Relic

[408] “Red One!” he yelled into the mike. “Red One! Do you read?”

All he could hear was static.

“Talk to me, Commander! Do you read? Anyone!”

He switched frequencies wildly to the team in the Hall of the Heavens.

“Sir, we’re removing the last of the bodies now,” came the voice of a medic. “The rear detail of the SWAT team just evacuated Doctor Cuthbert to the roof. We just heard firing from upstairs. Are we going to need more evacuation—?”

“Get the hell out!” Coffey screamed. “Get your asses out! Get the fuck out and pull up the ladder!”

“Sir, what about the rest of the SWAT team? We can’t leave those men—”

“They’re dead! Understand? That’s an order!”

He dropped the radio and leaned back, gazing vaguely out the window. A morgue truck slowly moved up toward the massive bulk of the Museum.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Sir, Agent Pendergast is requesting to speak with you.”

Coffey slowly shook his head. “No. I don’t want to talk to that fuck, you got that?”

“Sir, he—”

“Don’t mention his name to me again.”

Another agent opened the rear door and came inside, his suit sodden. “Sir, the dead are coming out now.”

“Who? Who are you talking about?”

“The people from the Hall of the Heavens. There were seventeen dead, no survivors.”

“Cuthbert? The guy you took out of the lab? Is he out?”

“They’ve just lowered him to the street.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Coffey stepped outside and ran down past the ambulance circle, his mind numb. How could a SWAT team buy it, just like that?

[409] Outside, two medics with a stretcher approached. “Are you Cuthbert?” Coffey asked the still form.

The man looked around with unfocused eyes.

The doctor pushed past Coffey, sliced open Cuthbert’s shirt, then inspected his face and eyes.

“There’s blood here,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know,” said Cuthbert.

“Respiration thirty, pulse one-twenty,” said a paramedic.

“You’re okay?” the doctor asked. “Is this your blood?”

“I don’t know.”

The doctor looked swiftly down Cuthbert’s legs, felt them, felt his groin, examined his neck.

The doctor turned toward the paramedic. “Take him in for observation.” The medics wheeled the stretcher away.

“Cuthbert!” said Coffey, jogging beside him. “Did you see it?”

“See it?” Cuthbert repeated.

“See the fucking creature!”

“It knows,” Cuthbert said.

“Knows what?”

“It knows what’s going on, it knows exactly what’s happening.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It hates us,” said Cuthbert.

As the medics threw open the door of an ambulance, Coffey yelled, “What did it look like?”

“There was sadness in its eyes,” said Cuthbert. “Infinite sadness.”

“He’s a lunatic,” said Coffey to no one in particular.

“You won’t kill it,” Cuthbert added, with calm certainty.

The doors slammed shut.

“The hell I won’t!” shouted Coffey at the retreating ambulance. “Fuck you, Cuthbert! The hell I won’t!”

= 57 =

Pendergast lowered the radio and looked at Margo. “The creature just killed the better part of a SWAT team. Dr. Wright, too, from the sound of it. Coffey withdrew everyone else, and he won’t answer my summons. He seems to think everything is my fault.”

“He’s got to listen!” roared Frock. “We know what to do now. All they need to do is come in here with klieg lights!”

“I understand what’s happening,” said Pendergast. “He’s overloaded, looking for scapegoats. We can’t rely on his help.”

“My God,” Margo said. “Dr. Wright ...” She put a hand to her mouth. “If my plan had worked—if I’d thought everything through—maybe all those people would still be alive.”

“And perhaps Lieutenant D’Agosta, and the Mayor, and all those others below us, would be dead,” Pendergast said. He looked down the hallway. “I suppose my duty now is to see you two out safely,” he said. [411] “Perhaps we should take the route I suggested to D’Agosta. Assuming those blueprints didn’t lead him astray, of course.”

Then he glanced at Frock. “No, I don’t suppose that would work.”

“Go ahead!” Frock cried. “Don’t stay here on my account!”

Pendergast smiled thinly. “It isn’t that, Doctor. It’s the inclement weather. You know how the subbasement floods during rainy spells. I heard someone on the police radio saying the rain outside has been approaching monsoon strength for the last hour. When I was sprinkling those fibers into the subbasement, I noticed the water was at least two feet deep and flowing quickly eastward. That would imply drainage from the river. We couldn’t get down there now even if we wanted to.” Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “If D’Agosta isn’t out by now—well, his chances are marginal, at best.”

He turned toward Margo. “Perhaps the best thing would be for you two to stay here, inside the Secure Area. We know the creature can’t get past this reinforced door. Within a couple of hours, they are sure to restore power. I believe there are several men still trapped in Security Command and the Computer Room. They may be vulnerable. You’ve taught me a lot about this creature. We know its weaknesses, and we know its strengths. Those areas are near a long, unobstructed hallway. With you two safe in here, I can hunt it for a change.”

“No,” said Margo. “You can’t do it by yourself.”

“Perhaps not, Ms. Green, but I plan on making a fairly good imitation of it.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said resolutely.

“Sorry.” Pendergast stood by the open door to the Secure Area expectantly.

“That thing is highly intelligent,” she said. I don’t think you can go up against it alone. If you think that because I’m a woman—”

[412] Pendergast looked astonished. “Ms. Green, I’m shocked you would have such a low opinion of me. The fact is, you’ve never been in this kind of situation before. Without a gun, you can’t do anything.”

Margo looked at him combatively. “I saved your ass back there when I told you to switch on your lamp,” she challenged.

He raised an eyebrow.

From the darkness, Frock said, “Pendergast, don’t be a Southern gentleman fool. Take her.”

Pendergast turned to Frock. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own, Doctor?” he asked. “We’ll need to take both the flashlight and the miner’s lamp if we’re to have any chance of success.”

“Of course!” Frock said with a dismissive wave. “I could use a bit of rest after all this excitement.”

Pendergast hesitated a moment longer, then looked bemused. “Very well,” he said. “Margo, lock the doctor inside the Secure Area, get his keys and what’s left of my suit jacket, and let’s go.”

Smithback gave the flashlight a savage shake. The light flickered, grew brighter for a moment, then dimmed again.

“If that light goes out,” D’Agosta said, “we’re fucked. Turn it off; we’ll switch it on now and then to check our progress.”

They moved through the darkness, the sound of rushing water filling the close air. Smithback led; behind him came D’Agosta, grasping the journalist’s hand—which, like the rest of him, had grown almost entirely numb.

Suddenly, Smithback pricked up his ears. In the dark, he gradually became aware of a new sound.

“You hear that?” Smithback asked.

D’Agosta listened. “I hear something,” he answered.

“It sounds to me like—” Smithback fell silent.

“A waterfall,” D’Agosta said with finality. “But [413] whatever it is must be a ways off. Sounds carry in this tu

The group slogged on in silence.

“Light,” said D’Agosta.

Smithback turned it on, played it down the empty hall in front of them, then switched it off again. The sound was louder now; quite a bit louder, in fact. He felt a surge in the water.

“Shit!” said D’Agosta.