He stared at me with bulging eyes. "I don't seem to recall that you have any authority in this hospital, sir. It appears to me that the best solution is for me and these other gentlemen to go straight down there and catch this patient before he tries to take bites out of any more of us."
"You don't understand!" I shouted wearily.
"You're right," said Dr. Winsome. "I don't understand at all. Wolf, are you ready with those flashlights?"
"Right away, Dr. Winsome," said Wolf.
"Wolf," I appealed. "You saw what happened down there. Tell them."
The male nurse shrugged. "All I know is, Dr. Hughes got hurt by that patient. We ought to get down there and sort it out once and for all."
I didn't know what to say. I turned around to see if there was anyone else who could help me, but everybody in the office was ready for a vigilante raid on the tenth floor.
Then, from his couch, Dr. Hughes spoke up.
"Dr. Winsome," he said hoarsely. "Dr. Winsome, you mustn't go. Believe me, you mustn't go. Just give him the virus. He knows what he's doing. Whatever you do, don't go down there."
Dr. Winsome walked over to Jack Hughes' couch. "Are you sure, Dr. Hughes? I mean, we're all armed and ready to go."
"Dr. Winsome, you mustn't. But please hurry. Give him the virus and let him do it in his own way."
Dr. Winsome scratched his bald and crimson head, then he turned and said to the rescue party: "Dr. Hughes is in charge of this patient. I have to bow to his better judgment. But we'll stand by just in case."
He went over to the desk, and produced a thin glass vial of liquid from a small wooden box. He held it out to me.
"This solution contains potent influenza virus. Handle it extremely carefully, or we'll have an epidemic on our hands."
I took the vial gently in my fingers. "Okay, Dr. Winsome. I understand that. Believe me, you're doing the right thing."
I was almost tempted to take a gun back with me, even though I knew it would be foolhardy and dangerous. But I did take a flashlight. I went swiftly back to the elevator, punched the button for ten, and sank into the darkness again.
When the doors opened, I peered cautiously out into the gloom.
"Singing Rock?" I shouted. "It's Harry Erskine! I'm back."
There was no reply. I kept my foot against the door of the elevator to prevent it from closing.
"Singing Rock?" I yelled again. "Are you there, Singing Rock?"
I switched on my flashlight, and directed it down the corridor, but there was a corner in between me and the door to Karen Tandy's room, and I couldn't see any further than that. Perhaps Singing Rock couldn't hear me, way around here. I would have to go and investigate.
I knelt down and took off my shoes, and wedged them in the elevator door to prevent them from closing. The last thing I wanted was to be waiting for an elevator to arrive from the foyer while one of Misquamacus' grisly beasts came after me.
Then, keeping a pool of flashlight in front of me, I padded down the corridor toward Karen Tandy's room, and the battle of the medicine men. It was very silent down there — much too silent for comfort — and I didn't feel like calling out to Singing Rock again. I was almost afraid I might get a reply.
As I approached the door to Karen Tandy's room, the thick sickly odor of blood and death came crowding into my nostrils again. I directed a long jet of light all the way down the corridor into the distance, but there was no sign of Singing Rock. Perhaps he was in the room, having a face-to-face conflict with Misquamacus. Perhaps he wasn't there at all.
I stepped softly and gingerly over the last few yards, pointing the flashlight into the gore-spattered doorway of Karen Tandy's room. I could hear something stirring and moving in there, but I dreaded to think what it was. I came closer and closer, keeping to the far side of the corridor, and then I rushed forward and shone the light full and square into the room.
It was Singing Rock. He was on his hands and knees on the floor. At first I thought he was all right, but when I shone the light toward him, he turned slowly in my direction, and I saw what Misquamacus had done to his face.
Crawling with terror, I flickered the light around the whole room, but there was no trace of Misquamacus at all. He had escaped, and was somewhere in the pitch-black twisting corridors of the tenth floor. We would have to find him, and try to destroy him, armed with nothing but a flashlight and a small glass vial of infected fluid.
"Harry?" whispered Singing Rock. I walked across and knelt beside him. He looked as if someone had lashed him across the face with seven strands of barbed wire. His cheek was ripped up and his lips were split, and there was a great deal of blood, I took out my handkerchief and gingerly dabbed at it.
"Are you hurt bad?" I asked him. "What happened? Where's Misquamacus?"
Singing Rock wiped blood from his mouth. "I tried to stop him," he said. "I did everything I knew."
"Did he hit you?"
"He didn't have to. He gave me a faceful of surgical instruments. He would have killed me if he could have."
I rummaged in the bedside cabinet and found Singing Rock some gauze and bandages. When the blood was wiped away, his face didn't look too bad. His own self-protective magic had managed to divert most of the scalpels and probes that Misquamacus had sent flying in his direction. Several of them were stuck in the wall, right up to the handles.
"Did you get the virus?" asked Singing Rock. "Just let me stop this bleeding, and then we'll go after him."
"It's here," I said. "It doesn't look like much, but Dr. Winsome says this little lot can do the job a thousand times over."
Singing Rock held the vial up and squinted at it. "Let's just pray it works. I don't think we have much time."
I picked up the flashlight, and we stepped quietly over to the door of the room and listened. There was no sound at all, except for our own suppressed breathing. The corridors were deserted and dark, and there were more than a hundred rooms in which Misquamacus could have hidden himself.
"Did you see which way he went?" I asked Singing Rock.
"No," said Singing Rock. "Anyway, it's been five minutes. He could be any place by now."
"It's very silent. Does that mean anything?"
"I don't know. I don't know what he plans to do next."
I coughed. "What would you do, if you were him? I mean — magically speaking?"
Singing Rock thought for a while, still patting his ravaged cheek with a bloodstained pad of gauze.
"I'm not sure," he said. "You have to look at it from Misquamacus' point of view. In his own mind, he left Manhattan in the 1600s only days ago. The white man, to him, is still a strange and hostile invader from nowhere. Misquamacus is very powerful, but he's obviously frightened. What's more, he's suffering from physical disabilities, which isn't going to help his morale much. I think he's going to call in all the reinforcements he can get."
I flicked the flashlight up and down the corridor. "Reinforcements? You mean more demons?"
"Certainly. We've only seen the beginning of this."
"So what can we do?"
Singing Rock, in the reflected light of the torch, could only shake his head.
"There's only one thing on our side," he said. "If Misquamacus wants to bring demons out of the great beyond, he's going to have to prepare gateways to bring them through."
"Gateways? What are you talking about?"
"Let me put it simply. Imagine there's a wall between the spirit world and the physical world. If Misquamacus wants to call any demons through, he has to remove some bricks from that wall, and prepare an entrance for the demons to come through. They need to be coaxed, too. Demons almost always demand a price for their services. Like the Lizard-of-the-Trees and his morsel of living flesh." "Morsel?" I said. "Christ — some morsel."