Night Songs - Charles Grant

"A what?"

"Gun, stupid," Montgomery said. "The man asked if you have a gun."

"I…just a little…" He reached into his desk and pulled out a revolver. Montgomery considered, then tossed him the rifle. Cameron grabbed it and clutched it against his chest, staring at the barrel reaching up past his cheek. When Colin questioned him with a look, he said, "A bullet hole obviously doesn't do it, Col. That shotgun, though, might knock someone off his feet."

Colin nodded and led the way into the dining room. He stopped and poked his head back into the office long enough to tell Cameron to turn on all the lights; he didn't have to say it was to kill all the shadows.

Then Montgomery took Colin's arm and pushed him to the door. With his hand on the pushbar, Hugh blew a sigh and said, "I'm sorry."

"For what? For not believing the dead can walk? If you're sorry for that, you're as crazy as I am."

Montgomery's short laugh was more a forced wheezing; he ushered Colin through the door, followed and slammed it shut behind them.

The wind pummeled them sideways as they made their way to the sidewalk, slanted left and headed for the library. Colin was unnerved again by the emptiness of the town, the houses that should have at least had their porch lights on in this odd-colored dusk. At the end of the street the school reflected little but the winking on of the streetlights, and the flag on the pole was already shredding at the tip as it pointed the wind toward the bay and the mainland.

Hugh had hold of Colin's elbow as they turned into the library's walk. "I just want you to know I'm keeping an open mind," the doctor shouted.

"Good for you," Colin shouted back, and grinned as they ran up the wooden steps and paused on the porch, away from the main thrust of the storm. He shifted the shotgun from right hand to left and pushed through the glass double doors.

A single lamp was lighted on the rectangular checkout desk in the center of a foyer as wide as Colin's living room. A large room to their left, a larger one to their right, cluttered once with furniture and family, cluttered now with dark-metal shelves that measured the extent of the ten-foot ceilings. The aisles between were barely lighted by green-shaded bulbs hanging from the plaster on double-braided chains. Reading posters were neatly taped to the floral wallpaper, a straight chair and two benches along the entrance walls were piled with books and magazines. A stack of record albums lay on the carpeted floor beneath one of the benches.

"Hattie!" Colin yelled, peering past the desk to the staircase directly behind.

"Knew the guy who used to live here," Hugh said quietly as they moved deeper into the building. "Dumb bastard thought he'd get a leg or two up on heaven if he gave the town a library. He wouldn't spring for the money while he was alive so he willed this white elephant to the island, then hung around until he was at least ninety. Son of a bitch made napalm or something."

"Hattie!"

There was no echo, no resonance; the name struck a wall and died as if absorbed. The panes in the windows rattled like crystal.

"Place used to flood out every winter. That's why the biggest rooms are on the second floor. The guy didn't give a shit about what he kept down here. Had the gout, would you believe. The goddamned gout."

Colin wanted to tell him he wasn't interested right now in the library's history, but he needed the sound of the man's voice as he peered into the front rooms, squinting as though that would enable his vision to peel away the shadows that clung to the aisles and hid the titles of the books. Hattie wasn't answering, and if she already knew what was happening, he didn't blame her. What bothered him was the absence of the Doberman; that bloated guard dog should have been at their throats five minutes ago.

Montgomery pointed toward the stairs, then made a circling motion with his hand-Colin was to go up, he would finish looking around the first floor.

Colin nodded and brushed around the desk, stepped over a file folder lying open on the carpet, and took the stairs two at a time. The landing above was dark, the turn made slowly as he stared through the ornate balustrade at the huge single room that had been made of the upper floor.

Stacks, aisles, bookcarts, a door to his left of the landing that was Hattie's office, seldom used.

He kept the shotgun aimed straight ahead.

The wind screamed outside, living up to its name.

"Hattie, it's Colin Ross."

He heard Hugh downstairs, calling her name as well.

Shit, he thought, she can't be dead, for God's sake-and caught himself with a sour, mocking grin, wondering why it was that old ladies and children were automatically supposed to be exempt from the plagues of nightmares and the horrors of the real world. He stopped and warned himself sharply there was no difference in this case: The nightmare had taken strength from a madman who had his own rules, and it had supplanted the real. It had become the real. The dead were walking on Haven's End, and the only thing he could do was find a way to destroy them. Thinking he was still dreaming was going to get him killed.

He tried Hattie's name once more and reached behind him to tug at the office door. It was locked, and a rap of his knuckles produced no response.

A muffled clattering from the ceiling made him swing the weapon up, listening until he was satisfied it was only a family of squirrels hiding from the storm.

Another tug at the office door before he crooked the shotgun in his arm and began checking the meticulously handlettered file cards taped to the end of each stack, looking for the area where he'd find the information he needed. When he failed to locate a mythology section-silently condemning Hattie for the perversity of her own system-he checked for the Caribbean. He found half a dozen books on Cuba, Haiti, the Lesser Antilles, and the rest, but nothing specific to what he needed; they were little more than tourist books.

Neither was there anything under voodoo or satanism; under religion only the vaguest, superficial references to the pantheon brought over from Africa, embellished and altered and intensified to suit the needs of the slaves who had little else for comfort. There were no volumes at all on the occult, and he was surprised; with Hattie's famed interest in the other world, this was a singular and puzzling lack.

He wandered up and down the aisles, squinting at titles, feeling time press in on him. His breathing was shallow, his patience on short tether, and twice he raised a helpless fist against the unfairness of it all.

Then, more by accident than design, he discovered a small section on magic. It was on a bottom shelf in the far corner, tucked under a curtainless window. He glanced out as he knelt, and saw the trees rippling away from the storm, saw telephone wires quivering, and grabbed the dusty sill when he spotted lights in a house two blocks away. Atlantic Terrace, Peg's street. A cloud of mist obscured his vision for a moment, and he swiped at the pane impatiently until it passed. A moment later he was positive the lights were coming from the Adamses'.

Oh Christ, Rose, he thought, remembering the party and her intention to attend. For once in your life, woman, get someplace early.

Then he propped the shotgun against the sill, and pulled the books out one by one, flipping through them swiftly as he held them up to the fading daylight, checking indices and scowling as he realized every one dealt with stage magic. Two of them had been written to debunk the claims of charlatans and the ancients, and his silent laugh was bitter. They were so damned cocksure that science and sleight-of-hand provided all the damned answers.

He snorted in self-disgust at the attitude he'd taken-as though he had believed in spells since the day he'd been born. And maybe he had. Maybe he'd always been like Matt, but had somehow forgotten because grown-ups told him it was the right thing to do. Put aside fantasy and face up to the world. Put it aside because we've forgotten how to control it…

Kids, he thought, have more answers than we realize.

Which wasn't getting him anywhere at the moment, and he began angrily slamming the books back into place. Suddenly he frowned and cocked his head. He was positive he had heard someone coming up the stairs.

"Hugh?"

No answer.

"Hugh, you find anything?"

A prolonged creaking of careful weight on a stair.

He turned slowly, still kneeling, and pulled his weapon to him.

He was just beyond the reach of the overhead light's pale white fall, could barely mark the place where the landing swung around. The glow from downstairs wasn't strong enough to cast shadows, and though he could see through the balusters, an elephant could have made it all the way to the top before he recognized what it was.

Beneath the eaves the wind began to moan.

He rubbed a knuckle over his eyes and rose to a crouch, his throat abruptly filled with grit that made him want to cough and spit the obstruction out. He kept as close as he could to the right-hand stack, feeling the books give against his shoulder as he winced and passed through the exposure of the light. The floor was silent beneath his shoes, and it wasn't until he reached the end of the aisle that he realized the light was behind him and giving him form.

Too late. If he was being searched for, he was seen. The only thing he could do now was drop to one knee and bring the shotgun to his shoulder.

Shit, he thought; oh, Jesus, shit.

In less than a minute he saw a figure on the stairs. Moving. One step at a time. Wood shifting, and the banister groaning.

He moistened his lips with his tongue and swallowed to get rid of the sand. Slipping a finger around the trigger, he held the stock tightly against his side and rose with one hand bracing himself against the shelves. The figure reached the landing, and he held his breath, praying it wasn't someone he knew, realizing it was a vain wish since he knew everyone on the island, if only by sight. That he would have to do something against someone he once spoke with and laughed with and perhaps even kissed was a consideration he hadn't dared face. Until now. Until the figure stepped away from the railing and he tightened his finger around the trigger.

"Hugh?"

The frenzied scrabbling continued in the ceiling; a sash rattled in its frame.

"Goddamn it, Hugh, say something or I'm gonna have to shoot."

"I found the dog," Montgomery said, his voice deeper than usual. "Stuffed in a supply closet. Its head was torn off."

Colin staggered out of the aisle and sagged against the banister, lowered his gaze and saw the bloodstains on the man's shoes. He shuddered, looked up and was handed a small book.

The office door on the landing was open less than an inch.

"I found this downstairs," Hugh said, stabbing at it with a finger. "I flipped through it. I think it's what we need. I mean, I think it'll give us some clues if nothing else."

"Where the hell was it?" he said, opening the cover and trying to read as he moved toward the staircase. The door.

"It was under Oceanography."

"What?"

Montgomery shrugged, "Ask Hattie. I haven't the slightest idea."

Colin held the book close to his face, to see more clearly a reproduction of a wood-carving that depicted a group of dark-faced people in tattered clothes kneeling in a woodland clearing, their faces averted as a tall, half-naked man walked toward them, his winding sheet in tatters around his waist and legs. His eyes were blank. There was a crow on his shoulder. Behind him was an open grave and a shattered, burning coffin.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});