The manitou (20 page)

I turned, I
rolled over, and I hurled the typewriter toward the magic gateway and the dim
outline of the Star Beast. Like everything else in this occult environment, it
flew in a long slow motion arc, turning over and over as it flew, and it seemed
to take an age to reach the circle.

I didn’t know
what was going to happen. I just lay there, frozen stiff and bunched up like a
fetus, waiting for the moment when the tumbling typewriter would reach the
Beast. I think I closed my eyes; I might even have slept for a moment. When
you’re freezing cold, all you can think of is sleep, and warmth, and giving in.

The typewriter
reached the restless outline of the Star Beast, and then something
extraordinary happened. In a glittering burst of metal and plastic, the
typewriter exploded, and for a vivid second I saw something within that
explosion. It vanished without a trace, but it was like an aggressive
disembodied snarl. It had no shape and no form at all, but it left a fading
mental image on the back of my eye, like a flash photograph taken in the dark.

The Star Beast
cringed. Its serpentine coils and clouds seemed to roll back on themselves,
like a ghostly sea anemone. The mournful wind rose and fell in an odd,
disturbed shriek, and I knew that if I was ever going to get away, it would
have to be now. I heaved myself on to my feet, and scrambled for the door. I
didn’t look back, but I almost collided with Singing Rock, and the next thing I
knew I was sitting blindly in the corridor outside, and the door was firmly
shut.

Singing Rock
was making protective signs on the door to keep Misquamacus temporarily
imprisoned.

“You’re crazy”
said Singing Rock. “You’re absolutely crazy!”

I rubbed the
melting frost from my hair. “I’m still alive, though. And I did have a go at
Misquamacus.”

Singing Rock
shook his head. “You didn’t stand a chance. If I hadn’t bombarded Misquamacus
with protective spells, you’d have been fried fish by now.”

I coughed, and
looked up. “I know that, Singing Rock, and thanks. But I still had to try it.
Jesus, that Star Beast is so cold. I feel like I just walked twenty miles in a
blizzard.” Singing Rock stood up and looked through the door. “Misquamacus doesn’t
seem to be moving. The Beast is gone now. I think it’s time we got out of here
ourselves.”

“What are we
going to do?” I asked, as Singing Rock helped me on to my feet. “More to the
point – what do you think Misquamacus is going to do?”

Singing Rock
shone the flashlight behind us for a brief instant, just to make sure that we
weren’t being followed. Then he said: “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what
Misquamacus is up to, and I think the best thing we can do is get ourselves out
of here. If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, life is going to become
distinctly unhealthy around here.”

“But we can’t
just leave him.”

“I don’t know
what else we can do. He’s not making his magic as consistently and strongly as
he should, but he’s still too powerful to touch.”

We walked
quickly down the corridors toward the elevator. It was dark and silent on the
tenth floor, but our footsteps seemed muffled, like men running on soft grass.
I was panting by the time we reached the last corner, and saw the welcome door
of the elevator, still open and waiting for us. I dislodged my shoes from the
door, and we pressed the button for eighteen. We lay back against the elevator
walls in relief, and felt ourselves being carried upward to safety.

There was quite
a reception committee waiting for us when we stepped out into the bright light
of the eighteenth floor. Dr. Winsome had called in the police, and there were
eight or nine armed officers standing around among the doctors and male nurses.
The newspapers were there, too, and CBS
television were
just setting up their cameras. As we emerged from the elevator, there was a
hubbub of questions and exclamations, and it was all I could do to push my way
through.

Jack Hughes was
sitting in the corner with his hand heavily bandaged. He looked pale and sick,
and there was a male nurse with him, but he had obviously refused to be sent
off the battlefield.

“How is it?” he
asked me. “What’s happening down there?”

Dr. Winsome,
redder than ever, pushed his way forward and said: “I had to call the police,
Mr.

Erskine. It
seems to me there are people’s lives at risk. I had to do it for the safety of
all concerned. This is Lieutenant Marino, and I think he wants to ask you some
questions.”

Behind Dr.
Winsome, I saw the now-familiar face of Lieutenant Marino, with his hard smile
and his brush-cut hair. I waved, and he nodded back.

“Mr. Erskine,”
he said, pushing his way closer. There were five or six newspaper reporters
clustered all around us, with their notebooks out, and the television people
had just switched on their glaring lights. “I just want to know a few details,
Mr. Erskine.”

“Can we talk
somewhere private?” I asked. “This is hardly the place.”

Lieutenant
Marino shrugged. “The
press are
going to get hold of
it sooner or later. Just tell us what’s going on. Dr. Winsome here says you
have a violent patient. Apparently he’s already killed one man, injured this
doctor here, and he’s planning to kill some more.”

I nodded.
“That’s true, in a way.”

“In a way?
What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s not
exactly a patient
And
he didn’t kill that man in the
normal sense of murdering him.

Look – it’s
impossible telling you now. Let’s find ourselves a private office or
something.”

Marino looked
around at the press and the TV cameras and the policemen and medics, and said:

“Okay, if it’s
going to make it easier. Dr. Winsome – is there an office we can use?”

The press
groaned in disappointment, and started to argue about their right to know the
facts, but Lieutenant Marino was firm. I called Singing Rock, and together we
locked ourselves with Lieutenant Marino and his deputy, Detective Narro, in a
ward nurse’s office. The press clustered around the door outside, and we spoke
quickly and quietly so that they wouldn’t hear.

“Lieutenant,” I
said, “we have a very difficult situation here and I don’t know how to explain
it to you.”

Lieutenant
Marino parked his feet on the desk and took out a Lark.

“Try me,” he
said, lighting up.

“Well, it’s
like this. The man down there on the tenth floor is a homicidal maniac. He’s a
Red Indian, and he’s seeking revenge on the whites.”

Lieutenant
Marino coughed. “Go on,” he said patiently.

“The only
problem is
,
he’s not a normal man. He has certain
powers and abilities that ordinary people don’t have.”

“Able to leap
tall buildings at a single bound?” asked Lieutenant Marino.
“Faster
than a speeding bullet?”

Singing Rock
laughed, without amusement “You’re nearer to the truth than you think,
Lieutenant.”

“You mean you
got Superman down there?
Or Super Redskin?”

I sat up,
trying my darnedest to look sincere and believable.

“It sounds
ludicrous, Lieutenant, but that’s almost what we do have. The Red Indian down
there is a medicine man, and he’s using his magical powers in order to seek his
revenge. Singing Rock here is a medicine man himself, of the Sioux, and he’s
been helping us cope. He’s already saved several lives, and I think you ought
to listen to what he has to say.”

Lieutenant
Marino took his feet off the desk and turned around to look at Singing Rock. He
puffed at his cigarette for a few moments, and then he said: “Some detectives
like wacky cases, you know. I mean, some detectives go out of their way to
solve these real eccentric mysteries, and stuff like that. Do you know what I
like? I like open-and-shut homicides.
Victim, motive, weapon,
conviction.
So do you know what I get? Wacky cases, that’s what I get.”

Singing Rock
raised his lacerated cheek “Does that look wacky?” he asked Lieutenant Marino
quietly. Lieutenant Marino said nothing, and shrugged.

Singing Rock
said: “I’m going to tell you this straight because we don’t have very much
time, and even if you don’t believe me now, you will when things start to
happen. My friend here is right.

The man
downstairs is a Red Indian medicine man. I won’t stretch your imagination too
far and tell you how he got here, or what he’s doing on the tenth floor of a
private hospital, but I can tell you that his powers are quite real, and highly
dangerous.”

“Is he armed?”
asked Detective Narro, a young, neatly dressed cop in a blue suit and blue
check shirt.

“Not with
guns,” said Singing Rock. “He doesn’t need to be. His magical powers are far
more effective than guns. What’s more, your guns will be quite useless against
him, and potentially dangerous to yourselves. If I can’t impress anything else
on you, let me convince you of that.

Please – no
guns.”

Lieutenant
Marino raised his eyebrows. “What do you suggest we use as an alternative –
bows and arrows?”

Singing Rock
frowned. “Your humor is a little out of line, lieutenant. There’s nothing funny
about what’s happening downstairs, and you’re going to need all the help and
all the information you can get.”

“Well,” said
Lieutenant Marino, “what is happening downstairs?”

“It’s not easy
to understand,” said Singing Rock. “I’m not even sure of this myself. But
here’s the way I read it right now. Misquamacus, the medicine man, is preparing
a magical gateway to summon Red Indian demons and spirits from the other side.”

“The other side of what?”

“The other side of physical existence.
The
spirit world.
He’s already managed to conjure up the Star Beast, which
is
the servant and messenger of the Great Hierarchy of Red
Indian demons.

Mr. Erskine
here – well, he saw the Star Beast with his own eyes, and nearly died.”

Lieutenant
Marino said: “Is that true, Mr. Erskine?”

I nodded. “It’s
true. I swear it. Look at the state of my hands.”

Lieutenant
Marino peered at my blue and blotchy patches of frostbite and said nothing.

Singing Rock
said: “It isn’t easy for any medicine man to conjure up beings from beyond.

They’re
pitiless, dangerous and powerful. Most of the greater beings from Red Indian
history are sealed off from us by ancient locks and spells that were imposed on
them before the white man even placed one foot on our continent. The medicine
men who locked them away in the spirit world were masters of their craft, and
there isn’t a single spiritual wonder-worker alive today who can match them.
That’s why these manitous are so perilous. If Misquamacus releases them, there
is no one who can send them back. I’m not even sure that Misquamacus could send
them
back
himself.”

Detective Narro
was confused. He said: “These beings – do you mean they’re hiding in the
building?”

Singing Rock
shook his head. “They are all around us. In the air we breathe.
In the woods and rocks and trees.
Everything has its
manitou, its spirit. There are the natural manitous of the skies and the earth
and the rains, and there are manitous in everything that is made or created by
man.

Every Indian
lodge had its manitou; every Indian weapon had its manitou. Why do some bows
shoot straight and others crooked? It depends on the faith of the man who holds
the bow, and the sympathy he has for the manitou of his weapon. That is why
your guns would be so dangerous to you. A gun has a manitou, according to
whatever faith and craft has been invested in it, but your men do not believe
that, and the manitous of their own weapons could quite easily be turned
against them.”

Lieutenant
Marino was still listening, but he was looking more and more miserable with
every word that Singing Rock spoke. Detective Narro was trying to keep up with
it, but it was plain that he believed that Misquamacus was a criminal maniac
with a hidden gang. In Detective Narro’s life, spirits and insubstantial shades
from nether worlds just didn’t exist. I wished to God that they didn’t exist in
mine.

Singing Rock
said: “From the gateway that Misquamacus is preparing, I think that he is
calling on the most terrible of all spirits, the Great Old One.”

Lieutenant
Marino said: “The Great Old One? Who is the Great Old One?”

“He is the
equivalent to your Satan, or Devil. Gitche Manitou is the great spirit of life
and Red Indian creation, but the Great Old One is his constant enemy. There are
many accounts of the Great Old One in ancient Indian writings, although none of
them agree what he looked like, or how he could be summoned. Some say he looked
like a huge toad, the size of several pigs, and others say he looked like a
cloud with a face made of snakes.”

Lieutenant
Marino sniffed.
“Kind of hard to send out an APB on that
description.”

Singing Rock
nodded. “You wouldn’t get the opportunity, Lieutenant. The Great Old One is the
most ravenous and hideous of all demons. I have said that he’s like your Satan;
but Satan, by comparison, is a gentleman. The Great Old One is a being of
infinite cruelty and malevolence.”

There was a
long silence. Finally, Lieutenant Marino stood up, and adjusted his revolver in
his belt. Detective Narro closed his notebook and buttoned up his coat.

“Thank you for
your information and your assistance,” said Lieutenant Marino. “Now I think
we’ll go catch ourselves a homicide.” Singing Rock said: “Lieutenant – you’re
not taking your gun?”

Marino simply
smiled. “Your stories about demons and all that stuff are very imaginative, Mr.