Dark Rain (27 page)

THIRTY-SEVEN

Something was prodding, pretty hard, at my left shoulder. I dreamt for a moment that it was the Dralleg, jabbing at me with its claws. And, in my dream, I lashed out at it.

“Ow! Mr. Devries?”

My eyes came partly open, and the dim lighting of the games room seeped back into my consciousness. Then I focused on the large expanse of midnight blue material – Hampton’s uniform – in front of me. His dual-tone eyes were watering when he hunkered down and peered into my face.

“Are you okay, sir?”

He was asking the wrong person.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

You couldn’t help but rather like a man who told white lies like that. He had a faint mark down one side of his cheek

Then I looked at my watch and saw that it was nighttime. There was no other way to tell, in a place like this. I sat upright sharply. How could I have slept so long, with all this going on?

Except I hadn’t just been sleeping. There’d been my self-appointed new associate, the Little Girl.

Hampton gazed at me like he was wondering what I was thinking about. Then he told me, “Master Raine and the Doctor request your presence, sir.”

So they had finally come up with something. Or at least I hoped so.

The man had another candle, and he led me back along the blackened, echoing corridors. I thought I could make out a few of the shapes better, this time. That was the Raine coat of arms that I could see, a unicorn dueling with a satyr.

A few more candles were shining in the ballroom, when I got there. It was slightly better lit. Hampton paused. I stepped inside.

My gaze fell on Willets immediately. You could see how bloodless his face had become. His eyes looked hollow, there was perspiration on his lip. Whatever else the Doctor might be, he was still – deep down – an intelligent, perceptive man. And several hours spent in Raine’s company had apparently taken their toll.

He looked quickly around at me and seemed to deflate a little, like he’d been holding himself very stiffly for a good while now. When you considered all the tangents that his host’s mind kept on going off at, I could understand that.

Of Raine himself there was no sign at all, but I was sure that he was still around.

“You kids been having fun?” I asked.

Willets only scowled at me. But a pair of golden eyes came open, just behind his shoulder.

“Oh, tremendous fun, old chum. I really wish I’d gotten to know the Doctor sooner.”

Willets pulled the same kind of face as a little boy who had been forced to swallow medicine. I stepped in closer.

“What’ve you come up with?”

“In the matter of defeating Saruak,” Willets told me dryly, “nothing whatsoever, I’m afraid. It’s not just physically that we can’t reach him. Not even our magic spells extend beyond the borders of this town.”

But that didn’t apply to him entirely. He hadn’t been born here, and was not bound by the curse. So he could walk out any time he liked.

I pointed that out to him. But all he did was stare at me as though I were insane.

“You’re proposing I take on a fully fledged Destroyer single-handed?” His hot red gaze filled with displeasure. “Did nothing that I said this morning have the slightest impact?”

“We think,” Woody added quickly, trying for once to be diplomatic, “that he might have popped back into town a few times, in the last couple of hours.”

Popped back … what in
blazes
?

“He was too fast for us, unfortunately,” Raine continued.

And he nearly looked apologetic, which was difficult for somebody with such a high opinion of himself.

“He always seemed to choose a moment when our focus was elsewhere. Crafty character, I have to say.”

They could have confronted him, and had failed to, in other words. The idea of it nagged at me. But I already knew how slippery Saruak could be. I couldn’t claim to have made any better headway with him. And both these guys were trying their level best. There was no point taking my frustration out on them.

So, “Any idea what he was up to?” I inquired calmly.

That might be a help, at least.

I couldn’t even see Raine’s shoulders in the dimness. But his head tilted a little when he shrugged them.

“I’m afraid not.”

I turned my attention back to Willets. He looked equally at a loss.

“How about tomorrow’s ceremony?”

His bitter expression transformed almost – not quite – to a smile.

“Now,” he breathed. “That’s a different story.”

“You wanted proof?” he went on, once he had my full attention. “Well, there’s an expression that you probably don’t even know. ‘I’m from Missouri – show me.’”

I did know it, in point of fact. But this seemed to be important, so I just let him continue on.

“The best way to prove anything, in other words, is to simply demonstrate it.”

Okay, I’d gotten that.

Then Raine held something up into the guttering candlelight. They were like a pair of performers, it struck me, treating me to some kind of rehearsed show. Whatever he was holding caught the tiny flames and threw their glow back a dozen times more fiercely. And they were not yellow anymore, but pure white light, broken to a thousand fragments. I was dazzled by it at first, and I glanced away.

But when I managed to look back, I could see it was a large, transparently white jewel, the size of an egg, a symmetrical oblong in shape, intricately cut. A golden chain dangled from one end of it. It was some kind of big pendant, nothing like the one at home.

“It’s Greek,” Raine informed me. “One of the many artifacts my forebears acquired before they sailed for the New World. It’s called the Eye of Hermaneus.”

And what did it do? I stared at Willets again.

“The wearer of it,” he told me, “can prophesy the future. Which is obviously of little use, since Levin and the others wouldn’t take our word for that. So we tinkered with the thing a bit, and managed to adapt its function.”

Raine let go of the jewel. It did not fall. It simply lifted higher in the air till it was drifting above our heads. Its facets seemed to chew the light up and then spit it out. Both of the magicians took a couple of steps back. I followed suit.

“What did they used to call this when I was at school?” Willets pondered. “Ah, yes. Show and Tell.”

They spread their arms and whispered a few words in time with each other, so softly I could barely make them out. But I could hear they were not English, mostly sibilants and lengthened vowels. Like the sounds a gathering storm would make, if it ever came alive and spoke.

The jewel seemed to draw even more light into its depths, but was not letting go of it anymore. We were standing in absolute darkness. The brightness churned at its core, massively compressed, like it was being distilled somehow.

And then it was released in a wide, shimmering cone that stretched down to the parquet floor.

Within it, a picture coalesced. It was fully colored, fully detailed, but cut hugely down to scale.

I recognized the scene immediately. This, again, was Union Square.

But not as I had ever seen the place. The sun was high in the sky; this was supposed to be tomorrow. It was hours before the ceremony. But the place was already full to bursting. Why was everyone there so early?

They had crammed into the doorways of every last surrounding building, mine included. They were sitting on the roofs of the few cars that were still parked there. There were even people standing on the plinth of Theodore Raine’s statue and clinging to his great bronze bulk. I thought there was some kind of bylaw against that.

More of them were trying to get in. The streets that opened out onto the square were uniformly choked. The banners flapped above them in what seemed a very agitated manner. And the few small clouds were drifting overhead rather too quickly. I stared across at the adepts.

“It seems to be,” the Doctor explained, “a sped-up version of events. We’ve no real idea why that is.”

Raine looked slightly embarrassed at that, but even he could see this was no time for wounded pride.

When I looked back at the pyramid of light, the little yellow sun was moving westward like a bird.

Was there no sound to this? Or was the crowd – a truly massive one – just absolutely silent? They were motionless, all standing very calmly. There wasn’t even anyone on stage yet. So what had made them gather so far in advance? It struck me as pretty damned bizarre.

I could see a few blue uniforms at the edges of the vast throng. There was no telling if Saul Hobart was present. As for myself, and Cassie …

I felt rather glad I couldn’t make out either of us. That would have been just too weird. I relaxed again, and simply watched the scene unfold.

The sun drifted toward the far horizon. Then, as it began to drop, two things happened.

Mayor Aldernay emerged from the Town Hall, flanked by his assistant and his deputies. They went briskly down the steps and up onto the stage.

Then, swift shadows moved across the heavens, all of them coming from the same direction. Gaspar Vernon sprung into being beside the mayor. Then Levin, both of the McGinley sisters, and a smiling, nodding Kurt van Friesling.

A few lesser adepts appeared too. I thought I recognized Cobb Walters from his waistcoat and bow tie. And there was Martha Howard-Brett, the Hill’s most elegant beauty.

A huge ripple went through the crowd and some people applauded, although it turned out that there really
was
no sound. The adepts took it as their due. Vernon and Judge Levin nodded mildly. Kurt and the McGinleys waved. Chairs had been set up for each of them, but none of them sat down.

Aldernay took center stage behind a microphone, produced a sheaf of papers and – so far as I could make out – launched into a speech.

“Fortunately, this is sped-up too,” Raine murmured.

The sun was halfway down by the time that he had finished, and had turned a harsh crimson. Shadows sprawled across the crowd. Thousands of eyes glinted – hopeful, pleading – in the dimness.

Gaspar Vernon raised his arms. And on that signal, hundreds of torches were lifted among the throng. Smaller flames were applied to them and they began to blaze.

I began to see what they were doing. Hadn’t there been torches used when Regan Farrow had been burned alive?

Most of their faces looked ghostly in the firelight, like they were already standing at Death’s door. And there were other points of brightness appearing in the crowd. Glitters, twinklings, of precious metal and of crystal.

Most people had brought their own magic along, their favorite amulets and charms. The entire combined potential of the town was there, in other words, all concentrated in one place and focused on one goal.

The sun had almost gone. Up on stage, the adepts formed a semicircle and joined hands.

Then, in the sky above them … there had only been a few small clouds until this point. But a massive one began to form, entirely out of nowhere, like a spreading, jet black inkblot on the darkened firmament.

Lightning started to dance within it.

Back behind the adepts, Aldernay pointed at it, his feet almost stamping with excitement.

“You see?” I imagined he was calling out. He gestured at the townsfolk. “It’s working! I always
knew
it would!”

The vapor churned, densening even further.

The last ray of sunlight winked away, at the world’s edge. But no stars came out.

In the depths of the cloud, Saruak’s face appeared, the same way Gaspar Vernon’s had done, but far more massive. It was leering down, its eyes ablaze. Another stir ran through the people below, but not of anticipation this time. Mouths came open, and I could almost hear the screams.

His hat was gone, as was his beard. His hair was tied back in a ponytail. His eyes were a bright, sickly green, and the points of his long, sharp teeth glinted when he smiled.

It was a delighted one. He had the town’s complete attention, right up close. Which was what he’d wanted all along.

There was a mass of writhing tentacles beneath him. Scaled ones, like I’d seen when he’d revealed himself to me that first time. One of them lashed down and ripped a banner away. Another knocked Mayor Aldernay off his feet and halfway across the stage.

Nobody else was moving, yet. The crowd simply couldn’t – they were far too tightly-packed. And the adepts were just staring up, bewildered and seemingly helpless.

But then fire began to rain down from the blackened sky. And there was pandemonium, after that.

I felt glad that there was no sound, because it would have been plain awful to listen to. The people up on the stage got off quite lightly, since they had a clear run at the Town Hall steps.

But the folks below them were a different story. There was a terrified stampede in a bare few seconds. People were pushing every which direction, trying desperately to get out. Small children were being lifted overhead. The weak were already falling.