Singing Rock held my arm. "Harry," he said quietly, "it's going to be more than morsels before we're through with this."
I turned around and looked at him. For the first time, I realized what a trap we were in, and how there was only one way out.
"All right," I said. I didn't want to say "all right" at all, but it looked as if I didn't have any choice. "Let's go find him."
We stepped out into the corridor, looking left and right. The silence was oppressive, and I could hear the rush of air molecules bombarding my eardrums, and the pumping of my own heart. The sustained fear of encountering Misquamacus or one of his demons made us both sweat and shiver, and Singing Rock's teeth were chattering by the time we made it down the first corridor. At each door, we aimed the beam of the flashlight through the window, and checked to see if the medicine man was hiding inside.
"These gateways," I whispered to Singing Rock as we turned the first corner, "what are they like?"
Singing Rock shrugged. "There are many different kinds. All it takes to bring a demon like the Lizard-of-the-Trees through is a circle on the floor and the proper promises and incantations. But the Lizard-of-the-Trees is not particularly powerful. He's just a minion in the hierarchy of Red Indian demons. If you want to summon a demon like the Lodge-Pole Guardian or the Water Snake, you have to prepare the kind of nexus that will make the physical world seem attractive to them."
"Check that door over there," I said, interrupting him. I flashed the beam his way, and he peered through the window into the hospital room. He shook his head.
"I just hope he's still on this floor," said Singing Rock. "If he gets out of here, we're in big trouble."
"The stairway's guarded," I pointed out.
Singing Rock pulled a tight smile. "Against Misquamacus, nothing is guarded."
We walked carefully forward down the corridor, stopping every few yards to investigate rooms, cupboards and odd corners. I was beginning to wonder if Misquamacus had ever existed, or if he was just weird hallucination.
"Have you ever summoned a demon yourself?" I asked Singing Rock. "I mean — can't we pull a few in on our side? If Misquamacus is going for reinforcements, why shouldn't we?"
Singing Rock smiled again. "Harry, I don't think you know what you're saying. These demons are not jokes. They're not men dressed up. The greatest of them, the upper hierarchy of Red Indian demons, can take many forms. Some of them change their shape and their whole essence continuously. One minute they're like terrible bison, and the next they're like a pitful of snakes. They have no sense of human conscience and no sense of pity. Do you think that Lizard pitied Jack Hughes when it bit his hand off? If you want these demons on your side, you have to want something very pitiless done for you, and you have to disregard the possible consequences of something going wrong."
"You mean they're all evil?" I asked him. I sent my flashlight beam up the corridor to probe a suspicious-looking shape. It turned out to be a hunched-up wastepaper sack.
"No," said Singing Rock. "They're not evil in the sense that we understand it. But you have to understand that the natural forces in this planet are not in sympathy with mankind. Mother Nature, whatever it said in your Sunday-school catechism, is not benign. We cut down trees, and the spirits and demons of the trees are dispossessed. We dig out mines and quarries, and disturb the demons of the rocks and soil. Why do you think there are so many stories of devils possessing people on isolated farms? Have you ever been around Pennsylvania, and seen the pentacles and amulets that farmers wear, to ward off the demons? Those farmers have disturbed the demons of the trees and fields, and they are paying for it."
We turned another corner. Suddenly, I said: "What's that?"
We peered into the darkness. We had to wait for two or three minutes before we saw anything. Then, there was a brief flicker of blueish light from one of the doorways.
Singing Rock said: "That's it. Misquamacus is up there. I don't know what he's doing, but whatever it is, we're not going to like it."
I took my vial of influenza virus out of my pocket. "We've got this," I reminded him. "And whatever Misquamacus has in store for us, it can't be as bad as what we've got in store for him."
Singing Rock sniffed. "Don't get too confident, Harry. For all we know, Misquamacus is immune."
I slapped his shoulder and tried to make a joke. "That's right, bolster my confidence!" But all the time I felt as if every nerve in my body was tingling, and I would have done anything to relieve my watery, sliding bowels.
I killed the flashlight and we walked tentatively up the corridor toward the flickering light. It looked like someone was welding something, or the reflection of distant lightning. The only difference was, it had an unearthly quality about it, a strange coldness that reminded me of stars, when you stare up at the sky on a lonesome winter's night, and they're twinkling chill and distant and utterly remote.
We reached the door. It was closed, and the blueish light was shining through the small window in the top, and underneath. Singing Rock said: "Are you going to take a look, or shall I?"
I shivered, like someone was stepping on my grave. "I'll do it. You've done enough for the moment."
I crossed the corridor and pressed myself to the wall along side the door. The wall was oddly cold there, and when I got closer to the window in the door, I realized that there were spangles of frost on the glass. Frost — in a heated hospital? I pointed it out to Singing Rock, and he nodded.
Gingerly, I raised my face to the window, and looked into the room. What I saw there made my skin creep, and my scalp rise like a terrified porcupine.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Over the Blackness
Misquamacus was sitting heavily in the center of the room, supporting his deformed bulk on one arm. All the furniture in the room — which looked like a lecture theater — had been tossed aside as if by a violent wind. The floor was cleared, and Misquamacus had marked it out with chalk. There was a wide circle, and inside it, Misquamacus had drawn dozens of cabbalistic symbols and figures. The reincarnated magician had his left hand raised over the circle, and he was chanting something in hoarse, insistent whispers.
It wasn't the circle and the casting of spells that terrified me, though. It was the dim, half-transparent outline that appeared and disappeared in the center of the circle — an outline of trickling blue light and shifting shapes. Shielding my eyes, I made out a curious toad-like shape that seemed to writhe and vanish, change and melt.
Singing Rock stepped softly across the corridor and joined me at the window. He took one look, and said: "Gitche Manitou protect us, Gitche Manitou shield us from harm, Gitche Manitou ward off our enemies."
"What is it?" I hissed. "What's going on?"
Singing Rock finished his incantation before he answered me. "O Gitche Manitou afford us help, O Gitche Manitou save us from injury. Give us luck and good fortune all our moons."
"Singing Rock — what is it?"
Singing Rock pointed to the hideous distorted shape of the toad-being. "It's the Star Beast, which is about the nearest translation I can manage. I have never seen it before, only in drawings, and from what old wonder-workers have told me. I didn't think that even Misquamacus would dare summon that."
"Why?" I whispered. "What's so dangerous about it?"
"The Star Beast is not particularly dangerous in itself. It could destroy you without even thinking about it, but it isn't powerful or supreme. It's more like a servant to the higher beings. A go-between."