”I didn't see the point of impact. But I aimed at the center of its chest.”
”There's no doubt it's comprehensively wounded.”Benedict glanced at drops of blood that formed a trail away from the big scarlet disk. ”And there's no doubting its direction.” He nodded at the curtain that separated the boards from the backstage area. ”Ellery take Robyn back to the apartment. Make sure you lock the door after you.”
Ellery nodded, although Robyn took a step toward the stage. ”Wait, you're not thinking of trying to find that thing, are you?”
”We need to.”Noel sounded like a man with a hunter's spirit upon him.
Benedict knew he had to add a justification. ”If we can find this creature it will be evidence. We need to show the police something solid they can believe in.”
”Oh, they'll believe in that monster!”Noel said with conviction.
”Robyn, please return to the apartment with Ellery. We won't be long.”
Fear flared in her face. ”Listen. What if there are more of them. It won't be-”
”Robyn. We'll be fine.”Noel presented the gun, muzzle pointing upward.
”We're protected.”
”Please,”Benedict insisted. ”Return to the apartment and lock the door.
We need to do this and we can't afford to wait any longer. From what we've seen before, it's the nature of this beast to vanish into thin air.”
Benedict watched Robyn nod an assent, then allow herself to be guided back to the apartment by Ellery. Waiting just long enough for the pair to pass through the lobby door, Benedict turned to the eager Noel and jerked his head at the curtain. ”Come on, we've got to find this thing.”
***
At the same time that Benedict and Noel pushed through the now wetly stained curtain in the Luxor, Logan and Joe were twenty minutes away from the building. Street lamps trailed through the sky, looking like processions of shining spaceships at this time of night. Logan carried the submachine gun on his knee as he drove the Chevy. The pockets of his combat jacket were stuffed tight with lovely; lovely ammo. Hot shit! Excitement buzzed from his gut to his brain. He turned to grin at his buddy in the passenger seat beside him. ”Ever seen a dead man, Joe?”
Joe shook his head.
”You will tonight, man. You will tonight.”
***
Immediately on passing through the curtain to the backstage area, Benedict paused. He swept the flashlight left to right, revealing the high ceiling with vine-like ropes that hung down from gantries and steel bars that once supported scenery flats. Up one side of the wall climbed an iron ladder fixed to the lighting gantry. Regular access to that would have been required by the technician to adjust the stage lights; these valuable lights were long gone, probably sold to another concert hall or theatre when the Luxor closed its doors for the last time. Noel stood close by. He used the light to probe shadowed corners. From the gleam in his eye, he clearly expected to see the creature slumped on the floor, pumping blood from the gunshot wound.
At last Noel conceded, ”Nothing here.”
”It probably headed down one of those corridors either to the left or the right. Do you know where they go?”
”When we looked around here the first time we found all kinds of offices, stock closets and dressing rooms.”
”It probably crawled into one of those,”Benedict whispered. ”Come on.”
”Sure you don't want to find a weapon first?”
”I'll rely on your gun.”
”I'd best go first, then.”
”As you wish.”Benedict stepped back to allow Noel to take the lead. He walked cautiously enough with the gun pointing as he tracked the flashlight beam from side to side, chasing away the crouching shadows with its brilliance.
”My guess is, it took quite a whack from that slug,”Benedict breathed as they moved slowly down the corridor. ”It's probably more concerned with fleeing than fighting.”
”What do we do with the sucker when we catch him?”
”There should be some way of holding him in one of these rooms until we can whistle up some cops.”
Noel nodded. ”Even if we have to nail the fucking door shut.”
”Noel?”Benedict touched Noel's arm, then nodded down at the concrete floor. A dime-sized disk of red glistened on the floor.
Noel nodded. ”Close?”
”Maybe. Keep your guard up.”
Noel cocked the hammer on the revolver. Now as he walked, he scanned each room they passed through the pistol's sight, ready to fire the moment Mouth Boy showed his monster face. Some doors were ajar, some shut. Cautiously, expecting that monstrosity to come screaming at them every time, Benedict pushed open each door with the flashlight. Stock closets, offices, dressing rooms. All empty.
Every five paces or so, another drop of blood would signal the way.
Mouth Boy might already be dead. He… it… might have struggled down this way before expiring in a pool of blood in a dressing room where, a long, long time ago, Buddy Holly once tuned his guitar or Black Sabbath had strutted their thing in black leather and shades. Only… so far… the rooms remained resolutely empty. The moment Benedict withdrew the flashlight, darkness returned, plunging into every corner, swarming across every inch to claim the void within those four walls.
The search so far could have taken only moments, but time seemed to be playing uncanny tricks. They could have been walking along the corridor for tens of minutes rather than tens of seconds. All Benedict could hear was the hiss of their own breathing and the thump of his heart pushing blood to feed heightened senses. Seemingly the corridor would never end. What's more, it wasn't straight. It repeatedly doglegged to the left, hugging the line of the rear stage area. This meant that they could never see more than a dozen paces ahead. Hell. You couldn't tell who lay in wait around the next damn corner. In another five steps Benedict realized two thoughts. One: The corridor followed a crooked line. If they kept turning left, it would take them back to the stage area at the far side of the building, while the corridor that jutted away at right angles would take them to the rear of the Luxor.
Point number two: Had the wounded creature simply run along the corridor lying parallel to the stage area, reentered the dance floor, then raced after Robyn and Ellery as they made their way to the apartment? Briefly a cool breeze played on Benedict's face, and once more he thought about the uncanny gateway to the gray dripping forest, a misty borderland between this world and some other existence. He thought of Mariah Lee, his former lover. A decade ago Mariah had walked into the Luxor and never left. With breathtaking clarity now he knew that Mariah Lee had entered the twilight region Ellery had called The Place.
Noel held up a hand. ”Wait.”
”What's wrong?”
”I can't see any more blood spots.”
”It might have cut off for the door at the back of the building.”
Noel grimaced. ”If it got out, it could hide in the woodland along the riverbank. We'll never find it there.”
”Damn. Best step on it, then, before it gets too far.”
Noel moved faster now along the corridor that led to the rear of the Luxor. Ahead of them, their lights blasted away the darkness. Noel scanned the floor. After fifty paces that took them within sight of the big transit area behind the boarded exit, Noel said, ”No. It didn't come this way!”He used the light to scan the floor.
”Look. No blood.”
”Maybe it ducked into a room we didn't check.”
”But we checked them all, didn't we?”
Benedict took a deep breath. ”Then maybe it ducked into who knows where.
It might be with its own kind now”
”Shoot, we were so close.”
”Come on, best retrace our steps, we might have missed a closet.”
Benedict soon realized they hadn't. Moving faster now, they pushed open doors, blazed flashlights around empty rooms, then moved on to the next.
At the junction of the corridor, Benedict
slowed down to search the area more closely. His eyes followed the disk of light as he skated it back and forth across the concrete surface that still bore the scuffs and scars of the feet of the famous and not-so-famous passing and repassing between stage and dressing room. An abandoned cupboard still stood with its back to the wall, its door yawning open. Close to the cupboard, Benedict noticed four spots of blood close together. Yet another spot almost touching the cupboard had been smeared.
”Noel… Noel?”
The man with the gun was keen to find his prey and had hurried along the corridor.
”Noel.”Not wanting to alert the creature by shouting, Benedict hissed, ”Woe. Here!”
Noel jogged back, his feet barely making a noise. ”What is it?”
Benedict pointed with the toe of his shoe at the blood spots. ”It paused here for some reason. Look at the smeared patch of blood.”
”You think it's hiding somewhere close?”
”I think it stopped here, then retraced its steps to the cupboard. It smeared one of the blood spots with its own foot.” Benedict looked inside the cupboard. Mostly there were short lengths of wood, perhaps from some old set design. There were also boxes of rusting screws and a carton containing rags that had probably been used to wipe spills at one time or other. Along the upper edge of the carton ran a brown-red smear.
”That's why we can't find any more blood on the floor.”Benedict shone the light at the rags. ”It used one of these as a dressing for the wound.”
”Shit.”Dark fury settled on Noel's face. ”That means it could have gone anywhere.”
”My guess is, it'll head back to the dance floor so it can follow the route back to wherever it came from. This should do.”He picked out a wooden pole the length of his arm that had been sawn to a point. ”We'll be able to search the place faster if we split up.”
”I've got this cannon.”Noel raised the revolver. ”Are you sure a stick's going to stop that thing?”
”I figure that slug you put in it will have dented its fighting spirit.
Besides…”He gave a grim smile. ”If I find it, I'm going to yell loud enough so you hear, believe me.”
Noel grinned-a wild-looking grin in the bouncing radiance of the flashlight. ”Don't worry. I'll come running.”He checked the gun. ”But if I see so much as a hair of its ass, I'm going to shoot first. There's no way I'm letting Monster Boy run out on us again.”
***
They went their separate ways. Noel headed off to the stage door, where he said he'd work from the back. Benedict made for the dance floor.
Within seconds he'd crossed the stage and dropped down onto the wooden floor. His sweeping light revealed the table, armchair, blood onstage.
Nothing else. So where could the critter have hidden itself? The dance floor atmosphere was dust dry. Warm. No trace of that cooling flow of moist air from The Place. No sign of that pearl-misted entranceway either. Benedict didn't know what supernatural law governed the portal opening and closing, but nothing was happening at the moment. It was just a regular dance floor in a regular (if abandoned) building on the edge of town. What's more, he'd not felt that flow of cold air in a while now. So it seemed unlikely the creature had slipped away to its nether world.
Think it through, Benedict told himself. Think like a detective. Analyze the clues. The drops of blood that led to nowhere, or seemed to lead to nowhere until Benedict realized the creature had employed a rag to staunch its blood flow.
So if you've eliminated all the hiding places behind the stage, and it hasn't exited the building, where is left to conceal itself and nurse its pumping wound?
Obvious, obvious, obvious… The word spat through Benedict's head as he ran as lightly as he could for the doors that led to the lobby In turn, the lobby led to the apartment entrance. Images ballooned in his mind. The creatures wounded, but still agile, still strong; it doubles back across the stage to the lobby where it catches Robyn and Ellery as they unlock the door to the apartment stairwell. And-yes!-still strong… add to that a fury fed by pain… The images his imagination produced now were of Robyn and Ellery lying with their throats crushed by those tapering limbs.
With the flashlight beating back the darkness in front of him, Benedict pushed through the doors, anticipating finding two lifeless bodies beneath the all-seeing Egyptian eye painted on the ceiling.
No… no bodies. The lobby was deserted, the door to the apartment stairs shut. He tried it. Thank God, it was locked, too. Robyn and Ellery must be safely inside. Benedict swept the light around the lobby with its exotic decor. There he glimpsed a profusion of repro tomb paintings and hieroglyphics and crocodile-headed gods. Plaster casts of pharaohs with heavy-lidded eyes brooded on eternity.
If the creature hadn't made it to the apartment, then where could it be?
Above him?
Benedict shone the light up over the walls and across the ceiling, expecting it to be clinging to the mock Egyptian carvings before it dropped down onto him with lethal intent. Only there was no gray-skinned figure. Letting out a breath of air, his shoulders drooped, relaxing a little now that the chase seemed to be at an end. There was nothing more to do but wait for Noel to return, still no doubt hungry to squeeze off more shots from that gun of his. Benedict had recognized the hunter-lust firing up the man's eyes.
Benedict walked back across the lobby, ready to meet Noel on the dance floor with the words, ”Nothing doing, buddy. We might as well go back upstairs.”
What gave it away, Benedict didn't really know. A shadow might have flickered on the glass, or it might have been a faint noise, or even a scent that he hadn't consciously registered but had stirred a predator instinct deep inside.
The ticket booth. It's no longer empty.
Stealthily… and holding the shaft of wood as if it were a spear… he advanced toward the booth that faced the locked and boarded main entrance. Above the front of the booth ran the word tickets. Three sides of the booth were glass from waist height upward. The fourth side consisted of the brick wall that separated lobby from dance floor. At the bottom of the front glass panel, there was an aperture big enough for customers to slip their dollar bills through, then receive tickets in return. Access to the booth was through a side door also of glass.
The bottom half of the booth possessed timber panels overpainted with copies of more tomb paintings-jackal gods, mummified coffins, kneeling priests, men with bird's heads, the blue-green corpse of Osiris, lord of the underworld, the god of the dead.
Heart beating hard, hardly daring to breathe, Benedict West approached the ticket booth door and pushed it open with his foot.
Then using the torch as a weapon to dazzle and the sharpened pole ready to stab, he looked inside.
***
There it sat on the floor, its back to the board opposite the door, legs outstretched toward Benedict. Dousing it in brilliant white light, Benedict's eyes took in every detail. The creature was long and thin.
The overlarge head rested on thin shoulders. Its clothes had degraded to rags. Its skin glistened a disgusting gray color. Large pores oozed a thin slime. Two limbs that did not terminate in hands clutched a wadded rag to its chest. Blood shone wet and gory in the light. A bony chest heaved as it fought for breath. And just as someone who has been in the company of a smoker carries tobacco odors with them, so this wounded creature wore the aroma of a forest in winter.
Nerves tingling with darting electric shocks, blood pounding through his neck, Benedict stared. He'd planned to shout for Noel at first sight of the thing but now he couldn't bring himself to breathe a whisper. His gaze traveled up the torso to the face. There was the huge flower of a mouth. Above that, two tiny holes sunk into the skull where a nose would be. Above those, a pair of eyes. Dear God in heaven, they were huge eyes, twin balls that shone like glass, while the fierce pupils glared at Benedict, whether in terror or hatred he could not tell. Benedict's gaze flicked down to the tapering stalks that pressed the rag to the wound. They were tr
embling. His own eyes returned to the thing's face.
Close up, he could see the mouth consisted of concentric circles of lips, one within the other, growing smaller in size until they reached the center. And at the center was a dark hole, an airway or passageway for food, he wasn't sure which. All the time the lips moved with the same undulating motion of sea anemone stalks underwater. A slow rhythm that, repulsive though the sight was, possessed an uncanny hypnotic power. The lips flushed deep red before the color drained to deathly gray; a moment later they would flush a fiery red again, before once more draining of color.
The time it took for man and monster to regard each other could barely have been five seconds. In that time the creature didn't make an attempt to move its body. Benedict was locked in the same position. Any time now Noel would walk into the lobby, size up the situation, then step forward to fire at point-blank range. And BANG-they'd possess physical, incontrovertible evidence for whatever government agency took this case.
In the distance he heard footsteps. That would be Noel crossing the stage. He was coming. Benedict pictured the gun in the man's hand. The weapon was as black as the crows that swarmed on the roof, waiting for an occupant of the Luxor to die tonight.
His eyes focused on the face again with that monster mouth pulsating from red to gray. Its eyes locked on his. They had that same cold alien quality of a fish. Even so, they acquired a subtly altered expression, as if whatever brain worked within its skull shaped new thought patterns. Even the mouth twitched, missing a beat. The lips curled inward before blossoming outward. Those flaps of skin went from flaccid to tense as tiny muscles under the flesh shaped them. Then Benedict understood: The creature is going to do something. Benedict managed a single step back as the creature struck.