"Harry," he said, "I'm sorry. But now we know exactly what we're fighting against."
"You don't think that…"
"No, I don't think it," he said, "I know it. Your friends annoyed Misquamacus by calling him up at that seance of yours. He probably only appeared to find out who it was that was daring to call him out of limbo. Misquamacus is quite capable of invoking fire like that. In plains medicine, they used to call it the 'lightning-that-sees,' because it was completely selective. It only hit those people that the medicine man wanted to kill."
Dr. Hughes frowned. "But Harry here was at that seance as well. Why hasn't Misquamacus done the same to him?"
"Because of me, " said Singing Rock. "I may not be the greatest medicine man there ever was, but I am protected from simple sorcery like that by my amulets, and those who are friendly to me and who are around me will be protected as well. I imagine that because Misquamacus isn't properly reborn yet, he isn't able to work his full magic. I'm only guessing, of course."
"I can hardly believe it," said Jack Hughes. "Here we are in a technological age, and a creature from four hundred years ago can destroy someone miles away in the Village with a flash of fire. What the hell is it all about?"
"It's about magic," said Singing Rock. "Real magic is created by the way that man uses his environment — the rocks, the trees, the water, the earth, the fire and the sky. And the spirits, too, the manitous. Today, we've forgotten how to call on all these things to help us. We've forgotten how to work real magic. But it can still be done. The spirits are still there, ready to be invoked. A century to a spirit is like a millisecond to us. They're immortal and patient, but they're also powerful and hungry. It takes a very strong man and a brave man to call them out of limbo. It takes an even stronger one to send them back there, and seal the gateway they came through."
"Do you know something, Singing Rock?" said Dr. Hughes. "The way you talk, you really give me the creeps."
Singing Rock looked at him pragmatically. "You have every reason to have the creeps. This is probably the creepiest thing that's ever happened."
CHAPTER SIX
Beyond the Mists
Throughout Monday night, Singing Rock and I were to take it in turns to watch over Karen Tandy. We both agreed that Dr. Hughes ought to go home and get a full night's sleep, because if we did manage to restore Karen's manitou to her body, then he would need to be as fit and fresh as possible to deal with any resuscitation that might be urgently needed.
We commandeered the hospital room next to Karen's, and while Singing Rock slept, I sat in the corridor on a hard chair, watching the window of our patient's firmly closed door. There was a male nurse inside with her, in case she needed medical attention, but he had been warned that if he saw anything at all unusual, he was to bang on the door and call me.
I managed to find a copy of Dr. Snow's book about the Hidatsa Indians in the library, and I read it by the bald fluorescent hospital light. Most of it was pretty dry, but he was obviously well up on the sorcery of medicine men.
By two in the morning, my eyelids began to droop, and I began to feel as though there was nothing I wanted more than a hot shower, a stiff drink and ten hours of sack time. I twisted myself around in my chair to wake myself up a bit, but it wasn't long before a relaxed and cloudy feeling started to seep over me again.
Without realizing it, I began to doze, and as I dozed, I began to dream. I dreamed I was surrounded by a warm and slippery darkness, but it wasn't claustrophobic or suffocating. It felt womb-like and comfortable, and it was giving me strength and nourishment. I felt as if I was waiting for something to happen — waiting for the right moment. When that moment came, I would have to slide out of this warm darkness into some chilly and unknown place. Somewhere frightening and alien.
The feeling of fear woke me up. I immediately looked at my watch to see how long I'd been asleep. Not more than five or ten minutes, I guessed. I stood up and went over to the window of Karen Tandy's room. She was still lying there, covered by a loose sheet, which hid most of the hideous bulge on her back. She was still unconscious, and her face was yellow and almost skull-like. Her eyes were circles with purple shadows, and there were deep drawn lines on her cheeks. She looked as though she were on the verge of death. Only the flickering needles of the electric diagnosis machines beside her bed showed that something was still alive inside her body.
The male nurse, Michael, sat cross-legged reading a science fiction paperback called Girl from Green Planet. I would gladly have traded it for my academic tome of the lifestyle of the Hidatsas.
I went back to my bony chair and sat down. Singing Rock was due to relieve me at three a.m., and I couldn't wait. I smoked and twiddled my thumbs. That time of night, you feel that the whole world is empty, and you're on your own in some strange secret time — a time when pulse rates slur and fade, and deep breathing takes you diving down into a bottomless well of monstrous dreams and nightmares.
I finished my cigarette, ground it out, and checked my watch again. It was two-thirty. Evening was long past, and morning was still a long way ahead. Somehow, the idea of facing Misquamacus by night was much more frightening than the thought of facing him by day. At night, you feel that evil spirits are much more ready to call, and that even shadows, or the odd shape of your clothes across the back of a chair, can take on a sinister life of their own.
When I was a child, I used to be terrified to go out to the bathroom in the middle of the night, because it meant passing by the open living-room door. I was frightened that one night, when the moonlight was slanting in through the venetian blinds, I would see people sitting silent and still in the chairs. Not blinking, not moving, not speaking. Previous occupants, long dead, relaxing stiffly in the chairs that were once theirs.
I had that same feeling now. I kept glancing down the long and empty corridor, to see if some blurry shape were moving in the distance. I looked at all the doors, to see if any of them were easing slowly open. Night is the province of magic and magicians, and my Tarot cards had warned me about night and death and men who worked evil wonders. Now I was facing the threat of all three of them.
At two-forty-five I lit another cigarette and puffed the smoke softly into the total silence of the empty corridor. By now, even the elevators had stopped running and the feet of the night staff were muffled by the thick plush carpets. For all I knew, I could be totally alone in the whole world. Every time I shifted my feet, I frightened myself.
Tired as I was, I began to wonder whether the whole situation was truly real, or whether I was dreaming it, or imagining it. Yet if Misquamacus didn't exist, how did I know his name, and what was I doing here, keeping up this lonely vigil in a hospital corridor? I smoked, and tried to read Dr. Snow's book a little more, but my eyes were too blurry with exhaustion, and I gave up.
It must have been the soft squeaking of skin on glass that made me look up at the window of Karen Tandy's room right then. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible sound, like someone cleaning, silver spoons in another part of the house. Squeak, squikkkkk …
I jumped with shock. There was a face pressed against the window, with horribly contorted features. It's eyes bulged and its teeth were bared in a stretched, silent howl.
It was only there for a second, and then there was a slushy, spraying sound, and the whole window was obliterated with blood. A spout of thick red liquid even pumped from the keyhole, and ran down the outside of the door.
"Singing ROCCCKKKK!" I yelled, and burst into the next-door room where he was sleeping. I banged on the light, and he was sitting up, his face crumpled with sleep, his eyes wide with expectancy and fear.