Soulstorm. Part 28

He opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut again. She was still busy with the fire. He concentrated: Can you hear this?

Yes.

But how?

We were not in you before.

In me! McNeely thought in panic.

Do not worry.

What's happening to me? What are you doing?

Just then Gabrielle set down the poker and rejoined him, putting an arm around his waist. He smiled crookedly and she lifted an eyebrow. "Anything wrong?"

"Uh . . . the soup? Stomach's a little funny."

"Oh, thanks a lot. You'd better get used to my cooking."

He heard himself chuckle. "Firing your cooks?"

"I always used to cook. I like to."

"Ah." He nodded, drawing her head down so that it rested on his shoulder and she could not see his face. He tried to keep his mind clear until he felt certain she would not continue the conversation. Then he thought: Why are you in me?

We must be in you when we leave.

Are we leaving then?

Soon. We are coming into you slowly, little by little.

Why not all at once? When we leave?

We entered c.u.mmings all at once. It was too fast.

Why didn't you enter me before?

For a moment there was no response. It had to be of your own free will. Otherwise we could not leave with you.

What if I change my mind when I leave?

We will already be in you. And we will punish you if you do such a thing. And her. A soft breath hissed dreamily in McNeely's mind. She is so warm. Soft.

McNeely almost withdrew his arm from around her. Will you be coming into me from now on? From now until we leave?

Coming into you. It is a suggestive phrase. Coming into you, slowly. Little by little. There was a time when you'd have liked that.

You go to h.e.l.l!

We are h.e.l.l.

There was no more. McNeely thought consciously, but his thoughts brought no response. And he was afraid to think, afraid to plan against them, for now they were in his own headquarters, spies behind every panel, listening to ... what? How deeply could they probe? Could he mix his thoughts as he had done before? Confuse the inner listeners by scrambling the message? And even if he could, could he then uncode it enough for it to make sense to his own waking self?

He felt like a blind madman in a maze with no exit. And the woman he embraced wondered at the unexpected stiffening of the arms that held her, almost as if the man were afraid to move, to breathe, even to think.

Chapter Twenty-two.

By the third ring Simon Renault started to wonder. By the fourth he began to worry. By the sixth small droplets of perspiration dappled his florid complexion. He let it ring five more times before he hung up.

Stop worrying, he told himself. Don't be an old woman. There's certainly a logical reason. Both outside perhaps.

But his specific orders had been to have a man in the cabin at all times. He was not sure of Monckton, but he knew Sterne would never disobey his orders. Unless ...

Unless something more important countermanded them.

The alarm.

He dialed the number again. This time he let it ring only six times before slamming down the receiver. He sat for a minute trying to think, then picked up the receiver and jabbed a b.u.t.ton on his console.

"Yessir?" Harrison's voice, thin and reedy, responded.

"Something's wrong at The Pines," he barked. "There's no answer on the phone."

"Yessir?"

"Can you hear me?"

"Y-yes. Yes sir."

"Good G.o.d! Just shut up then! Call the police at Wilmer. Tell them to get a car up to the cabin right away. And get a Learjet ready for takeoff. I want to leave as quickly as possible."

"Yessir.''

Renault slammed down the phone. "Good G.o.d ..." He threw a few things in the overnight bag he kept at the ready, cursing the luck that made him rush. It was the twenty-eighth of October, and he'd hoped to fly up on the thirtieth, spend the night in Wilmer, and drive to The Pines the following day to be there when the house opened; he'd been calling the cabin to let Sterne know of his arrival. And now this. Scenarios ran through his mind. Fire? Madness? Murder? He hadn't believed anything would happen, but now he was horribly unsure.

He closed his bag, snapped the latches. Then he grabbed the phone again. "Harrison? The plane?"

"The plane will leave in a half hour, Mr. Renault." The voice shook. "Can you be on the heliport roof in five minutes?"

"Of course I can! What about the police?"

"I was just about to call them when you-"

"Do it then!" he yelled, hanging up. He threw his topcoat over his shoulder, grabbed his bag, and rolled his prodigious bulk out of his office past a quivering Harrison, who was frenziedly searching for the correct area code.

Sterne had better either be up at the house or dead, Renault thought grimly. Otherwise he's fired.

Chapter Twenty-three.

Do you want to die so soon?

McNeely shivered. It had been hours since he had heard the voice, hours of white-knuckled fear, with thoughts of escape and betrayal rising involuntarily, only to be pushed down into a mora.s.s of trivia. He could not think of it, he told himself over and over again, and cursed himself for telling himself. And the more he tried not to think of it, the more he did think of it, until he knew the message must be written in fire for the ent.i.ty to see. He repeated nursery rhymes to himself, he did the multiplication tables, he tried to list the t.i.tles of series books he'd read when he was a boy, but through it all, through Mary, Mary, quite contrary, and eight times eight is sixty-four, and Tarzan and the Lion Man and While the Clock Ticked and a hundred others, came the inner scream, How can I stop them!

And now he knew the screams had been heard.

We asked if you wished to die.

No.

You will if you try to betray us. You cannot, you know.

What do you expect of me! His thought burst like a flare. You know I don't want to help you!

You took us of your own free will.

Free will, he thought bitterly.

You must obey. You will not be harmed if you obey. But your treachery makes us uneasy.

McNeely could not help himself. If they're uneasy, he thought consciously, then there's a way to defeat them.

No way, the voice replied, and McNeely's stomach twisted. You will leave the house first, or no one will leave. Condemn yourself, and you condemn her. Banish treachery from your mind.

I can't, he thought involuntarily.

It is easy to obey. Your problem is that you do not want to. The voice paused, then went on while McNeely tried to cleanse his mind of thought. We attempted to teach you, but it seems that you require us to give you a test.

A . . . test.

It will not be difficult. But you must prove to us that you will obey.

What? What do you want me to do?

Kill Kelly Wickstrom.

The knot in McNeely's abdomen tightened and expanded quickly, over and over again, an inner fist flexing. Kill Kelly Wickstrom, he thought, Kill Kelly Wickstrom, and in one moment of disorientation he could not tell the thought-tones of the alien voice from his own.

Kill Kelly Wickstrom. It was the other voice now, low and insistent.

I won't . . . No . . . I won't . . .

You must. Otherwise we will not trust you. Otherwise we will destroy you. All.

I cannot deal with this! McNeely thought with full knowledge that the thing heard all. No one should have to deal with this! And he wondered feverishly what he could say, what arguments he could make against them. If you destroy us all, then all your plans are dead as well. There'll be no one to take you out! You'll have ... you'll have waited all these years, these centuries, for nothing.

We can wait again. And while we wait we will grow stronger. Still more will join us. We can wait.

And McNeely saw the dead souls hovering over Pine Mountain like a thick cloud of darkness, a tornado whose whirling edges expanded ever outward. How far could it go until it touched weak humanity again? Or would it be doomed to remain here no matter how great its numbers became? Could the psychic pinhead hold an infinity of devils?

You will wait with us. As will she.

No! No! And what if he did take it out, what then? Would it prove as strong as it had thought? Or would it find itself weak, shrunken, powerless as a vampire in sunlight? The psychic lodestone that was Pine Mountain kept it here, but what if it had sustained it as well? What if, on taking it out, he would destroy it? It had never been outside, never been set free before.

How do you know? his mind shrieked at it.

There was a silence. And out of it came a sigh that was edged with the slightest note of doubt. No words answered to confirm or deny.

Then very softly the voice spoke. Kill Kelly Wickstrom.

Listen! McNeely thought savagely, grasping at straws. It isn't right! It isn't logical!

How do you mean?

McNeely made his thoughts become slow and methodical, as if explaining to a small child. You are in me. You wish to be in someone else, someone I can reach only through my contact with Gabrielle. Now. My contact depends upon her marrying me. If I kill Wickstrom, that marriage is over before it begins. Don't you see? She'd never marry a murderer!

We have thought of that. You will kill Kelly Wickstrom in self-defense.

Self ...

You will be a hero. You will kill a madman. And only you and we will know that it is murder.

McNeely's mind raced as he tried to sort through the possibilities, knowing that it was listening but unable to stop. Don't want to kill him, don't want to, but he'd die anyway, they'd kill us all, all three of us here forever with them, in agony forever, and Gabrielle what they'd do to Gabrielle, and they'd get out anyway, nothing could stop them, they'd get out, and then if they survived or died either way it would be a waste of our lives, of Gabrielle's I mean. Don't want to kill him, but if I do, then we can leave, Gabrielle and I, and it would get out anyway and maybe it dies if it goes out, maybe it does. It didn't know, it wasn't sure, if it does, then I'd have killed it, destroyed it by taking it out, but to take it out I have to kill Kelly, and can I kill Kelly to kill the thing? Or would it not die at all but get stronger away from here?-did it make me think it doubts to trick me oh Jesus oh Jesus a maze a f.u.c.king labyrinth and if I don't kill him they kill him anyway and Gabrielle with them forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever You must kill him. You can see that.

McNeely nodded. Of my own free will.

Of course.

Then the voice was gone, and McNeely felt suddenly free. He looked up and saw the others. Gabrielle was sitting on one side of the small table, Wickstrom on the other. They were casually studying a chess board that lay between them, its surface covered by gold and silver chess men. How long, he wondered, had they been playing? They'd just finished setting the pieces when the voice had spoken to him. And now Gabrielle lifted her hand and moved a piece. He tilted his head and saw the move.

p.a.w.n to K4. A response to Wickstrom's first move. It had been only seconds. McNeely's carnival of thoughts, his maniacal discussion with the ent.i.ty inside him, had taken only seconds, and he realized that time would not save him. Or Wickstrom.

Then Wickstrom gasped, a sharp inhalation that brought his knees up toward his stomach, striking the underside of the table and throwing the chessmen right and left.