“Frank and Joe,” Bill said. “They sound like the Hardy Boys. Will they fly me?”
Jack nodded. “For a price. I just spoke to them. They’re not crazy about heading into Eastern Europe, but for the right price—in gold—they’ll do it.”
“Gold?” Bill said. “I don’t ha—”
“I have plenty,” Glaeken said. “Are you willing to make the trip?”
“Of course.”
“Bill!” Carol gave his hand a hard squeeze. “Maybe you should think about this.”
“What’s to think about?” His clear and untroubled blue eyes stared into hers. “Somebody’s got to do it. Might as well be me. I want to be useful, Carol. I’m tired of feeling like a fifth wheel. I need to do something. Hell, I’m not needed for anything else around here.”
I need you!
The intensity of the emotion behind that thought startled her.
“You could be killed.”
“We’ll all be dead if we don’t do what we can now.” He looked at Glaeken. “When do I leave and what am I supposed to get?”
“You leave tomorrow morning—”
“Oh, no!” Carol couldn’t help it.
“—and you’ll be searching a rocky ravine for scraps of metal, shards from a sword blade that shattered there in 1941.”
Bill looked shocked. “Do I have to get them all?”
“Just a few. Just a sampling is all we need. You must—”
An explosion rattled the apartment windows. Carol followed Glaeken, Bill, and Jack to the picture window.
Below, in the Sheep Meadow, flames billowed high into the night air. One of the tank trucks supplying the fuel for the flamethrowers had exploded. In the flickering light, even without the binoculars, Carol could see that the entire Sheep Meadow was now acrawl with the new horrors from the hole. They were on the move, spreading out into the city streets in a glistening, wriggling, undulating carpet.
She wondered if something similar was happening in Atlantic City … to Nelson and his new woman. No reason she should worry about the man who’d abandoned her, but she did. All those years together …
She glanced up and saw the moon rising huge and orange over the rooftops of the city. But something was … different about it tonight.
“What’s wrong with the moon?”
The others stared along with her. Jack spotted it first.
“The face—the man in the moon face is gone. Jeez—even the moon’s been changed!”
“Not changed,” said a flat voice by her shoulder.
A small cry of surprise escaped Carol as she turned and saw Nick standing directly behind her. But he wasn’t looking at her. His attention was focused on the moon.
“It’s the same moon. It’s just been turned. You’re looking at what people called the dark side of the moon.”
Carol turned back and stared up at the vaguely threatening orb that had been a symbol of romance for ages.
Even the man in the moon has turned his back on us.
“Take me with you tomorrow,” Nick said to Bill. “You won’t find anything without me.”
Carol watched Bill stare at Nick, then look questioningly at Glaeken.
After a pause, Glaeken nodded. “He’s right, I think. He may help shorten your trip. And right now anything that saves time is worth a try.”
Feeling colder than ever, Carol turned back to the window and leaned against Bill. As she stared at the pale, unfamiliar ridges of the moon’s new face, she gasped. Something dark, hideous, and mind-numbingly huge was sweeping across the sky, blotting out the light. It passed slowly, like a floating shroud, casting a chill over everything in its enormous shadow, and then it moved on, leaving the moon visible again.
She shuddered and felt Bill’s arm slip around her shoulders. But even that could not dispel the chill of foreboding that had insinuated its way into her bones.
Ernst huddled under a blanket in the Lodge basement, counting the hours till dawn. Surrounded by snoring Kicker louts, with cases of Hunt’s canned baked beans for his bed, comfort was an impossibility, sleep a forlorn hope.
What had become of his life?
Last summer he had been on top of the world. The Fhinntmanchca had been gestating in the subcellar directly beneath where he now lay, he was the One’s right-hand man, and the future was his to command.
Now, less than a year later, he saw no future except suffering and death along with the hoi polloi.
At least he was safe for tonight. Both his apartment and his office right upstairs had been invaded last night, but the cellar was secure: windowless foundation walls of thick stone, with a single bolted door the only access to the outside world. Running water, a couple of hot plates, a microwave oven, a kerosene stove.
He could survive as long as the door held up and the food held out. And then … what? If only—
He felt the floor vibrate and sat up.
What was that? Another hole opening in this end of the city?
More vibrations. They seemed to be coming from the subcellar. But the only thing down there was the remains of the Orsa. It had started out made of stone but had become organic, and after completing its task of creating the Fhinntmanchca, it had begun to decay. Back in the fall of 2001, the subcellar wall had been breached to bring it in, and then repaired. To dispose of it would require a similar excavation, and the High Council had not got around to allocating the funds.
Was the onset of the Change affecting the Orsa? Reviving it? Perhaps Ernst could find a way to turn this to his advantage.
More vibrations, but no one else seemed to notice. He rose and stole across the littered floor to a small room off the main area. He opened a door to a closet, and inside pulled up a trapdoor in the floor. All the Order’s lodges had been built with subcellars and escape routes, but this building had been sealed off with the arrival of the Orsa.
He stood over the rickety wrought-iron spiral staircase and listened to the vague, unidentifiable sound that echoed from the dark, dank space below. He started down. The staircase had been damaged by the Fhinntmanchca, and wobbled under his weight. When he reached bottom, he found the light switch in the wall and flipped it.
He repressed a scream as the space lit up to reveal a horde of beetlelike creatures with shiny black bodies four to five feet long pouring through a break in the subcellar wall—the very spot that had been breached to bring in the Orsa.
They must have been attracted to the subcellar by the Orsa, for they seemed too intent on devouring it to notice him.
Ernst watched for only a single heartbeat, then he turned and started back up the staircase. His hands shook and his sweaty palms slid on the steel railing as he moved as silently as possible. He did not look back—did not dare look back until he reached the top.
As he closed the trapdoor he peeked below and saw two of the beetles starting up the staircase. Frantic, he let the door drop and looked around for something to weigh it down. Food! Cases of canned goods in the main room, but he’d never get to them in time.
He had to get away, but where? Thompson’s room. He’d break the door down if he had to.
So he ran. As he passed through the main room he opened his mouth to shout a warning, then thought better of it. When running from a bear, one needn’t run faster than the bear, only faster than the slowest of those with you. And if those with you weren’t running at all …
He kept mum as he hurried to the exit door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the stairwell to the main floor. Deserting all caution, he ran up to the front vestibule. A few of the globular flies clung to the marble walls there, but otherwise it seemed quiet. No victims readily available, he supposed.
Without pausing, Ernst darted for the stairway to the second floor. He heard wings buzz behind him and increased his speed. His aging heart beat a terrified rhythm and the air seemed thin, lacking oxygen. He wasn’t used to physical exertion and his muscles screamed in protest.
He ran to Thompson’s door and began poun
ding on it.
“Hank! You must let me in! The bugs have breached the cellar and I have nowhere else to go!”
No answer. He pounded harder.
“I am begging you. For the love of whatever god you believe in, let me in!”
Buzzing to his right—the globular bugs floated out of the stairwell and veered toward him.
“PLEASE!”
Silence from within.
This was it, then. He pulled the ampoule of cyanide from his pocket and raised it to his lips. One bite and—
A furious buzz to his right and something tore at his arm, blasting a blaze of pain into his elbow and sending the ampoule flying.
“No!”
He couldn’t—wouldn’t die like this!
He dove for the floor, for the cyanide, and then they were upon him.
Ernst Drexler screamed in agony.
Hank snapped awake.
He’d been roused before by sounds from the security shutters. Bugs—spearheads most likely—ramming themselves against them. They’d have swarmed in and eaten him alive if not for the warning from the Kicker Man. He’d listened for a while as they battered futilely against the steel, then fluttered off, heading for redder pastures.
It used to be the nights were never long enough for Hank. His head would hit the pillow and before he knew it, he’d have to rise. At various times during the night he’d heard screams from outside on the street, but was never tempted to peek.
But this was different. Someone pounding on his door.
Drexler.
He sounded hysterical, crying about bugs in the cellar, in the hallway, begging to be let in.
As if.
Hank turned the light on and watched the door, but didn’t move from the bed. He pressed his hands over his ears to shut out the noise.
Never liked Drexler, never liked his stupid white suit, never liked the way he always looked down his nose at Hank and the Kickers with his Euro sophistication and aristocratic ’tude. But even if it had been his brother Jerry out there, no fucking way Hank was opening that door. Who knew what else would invite itself into the room?
A sudden agonized scream broke through the seal of his palms and he snatched them away to listen. No further screams came, but he heard violent thrashing just beyond the door, accompanied by muffled, gurgling sobs that were awful to hear, even if it was Drexler.
Then silence.
Yeah, hard to feel sorry for Drexler. He and his Order had paved the way for all the shit that was coming down outside.
As Hank reached for the light switch he noticed something dark and gleaming on the floor. He looked closer and realized that blood was leaking under the door and pooling by the threshold.
So much for Ernst Drexler.
The Horror Channel’s Drive-In Theatre—Special All-Nite Edition
Up from the Depths (1969) New World
The Fly (1958) 20th Century Fox
Return of the Fly (1959) 20th Century Fox
The Curse of the Fly (1965) Lippert/20th Century Fox
Night Creatures (1962) Hammer/Universal
Not of This Earth (1956) Allied Artists
Ceremonies
Maui
“It’s a gift, Bati! A sign from Pele herself!”
Moki’s voice was barely audible over the blast-furnace roar of the volcano. Dressed only in his malo, he stood near the ruins of the visitor center on the rim of the newly awakened Haleakala. Perspiration coated his skin, giving it a glossy sheen as red and orange light from the fires below flickered off the planes and curves of his taut, muscular body, making it glow against the inky night sky.
The two yellow stones in his necklace seemed to glow with internal fires of their own. And why not? The necklace had been working overtime on Moki. Only moments ago he had emerged from the crater with second-degree burns blistering most of his body. But the blisters had shriveled and the damaged skin had peeled and sloughed away to reveal fresh, unmarred flesh beneath.
Kolabati backed away from the heat and worried about Moki. He’d changed so drastically. He was no longer the man she’d loved and lived with. He was a stranger, a deranged interloper fashioning his own delusions out of the madness around him.
Yesterday she had been afraid for him. But now she was afraid of him. The cataclysm that had destroyed the Big Island and reawakened Haleakala seemed to have pushed him over the edge.
And tingeing Kolabati’s fear, coloring it a deep, dull red, was anger. Why? Why now? Why did all of nature choose this time to go mad? Coincidence, or fate? Was her enormous karmic burden—and she knew too well the extent to which the deeds of her many, many years had polluted her karma—finally catching up to her?
“What does it mean, Moki?” she called back, humoring him. “What kind of sign would the fire goddess be sending you?”
“She didn’t want me leaving Maui to gather lava from Kileau, so she destroyed Kileau and brought her fires to my backyard.”
Kolabati shook her head in silent dismay. Didn’t Moki’s mania admit any limits? How many hundreds of thousands had died on the Big Island when it had exploded? How many more here on Maui in those areas not shielded from the blast by Haleakala? But Haleakala herself had gathered her share of lives. Hana was gone, as were the Seven Sacred Pools, buried under the tons of ash and dirt from Haleakala’s explosive awakening, then sealed over by the initial gush of lava that had filled the Kipahulu Valley and burst through into the Waihoi, running down to the sea. According to the news gleaned from their radio, the whole southeast corner of the island, from the Kaupo Gap to Nanualele Point, was a seething bed of molten lava.
All so Moki wouldn’t have to leave Maui on day trips?
Fortunately the lava had flowed along its old paths. If Haleakala had erupted through its northern wall, the heavily populated central valley would have become a graveyard. Moki even had an explanation for that: Pele wished to spare Moki and his wahine.
So Moki had changed, and with his transformation Kolabati recognized unwelcome changes within herself. The inner tranquillity had been shattered, the peace broken, and she found her thoughts traveling along old familiar ways, the cold, calculating paths of the past.
She shivered in the chill wind. Shielded as she was from the heat of the crater, it was cold nearly two miles above the ocean. She wanted to flee, but where to? The news from the mainland was frightening. It might be safer here on the islands, but not with Moki. He was an explosive charge, ready to detonate at any moment and destroy everything and anyone nearby. Yet she could not leave him. Not while he wore the other necklace. That belonged to her, and she would not leave without it.
Yet how to retrieve it? How to unbell the cat?
She had considered removing it while he slept but had not yet dared to try. Since the madness had come upon him, Moki hardly slept. And if he awoke from one of his short naps to find the necklace gone, he would track her down, and then only Kali knew what he might do to her. He might even rip her own necklace from her throat and watch as a century and a half caught up with her. He of course would not age noticeably without his necklace, for he had worn it only a few years. But Kolabati would grow old and crumble into dying ashes before his eyes.
So she kept quiet, acted supportive, and waited for her chance.
With a start Kolabati realized that they were not alone on the crater rim. A group of perhaps sixty men of varying ages in traditional Hawaiian dress had joined them. Led by their alii, an elderly man in a chieftain’s feather robe and headdress, they were approaching Moki where he stood watching the fires. The alii called to him and he turned. She caught snatches of traditional Hawaiian chattered back and forth but had difficulty grasping the gist of what was being said.
Finally, Moki turned and walked down the slope toward her. The others remained up near the rim, waiting.
“Bati!” he said in a low voice, his grin wide and wild, his eyes dancing with excitement. “Do you see them? They’re the last of the traditional Hawaiians. They sail
ed all the way from Niihau looking for Maui.”
“They found it,” Kolabati said. “What’s left of it.”
“Not the island—Maui the god. You know the story.”
“Of course.”
Before dawn one day long ago, Maui, the mischievous Polynesian demigod, crept to the summit of Haleakala, the House of the Sun, on a mission of filial love. His mother had complained that the days were not long enough to allow her to finish her tasks of cooking, cleaning, and drying tapa cloth, so Maui decided to do something about it. When the first ray of the sun appeared over the summit, Maui snared it with his lasso, thus trapping the sun. The sun pleaded for freedom but Maui would not release it until it promised to lengthen the days by slowing its trek across the heavens.
“The Niihauans say the shorter days show that the sun has broken its promise and so they’ve come to aid Maui when he returns to recapture the sun. They want to know if I’ve seen him! Can you believe it?”
Kolabati looked past Moki at the grown men dressed in feathers and carrying spears, and pitied them.
“What did you tell them?”
“I temporized. I wasn’t sure what to say. But now I do.”
Kolabati didn’t like the look in his eyes.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
His grin widened. “I’m going to tell them I’m Maui.”
“Oh, Moki, don’t toy with them. Aren’t things bad enough already?”
“Who’s toying? I sense a strange power in me. I have a feeling I just might be Maui, or at least his avatar. I tell you, Bati, I’m here in this place at this time for a reason. Perhaps this is a sign as to why.”
Kolabati grabbed his hand and tried to lead him down the slope.
“Moki, no. Come back to the house. Work on that new sculpture you started.”
He pulled free. “Later. After I’ve told them who I am.”
She watched him stride back up to the rim and face the Niihauans, saw him pound his chest and gesture to the fires below and then to the night sky above. The traditional Hawaiians stepped back from him and whispered among themselves. Then the alii gestured to one of the younger men, who stepped forward and drove his spear into Moki’s chest.