And The Devil Will Drag You Under (1979) (34 page)

She was sobbing now, and sank back down for a moment. He let her be by herself as he tried to imagine what it had been like.

Suddenly she flared up at him. "Why couldn't you have gotten here sooner?" she almost screamed at him. "Why did you take so long?"

He hadn't known that a vampire could become sick to his stomach.

"Because I was afraid," he half whispered in reply. "Because I had thought so much of getting this jewel, had gone through so many close shaves, that I didn't think when I should have. Call me tired, call me stupid, anything you want-but blame me, Jill, not yourself."

She snorted in self-derision. "No, Mac. Thanks for trying, but I have to face it myself. I-I just couldn't trust you to get the jewel where I'd failed. I didn't think you could do it, and so I didn't wait for you. I should have remembered you could work only at night. I should have remembered that you got two of them yourself, as I did. I should have waited." She looked up at him again.

"You got the jewel too late, didn't you? You had to get back to your grave or whatever. I understand."

He put his arm around her and pulled her to her feet. "We'll share the blame on this one," he said kindly. "I just didn't comprehend fully what they were making you do. You see, when I got back it was daylight. I didn't know how far into the day it was-but it might have been only a little bit. We're in the West, aren't we?"

"Somewhere near where Denver should be."

He nodded glumly. "So take your guilt and live with it, as I must. I should have gambled. I should have returned not to Chicago but to you, here, in the West, where it might not have been sunup yet."

She sighed. "We'll never know, will we? We'll just have to live with it."

He nodded again. "Want to go now? I think we'd better put a move on. If the deaths of these people are to make any sense at all, have any purpose at all, we must save our own world."

She hesitated a moment. "No, there's one more thing that has to be taken care of now.
Two
things." She turned and yelled toward the gate, "Sound as-sembly just inside the gate! I want everyone there except the medical people!"

Horns blew and were answered by other horns and by their echoes. The women of O'Malley's magically created force started to move toward them from all over the valley.

Mac was puzzled. "What . . . ?" was all he could manage.

She smiled bitterly. "We had completed our conquest by two this afternoon, canvassed and checked the last of the valley people by four. But I didn't im-mediately summon O'Malley to transfer the place and demand payment. Know why?"

He shook his head, completely confused.

"The spell on this place was firm: no man could pass that gate or its border so long as one born in the valley lived." She pointed back at the castle, almost invisible to her in the gathering darkness. "Up there was Constanza's headquarters, and the gateway for a monstrous evil, an alien intelligence that is the enemy of humanity on all levels," she told him. "O'Malley is a traitor to all of us. He serves the enemy. He was trying to open that gate, to let those alien horrors in, when he was fouled up. He was called away and, while away, was kept out by the spell. He expected to use me to get back to that gate, to open it, to unleash that alien power back into human levels where it could get all of us. He mustn't be allowed back. None of his kind must be allowed back."

Mac was still confused, although what she told him explained a little of Theritus's pure terror.

"But I still don't see ..." he began, but she cut him off.

"I called O'Malley just before you arrived," she told him. "I think he's coming now-see the torches and coaches? That's the whole Constanza party. Just lie back in the shadows and let me do what I have to do."

He was more confused than ever and felt more helpless. His sense of accomplishment, of victory, had been dashed by this massacre and the guilt it engen-dered. Now here he was, the object in his pocket, ready to go back and proclaim total victory-and he was a helpless bystander to events happening around him.

We've saved the world-our world!
he told himself.
Then why do I suddenly feel like I've lost
the game?

O'Malley led the procession, a look of total satisfac-tion on his face. Constanza followed on a magnificent palomino, also looking well satisfied. Jill stood in the middle of the road, just meters from the ancient gate, and they halted in front of her.

"By right of conquest, I give this land to you," she told them. "All who inhabited it have been slain."

O'Malley nodded. "I'm aware of that. I have a peculiar-er-sensitivity to these people. There is no more life force of the Elder Gods present, only ordi-nary people, the ones you brought in with you. You have fulfilled your end of the bargain."

She smiled evilly at him, and something in her eyes shouted the hate and contempt she felt for him. "And now I will take my reward!" she responded.

O'Malley looked slightly puzzled and bemused. "Why, you've already got it!" he answered.

"Your man, or whatever he is, got it last night! He's here, outside the gate-I sense his alien presence, and the presence of the jewel."

"But you didn't pay me with it-he took it!" Jill pointed out. "That was not our bargain!"

O'Malley suddenly seemed disturbed; Constanza's look of utter confusion matched Mac's in the shadows. Neither man knew what the hell was going on here, yet both had the feeling something very important was.

"The terms," she taunted the sorcerer. "Remember the terms? I'll quote them to you from memory. They were: `You shall accept command of the forces that I shall place at your disposal; you shall lead them where I direct, and you shall besiege the Citadel that I designate. Not one human life shall you order spared; you shall order the death of all humans inside the com-pound, and you shall see that it is carried out. Once it is, you shall summon me by stating my name three times at the gates.' " She paused and stared up at him. "This I have done to the letter," she pointed out. "But that was only one side. You then said, Ìf you do this, I will deliver unto you the jewel which you seek to use as you see fit.' That was the bargain. I have done my half. You must now do yours! I demand it!"

O'Malley now looked nervous, even frightened. He fumbled at his collar as if to loosen his tie, and sweat started beading up all along his forehead.

"Just wait a minute!" he protested. "You tricked me! You know what I meant!"

A grin was on her face now, but it held no humor, only satisfaction.

"A bargain is a bargain," she taunted. "How many bargains have you made and then welched on because of trickery or semantics, O'Malley? Hundreds, I'll bet. Maybe thousands! When you make a compact with the devil, you had better beware the fine print!"

Mac looked at the sorcerer, his first real look at him in person. There was real fear there, the same kind of abject terror he'd seen on the face of Theritus.

"Fulfill your bargain or forfeit!" Jill McCulloch de-manded.

"I can't! You know that, you bitch!" shrieked the sorcerer. "Let me go! Anything! I'll give you anything! Anything you want! Name it! You are already a god-dess-I'll make you Queen of the world! Name it! Limitless power! Yours!" He was babbling incoherently now, frantic, and suddenly he looked up into the darkness, up and around, as if seeing hundreds of dark and shapeless horrors all around him.

And there
was
something there. The horses stirred nervously, and the air seemed to thicken into something solid, something indefinable and yet a
presence,
an alien presence they could all feel rather than see.

Mac strained in the darkness, trying to see with his perfect night vision what the wizard saw, but there was nothing-just true living blackness, impenetrable even to his vampire's sight.

"I want you to present me with the jewel!" Jill screamed at O'Malley. "Fulfill or forfeit! I demand my payment now!"

There
were
shapes there, Mac was sure of it. Shapes of-what? He strained, but all he could make out was vagueness, hundreds of bubblelike shapes that wouldn't stay in focus long enough for him to determine what they really represented.

Constanza had moved back, far away from the sorcerer, as had the whole party.

And now came the voices from the blackness, a weird, alien piping sound that could not be made by anything in their experience. Hundreds-no, thou-sands-of piping alien things all crying out,
"Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"

They closed in on O'Malley, who still sat atop his saddle, paralyzed by a fear greater than any that the watchers had ever seen or known.

The dark shapes closed in on him as he stared in horror, shouting, "No! No! Master!
la!
la!

Yog-Sothoth!
Protect thy servant! Oh, no!
Please! No!
Must thy honor cost your faithful servant?

No! Please!"

The shapes touched him; even his horse seemed frozen, a statue. A blue light suddenly surrounded both man and horse; they seemed to turn into a nega-tive image, like that of a photograph, then wink out.

It was over. The blackness receded; the weird, mocking, alien calls withdrew into whatever place be-tween the worlds they dwelt, and all was suddenly quiet. Of horse and rider there remained only a foul putrescence in the center of the road, nothing more.

Everyone was speechless for a moment, all frozen by the drama. All but Jill. She relaxed, and there was a look of almost total satisfaction on her face, a look that seemed to say,
Well, all right,
many good people have died this day, yet their deaths have rid the world of a foul and terrible
threat. They counted. Their deaths mean something now.

Mac understood at last, yet his confusion remained. She could not have known he had the jewel until he'd arrived-yet she had already called O'Malley. This was the frosting on the cake. Jill still had to serve the cake.

Constanza, to his own credit, was the first to recover. He let out a low breath and whistled. "I never trusted that bastard, anyway," he said calmly. He looked down from his horse at Jill, still standing de-fiantly in the road. "Looks like we both win," be said pleasantly, almost cheerfully. "I get my lands back and safety and am rid of a most dangerous man-and you have your precious jewel."

"We have both lost," she responded with equal calmness but no cheer. "I have done something to a good and gentle people that will haunt me. And you shall not regain your lands."

His pleasant, self-satisfied expression faded into stony anger. "Do you think you can stop me?"

he asked haughtily. "My people are already here, having arrived in the last couple of days. I have an
army
here, a trained army, with all that that implies. Your women were good enough for these farmers"-he almost spit the last word-"but against five hundred good, experienced men with machine guns? Don't make me laugh. Stand aside."

Jill's smile of contentment did not disappear. "I will stand aside, man, and none of my force shall molest you or yours in any way." She walked back down the road, passing Mac against the gate, still hidden from general view in the shadows. "Stay here and keep out of sight!" she hissed. "

I'll join you in a minute!"

He shrugged and sighed. He
still
didn't understand what was going on.

Constanza moved forward, his horse skirting the foulness that still remained in the road, Behind him his forces began their descent. He reined up at the outer gate, only meters from the hidden Mac Walters, and dismounted. He was going to do this right-he was going to enter the gates as a conqueror and lord.

He walked up to the opening in the gate and took a step forward.

There was nothing there, yet it was as if he'd struck a barrier of plate glass. He frowned and tried to force his way in. That didn't work. He took out his pistol and beat upon the opening. It gave off no sound, yet it was solid as a rock.

He was furious. "What have you done, you bitch!" he snarled. "I don't know what the hell you're trying to pull, but it won't work! I heard you turn over the lands, and I know they're all dead or O'Malley wouldn't have had'ta die.
What did you do?"

She smiled, facing him just a few meters inside the gate. "Listen well," she told him. "You would have heard it before had we not all been making so much noise. Listen now in the silence of the dead and hear!"

Confused, angry, frustrated, Constanza listened, as did all the others. At first he heard nothing, nothing but the residual noise of the gentle wind through the mountains and the fires of the camp and the torches of his own party. But dimly, through the residual level, he heard it. Heard it and understood.

It was a baby's cry.

"Hear it, Constanza?" she asked him, that satisfied tone still in her voice. "You needed an army of women. One thing about them-they sometimes get together with men and have babies, Constanza. We found her along the march-about to give birth and alone. We waited and prayed that she would
not
give birth early, and then we waited some more after the battle until the child was born. A man-child, Constanza. I filled my end of the bargain to the letter. I killed all within the Citadel. But afterward, yes, af-terward, I brought in my own. The spell is renewed. He lives and cries out his life. Begone, Constanza. There is no opening for you here, no place to hide. Your armies cannot pass, and you have no O'Malley to raise another. Begone! To exile, which you do not deserve, or to prison, which you most surely do.
Exile
is far too lenient for you."

Constanza accepted defeat and stepped back from the barrier no one could see. He fingered his pistol, then aimed it through the gate, at her, and fired before Mac could even act.

Nothing happened to her. She stood there and laughed at him.

He fired again and again and again, frantically, until he was out of bullets. Then he just stood there, dumbfounded.

"It's not that easy, Constanza," she called to him. "If it were, you could have reconquered this land with sharpshooters. The spell is renewed. No man may enter or cause harm to this place. Not even you."