“Yeah, yeah. Just stay cool. But I think I know where our man will be.”
He looked as if he was going to slip into unconsciousness, but he managed to nod. I let him down, resting his back against the column. His lap was full of blood. He’d be lucky if his arm survived this. But he was luckier than Shivers had been.
I left him there and went back to the stairs. But they were thick with smoke. Instead I crossed the huge, empty floor and found another stair. If Zeitsheim could talk to the wind, the best place to do it would be up on the roof. I went up after him, though I had no concrete plan.
The roof was several flights up, beyond a half-dozen empty floors that offered no hint as to where Zeitsheim was. I went up the last steps very slowly. There was still enough of a glow from below to show me the terrain here. Beyond it, opposite where the fire was, the dark waters of the Hudson stretched on either side.
Zeitsheim could have been hiding behind any number of vents up here. The fire was roaring away noisily below and I could hear sirens. This whole block was in danger of going up if they didn’t control it soon. But the wind had died down, back to what it had been during the day.
I ducked and weaved between vents, using the shadows to cover me. Then I found what I was looking for, or rather, my nose did. It was that stench again, the one I’d first encountered at the morgue. And sure enough, the green slime. I picked up a length of wood that had come away from the vent housing and dipped the end of it in the slime, holding it up before me. It was no illusion. Whatever it was, it was real. Like the viscous oozing of a snail, only a human-size one.
The slime trail led to another opening in the roof and more stairs. Carefully I peered down and, as I did so, I heard shots—several of them—a few floors below. It could only be the Fed. Dammit, Zeitsheim had conned me. He’s gone back down after him. Divide and conquer.
I hurtled down the stairs, practically breaking my neck in the process. When I reached the floor where I’d left the Fed, the whole area was lit up by the bonfire below. I could see the slumped form of the Fed. But Zeitsheim had made himself scarce again. My guess now was that he’d be making for the water. The Fed said these people had an affinity for the sea, so maybe that was where Zeitsheim would have to end up.
I reached the Fed. He gazed up at me like a beached fish, his gun hanging from limp fingers.
“It was here. I emptied the gun into it,” he croaked.
“Looks like you missed.”
He shook his head weakly. “Bullets don’t hurt them.”
“Crap. You missed him.”
He shook his head more emphatically. “No, Stone. That’s the point. They’ve been working on something. Their breeding program. Zeitsheim is back from Europe. The enclave over there must be more advanced. They’ve had years to develop, hidden away deep in the Eastern bloc. They morph. From their true form. At best I may have wounded it, but it’s still alive.”
“Heading for the river?”
“It’ll dive in. It’ll have to swim out to sea. Try for another ship to get it up to Innsmouth. It’s desperate to get there, to pass on what it can do. Leave me here. Find it. Stop it. If it gets to Innsmouth and starts breeding—”
“Tell me again why my employers want it incinerated? Don’t they want its secrets themselves?”
“They are terrified of the possibility of us taking Zeitsheim alive. Nothing is worth that risk to them. And, God help us, Stone, there will be others coming over. They have been patient. Time means nothing to these creatures. Zeitsheim is just the forerunner.” He sank back, exhausted.
I left him again, making for the far side of the warehouse and steps that would lead down to the wharf-side. I was being cautious about my descent but even so, I nearly slipped and went headlong. More slime, so I was on the right track. I could just make out the ground floor below me. There was a door, which must lead out on to the wharf.
I kept very still. If Zeitsheim was there, he would have heard me. I had one last card I could play. I held the Beretta tightly, even though the Fed had told me its bullets would be useless.
“Zeitsheim!” I hissed. I repeated the name a couple of times. “I’m from BoBo. He told me you’d be here. You hear me? I’m from BoBo.”
I inched my way down the slippery stair. The light below was very poor, but something shifted in the shadows. I called him again. Then at last I saw him, though he was no more than a blur. He was on the next landing down, halfway between me and the floor!
“Zeitsheim. That you? I’m from BoBo. You can’t stay here. We gotta find you another bolt-hole until the ship for Innsmouth is ready.”
He eased out from cover. From here, he looked human enough, though I couldn’t see his face properly. I kept my gun out of sight.
“The Feds are lookin’ for you,” I told him, easing down another step. “Can’t stay here, pal. BoBo has a better place.”
He didn’t look hostile, so maybe he was buying it. But I wasn’t about to find out. The outside door opened, letting in a pale shaft of streetlight. Zeitsheim swung round and over his massive shoulder I saw a figure slide into the building only to take immediate cover in the pitch darkness behind the door.
“Don’t move up there!” barked a voice. “NYPD! I have a gun trained on you. One move and I will shoot. You hear me. I will shoot. Now, come down the stairs very slowly with your hands on your head.”
The cop edged forward and I could just make him out. He had his weapon held in both hands, trained like he said on Zeitsheim.
Impasse. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
But Zeitsheim made up my mind for me. He swung round and hauled himself up the stairs, his shape blurring for a moment as he did so. Like I said, the light was very poor, the whole place one mass of shadows. But Zeitsheim was changing. His trunk thickened, his neck disappearing. In that darkness, he was just like a single mass rising up the stairs. And he meant to burst past me. Or over me.
Down below, the cop opened fire. I was too mesmerized to turn and make a bolt for it. I took out my own gun and let the Zeitsheim-thing have it. I didn’t miss and I guess the cop’s bullets found their mark, too. At any rate, the combined force of the bullets achieved something, because the shape crashed into the steel rail at one side of the stair, snapped it clean off like it was made of balsa wood and then went tumbling out into space.
It landed with a sickening smack on the cement floor, making a sound like a huge sack of eggs bursting. I was grateful for the darkness, because the thing exploded. It’s the only word for it.
And the shafts of light from the open door picked out the details in appalling, gory splendor. Like a bathful of slime. One very big bathful.
The cop staggered back against the door, pretty shaken up, his gun hanging at his side. He hardly noticed me as I began a slow climb down.
But the fun was only just beginning. As I looked down at the widespread remains of Zeitsheim, I realized that they were moving. Rippling, to be precise. The extremities of that slick pool were beginning to flow towards the door. And gradually the whole mass started to shiver and edge forward, like fluid running off toward a drain.
The sea! That was it. This damn thing was flowing back to the water beyond the wharf outside the door, no more than a few yards away.
The cop was just gaping, rigid as stone.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. “For Chrissake, shut the door!”
It snapped him awake, but panic swept over him and he blasted away with his last couple of rounds. The bullets whanged off the floor and walls, powerless against the moving slime. But one of them clanged into a pile of oil drums that had been stacked beyond the shadows. Faintly I could hear the glug, glug of oil that had been released.