Ghostlands

THIRTY-SIX

Sometimes, Larry Shango thought as he moved cautiously through the glowing fogbank, rifle at the ready, what’s new is old again.

At least, that’s how it felt to him now, deja vu all over, exactly the way it was when he’d been all by his lonesome, Sheep Mountain Table faded to invisibility behind him and Fred Wishart, that humorless spectre, about to appear and dispatch him to the land of Emiliano Zapata and cactus soda pop.

Only this time, Shango had Cal Griffin and his retinue of Colleen Brooks, Doc Lysenko, Herman Goldman, Enid Blindman and Howard Russo along for the ride-which didn’t mean they had any more of a clue as to where they’d landed or were headed in this glowing, impenetrable soup.

Shango glanced at his watch, which he could just barely make out in the shifting, multicolored light. Eighteen minutes to go…

“Welcome to South Dakota,” Goldie murmured.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Cal said.

Colleen let out a cry. Shango wheeled to see that Mama Diamond had appeared out of nowhere and collided into her from behind. Shango smiled to himself; at least, this was one thing that was no surprise.

“Come on in, the water’s fine,” said Goldie, utterly unperturbed.

Cal sighed but said nothing, indicating his acceptance. He continued forward-then halted abruptly, raising a warning hand.

Shango squinted into the mist ahead of him.

A figure was appearing.

It drew closer, gained clarity and solidity.

But unlike Fred Wishart, this was no phantom assembled from the atoms, from the mist itself….

Simply a boy, or something a good deal more than a boy, who strode up to them, intent on keeping an appointment.

“Let me show you the Bridge,” Inigo said.

Theo Siegel found himself sweating profusely, even though the room was outright frosty, the air circulators keeping the atmosphere at an even low temperature. He wanted everything to go smoothly, for Cal Griffin and his friends to emerge unscathed, for no mishaps to befall them on the other side.

The dangerous side…

Which might well have been this side, too, had not Griffin interceded and replaced Jeff Arcott’s hand on the wheel with his own.

Theo cast an anxious glance Jeff’s way. Jeff glared back at him, finally willing to acknowledge his existence, at least. Theo realized this felt neither better nor worse than Jeff’s initial response of ignoring him entirely.

Theo chose not to look at Melissa, however, not wanting to risk a second encounter with those accusing eyes, that wounded voice.

How he wished he could somehow demonstrate to her what dreadful thing he feared would have happened had Jeff’s plan come to fruition.

In later times, Theo would recall that errant thought and add ruefully, Be careful what you wish for-you might just get it.

“Ten minutes and counting,” Krystee Cott said to Rafe Dahlquist.

Suddenly, there was the sound of rending metal, and the bolted steel lab door tore clear of its hinges.

Flame erupted into the room.

Amid the screams and pandemonium, Theo heard Krystee Cott shouting orders, saw gunfire erupt toward the doorway. Mike Kimmel grabbed the extinguisher, unleashed it futilely at the growing blaze. The others in the room were dashing this way and that, trying to get clear. As far as Theo could see, no one was seriously hurt-perhaps a deliberate choice on the part of their attacker-

But the damping equipment, my God…

It was aflame, melting to slag.

Through the smoke, Theo became aware of a vast, bony form striding into the room, sweeping people and machinery aside, tearing wiring loose in great, taloned handfuls.

He had seen this one before, in the night, at the train siding.

Jeff Arcott had called him by name.

With claw and fang and fire, the man in black, the dragon thing, destroyed all that held the Infernal Device in check.

Unhindered now, tendrils of insane purple light shot out of the Spirit Radio’s riotous maw, uncoiling into the room like living things, spreading outward to infect and corrupt all they touched.

Arcott’s laboratory was alive with energy. Huge sparks, like phantasmal blue lightning, arced between the portal and the laboratory walls. The portal itself was as bright as a sheet of sun-a mirror of flame.

The source of this energy was clearly no longer the massive diesel generators in the physics building’s basement. This energy came from elsewhere, and Theo realized there was nothing he could do about it.

“Out! Everybody get out!” That was Krystee Cott, shouting to the others over the din, helping them find their way as they flailed and crashed about, blinded by the blaze, gagging on the smoke.

Through the roar and fumes and glare, Theo could just make out a handful of others clearing the room; from their dim outlines, he thought he discerned Rafe Dahlquist and Al Watt and Mike Kimmel, moving under Krystee’s urgent direction. He saw others, too, furtive smoke shadows, frantic silhouettes of vapor, but could not identify them. The bulk of the destroyer, the dragon thing in the shifting, thick plumes of smoke, seemed unconcerned about them now.

Theo cast wildly about for Melissa, heedless of his own welfare. His eyes located Jeff Arcott against the far wall, falling back and screaming horribly just as one of the tentacles of pure power seized him and whipped him about, hurling him into walls that threw off great plumes of sparks with each impact, as the tendril expanded to cover Jeff entirely, consuming him whole.

Sickened, Theo turned away and dove deeper into the room, crying out Melissa’s name.

He found her on the sidelines, wavering in the smoke like a heat phantom, a dreamy mirage. She was staring with a quizzical, unfocused gaze, mouth half open, at the wildly pinwheeling gateway.

“Melissa! Melissa!” She made no sign of hearing him, registered nothing at all.

Desperate, Theo grabbed her up and slung her over his shoulder, noting only momentarily the effortless strength that seemed to fill him-and the curious fact that there was no pain issuing from his injured leg, that he needed crutches not at all.

He plunged with her toward the exit as the demon power surged up out of the portal, gaining ever more purchase here. A bolt of shimmering plasma passed perilously close to Theo’s head, singeing his hair and causing Melissa to twitch against him as if she were gripped in a nightmare.

Stumbling, choking, he carried Melissa out of the laboratory. The corridors of the Physical Sciences Building were likewise blazingly bright, as if someone had cranked up the voltage to the ceiling lights. He felt dreadfully strange, ached in every part of his body. Looking over at Melissa, he could see that she still seemed dazed, her gaze dull and removed. In the pitiless glare, her body seemed more fragile than ever. Her rib cage fluttered with her breathing like an ancient bellows, and her body was as light in his arms as a butterfly or a moth.

He reeled out of the building with her, lost his footing rushing headlong down the stairs and nearly fell, narrowly gaining his balance on the greensward of Philosopher’s Walk.

He heard a shattering of glass and looked back just in time to see the skylight of the physics lab explode upward into the night, followed by a monstrous dark shape.

Ely Stern, having accomplished what he had set in motion so many months ago, the elaborate series of events he had planned and directed and now at last achieved, unfurled himself and took wing.

He vanished into the starlit sky.