Relic

“Vincent,” came the familiar drawl.

“Pendergast! Where are you?”

“I’m in the basement, Section Twenty-nine. I understand the power is out throughout the Museum, and that we’re trapped inside Cell Two. I’m afraid I’ve got a little more bad news of my own to add. Could you please move to a spot where we can speak privately?”

D’Agosta walked away from the crowd. “What is it?” he asked in a low tone.

“Vincent, listen to me carefully. There is something down here. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big, and I don’t think it’s human.”

“Pendergast, don’t play with me. Not now.”

“Vincent, I’m entirely serious. That isn’t the bad news. The bad news is, it may be headed your way.”

“What do you mean? What kind of animal is it?”

“You’ll know when it’s near. The smell is unmistakable. What kind of weapons do you have?”

“Let’s see. Three twelve gauges, a couple of service revolvers, two shot pistols loaded with capstun. A few odds and ends, maybe.”

“Forget the capstun. Now, listen, we have to talk fast. Get everyone out of there. This thing went by me just before the lights went out. I saw it through a window in one of the storage rooms down here, and it looked very big. It walks on all fours. I got off two shots at it, then it went into a stairwell at the end of this hall. I’ve got a set of old blueprints here with me, and I’ve checked them. You know where that stairwell comes out?”

“No,” said D’Agosta.

“It only has access to alternate floors. It leads down into the subbasement, too, but we can’t assume the thing would go that way. There’s an egress on the fourth floor. And there’s another one behind the Hall of the Heavens. It’s back in the service area behind the platform.”

[337] “Pendergast, I’m having a hard time with this. What the hell exactly do you want us to do?”

“I’d get your men—whoever has the shotguns—and line up at that door. If the creature comes through, let the thing have it. It may have already come through, I don’t know. Vincent, it took a .45 metal-jacketed slug in the skull at close range, and the bullet grazed right off.”

If anyone else had been speaking, D’Agosta would have suspected a joke. Or madness. “Right,” he said. “How long ago was this?”

“I saw it a few minutes ago, just before the power went out. I shot at it once, then followed it down the hall after the lights went. I got off another shot, but my light wasn’t steady and I missed it.. I went down to reco

D’Agosta swallowed.

“If you can get into the basement safely, do it. Meet up with me here. These blueprints seem to show the way out. We’ll talk again once you’re in a more secure place. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said D’Agosta.

“Vincent? There’s something else.”

“What now?”

“This creature can open and close doors.”

D’Agosta holstered his radio, licked his lips, and looked back toward the group of people. Most were sitting on the floor, stu

D’Agosta spoke to the group as softly as he could. “All of you, move over here and get down against the wall. Put those candles out.”

[338] “What is it?” somebody cried. D’Agosta recognized the voice as Wright’s.

“Quiet. Do as I say. You, what’s your name, Smithback, drop that and get over here.”

D’Agosta’s radio buzzed into speech as he did a quick visual sweep of the Hall with his flashlight. The remote corners of the hall were so black they seemed to eat the beam of his light. In the center of the hall a few candles were lit next to a still form. Pound and somebody else were bending over it.

“Pound!” he called out. “Both of you. Put out those candles and get back over here!”

“But he’s still alive—”

“Get back now!” He turned to the crowd that was huddling behind him. “None of you move or make a sound. Bailey and Ippolito, bring those shotguns and follow me.”

“Did you hear that? Why do they need their guns!” cried Wright.

Recognizing Coffey’s voice on the radio, D’Agosta switched if off with a brusque movement. Moving carefully, flashlights probing the darkness ahead of them, the group crept toward the center of the Hall. D’Agosta played his beam along the wall, found the service area, the dark outlines of the stairwell door. It was closed. He thought he smelled something strange in the air: a peculiar, rotten odor he couldn’t place. But the room stunk to begin with. Half the damn guests must have lost control of their plumbing when the lights failed.

He led the way into the service area, then stopped. “According to Pendergast, there’s a creature, an animal, maybe in this stairwell,” he whispered.

“According to Pendergast,” said Ippolito sarcastically under his breath.

“Stow that shit, Ippolito. Now listen up. We can’t stay here waiting in the dark. We’re go

D’Agosta switched off his flashlight, slipped it in a pocket, and tightened his grip on the shotgun. Then he nodded for Bailey to direct his own light onto the stairwell door. D’Agosta closed his eyes and murmured a brief prayer in the close darkness. Then he gave the signal.

Ippolito moved to the side of the door while Bailey yanked it open. D’Agosta and Ippolito rushed in, Bailey behind them, sweeping the light in a quick semicircle.

A horrible stench awaited them inside the stairwell. D’Agosta took a few steps down into the darkness, sensed a sudden movement above him, and heard an unearthly, throaty growl that turned his knees to putty, followed by a dull, slapping sound, like the smacking of a damp towel against the floor. Then wet things were hitting the wall around him and gobs of moisture splattered his face. He spun around and fired at something large and dark. The light was gyrating wildly. “Shit!” he heard Bailey wail.

“Bailey! Don’t let it go into the Hall!” He fired into the darkness, again and again, up the stairwell and down, until he was pumping an empty chamber. The acrid smell of gunpowder blended with the nauseating reek as screams resounded in the Hall of the Heavens.

D’Agosta stumbled up the stairs to the landing, almost tripped over something, and moved into the Hall. “Bailey, where is it?” he yelled as he jammed shells into his shotgun, temporarily blinded by the muzzle flare.

“I don’t know!” Bailey shouted. “I can’t see!” “Did it go down or through?” Two shells in the shotgun. Three ...

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

D’Agosta pulled out his flashlight and shone it on [340] Bailey. The officer was soaked in thick clots of blood. Pieces of flesh were in his hair, hanging from his eyebrows. He was wiping his eyes. A hideous smell hung in the air.

“I’m fine,” Bailey reassured D’Agosta. “I think. I just got all this shit on my face, I can’t see.”

D’Agosta swept the light around the room in a fast arc, the shotgun braced against his thigh. The group, huddled together against the wall, blinked in terror. He turned the light back toward the stairwell, and saw Ippolito, or what was left of him, lying partway on the landing, dark blood rapidly spreading from his torn gut.

The thing had been waiting for them just a few steps up from the landing. But where the fuck was it now? He shined the light in desperate circles around the Hall. It was gone—the huge space was still.