Jessica kicked wildly out at him again and again, ramming her heels into him until both her shoes fell away and turned to searing, inert balls of boiling gruel before her eyes as Dorphmann continued to struggle to bring her into Hellsmouth with him.
His face emerged in a mask of madness and sloughing skin, portions of his face peeling away with the weight of the superheated waters that had infiltrated every pore and the spaces between his cells, turning him into a gelatinous creature.
Jessica pulled away and his palms came away with her while his bone remained with him.
She pulled farther and farther away, gasping and crying as she did so, frightened beyond all reason, seeing him rise now in some superhuman way from Satan's belly until he crawled on all fours from the pool, flopping onto the ground beside her, still desperately trying to pull her back in and down with him, a look of deepest pleading on his seared features, his white-red boiled skin falling away, tumbling with his eyebrows from his brow, his eyes now two red, unseeing oranges.
He was blind, his eyes having been boiled away. His skin sloughed off in a pasty, gelatinous material, exposing bone in places; what seemed an entire foot slipped off and, like a mackerel, slithered back into the nearby, bubbling pool, claimed by it.
It was too late for medical assistance for Dorphmann. He died in a blinding, searing, white-hot liquid heat that had become a part of him. Jessica kicked out again and again to release the frozen, solidified hold on her ankle, and when the monster's hand came off, the rest of him slid down into the pool. There, his clothing and skin finally consumed by Hellsmouth, the flesh became fishy and it wobbled and flopped from his every bone, his face a mask of pain so intense that a frozen rictus smile would forever remain.
He's dead… He's got to be dead now, she assured herself. Dead of dehydration and the burns suffered over one hundred percent of his evil body and brain. Only silicified bone and teeth would remain, if anything of him at all could be salvaged from Hellsmouth.
He still blindly reached out to her again and moaned in a sepulchral voice, "I didn't want to do it. He made me do it… Now he's got me…"
Jessica passed out as the dead man slipped away from her, back into the cauldron.
When she opened her eyes, Jessica found a crowd of onlookers staring and shouting at the scene, some calling for medical assistance.
Jessica found that her own burns frightened some of the onlookers. Dirt and tears stained her face. Her blouse ripped, her skirt torn, her shoes missing, she was lifted onto the boardwalk by Rideout and some of Fronval's rangers. Rangers with salves and clean gauze bandages began to wrap both her ankles and her hands where she had been scalded either by Hellsmouth's waters or Dorphmann's touch. She heard the words "second-degree burns" and "third-degree burns," but she felt no pain.
From the other side of the crowd, she heard J. T.'s voice and that of Eriq Santiva, each calling out her name, terrified of what they would find when the crowd parted around her. The cavalry had arrived just a bit late, but all the same, she was pleased to know that J. T. and Eriq were nearby.
J. T. fell to his knees over her, his hands feeling for any broken bones, his questions coming at her in rapid succession. "Are you hurt? Where does it hurt? How bad are the burns? Get those bandages around her wrists, hands, ankles before any infection can set in."
Santiva, equally concerned, now held her head in his lap, looking down over Jessica, asking if she were all right.
"I'm fine. A few aches and pains, but I'll survive. For some reason, I don't feel the burns."
"That's because you're in shock!" J. T. shouted at her, chastising her. "You fool, you bloody fool. You might've gotten yourself killed. You might be at the bottom of that searing hot pool right now."
Neil Gallagher now knelt over her, shaking his head. "I have to agree with Dr. Thorpe on that score, Coran. And Dorphmann, the Phantom? What's happened to him? Has he escaped into the park? Shouldn't we be launching a manhunt, Santiva?" he asked.
Jessica realized only now that no one besides her had actually seen the horror of Feydor Dorphmann's end, that no one else had witnessed the death. She imagined Karl Repasi's smug and debunking attitude now: With no body, who was to say if Dorphmann had actually been killed here or not? She was the only person alive to see him removed from this world. If nothing of Dorphmann were ever retrieved from Hellsmouth, there would always remain an element of doubt on the part of others. She alone would know the truth, that the monster had been relegated to another, more scorching environment.
Jessica's mouth had gaped open with her thoughts.
"Well, Dr. Coran?" pushed Gallagher.
"Let her be," snapped Thorpe.
Jessica said, "Someone here must've seen what happened to Dorphmann!"
"He's resting comfortably in Hellsmouth," pronounced Corey Rideout over Santiva's and Gallagher's considerable shoulders. "Isn't that right, Dr. Coran?"
Karl Repasi came into Jessica's line of vision, and she heard him ask, "Is that right, Dr. Coran?"
Jessica's eyes lit up, and she reached out with her half-bandaged right hand, the bandage like a spectral gauze peeling from a mummy, laden as it was now with the sulfur-filled, phantasm-like breezes here. She pointed to Rideout, asking, "Then you saw him die?"
Everyone turned to Rideout for an answer. He'd been ahead of the other men with his high-powered rifle, in search of the killer and first to hear Jessica's distressed cries, and first to find Jessica here. It had been Rideout who had lifted her onto the boardwalk with the help of other rangers.
"Well?" asked Santiva, "Did you see the man drown in that?" He pointed to the boiling, steaming water alongside the boardwalk.
Rideout had their attention, including Jessica's. His answer must corroborate her story. It meant at least a second witness to the man's final demise, that she would not be alone in that judgment, as she had been alone all along with the man's evil phone calls.
"Well, no, I didn't exactly see him go down, no… but I sure heard his screams, screams straight outta Hell. All the rangers and savages with me-park employees, I mean-they all heard him, too, didn't you, boys?"
A wave of agreement went up among the rangers and park employees, known in Yellowstone parlance as savages.
"He tried to drag me into Hell with him," she explained. "Had some idea that an exchange would be made, that his soul would be set free for mine. It was some supernatural message he'd received from the ruler of Hades himself."
"Satan himself wanted a go at you, heh, Dr. Coran?" asked Repasi. "That should play big in the press."
"Shut up, Karl!" shouted J. T., losing control. "One more word from you and I'll knock your lights out."
Repasi ignored J. T., continuing with, "You must admit, Jessica, your ahhh… relationship with this fiend is big news. The National Enquirer's gotten hold of it."
"And how much did they pay you for it, Karl?" snapped Santiva.
"Damn you, Repasi," J. T. exploded, gaining his feet and shoving the other man away from Jessica. "Go chew on somebody else's bones." When J. T. returned to Jessica, continuing to minister to her medical needs, he said to her, "Karl's rantings can't be taken any more seriously than those of that madman Dorphmann."
Repasi called out, ''I never meant to imply for one moment that Jessica was the root cause either of this man's obsession or the god-awful acts he has committed in the name of that obsession."
"Well, thank you for that," replied Jessica, but she didn't believe Karl was here in the interest of mending fences.
Gallagher quickly agreed with Repasi's last words. "Dr. Repasi is absolutely correct, Dr. Coran. Listen to him."