Graham Masterton - The Manitou

We turned another corner. Suddenly, I said: "What's that?"

We peered into the darkness. We had to wait for two or three minutes before we saw anything. Then, there was a brief flicker of blueish light from one of the doorways.

Singing Rock said: "That's it. Misquamacus is up there. I don't know what he's doing, but whatever it is, we're not going to like it."

I took my vial of influenza virus out of my pocket. "We've got this," I reminded him. "And whatever Misquamacus has in store for us, it can't be as bad as what we've got in store for him."

Singing Rock sniffed. "Don't get too confident, Harry. For all we know, Misquamacus is immune."

I slapped his shoulder and tried to make a joke. "That's right, bolster my confidence!" But all the time I felt as if every nerve in my body was tingling, and I would have done anything to relieve my watery, sliding bowels.

I killed the flashlight and we walked tentatively up the corridor toward the flickering light. It looked like someone was welding something, or the reflection of distant lightning. The only difference was, it had an unearthly quality about it, a strange coldness that reminded me of stars, when you stare up at the sky on a lonesome winter's night, and they're twinkling chill and distant and utterly remote.

We reached the door. It was closed, and the blueish light was shining through the small window in the top, and underneath. Singing Rock said: "Are you going to take a look, or shall I?"

I shivered, like someone was stepping on my grave. "I'll do it. You've done enough for the moment."

I crossed the corridor and pressed myself to the wall along side the door. The wall was oddly cold there, and when I got closer to the window in the door, I realized that there were spangles of frost on the glass. Frost — in a heated hospital? I pointed it out to Singing Rock, and he nodded.

Gingerly, I raised my face to the window, and looked into the room. What I saw there made my skin creep, and my scalp rise like a terrified porcupine.

Misquamacus was sitting heavily in the center of the room, supporting his deformed bulk on one arm. All the furniture in the room — which looked like a lecture theater — had been tossed aside as if by a violent wind. The floor was cleared, and Misquamacus had marked it out with chalk. There was a wide circle, and inside it, Misquamacus had drawn dozens of cabbalistic symbols and figures. The reincarnated magician had his left hand raised over the circle, and he was chanting something in hoarse, insistent whispers.

It wasn't the circle and the casting of spells that terrified me, though. It was the dim, half-transparent outline that appeared and disappeared in the center of the circle — an outline of trickling blue light and shifting shapes. Shielding my eyes, I made out a curious toad-like shape that seemed to writhe and vanish, change and melt.

Singing Rock stepped softly across the corridor and joined me at the window. He took one look, and said: "Gitche Manitou protect us, Gitche Manitou shield us from harm, Gitche Manitou ward off our enemies."

"What is it?" I hissed. "What's going on?"

Singing Rock finished his incantation before he answered me. "O Gitche Manitou afford us help, O Gitche Manitou save us from injury. Give us luck and good fortune all our moons."

"Singing Rock — what is it?"

Singing Rock pointed to the hideous distorted shape of the toad-being. "It's the Star Beast, which is about the nearest translation I can manage. I have never seen it before, only in drawings, and from what old wonder-workers have told me. I didn't think that even Misquamacus would dare summon that."

"Why?" I whispered. "What's so dangerous about it?"

"The Star Beast is not particularly dangerous in itself. It could destroy you without even thinking about it, but it isn't powerful or supreme. It's more like a servant to the higher beings. A go-between."

"You mean that Misquamacus is using it like a messenger — to call on other demons?"

Singing Rock said: "Something like that. I'll tell you later. Right now, I think we'd be well advised to get out of here."

"The virus — what about the virus? Singing Rock — we have to take a chance and use it!"

Singing Rock moved away from the door. "Forget the virus. It was a clever idea, but it isn't going to work. Not now, anyway. Come on, let's go."

I stayed where I was. I was terrified, but if there was any chance of destroying Misquamacus, I wanted to do it.

"Singing Rock — we can threaten him with it! Tell him that if he doesn't close that gateway, we'll kill him! For Christ's sake — it's worth a try!"

Singing Rock came back to the door and tried to pull me away. "It's too late," he whispered. "Don't you realize what those demons are? They're a form of virus in themselves. The Star Beast will laugh at your influenza, and give you the worst death you can think of."

"But Misquamacus —"

"Misquamacus may be threatened, Harry, but once he's summoned these demons, it's too late. It's more dangerous to kill him now than ever. If one of these beasts comes through, and Misquamacus dies, then there is absolutely no way of sending it back. Look at it, Harry. You want to risk that being loose in Manhattan?"

The Star Beast rippled and shimmered in its own ghastly fluorescence. Sometimes it seemed to be fat and glutinous, and at other times it seemed to be composed of nothing but sinuous clouds. It gave off an indescribable atmosphere of freezing terror, like a mad and vicious dog.

"It's no good, Singing Rock," I told him. "I have to try."

Singing Rock said: "Harry — I can't warn you enough. It's no use."

But I had made up my mind. I put my hand on the ice-cold handle of the door, and prepared to open it.

"Give me a spell or something to cover me," I said.

"Harry — a spell isn't a six-gun! Just don't go, that's all!"

For the space of two seconds, I wondered just what the hell I was doing. I am not the stuff from which heroes are usually made. But I had the means to destroy Misquamacus, and the opportunity, and somehow it seemed easier and more logical to try and kill him than it did to let him go. If there was anything worse than the Star Beast, I didn't want to see it, and the only way to stop any more manifestations was to get rid of the medicine man. I counted to three and flung open the door.

I was not at all prepared for what it was like in there. It was so cold that it was like being in a dark refrigerator. And somehow, as I tried to rush forward, my legs could only move in slow motion, and whole minutes seemed to pass as I waded through the gluey air, my arm upraised with the glass vial of virus, and my eyes wide.

It was the sound that was the worst, though. It was like a terrible chill depressing wind, a note that was constantly falling and yet which never sank below a dull rushing monotone. There was no wind at all in the room, but that intangible hurricane screamed and roared and blotted out all sense of time and space.

Misquamacus turned toward me, slowly, like a man in a nightmare. He made no attempt to ward me off or to protect himself. The Star Beast, only yards away in the center of the frosty gateway, shifted and pulsated like coils of toadspawn, or twists of smoke.

"Misquamacus!" I shrieked. The words came out of my mouth like slow drips of melting wax, and seemed to freeze in mid-air. "Misquamacus!"

I stopped only two or three feet away from him. I had to hold one hand against my ear to try and blot out the deafening moan of the wind that wasn't there. But in my other hand, I gripped the infected vial of influenza, and held it up above me like a holy crucifix.