"What the hell's that guy up to?" said one of the technicians suspiciously.
"Ssh," said his colleague. "Maybe he's trying to find out where the smell comes from."
After a few minutes of careful searching, Singing Rock laid the camera down. He beckoned me across, and spoke to me in a low, hurried murmur, so that nobody else could hear.
"I think I know what happened," he muttered. "The demons which always accompany the Great Old One have passed through here. They are gone, now — probably down to the tenth floor to gather around Misquamacus. But I believe the cameraman saw them."
"He saw them? How?"
"You know the old story that Indians believed they should never be photographed, because cameras would steal their spirits from them. Well, in a manner of speaking that was correct. A camera lens, even though it can never steal a man's manitou, can perceive it. That is why there have been so many strange pictures in which ghosts — unseen when the picture was being taken — have mysteriously appeared when the picture is printed up."
I coughed. "You mean the cameraman saw these demons through the viewfinder? That's why he collapsed?"
"I think so," said Singing Rock. "We'd better go and talk to him, if he's still conscious. If he can tell us which demons he saw, we may be able to work out when the Great Old One is due to make his appearance."
We called Jack Hughes over and explained what was going on. He said nothing, but nodded in agreement when Singing Rock suggested speaking to the cameraman. He had a brief word with Dr. Winsome, and then he beckoned us through to the first-aid room.
It was silent in there. On a high hospital couch, the cameraman lay pallid and twitching while three doctors kept a close watch on his pulse rate and other vital signs. They greeted Jack Hughes as we came in, and stood aside to let us gather round the cameraman's bed.
"Don't be too rough with him," said one of the interns. "He's had a bad shock, and he's not up to much."
Singing Rock didn't answer. He leaned over the white-faced cameraman and whispered: "Can you hear me? Can you hear what I'm saying?"
The cameraman simply shuddered. Singing Rock said again: "Can you hear what I'm saying? Do you understand where you are?"
There was no response. The interns shrugged, and one of them said: "He's deeply unconscious, I'm afraid. Whatever it was that happened to him, his mind has kind of retreated and it isn't coming back out for anyone. It's quite common in severe shock cases. Give him time."
Under his breath, Singing Rock said: "We don't have time." He fished in his coat pocket for a necklace of strangely painted beads, and he gently laid them on the cameraman's head, like a halo. One of the interns tried to protest, but Jack Hughes waved him away.
With his eyes closed, Singing Rock began an incantation. I couldn't hear the words at all, and those which I could hear were in Sioux. At least I presumed it was Sioux. I'm not a linguist myself, and for all I know it could have been French.
The spell didn't seem to work at first. The cameraman remained pale and still, his fingers occasionally twitching and his lips moving soundlessly. But then Singing Rock drew a magic figure in the air over his head, and without any warning at all, the cameraman's eyes blinked open. They looked glassy and ill-focused, but they were actually open.
"Now," said Singing Rock gently. "What did you see, my friend, through your camera?"
The cameraman shuddered, and there were bubbles of saliva at the corners of his mouth. He looked like a man dying from rabies, or in the terminal stages of syphilis. Something so terrible was imprinted on his mind that there was nothing he could do to exorcise it from his memory. He couldn't even die.
"It's — it's — " he stuttered.
"Come on, my friend," said Singing Rock. "I bid you to speak. It will not get thee. Gitche Manitou will protect thee."
The cameraman closed his eyes. I thought for a moment that he had dropped back into unconsciousness. But after a few seconds, he began to speak — very quickly and almost unintelligibly — in a wordy rush.
"It swam, it was swimming, it came swimming across the room and through the room at the same time and I caught a glimpse of just the edge of it like a sort of squid, like a squid, with waving arms, all waving, but it was big as well, I can't say how big it was, I was so frightened there was something inside my head like my whole brain was stolen. Only a glimpse, though, just a glimpse."
Singing Rock listened for a while longer, but the cameraman said nothing more. He carefully removed the beads from the man's head, and said: "Well, that seems to be it."
"Is he okay?" I asked. "I mean, he's not —"
"No," said Singing Rock. "He's not dead. I don't think he'll ever be the same again, but he's not dead."
"The squid," I said. "Do you know what that was?"
Singing Rock said: "Yes. This man was privileged to see something that has been banished from the earth for centuries. He didn't see all of it, which is probably just as well. The Great Old One is among us again."
CHAPTER TEN
Into the Light
I followed Singing Rock out of the first-aid room and into the corridor. His black eyes were glittering again with some of the zeal that I had slowly seen extinguished by our long and harrowing night. He said: "This is it, Harry. Are you coming to help me?"
"This is what? What the hell's going to happen?"
Singing Rock licked his lips. His voice was breathless, and he looked as if he were feverishly ill. "The Great Old One is here. To wrestle with the Great Old One himself — don't you understand what that means to a medicine man? It's like a Christian having the chance to fight with Satan in person."
"Singing Rock —"
"We have to do it," said Singing Rock. "We have no time left at all. We have to go down there and do it."
"Go down there? You mean — back to the tenth floor?"
Singing Rock appeared to grow in size, as if some magical wind was inflating him. He was trembling with fear and anticipation, and the ultimate lust of risking his life against the greatest evil being of mythical America. When I said nothing more, he simply turned away and began to walk quickly toward the stairs, so fast I could hardly keep up with him.
I snatched his sleeve, and he turned around.
"Singing Rock," I said. "For Christ's sake — eleven armed men were killed down there. You saw what happened."
"It's too late," said Singing Rock. "The Great Old One is here, and what happens now will be worse."
"Singing Rock —"
He pulled himself away. He opened the door that led to the darkened stairway and said: "Are you coming? Or are you staying behind?"
Echoing up the stairwell, I heard the loathsome moaning of that windless wind, and the hairs prickled on the back of my neck. The fetid stench of the Great Old One filled the air, and I could hear noises from down below that reminded me of Doré's engravings of hell. Demons and beasts and nameless things that walked by night. Things that drove men mad. Things that hopped and crawled and dragged themselves across the darkness of terrified imagination.
I swallowed hard. No matter how frightened I felt, I couldn't let Singing Rock go down there on his own. I said: "I'm coming," and pushed past him on to the concrete landing. If I didn't go now, I never would.