Charnel House (22 page)

“I know what you're thinking,” he said. “And, yes, it's probably true.”

“George,” I told him, “you're a damned sight more psychic than you look.”

But time was running out. Already the shufflings and the heavings from the attic were shaking the walls and sending cascades of dry plaster down on every side. I looked up and saw long cracks spreading at frightening speed across the ceiling and electric wires being tugged out of the walls like nerves being pulled out of flesh. Then, with a thunderous collapsing sound, the whole house began to fall down around us, and we were half buried in an avalanche of dust, plaster, splintered timber and shattered laths. The gray birds came flapping and fluttering around us, and for one moment, glowering triumphantly through the skeleton of the ceiling, I saw those demonic eyes and that body that writhed and twisted like something putrescent.

“Get out!” I yelled at George Thousand Names, and together we slithered over the dust and the wreckage toward the staircase. The head of the stairs was almost completely blocked with fallen rafters, but we managed to heave two or three of them aside and crawl through the small triangular space that was opened up. George went first, and I came after, with the gray birds already beating their wings around me and the hot dry blast of the demon Coyote scorching my back.

There was another fierce explosion of power, the same kind of explosion that had first concussed Dan Machin, only five times stronger. George Thousand Names and I were hurtled down the last few remaining stairs on to the landing, and I struck my shoulder painfully against the banister. We picked ourselves up and we both looked like bedraggled ghosts, white with fear and plaster.

“Next time you call me a paleface, just remember what you look like now,” I told the old Indian, wiping grit and dust from my mouth with the back of my hand. George Thousand Names coughed, and almost laughed.

Above us, the ceiling began to shake again, as Coyote ripped 1551 apart floor by floor to reach us We ran along the landing, and Bear Maiden was still there, deep in her trancelike sleep, while Jim lay beside her with his eyes rolled up in shock and concussion.

“We have to get them out!” snapped the medicine man.

“For Christ's sake, we can get Jim out, but what about the bear?”

“Coyote wants her. He needs her. She's his love and his passion from ancient times. She's also his messenger, his closest helper. We have to get her away. Without her, he's much weaker.”

The walls of the landing began to creak and shake, and one of the bedroom doors was twisted off its hinges and banged flat on the floor with a sound that made me jump with fright.

“Come on,” he insisted. “Let's take the doctor down first.”

Awkwardly, keeping our shoulders bent to protect ourselves from falling plaster, we picked up Jim and carried him to the top of the stairs. George Thousand Names was panting now, and his eyes were red-rimmed in his dusty white face. I didn't know how old he was, but he had to be the wrong side of sixty, and running away from destructive demons wasn't particularly good for the heart. As the house rumbled and shook, we staggered down the last few stairs into the hallway, and out of the front door.

In the street, the ambulance was just arriving, its siren whooping and its red lights flashing. I could see police cars turning up Pilarcitos, too, and there was already a jostling crowd of staring faces on the sidewalk.

Two medics came hurrying across, and took Jim out of our hands. Two more brought a wheeled stretcher, and they lifted him carefully on to it.

“What happened here?” asked one of the medics, a small Italian with thick eyeglasses. “Are you guys demolishing this place, or what?”

“This guy's been bitten,” remarked the other medic, in a puzzled voice. “Something's bitten his neck.”

There were more rumblings behind us, and we looked around to see part of the roof collapse inward. The brick chimney stack slowly toppled after it, and there was a crash of glass and timber. Through the murky windows on the second floor, we could see the dull and evil glow of the demon, flickering with malice and hatred.

George Thousand Names held my arm. “We have to go back, John. The Bear Maiden.”

“The what?” said the Italian medic. “The bare maiden?”

We were just about to go through the front door again, when a hard, familiar voice said, “Hold it! Mr. Hyatt, Mr. Thousand Names! Just hold it there!”

Through the gathering crowd came Lieutenant Stroud, followed by two patrolmen. He came up the steps with a face as grave as an undertaker. “What goes on here? I picked up the call from downtown.”

George Thousand Names brushed dust from the sleeve of his jacket. “We've found your demon for you, Lieutenant. He's upstairs, and he's fighting mad, and the sooner we get in there and rescue the Bear Maiden, the better. It's almost too late.”

“Bear Maiden? What the hell are you talking about? You guys are staying right here. We have a SWAT squad on the way.”

“Lieutenant,” I told him, “we, have to go. The Bear Maiden is Coyote's helper. She's vicious and savage, and she acts like his eyes and his ears during the day. Most of the time she's a woman, but she can become a kind of werewolf whenever she wants.”

Lieutenant Stroud stared at me as if he had a mouthful of lime and salt and no tequila to go with it.

“A
werewolf?
” he asked flatly.

Another siren howled in the street. It was the gray SWAT truck, swaying and bouncing into the curbside. Three SWAT officers in combat uniforms clambered out of the cab and came trotting athletically up the steps. Their senior officer was a short, fit man with cropped silver hair and hazel eyes like the rivets on a pair of Levi's. He saluted and said, “You located your fugitive, Lieutenant? What's he doing up there?”

Lieutenant Stroud continued to stare at me, but said out of the side of his mouth. “It seems like he's tearing the place apart. These gentlemen say he has a woman accomplice.”

George Thousand Names said, in a trembling voice, “Are you going to let us go in there or not? I warn you, Lieutenant. I am the only one who can subdue the Bear Maiden.”

“The
what
maiden?” queried the SWAT officer.

Behind us, there was a hideous groaning and tearing sound as Coyote brought down the ceiling of the second floor. Dust rolled in clouds down the stairs into the hallway, and broken windows shattered and tinkled through the plaster. The whole house seemed to pulse and throb as if it was a tortured beast, and through the gloom and wreckage we could see the malevolent light of the demon's eyes. Even the sky above the house seemed to thicken and grow darker, and the gray birds were fluttering and circling around overhead, silent and ominous as ever.

The SWAT officer didn't wait to hear what kind of maiden it was. He turned around to his team, who were busy assembling teargas launchers on the sidewalk, and rapped, “Three and five, around the back, move! Jackson, you come with me!”

George Thousand Names said, “Lieutenant, please, don't let them. I must go in there alone. It's our only hope.”

The SWAT officer took out his automatic. “Will you just stand aside, please, sir? We have to get in there and deal with this maniac fast.”

George Thousand Names raised his arms, blocking the front door. “You don't understand, you'll
die!
Please let me get in there! I beg you!”

“Will you
move!
” ordered the SWAT officer.

But as he came forward to push George Thousand Names out of the way, the old Indian reached into his open-necked shirt and produced his golden amulet. I saw it flash momentarily, and then I didn't seem to see anything at all. The next thing I knew, we were still standing on the porch but George Thousand Names had gone. The SWAT officer turned to Lieutenant Stroud and blinked, and they both turned and looked at me.

“Where'd he go? He just vanished!”

A frowning SWAT officer called from the sidewalk, “He just walked in there, sir. You let him.”

“I
let
him?”

“Yes, sir. You lowered your gun and let him go.”

The SWAT leader frowned at Lieutenant Stroud suspiciously, but then there was another rumbling crash from inside the house, and a sudden hot wind sprang up, howling and shrieking, and sending grit and dust spraying out of the door. All of us dived back from the doorway, and the SWAT officer took cover down behind the porch steps.

“Right!” he yelled. “We're going in!”

There was another explosion, another burst of power, and I was sure that George Thousand Names must have been hurt. But there was nothing I could do except crouch down by the front gate and pray. Jane was up there, too, and Bear Maiden or not, she was the girl I used to love. I glanced up at the house, and the gray birds were turning and swooping excitedly, as if they expected a feast of death.

The SWAT team scrambled through the moaning wind into the hallway, and hit the floor with their guns held up toward the stairs. More splintered glass flew around them, and one of them cried out as his hand was cut open.

The leader raised his arm, ready to signal an assault on the stairs, but at that moment George Thousand Names appeared through the blizzarding debris, and he was carrying something on his back.

“Hold your fire!” bellowed the SWAT leader, although none of his officers looked as if they had any inclination to shoot.

I couldn't see what was happening very well from my position by the gate. Maybe the SWAT men saw better than I did, although they never admitted it. But I was sure that George Thousand Names wasn't
walking
down those stairs at all. There seemed to be a curious radiance around him, and he was
floating
. He was carrying Jane on his back, not as a bear, but as a girl, slumped and naked over his shoulders.

“What did I tell you,” muttered the Italian medic. “A
bare
maiden.”

George came across the hall and I swear that I saw an inch of daylight under his feet. His head was raised serene and proud, the head of an Indian who had known magical days when the grasses spoke and the tribes were closest of all to the great spirit. He was sixty years old and more, and there was no way that he could have carried Jane like that, no way at all, down the stairs and across the hall, with his back so straight and his face so calm. At that moment, he was the holy vessel of the powers of Gitche Manitou, who looks after all his servants, even those who are deaf to his whispers in the prairie winds.

As George Thousand Names floated out of the front door, all hell broke out behind him. The house seemed to shriek in anger, and I saw the floorboards literally boiling upward and the walls rush together in one hideous spray of plaster and wood. The SWAT men were caught right in the middle of it, and I saw one of them smashed through a solid oak door. The crowds in the street shouted and shrieked, and ran back in terror.

George Thousand Names knelt down beside me, letting Jane slide off his back. She was bruised badly, and there was a red weal across her stomach, but she was still in her deep trance, and still unhurt.

It was George who worried me right then. I looked up at him and he was shivering and sweating, and his face was blue.

“George, we'll get you a doctor,” I insisted.

He shook his head. “There's nothing you can do now. I'm too old for that kind of trick. Too much out of practice. You need strength, you see, mental strength, and I suddenly realized how little I had. We've grown soft, you know, John. Even the best of us. There was a time when men could fly like eagles. But not now. I'm done for, John. I'm truly done for.”

“George, listen, you're going to be fine. Just rest right now and tell me what I have to do.”

He was breathing in husky, painful gasps. “Take Bear Maiden with you. Until I die, she'll stay in that trance. Take her down to the Golden Gate. See if you—see if you can bargain with Coyote—but don't let him get the hair—don't let him—”

He collapsed and fell to the side of the porch steps in a heavy coma. An ambulance team were already running across the road toward us, and I said, “Quick, please, he's had a heart attack.”

I pulled one of the blankets off their stretcher and wrapped it clumsily around Jane's naked body. Then I dragged her out of the front gate, past the milling crowds of police and SWAT officers and bystanders, and over to a yellow Pinto that was parked across the street. The keys were still in the ignition, so I wrestled Jane's limp arms and legs and blanket-wrapped body into the passenger seat, climbed in myself, and started the motor.

I took a last look at 1551. It seemed to be quiet now, a collapsed shell of a house. But the gray birds were still circling around it, and as I signaled to pull away from the curb I saw a dim reddish light penetrating through the dark clouds of dust that still rose upward from its sagging roof.

Then, hanging in the grimy air itself, enormous and terrifying, I saw the evil wolfish form of the demon Coyote, his face drawn back in a savage grin, the same face that I had seen on the doorknocker but magnified beyond the realms of nightmares. He was cloaked in birds and darkness, and the ground shook and cracked under his malevolent power.

The street was suddenly clattering with the sound of running feet. The crowds were rushing down toward Mission Street, away from the sinister apparition that hung over the house on Pilarcitos, and they were screaming and shrieking and dragging their children with them. Even the police and the SWAT officers were running. I pulled the Pinto away from the curb, and sped down to the corner as fast as I safely could.

I turned north on Mission, toward Van Ness and the bridge. I didn't have any idea what I could possibly do to prevent Coyote from stealing back Big Monster's hair, or how I could bargain with him, but that's what George Thousand Names had told me to do, and at least I was going to have a try. My heart was racing, and I was breathing like an Olympic runner, and all the time I was willing myself not to look back.