Blind Panic (27 page)

One of them was the black girl I had seen climbing down from the truck. Close behind her came an emaciated black woman with an extraordinary red silk scarf tied around her head, like an oversize flower from
The Land That Time Forgot.
Then, behind her, a Nordic-looking blonde woman in a black polo-neck sweater, and a tall, well-built guy in a denim jacket which probably had
Surfer Dude
written on the back in metal studs. Inside his half-buttoned jacket, the guy was carrying a sleeping baby. There was no question about it:
when the world was coming to an end, it sure brought out a motley collection of refugees.

The guy in the denim jacket went up to the girl at the counter and said, “Pardon me—do you have any baby formula? Or do you know where I can find some? We ran out of it, and this little fella is going to wake up in a minute, and bawl for his supper.”

There was yet another rumble of thunder, and the baby jolted. He half opened his eyes but then his eyelids drooped again, and he carried on sleeping.

“I saw a drugstore across the street,” said Amelia. “Harry—can you go buy some formula? These poor people are soaked.”

“Oh—so you want
me
to get soaked, too?”

“Harry, you know what a knight in shining armor you always are.”

She stood up, and so did I, and both of us eased our hands free from Remo and Ranger Edison—gently but very firmly. For a moment they all looked a little panicky—Remo and Cayley and Charlie and Mickey, and Ranger Jim Edison, too—but as soon as they realized that they could still see, even though the circle was broken, they relaxed. “Here, take a load off, why don’t you?” said Ranger Edison, and used his free left hand to turn one of the chairs around. The woman with the giant prehistoric flower on her head said, “Thank you kin’ly,” and sat down.

Outside it was still hammering with rain. I waited under the café’s awning for a while, and then I took a deep breath and bounded across the street like Gene Kelly on speed, trying not to jump in any puddles. Because the sky was so black the drugstore was in darkness except for a row of night-lights on the counter, but at least it was still open. It smelled of dog biscuits and soap. A pudgy white-bearded pharmacist in a tightwhite lab coat used a flashlight to find me a can of Good Start baby formula, and then I bounded my way back to the Aspen Café. More lightning crackled, so for a split second it looked as if the rain had been frozen in midair.

When I got back inside the café I found that everybody had already made one another’s acquaintance. Prehistoric flower woman was called Ammy, or Auntie Ammy by her family and friends. The truck-driving girl was Jasmine, or Jazz. The blonde Valkyrie was Tina Freely, a reporter for the
LA Times,
and Surfer Dude wasn’t a surfer dude at all, but Tyler Jones, a stuntm an for the movies, or any other occasion when they needed somebody to fall off a building or ride a motorcycle through a fiery hoop or dive seventy-five feet headfirst into a bucket of water.

“So, whose baby is this?” I asked. The red-haired girl behind the counter had been warming up a bottle of formula for him, and brought it over.

“We don’t know,” said Tyler. “Jazz rescued him from a massive auto wreck. His mom—well, his mom didn’t survive it, so far as Jazz knows.”

“Does he have a name?”

“Peter,” said Tyler. “Don’t try to call him Petey, though. It makes him cry.”

Auntie Ammy turned to Amelia. “Peter is like you,” she said. “He has eyes that see both sides of the lookin’ mirror He showed us that Indian shaman you was talkin’ about.”

“You
saw
him?”

“He showed us clear as I can see you now. A tall fella, with horns and dangly things perched up on his head, and cockroaches and beetles droppin’ off of him like he was infestated.”

I looked at Amelia and raised my eyebrows. Auntie Ammy had given us an exact description of Misquamacus.

“So Peter really
does
have the power,” said Amelia.

“But it’s very rare for little kids to have it, isn’t it?” I asked her. “You told me that
you
didn’t start seeing spirits until you were twelve or thirteen, when obnoxious little girls turn into obnoxious
big
girls. This little guy can’t be more than six months old.”

Amelia reached across and gently touched Peter’s forehead.
He was gulping his formula now, and he irritably waved her away. “The power most likely comes from his mother. When a parent dies prematurely and leaves a very small child unprotected, their spirit enters into them and takes care of them. That’s how many very young psychics become psychic. They have a deceased parent to introduce them to the spirit world. It works both ways, of course. The parent’s spirit can see the child equally clearly and watch him grow.”

There was even more thunder, right above our heads. It sounded like cannons, and it echoed from one side of Memory Valley to the other.

“This is no nat’ral storm,” said Auntie Ammy. “You mark my words, all hell is goin’ to break loose tonight.”

Amelia told me, “They’ve
all
seen Eye Killers. Jazz and Auntie Ammy saw at least two of them in Maywood. Tina and Tyler saw some in Hollywood. And both times they had wonder-workers with them.”

“Well, whatever the hell they are, they’ve been busy here in Memory Valley, too,” said Tyler. “Before the phones went out, I had a call that my father and mother and sister had gone blind. That’s why I came here. I’ve been to their house, but there’s nobody there and nobody seems to have any idea where I can find them. Soon as this storm dies down, I’m going to go out looking for them.”

But the storm didn’t die down. We sat in the Aspen Café for more than two hours, and with every passing minute the thunder grew louder and the rain lashed down harder against the windows, and the lightning flickered almost nonstop. Even though the café was so crowded, hardly anybody spoke, and from the way they stared out the windows at the main square, you could tell they felt that something catastrophic was about to happen, even if they didn’t know what it was.

At quarter to seven, Amelia looked at her wristwatch and said, “Let’s go back to Dr. Snow’s. Auntie Ammy’s right.
This isn’t a natural storm. This is Misquamacus summoning the spirits of his ancestors. He could attack us at any time now, and we need to find out how to protect ourselves.”

Ranger Edison said, “You two—you seem to know all about this Indian magic stuff. What’s he going to do to us, this Misquamacus?”

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Imagine the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. The most pain that you could suffer. The most excruciating emotional loss. Then imagine it going on forever. And when I say forever, I mean forever and ever and ever, and no ‘amen’ at the end.”

Ranger Edison looked up at me. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I’m always serious, Jim, except when I’m joking. But believe me, I’m not joking now.”

“So what are you planning to do?”

“Me and Amelia, we’re going to Dr. Snow’s house and we’re going to hold ourselves a séance, to see if we can’t glean some handy tips from the spirit world on saving all of our skins.”

“You want any of us to come with you?” asked Tyler.

“No thanks,” said Amelia. “You all wait here. But I promise you, whatever happens, we’ll be back.”

We left them in the café and went out into the storm. The wind was so strong that as soon as we stepped out of the café door we had a struggle to stay on our feet, and it took all of my strength to pull the door closed behind us. The thunder half deafened us, and the lightning made the buildings in the main square look strangely two-dimensional, as if they were a stage set for
The Tempest.

We turned the corner, and then the wind was blowing against our backs, so that we almost had to run. I turned up my collar, but all the same the rain ran down the back of my neck and soaked my shirt. Apart from being wet and windy, it was growing cold, too. I took hold of Amelia’s hand, and she was freezing.

When we arrived at Dr. Snow’s house I knocked frantically on the door. Meredith opened it immediately and we lurched into the hallway, accompanied by a whirl of wet leaves and a ghost-train whistle of wind.

“What a storm!” said Meredith. “I’ve never known anything like it! The whole house is creaking!”

She took us through to the dining room. There was still no power, and so Meredith had lit three tall candelabra with ten candles in each, with flames that curtsied and dipped like dancers in the intermittent draft. Dr. Snow was already seated at the head of the dining table, wearing a dark brown sweater, with a glass of red wine in front of him. His reflection appeared in the dark polished surface, the white-haired king on a playing card.

“Ah, here you are!” he said. “Merry, would you bring two more glasses for our guests?”

We sat down on either side of him. Behind him the heavy red velvet drapes were stirring as if somebody were hiding behind them.

“It’s started,” he said. He lifted one finger and there was a drumroll of thunder, as if he had timed it specially to emphasize what he was saying.

“You’re right,” said Amelia. “He’s calling all his wonder-workers together, and he means what he says. There’s going to be a massacre, and he’s going to turn back time.”

Dr. Snow said, “Since you came here earlier, I’ve been doing some more research into the possession of spirits by other spirits—in particular, the spirits of medicine men.”

“What did you find out?” I asked him. “Anything that’s going to help us to sic Misquamacus?”

“Possibly, Harry. Possibly. It appears that the great Iroquois wonder-worker Pakuna was murdered by a jealous rival, Faces the Moon, who suspected him of carrying on with his wife. After he had slit Pakuna’s throat, Faces the Moon employed the services of another wonder-worker, Silver Wolf, who trapped Pakuna’s spirit in a limestone rock. He
dropped the rock into a river, so that it would gradually dissolve and his spirit would be washed away to the ocean, never able to come back to life.

“But while Pakuna was unable to return to the world of touching flesh as
himself,
he was still remembered and honored by his tribespeople and his name was still spoken—much like Misquamacus. When Silver Wolf died, Pakuna was able to possess
his
spirit, and return to the world of touching flesh in that way. He cast a powerful spell that imprisoned Faces the Moon inside the trunk of a tree, and then he forced the spirit of Silver Wolf to blind himself and cut off his own genitalia, so that when Silver Wolf returned to the spirit world, he would be regarded as a worthless woman and shunned by all the other spirits.

“There is supposed to be a giant oak somewhere in the Adirondacks from which terrible screams can be heard whenever anyone comes near it. Legend says that is the tree in which Faces the Moon was imprisoned, alive—and still is, and always will be.”

“This backs up what John Singing Rock told us. He said that Misquamacus had taken over the spirits of other wonder-workers, and come back to the real world as
them.
”

“Yes,” said Dr. Snow. “And that means that we have to regard these threats of his as extremely grave. He
will
blind us all with his Eye Killers, and he
will
kill us all. It is probably beyond even
his
magic to tear down our cities and rip up our highways and our railroads, but the United States will undoubtedly become one of the greatest scenes of devastation on Earth.”

Amelia said, “In that case, the sooner we try to find out how to stop him, the better.”

Meredith brought us two crystal glasses, and Dr. Snow poured us each a glass of wine. He lifted his own glass in a toast and said, “Here’s to the confounding of our enemies.”

Amelia had brought a silver dish with her, and she placed one of her berry-scented candles on it and lit it. She brought
out her hazel twig, too, and held it up in both hands, with the point lightly touching her forehead.

“I am seeking a wise man,” she said. “I am seeking a Hupa who knows the ways of magic.”

Dr. Snow and I waited patiently. Amelia repeated herself. “I am seeking a wise man. I am seeking a Hupa who is knowledgeable in the ways of demons and spirits.”

She said it again, and then again, with some minor variations. Myself, I couldn’t feel the presence of anything, except a chilly draft that was giving me a stiff neck.

Nearly ten minutes went by. "I am asking for any spirit’s help in finding a wise man. I wish to talk to a wise man from the Hupa people. I command you to help me. I command you to find him. I command him to speak to me.”

Without any warning at all, Dr. Snow flung his right arm crosswise and knocked over his glass of wine.

“I do not speak to the monsters who murdered my tribe!" he blurted out. But his voice wasn’t Dr. Snow’s voice at all. Instead of the meticulous way in which Dr. Snow usually spoke, this was rough and guttural, almost like a pit bull barking, with a strong and almost incomprehensible accent.

“Holy shit,” I said to Amelia. “Who the hell is
this?
”

Amelia ignored me. Instead she leaned for ward across the table with her fists clenched and said, “You must speak to me. I have brought your spirit here and I command it.”

“You murdered my tribe!” said Dr. Snow. “You raped my women! You cut open my children as if they were animals!”

“You still have to speak to me,” Amelia told him. “You have no choice. Other wise I will keep your spirit imprisoned here forever, and you will never see your tribe again, even as spirits.”

“Why have you summoned me here?” Dr. Snow asked her. “Have you not done enough to us, without disturbing us in death?”

“Who are you?” Amelia asked him. “I asked for a wise man who knows the ways of magic, and of demons.”

“I am Nihltak. I know the ways of magic, and of demons. I also know the ways of the white men, who are devils.”

“Listen, Nihltak, I need to know about those spirits that have no substance of their own. I am talking about those spirits who visit the world of touching flesh inside the substance of other spirits. I need to know how to dismiss them.”