The Scarlet Gospels (10 page)

“I don't have … a fucking clue,” Harry said, clinging to consciousness.

The door wasn't going to hold much longer against the beating it was taking. The wood around the hinges and lock was cracking now, throwing off splinters and flakes of paint.

“Who there?” Felixson said. “I kill Da More. If you come.”

Felixson growled and jerked the chain back, tearing the hook from D'Amour's other thigh in one clean motion. The veins in D'Amour's neck bulged as he unleashed a guttural gurgling groan.

“You see!” Felixson screamed at the door as he ran an affectionate palm down over the lethal curve of the blood-drenched hook.

Felixson chattered a third incantation and, again, the hook-headed chain began snaking its way toward Harry like a slothful cobra, its head held high as it wove toward Harry's crotch. A panicky collage of sexual images broke through Harry's terror: masturbating behind the gym at St. Dominic's with Piper and Freddie; the girl (was it Janet or Janice?) he'd fucked on the overnight bus to New York; and the weeping adulteresses who were eager to sin a little more by offering to double Harry's rate. All of this and a hundred other memories ran through his head as the instrument idled its weaving way toward his manhood.

And then, without warning, it ceased its leisurely approach and struck. Harry wasn't about to let this thing unman him without a fight. He waited until the hook was an inch from the front of his pants and then reached down and grabbed the hook with his right hand and the chain just behind the hook with his left. The chain instantly started to thrash wildly to free itself of Harry's grip.

“Stupid!” Felixson yelled. “You worse make!”

“
Shut the fuck up!” Harry yelled at Felixson.
“
Ass-licking cretin!”

“Kill Da More!” Felixson yelled to the serpentine chains.

Harry's sweaty hands were steadily losing their grip on the blood-encrusted metal. A few seconds more and it would be in him. The hook inched closer to his crotch as his sweat-slicked palms failed him more with every moment. Castration was imminent. Harry saw, in his mind's eye, the hook digging into the meat of his cock.

He gripped the chain with the last of his strength and loosed a primal howl of protest and, as if on cue, the door finally succumbed to those who wanted to be inside. The lock flew off, and the door was thrown sideways, slamming so hard against the adjacent wall that large gobs of plaster rained down in the room like a dusty hailstorm. Harry felt a blast of icy air break against his face. Harry's friend the String Yart had broken past the sealed door and was with him once again. But this time, Harry sensed, the Yart wasn't alone.

Unfortunately, the opening of the door had not distracted the butcher's hook from its ambitions. It still intended to gouge out Harry's groin, and even Harry's white-knuckled grip could not prevent the chain from pushing closer to him by increments. Harry felt the cold presence of a spirit moving around his hand, its coolness welcome. The cooling presence refreshed his weary body, dried his palms, and put strength back into his sinews. He pushed the serpent chain away from his groin a good six inches, then threw the thing to the ground and put the hook beneath his knee.

“Take that, fucker!” Harry said.

The snaking chain was far from happy with this new arrangement. Even trapped beneath Harry's weight, it still tried to slide itself out and it was only a matter of seconds, Harry knew, before it succeeded, for the wounds on his thighs were bleeding copiously and whatever was left of his strength would be gone very soon. But the ghosts' presences calmed and comforted him. He was no longer alone in this battle. He had allies; he just couldn't see them. It appeared, however, that Felixson could. The man's eyes had swelled up, and he laid his gaping head first on his left shoulder, then on his right, moving around on the spot where he now stood as he attempted to assess the strength of his new enemies, talking to them all the while.

“Felixson will catch and make eat you!” He reeled around, snatching up at the invisible spirits, muttering curses or incantations, or both, as he tried to catch hold of just one of the phantoms swirling around the room.

With its summoner's attention redirected, the chain slowly lost its will to act and its thrashing died down. Very cautiously, Harry took his knee off of the hook and picked it up. As he moved, the adrenaline shock left his body and his light-headedness returned. This time he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to hold on to consciousness. He had help, however, as one of the cold spirits, apparently sensing his distress, wove through his body like an ethereal balm.

Though the pain was not diminished, the spirit coaxed him away from it and into some chamber of his soul where he had never been before. It was numinous, this place, and filled with little games to enchant his pain-wearied body.

Then, the presence inside him seemed to speak. Harry heard it say,
Get ready,
and as that final syllable of its utterance reverberated in him the balmy dream evaporated and Harry was back in the room with Felixson, who, impossible as it was to believe, seemed to have gone a hell of a lot crazier. He had some invisible thing pinned against the opposite wall and was tearing into it. In its agony, the unseen victim was releasing a high-pitched shriek.

“Tell dead friends!” Felixson said, his speech decaying as his frenzy grew. “Tell them all dead how you. Tell to them Felixson will shit them! To messing in Hell's business? Never! Hear? Tell!” He twisted his fingers in the empty air and his voice rose an octave. “I hear no tell!”

Though Harry couldn't see the phantoms, he could feel them and their agitation. Felixson's commands only seemed to make them angry. The whole room began to vibrate, the old boards throwing themselves back and forth across the room in their fury, opening cracks in the plaster every time they struck the wall.

Harry watched as his allies dislodged several pieces of ceiling plaster, and in the clouds of dust that rose from the floor when they fell he seemed to see the ghosts, or at least their vague outlines. Cracks appeared in the ceiling, zigzagging across the plaster. The bare bulb swung back and forth, making Felixson's shadow cavort as the phantoms moved around the room, their hunger to destroy this place and Felixson palpable. It was clear that they were working to pull the room apart. Plaster dust was filling the room like a white fog.

Felixson turned his gaze back at Harry.

“Harry Da More I blame! He pays!”

Felixson reached for the chain, and Harry watched as the plaster fog was swept aside by a phantom, its descent mirrored by a second phantom coming from the opposite direction and intersecting at the chain. The chain, struck at the precise spot where the ghosts crossed, blew apart, leaving a length of perhaps eighteen inches of loose metal still dangling from the hook. The blow had formed a wound in Felixson's brow. The magician was unprepared for this. He cursed and wiped away blood from his right eye.

Then, two more phantoms converged not only on the remainder of the chain but directly onto the hand that held it. Before Felixson could loose the chain from his grasp, the spirits converged on his hand. When they met, fragments of flesh, bone, and metal blew outward. With Felixson wounded and unarmed, the spirits took it upon themselves to continue the destruction of Carston Goode's den of iniquity. The whole place rocked as the phantoms shook its foundations. The bulb in the middle of the room flared with unnatural brightness and just as quickly burned out.

Harry realized it was time to move. He was perhaps two strides from the door when the second tattoo Caz had given him, a warning sigil in the middle of his back, sent out a pulse that spread throughout his body. He swung round just in time to throw himself out of the way of Felixson, whose lips were drawn back to expose jagged, flesh-shredding teeth. Felixson's teeth snapped in the air where Harry's head had been two seconds before and the momentum of the lunge carried Felixson forward, slamming him into the wall beside the door.

Harry didn't give Felixson an opportunity to go after him a second time. He was out through the door and into the passageway. The ghosts were in a crazed state, and they were everywhere, tossing themselves back and forth. They slammed into the walls like invisible hammers. The plaster had been cleared off by now, exposing wooden slats beneath. There was a din of destruction from the other end of passageway, which suggested the stairs were being taken apart with the same gusto as the walls, but the dust and the darkness conspired to limit Harry's sight to a foot in front of his face and no more. Despite the sounds of unmaking before him, he had no choice but to risk it.

Meanwhile, the floorboards groaned and twisted, spitting out the nails that had held them in place. Harry ventured over them as fast as he dared, past the sling room, which was now a wall of suffocating dust, and on over the cavorting boards. The wooden slats were succumbing to the strikes of the hammer-bodied spirits even more quickly than the plaster. Harry crossed his arms in front of his face to protect it from the splinters that pierced the air. He was walking blind. For a third time the cool presence intervened, entering Harry and speaking in the blood that thundered in Harry's ears

Back! Now!

Harry responded instantly, and as he jumped back Felixson charged past him, his mouth vast, and from it a solid howl emerged, which suddenly dropped away. The stairs were gone, and something about the way Felixson's howl had diminished told Harry's instincts that there was now a void beneath the house into which the Cenobite's lapdog had been dispatched. Judging by Felixson's faraway howl, it was deep, and there was likely no way anyone would ever be able to climb out of it if, or rather when, the house folded up and fell.

Harry turned back in the direction he'd come. He quickly and carefully headed to the back room, trying not to focus on the passageway as it collapsed beneath him, the boards digging away into the blackness over which he was leaping.

By the time he returned to the room, the plaster dust had almost cleared, sucked away by emptiness below. There was only a single unreliable patchwork of wooden slats left between Harry and the hole. But at least now he had a clear view of his last hope and his only target: the window. Trusting his feet to know their business, he crossed the room without incident. There was a ledge perhaps four floorboards in front of the window, but it didn't look as though it was going to be there for long. The boards had already lost most of their nails.

Harry started to pull at the blackout fabric that had been secured to the window. It had clearly been nailed to the frame by an obsessive, but had been done several years before, Harry guessed, because the fabric, though thick, had begun to rot through after several summers of extreme humidity and when he pulled at it the material tore like paper. The light of the outside world came flooding into the room. It wasn't direct sunlight, but it was bright nonetheless, and it was more than welcome.

Harry peered out of the window. It was a long way down, and there was nothing on either side. A drainpipe would have been adequate. A fire escape would have made a climb down plausible. But no, he was going to have to jump and hope for the best. He pulled on the window's edge, trying to raise it, but it was sealed shut, so he turned around and tore up one of the floorboards, making his ledge even narrower. As he turned back toward the window with his weapon, he caught sight of something from the corner of his eye and glanced back to see that he was no longer alone in the room.

Battered, bloody, and covered in dust—his teeth bared, his eyes narrowed to slits of fury—Pinhead's rabid dog, Felixson, stood staring at Harry. Far though Felixson had surely fallen, he had climbed his way back up, intent on finishing the bloody business between them.

“You've done some dumb fucking things, D'Amour…” Harry said to himself.

Felixson came at him suddenly, the boards he had sprung from splintering as he leaped. Harry threw the wood he'd been carrying at the window, shattering the glass, and put all his effort into getting out. A crowd of people had gathered out on the sidewalk. Harry caught a few fragments of the things they were yelling—something about him breaking his neck, something about getting a ladder, or a mattress, or a sheet—but despite all the suggestions, nobody moved to help in case they missed the moment when Harry jumped.

And two seconds later he could have, had he been free to do so, but Felixson wasn't about to lose his prey. With one last bound, the living monstrosity cleared the chasm between them and caught hold of Harry's leg, digging his fingers, their strength clearly enhanced by the merciless fusing of metal and flesh, deep into the bleeding holes in Harry's thighs.

Though Harry was in tremendous pain, he didn't waste the remaining energy he had by voicing it.

“All right, fuckhead,” he said. “You're coming with me.”

And with that he threw himself out of the window. Felixson held on to Harry as far as the window ledge, and then, perhaps out of a fear of being seen, he let go.

Harry landed hard on a patch of asphalt. He was familiar enough with the sound of breaking bones to know that he'd surely shattered a few. But before he could ask any of the onlookers for a ride to the nearest hospital, the house gave up a long growl of surrender and then collapsed, folding up and dropping down through what was left of the structure, the walls flying apart in places, and in others entire sections of wedded brick toppling in mounds. It happened with astonishing speed, the entire structure dropping away into the earth in less than a minute, its collapse finally releasing a dense gray-brown cloud of dust.

As the walls succumbed, so did Harry's body. A wave of shudders passed through him, and once again his sight was invaded by a pulsing blankness. It did not retreat this time but pressed forward from all directions. The world around him narrowed to a remote circle as though he were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. The pulse of pain maintained rhythm with that of the invading nullity, all moving to the beat of his drumming heart.