He clawed at her like an animal, scratching the flesh of her arms, trying to pull her down again to the point where the hilt would be in reach, screaming:
"Give it to me! Give it to me! You're going to ruin everything!"
Magda regained her feet and backed away to the side of the gateway arch, holding the hilt with both hands by its golden handle. She was uncomfortably close to the threshold, but she had managed to retain the hilt within the bounds of the keep.
He struggled to his feet and ran at her with his head down, his arms outstretched. Magda dodged the full force of his charge but he managed to catch her elbow as he went by, twisting her around. Then he was on her, striking at her face and screeching incoherently.
"Stop it, Papa!" she cried, but he seemed not to hear. He was like a wild beast. As his ragged dirty fingernails raked toward her eyes, she swung the hilt at him; she didn't think about what she was doing—it was an automatic move. "Stop it!"
The sound of the heavy metal striking Papa's skull sickened her. Stunned, she stood and watched as his eyes rolled back behind his glasses and he slipped to the ground and lay still, tendrils of fog drifting over him.
What have I done?
"Why did you make me hit you?" she screamed at his unconscious form. "Couldn't you trust me just once? Just once?"
She had to get him out—just a few feet beyond the threshold would be enough. But first she had to dispose of the hilt, put it somewhere well inside the keep. Then she would try to drag Papa out to safety.
Across the courtyard lay the entrance to the cellar. She could throw the hilt down there. She began running toward the entrance but stopped halfway there. Someone was coming up the steps.
Rasalom!
He seemed to float, rising from the cellar as a huge dead fish might rise from the bottom of a stagnant pond. At the sight of her, his eyes became twin spheres of dark fury, assaulting her, stabbing her. He bared his teeth as he seemed to glide through the mist toward her.
Magda held her ground. Glaeken had said the hilt had the power to counter Rasalom. She felt strong. She could face him.
There was movement behind Rasalom as he approached. Two other figures were emerging from the subcellar, figures with slack, white faces that followed Rasalom as he stalked forward. Magda recognized them: the captain and that awful major. She did not need a closer look to know that they were dead. Glaeken had told her about the walking corpses and she had been half expecting to see them, but that did not keep her blood from running cold at the sight of them. Yet she felt strangely safe.
Rasalom stopped within a dozen feet of her and slowly raised his arms until they were spread put like wings. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Magda noticed stirrings in the fog that blanketed the courtyard and swirled about her knees. All around her, hands rose out of the mist, clutching at the air, followed by heads, and then torsos. Like loathsome fungal growths sprouting from moldy soil, the German soldiers who had occupied the keep were rising from the dead.
Magda saw their ravaged bodies, their torn throats, yet she stood firm. She had the hilt. Glaeken had said the hilt could negate Rasalom's animating power. She believed him. She had to!
The corpses arrayed themselves behind Rasalom and to his right and left. No one moved.
Maybe they're afraid of the hilt! Magda thought, her heart leaping. Maybe they can't get any closer!
Then she noticed a curious rippling in the fog around the corpses' feet. She looked down. Through gaps in the mist she glimpsed scuttling forms, gray and brown. Rats! Revulsion tightened her throat and swept over her skin. Magda began to back away. They were moving toward her, not in a solid front, but in a chaotic scramble of crisscrossing paths and squat, bustling bodies. She could face anything—even the walking dead—anything but rats.
She saw a smile spread over Rasalom's face and knew she was responding just as he had hoped—retreating from his final threat, edging ever closer to the gateway. She tried to stop, to will her legs to be still, but they kept backing her away from the rats.
Dark stone walls closed around her—she was back within the gate arch. Another yard or two and she would be over the threshold ... and Rasalom would be set loose upon the world.
Magda closed her eyes and stopped moving.
This far will I go, she told herself. This far and no farther ... this far and no farther... repeating it over and over in her mind—until something brushed her ankle and skittered away. Something small and furry. Another. Then another. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. The hilt wasn't working! The rats were attacking her! They'd be all over her soon.
In a panic, she opened her eyes. Rasalom was closer now, his depthless eyes fixed on her through the misty half-light, his legion of the dead fanned out behind him, and the rats massed before him. He was driving the rats forward, forcing them against her feet and ankles. Magda knew she was going to break and run any second now ... she could feel the overpowering terror welling up inside her, ready to drown and wash away all her resolve ... the hilt isn't protecting me! She started to turn and then stopped. The rats were brushing against her, but they didn't bite or claw her. They made contact and then ran. It was the hilt! Because she held the hilt, Rasalom lost control over the rats as soon as they touched her. Magda took heart and calmed herself.
They can't bite me. They can't touch me for more than an instant. Her greatest horror had been that they might crawl up her legs. Now she knew they could not. She stood firm again.
Rasalom must have sensed this. He scowled and made a motion with his hands.
The corpses again began to move. They parted around him, then rejoined into a near-solid moving wall of dead flesh, scuffling, stumbling forward, crowding up to where she stood, stopping within inches of her. They gaped at her with slack, expressionless faces and glazed, empty eyes. There was no malevolence in their movements, no hatred, no real purpose. They were merely dead flesh. But they were so close! Had they been alive, their breath would have wafted against her face. As it was, a few of them smelled as if they had already begun to putrefy.
She closed her eyes again, fighting the loathing that weakened her knees, hugging the hilt against her.
... this far and no farther... this far and no farther ... for Glaeken, for me, for what's left of Papa, for everyone... this far and no farther...
Something heavy and cold slumped against her. She staggered back, crying out in surprise and disgust. The corpses nearest her had begun to go limp and fall against her. Another one slammed into her and she was rocked back again. She twisted to the side and let its slack bulk slip by her. Magda realized what Rasalom was doing—if he couldn't frighten her out of the keep, then he would push her out by hurling the physical bulk of his dead army against her. He was succeeding. There were only inches left to her.
As more corpses pressed forward, Magda made a desperate move. She grasped the gold handle of the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it out in a wide arc, dragging it against the dead flesh of those closest to her.
Bright flashes of light and sizzling noises erupted upon contact with the bodies; wisps of acrid, yellow-white smoke stung her nostrils ... and the corpses—they jerked spasmodically and fell away like marionettes with severed strings. She stepped forward, waving the hilt again, this time in a wider arc, and again the flashes, the sizzle, the sudden limpness.