Primal Fear (32 page)

And that had to be now, before anything else could go wrong.

She twisted the detonator’s handle with all her strength, heard it click securely into its armed position.

For one sickening instant, nothing happened, nothing at all.  She remembered Harry worrying that the explosives might be no good, made useless by age and exposure.  But then a sudden thump in the carcass of the house pushed away her fear and she turned on her heel as quickly as she could, letting the detonator fall from her hands.

A second blast came then, this one stronger, rooted closer to the cellar door.  The force of the blow lifted her off her feet, hurled her through the air to crash down onto the snow-covered earth five yards away.

Laurie coughed, gasping for air.  She rolled onto her back, staring back at a darkening sky that had suddenly come alive with the orange glow of firelight.

Harry looked back at the house just in time to witness the first blast.  It reached him on a rolling wave of hot air, strong enough to push him flat onto his back beside John.  He covered his eyes, trying to shut out the blinding light of the flash, hearing the second and third explosions before the echo of the first had even died away in his ears. 

The explosions came in quick succession, each one shaking the ground beneath him.  The wind blew hot with each concussion, warming his face, blinding his eyes.

But he looked up anyway and watched the flames grow higher against the darkening sky.

He stared into the heart of the blaze, centering his gaze on the flames, on what was burning within them.  Harry sensed movement there, a hint of life beyond the wall of fire.  He squinted against the glare, his eyes spitting tears, his body protesting against the sudden flux of heat.

The tupilaq rose into view, its body engulfed in flames, wood and bone burning as equals.  It took another lumbering step towards the edge of the blaze, its body still intact, its movement unimpeded.

And then it stepped out of the wreckage and into the yard, leaving the debris behind just as the house collapsed completely into the bowels of the cellar with the final explosion.

It was coming for them, and there wasn’t a thing that Harry could do to stop it.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Harry stared back at the advancing demon, for the moment unable to even form a coherent thought, let alone a plan of escape.  Something about the image of the beast—its towering form clothed in flames, approaching relentlessly through the swirling snowfall—made him understand the terror Jha-Laman’s enemies must have felt when they first saw this thing bearing down on them more than two centuries ago. 

He turned to John, fell to his knees beside him in the snow and shook him.

John didn’t respond immediately, his wounds so severe that for a moment Harry was sure he’d never come out of it at all.  He’d go to the hospital this way, unconscious, unmoving, and that was how he would die.

But then John’s eyes fluttered open and focused on Harry.  His expression was laced with pain, his face streaked with blood.

“What happened?  Did we do it?”

Harry shook his head.  “It’s coming.  It’s coming for us right now.  Look.”

He lifted John’s head, leaning back just enough to give John a glimpse of the approaching beast.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit is right.  What can we do?  What’s left to try?”

“There’s nothing.  Nothing we . . . can do.”

“John, listen to me, there’s got to be something we haven’t tried, something you haven’t thought of yet—”

“No.  If I had . . . had the time, I might . . . be able to find something . . .”

“If you’re going to find something, you’d better find it now.  In a couple of minutes it’ll be right on top of us.”

Harry’s anger was starting to flare.  He’d been through too much in the past few days to let it end this way.  There was no way in hell he was going to give up now.

“Listen to me,” he said, “I know you don’t have your bag of tricks to back you up, but I still think you’ve got it in you to fight this thing.  You said yourself that sometimes true belief can be stronger than any magic.  Let’s see it.  Otherwise, you’d better start saying your prayers.”

“True belief . . . without the strength to support it . . . it’s still only true belief, Harry.  My father believed his whole life and in the end . . .”

John seemed to lose his stream of thought, as if something had distracted him.  Harry prayed that it wasn’t the shock of his wounds, or that his body wasn’t giving up on him.

But then he spotted something in John’s eyes, the spark of an idea, perhaps, or maybe the faintest glimmer of hope.

“You okay?”

“My father,” John whispered.  “I saw him . . . I saw his face . . .”

Harry frowned.  John was losing it, slipping into delirium.

He looked over his shoulder, back toward the burning house, toward the monstrous shadow that moved in front of it.

John let the thought come slowly, understanding that if he tried to seize it too quickly, it would slip away.  It had already threatened to do just that, spinning wildly away toward the blackness that seemed to be creeping in from every side.

His father’s face, just as he’d seen it in the vision Mahuk had shown him in his hospital room.  The image of it floated in his mind’s eye, the familiar features draped in shadow, the lips moving around words John couldn’t hear, couldn’t make out.  At first he’d thought it was only one of his own memories, a glimpse into his past, born of guilt, inspired by his confusion at Mahuk’s bedside.  But now it made a terrible, simple form of sense, one that seemed obvious to him in a sudden flash of perfect understanding.

It hadn’t only been meant to represent his father.  The vision had meant more than that.  It was his lineage he was thinking of now, his people, the strength of their belief.  The power of their complete conviction in what they’d been taught, what they’d been raised to believe without question.  Just as he’d been raised.

“My father,” he whispered.  “My people . . .” 

He looked up and saw Harry watching him.  “I know what to do,” John told him.  “There’s one thing left to try . . .”

*     *     *     *     *

Harry stared at John, surprised he’d managed to pull himself back from the brink once again.  He was clearly well beyond the task Harry expected of him, his broken body incapable of anything more than the simplest movements.  Worst of all, they both knew it.  But despite the pain, despite the hopelessness of their situation, there seemed to be a new spark of determination in John’s eyes.  There was a flash of confidence burning in them now, as if John had just come upon a path they’d previously overlooked.

“How strong are your own beliefs, Harry?” he asked softly.  “Are you . . . willing to put as much stock in them as you . . . want me to put in mine?  No guns.  No weapons.  No trinkets.”

“Yeah.  I’m willing.”  Harry considered the question, looking into his own heart, measuring his own sense of self-doubt.  “Is that what it comes down to?”

“I think . . . that’s what it’s always come down to.  And I’m finally starting to understand that.”

Behind them, the demon began to howl, a sound unlike anything Harry had ever heard before.  He felt the short hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, his scalp tingling with fear as he realized the demon would be upon them in just a few minutes.

John seemed to realize this as well and went to work.  Gripping both of Harry’s hands as tightly as he could, he closed his eyes and began a slow murmuring chant.  The words themselves were meaningless to Harry, but all at once he thought he knew what John was up to.

He let his own eyes fall closed, hoping the simple act of his concentration would help.  If there was any magic to be shared in their effort, he silently prayed that it would be enough.

“Atae,” John called softly.  “T’lun yte jul’an Atae . . .”

Harry felt a sudden darkness cross his thoughts, but he didn’t fight it, didn’t try to push it away.  This time, he let it come.

John’s eyes snapped open.  They glittered with strength, with a fierce intelligence that Harry knew could not be human.  Whatever peered out now from behind his eyes was far more powerful than any mortal man could ever hope to be.  And it stared back at him for what seemed like forever, sizing him up, staring into the deepest currents of his soul.

His first instinct was to back away, to close his thoughts to this terrible invasion, just as John had told him to at the edge of the quarry while he’d held the P’oh Tarhei for the very first time.  But he resisted his own fear, letting down his defenses.

He felt a sudden warmth in his hands, flowing out of John’s body like the sweet power of life.  It swept up along his arms, his skin prickling as the sensation spread.  He felt his doubt ebbing, his fears driven away like smoke in the wind.  And through it all, a tiny part of his mind remained completely aware of his own presence here.

There was something moving into him, stretching out within him, trying on his skin like a new article of clothing.  It bristled with inhuman strength, but it didn’t overwhelm him.  Instead, it shared his thoughts and instincts, merging perfectly with his own emotions, reinforcing his own strengths while his weaknesses melted away.  Never again would he feel such perfect fortitude, he knew, once this force abandoned him.  Never again would his thoughts ring with such clarity or his mind see with such clear vision. 

But none of that mattered.  Not here.  Not now.

Now was the moment of possession.  Now was the time of merging.  Ancient power to modern flesh, timeless belief to contemporary faith, tempered in the fire of his heart to fight an evil created by nature and set loose by man.

Harry stared back at John, saw that the brightness was leaving his eyes, the power he’d summoned leaving his broken body to enter Harry’s. 

John smiled, a tired grin of triumph.

“Atae,” he whispered, “help us . . .”

Deep inside, Harry felt something respond, a shifting of limitless power, and he let it command him completely.  Words filled his head, words from a language he’d never known before but didn’t challenge now.  Their power swept through him, touching every cell, every fiber of his being.  He surrendered himself to them, letting them guide his limbs, his thoughts.

He rose to his feet, turning towards the approaching demon with fire in his veins, light within his heart.  And for the first time, he faced Wyh-heah Qui Waq without an ounce of fear.

*     *     *     *     *

John watched Harry turn away with a sigh of exhaustion.  He’d given up everything he had left to give, every vestige of strength left in his body and his soul.  But he’d succeeded.  That was all that mattered.

The power of Atae had responded to his call, filled him for one brief moment with a wonderful sense of warmth, with an invincible strength he’d almost been unwilling to give up.  But the urgency of the situation had conquered his own feelings of self-preservation and he’d relented, letting Atae pass through him, guiding it into Harry’s body as carefully and as quickly as he could.

He could feel the coldness returning to his body, the gnawing pain of his injuries rising once again to torment him.

And he felt himself slipping away, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.  He peered up once more and saw that Harry’s right eye had gone completely white.

He closed his eyes and let the darkness engulf him.

Just beneath the surface of his own thoughts, Harry could feel yet another presence, one that ignited a curious sense of familiarity.  He struggled to identify the recognition, but then realized that it wasn’t his at all.

It was the other spirit, the one called Atae, the one John had invoked and passed into him.  It was Atae who recognized this second being.  But how?  And what other soul had infiltrated his thoughts so quickly, so easily?

And then he knew. 

Mahuk.

The answer came without hesitation as some furtive contact was made between the three of them.  The old shaman Mahuk, dead now but not beyond the reach of the spirits.  Atae had somehow called up the old man’s soul, pulled it into Harry’s body, drawing the shaman’s knowledge and power into their single unified form.

John hadn’t just called upon the strength of the spirits.  He’d called up the strength of his heritage, of his lineage.

Harry stared up at the beast and felt his arms rising at his sides.  He didn’t challenge the motion, understanding its necessity, accepting his role in the ceremony. 

He was more than just a simple puppet, more than just a solid form to be moved at the will of the spirits.  He was a conduit for their power, a component as vital to the rite as the ancient liturgies behind it.  Without him, without his surrender, the ritual could not be performed, the demon could not be turned away.

The words came next, spilling from his mouth as if he’d learned them by rote.  His tongue formed them with the ease of familiarity, his voice strong and brimming with confidence.

He welcomed the strange phrases, and this time understanding came with them.  Through some unknown side effect of his link with Mahuk and Atae, his spirit guide, the meaning of the archaic words was now entirely clear to him.

Words of exorcism and expulsion, of fire and steel; words of exile and repulsion, patterned ages ago to fight an evil as ancient as nature itself.  He set them loose against the demon, screaming them into the rising wind as loudly as he could, letting the rhythm of the ceremony guide his voice.

The beast reared up before him, its huge mouth opening to reveal row upon row of twisted fangs.  Originally carved from wood, they now had changed to bone, just as its face was changing, just as its body had already begun to refashion itself into this ravenous, unstoppable creature.  It glared back at Harry through eyes as black as pitch, eyes that seemed immune to the laws of light and darkness, sunken so deeply into their sockets it was almost impossible to tell they were there at all.  A pair of twisted horns protruded from either side of its head, turned downward and then back toward its skull, their spiny points jutting out over the back of the tupilaq’s shoulders.

Harry sucked in a deep breath, delivering the words that still came to him without effort.  He felt the first whisper of fear beneath his thoughts, a fear that was swept aside just as quickly as it had appeared.  It was driven away by the power that coursed through his body and seethed behind his flesh, a power he could feel steadily growing.

And yet the demon still moved toward him, driven by instinct, by the pure, primal hunger to destroy.  It crashed through the snow, limbs of bone and wood engulfed in flames.  The fire was taking its toll on the tupilaq’s form, doing more damage than Harry had thought possible at first.  Still, he took little comfort in the fact that the explosives—to some degree, at least—had served their purpose.  They’d been meant to destroy the demon’s new physical form.  But now, only twenty feet away from him, it seemed as though nothing would stop it. 

Harry fought to dampen his own thoughts, to push his doubt aside completely, unwilling to do anything that might weaken the magic pouring through him.  He didn’t want to take the risk of interrupting the ritual, didn’t want to damage the hold of the spirits over his body.  But if Mahuk’s magic didn’t turn the tides soon, then all the power in the world wouldn’t be able to help him.  The demon would be upon him; the ritual would be brought to a swift and bloody end.