manhattan in the 1600s only days ago. The white man, to him, is still a strange and hostile invader from nowhere. Misquamacus is very powerful, but he's obviously frightened. What's more, he's suffering from physical disabilities, which isn't going to help his morale much. I think he's going to call in all the reinforcements he can get."

I flicked the flashlight up and down the corridor. "Reinforcements? You mean more demons?"

"Certainly. We've only seen the beginning of this."

"So what can we do?"

Singing Rock, in the reflected light of the torch, could only shake his head.

"There's only one thing on our side," he said. "If Misquamacus wants to bring demons out of the great beyond, he's going to have to prepare gateways to bring them through."

"Gateways? What are you talking about?"

"Let me put it simply. Imagine there's a wall between the spirit world and the physical world. If Misquamacus wants to call any demons through, he has to remove some bricks from that wall, and prepare an entrance for the demons to come through. They need to be coaxed, too. Demons almost always demand a price for their services. Like the Lizard-of-the-Trees and his morsel of living flesh." "Morsel?" I said. "Christ — some morsel."

Singing Rock held my arm. "Harry," he said quietly, "it's going to be more than morsels before we're through with this."

I turned around and looked at him. For the first time, I realized what a trap we were in, and how there was only one way out.

"All right," I said. I didn't want to say "all right" at all, but it looked as if I didn't have any choice. "Let's go find him."

We stepped out into the corridor, looking left and right. The silence was oppressive, and I could hear the rush of air molecules bombarding my eardrums, and the pumping of my own heart. The sustained fear of encountering Misquamacus or one of his demons made us both sweat and shiver, and Singing Rock's teeth were chattering by the time we made it down the first corridor. At each door, we aimed the beam of the flashlight through the window, and checked to see if the medicine man was hiding inside.

"These gateways," I whispered to Singing Rock as we turned the first corner, "what are they like?"

Singing Rock shrugged. "There are many different kinds. All it takes to bring a demon like the Lizard-of-the-Trees through is a circle on the floor and the proper promises and incantations. But the Lizard-of-the-Trees is not particularly powerful. He's just a minion in the hierarchy of Red Indian demons. If you want to summon a demon like the Lodge-Pole Guardian or the Water Snake, you have to prepare the kind of nexus that will make the physical world seem attractive to them."

"Check that door over there," I said, interrupting him. I flashed the beam his way, and he peered through the window into the hospital room. He shook his head.

"I just hope he's still on this floor," said Singing Rock. "If he gets out of here, we're in big trouble."

"The stairway's guarded," I pointed out.

Singing Rock pulled a tight smile. "Against Misquamacus, nothing is guarded."

We walked carefully forward down the corridor, stopping every few yards to investigate rooms, cupboards and odd corners. I was beginning to wonder if Misquamacus had ever existed, or if he was just weird hallucination.

"Have you ever summoned a demon yourself?" I asked Singing Rock. "I mean — can't we pull a few in on our side? If Misquamacus is going for reinforcements, why shouldn't we?"

Singing Rock smiled again. "Harry, I don't think you know what you're saying. These demons are not jokes. They're not men dressed up. The greatest of them, the upper hierarchy of Red Indian demons, can take many forms. Some of them change their shape and their whole essence continuously. One minute they're like terrible bison, and the next they're like a pitful of snakes. They have no sense of human conscience and no sense of pity. Do you think that Lizard pitied Jack Hughes when it bit his hand off? If you want these demons on your side, you have to want something very pitiless done for you, and you have to disregard the possible consequences of something going wrong."

"You mean they're all evil?" I asked him. I sent my flashlight beam up the corridor to probe a suspicious-looking shape. It turned out to be a hunched-up wastepaper sack.

"No," said Singing Rock. "They're not evil in the sense that we understand it. But you have to understand that the natural forces in this planet are not in sympathy with mankind. Mother Nature, whatever it said in your Sunday-school catechism, is not benign. We cut down trees, and the spirits and demons of the trees are dispossessed. We dig out mines and quarries, and disturb the demons of the rocks and soil. Why do you think there are so many stories of devils possessing people on isolated farms? Have you ever been around Pennsylvania, and seen the pentacles and amulets that farmers wear, to ward off the demons? Those farmers have disturbed the demons of the trees and fields, and they are paying for it."