Gradually, with his eyes still tight shut, Misquamacus lifted himself away from Karen Tandy's torn body. He gripped the rail of the bed to support himself, and sat there with his stunted little legs, sucking air into his fluid-filled lungs, and letting the creamy phlegm run from the side of his mouth.
All I wished at that moment was that I had a gun, and could blow this monstrosity to pieces, and have it over with. But I had seen enough of his occult power to know that I wouldn't be doing myself any favors. Misquamacus was capable of haunting me for the rest of my life, and when I died his manitou would have horrible revenge on mine.
"I will need your support," said Singing Rock quietly. "With each spell I cast, I will want you to concentrate deeply on its success. With two of us here, we might just succeed in holding him down." As if he had been listening, the crippled Misquamacus slowly opened one yellow eye, and then the other, and looked across at us with a chilling mixture of curiosity, contempt and hatred.
He then looked down at the floor, and saw the medicine circle around the bed, with its red and white powders and its bones.
"Gitche Manitou," said Singing Rock loudly. "Hear me now, and send your power to my aid."
He began to shuffle and dance, and make patterns in the air with his bones. I tried to do as he had asked me, and concentrate on making the spell work. But it was hard to take my eyes away from the cold and passive creature on the bed, who was staring at us with total vindictiveness.
"Gitche Manitou," chanted Singing Rock, "send your messengers with locks and keys. Send your jailers and your guards. Hold down this spirit, imprison Misquamacus. Shut him up with bars and with chains. Freeze his mind and stay his sorcery."
He then went into a long Indian invocation that I could hardly follow, but I stood there and prayed and prayed that his magic would work, and that the medicine man on the bed would be trapped by spiritual forces.
But a weird feeling began to penetrate my mind — a feeling that what we were doing was puny and useless, and that the best thing we could do would be to leave Misquamacus alone, leave him to do whatever he wanted to do. He was much stronger than us, he was so much wiser. It seemed to me then that it was futile to continue to battle against him, because he would only have to summon one of his Indian demons, and we would both meet a horrible death.
"Harry," gasped Singing Rock. "Don't let him into your mind. Help me — I need your help"
I made an effort to shrug off the pall of hopelessness that was seeping through my brain. I turned to Singing Rock, and I saw sweat running down his face, and deep lines of strain and anxiety carved into his cheeks.
"Help me, Harry, help me!"
I stared at the dark, hideous creature on the bed and I concentrated every ounce of my will into paralyzing him. He stared back at me with those glassy yellow eyes, as if daring me to defy him, but I tried to ignore my terror and pin him down with sheer mental effort. You are helpless, I thought, you cannot move, you cannot work your magic.
But, inch by inch, Misquamacus began to work himself off the bed. He kept his eyes on both of us all the time. Singing Rock was throwing powders and beating his bones, but Misquamacus seemed unaffected by everything that he was doing. The medicine man dropped himself heavily to the floor, and crouched on his ghastly little legs within the magic circle, his face a mask of impassive hate.
Painfully, using his hands to swing himself along like an ape, Misquamacus approached the circle. If that doesn't hold him, I thought, I am going to be out of that door and halfway to Canada before you can say cold-blooded cowardice.
Singing Rock's voice grew shriller and shriller. "Gitche Manitou, hold Misquamacus away from me!" he called. "Keep him within the circle of charms! Lock and chain him!"
Misquamacus paused, and stared balefully around at the medicine circle. For a moment, I thought he was going to heave himself straight across it, and launch himself toward us. But then he paused, and settled back on his hips, and closed his eyes again. Singing Rock and I stood silent for one breathless moment, and then Singing Rock said: "We've held him."
"You mean he can't get out?"
"No, he can get across it all right. But not yet. He hasn't the strength. He's resting to get it back."
"But how long is he going to need? How long do we have?"
Singing Rock looked warily at the hunched naked form of Misquamacus.
"It's impossible to say. It might be a few minutes, it might be a few hours. I think I've called enough spiritual interference down to give us thirty or forty minutes anyway."
"What now?"
"Well just have to wait. As soon as Dr. Hughes gets here, I think we ought to have this floor of the hospital evacuated. He's going to wake up before long, and then he's going to be angry and vengeful and almost impossible to deal with, and I don't want innocent people hurt."
I checked the time. "Jack should be here at any minute. Listen, do you really think we shouldn't have a few guns?"
Singing Rock wiped his face. "You're a typical white American. You've been brought up on a diet of TV Westerns and Highway Patrol, and you think that the gun is the answer to everything. Do you want to save Karen Tandy or not?"
"Do you seriously think she can be saved? I mean — just look at her."
The limp, shriveled form of Karen Tandy's body was lying awkwardly and emptily across the bed. I could hardly recognize her as the same girl who had come into my flat only four nights before, telling me about her dreams of ships and moonlit coasts.
Singing Rock said softly: "According to the lore of Indian magic, she can still be saved. If there's a chance, I think we ought to try."
"You're the witch doctor."
At that moment, Dr. Hughes and Wolf, the other male nurse, came clattering down the corridor. They took one look at the blood, and at the silent form of Misquamacus, and stepped back in horror.
"God," said Jack Hughes shakily. "What the hell happened?"
We stepped out of the room and into the corridor with him.
"He killed Michael," I said. "I was sitting here when it happened. It was too quick to do anything about it. Then he forced his way out of Karen. Singing Rock thinks we've held him for a while with the medicine circle, but we don't have long."
Dr. Hughes bit his lips. "I think we ought to call the police. I don't care what century that thing is from, he's murdered enough people."
Singing Rock firmly protested. "If we call the police, he will only kill them as well. Bullets can't solve this problem, Dr. Hughes. We've decided to play this game a particular way, and now we're stuck with it. Only magic can help us now."
"Magic," said Dr. Hughes bitterly. "To think I'd end up using magic."
"Singing Rock thinks we ought to evacuate this floor of the hospital," I said. "Once Misquamacus wakes up, he's going to use everything he's got to get his revenge on us."
"There's no need," said Dr. Hughes. "This is a surgical and operating floor only. We had Karen down here so that she could be nearer the theater. There are no other patients on ten. All I have to do is tell the rest of the staff to stay away."
He dragged some more chairs into the corridor and sat down, keeping a watchful eye on the motionless bulk of Misquamacus. Wolf went up to Dr. Hughes' office and came back with a couple of bottles of bourbon, and we revived ourselves. It was three-forty-five, and we still had a long night ahead of us.
"Now that he's emerged," said Dr. Hughes, "how are we going to deal with him? How are we going to make him give up Karen Tandy's manitou?" I could tell he was embarrassed about using the Indian word for spirit.