Part 4 (1/2)

”Right.”

”That doesn't seem fair.”

”Who said anything about fair?”

”-Or traditional. Why hasn't anyone heard about this deal before?”

”This is the standard deal, Jack. We used to give a better deal to some of the marks. The others didn't have time to talk because of that twenty-four-hour clause. If they wrote anything down we'd alter it. We have power over written things which mention us.”

”That twenty-four-hour clause. If I haven't taken my wish in twenty-four hours, you'll leave the pentagram and take my soul anyway?”

”That's right.”

”And if I do use the wish, you have to remain in the pentagram until my wish is granted, or until twenty-four hours are up. Then you teleport to h.e.l.l to report same, and come back for me immediately, reappearing in the pentagram.”

”I guess teleport's a good word. I vanish and reappear. Are you getting bright ideas?”

”Like what?”

”I'll make it easy on you. If you erase the pentagram I can appear anywhere. You can erase it and draw it again somewhere else, and I've got to appear inside it.”

A question hovered on my tongue. I swallowed it and asked another. ”Suppose I wished for immortality?”

”You'd be immortal for what's left of your twenty-four hours.” He grinned. His teeth were coal black. ”Better hurry. Time's running out.”

Time, I thought. Okay. All or nothing.

”Here's my wish. Stop time from pa.s.sing outside of me.”

”Easy enough. Look at your watch.”

I didn't want to take my eyes off him, but he just exposed his black teeth again. So I looked down.

There was a red mark opposite the minute hand on my Rolex. And a black mark opposite the hour hand.

The demon was still there when I looked up, still spread-eagled against the wall, still wearing that knowing grin. I moved around him, waved my hand before his face. When I touched him he felt like marble.

Time had stopped, but the demon had remained. I felt sick with relief.

The second hand on my watch was still moving. I had expected nothing less. Time had stopped for me for twenty-four hours of interior time. If it had been exterior time I'd have been safe- but of course that was too easy.

I'd thought my way into this mess. I should be able to think my way out, shouldn't I?

I erased the pentagram from the wall, scrubbing until every trace was gone. Then I drew a new one, using a flexible metal tape to get the lines as straight as possible, making it as large as I could get it in the confined s.p.a.ce. It was still only two feet across.

I left the bas.e.m.e.nt.

I knew where the nearby churches were, though I hadn't been to one in too long. My car wouldn't start. Neither would my roommate's motorcycle. The spell which enclosed me wasn't big enough. I walked to a Mormon temple three blocks away.

The night was cool and balmy and lovely. City lights blanked out the stars, but there was a fine werewolf's moon hanging way above the empty lot where the Mormon temple should have been.

I walked another eight blocks to find the B'nai B'rith Synagogue and the All Saints Church. All I got out of it was exercise. I found empty lots. For me, places of wors.h.i.+p didn't exist.

I prayed. I didn't believe it would work, but I prayed. If I wasn't heard was it because I didn't expect to be? But I was beginning to feel that the demon had thought of everything, long ago.

What I did with the rest of that long night isn't important. Even to me it didn't feel important. Twenty-four hours, against eternity? I wrote a fast outline on my experiment in demon raising, then tore it up. The demons would only change it. Which meant that my thesis was shot to h.e.l.l, whatever happened. I carried a real but rigid Scotch terrier into Professor Pauling's room and posed it on his desk. The old tyrant would get a surprise when he looked up. But I spent most of the night outside, walking, looking my last on the world. Once I reached into a police car and flipped the siren on, thought about it, and flipped it off again. Twice I dropped into restaurants and ate someone's order, leaving money which I wouldn't need, paperclipped to notes which read ”The Shadow Strikes.”

The hour hand had circled my watch twice. I got back to the bas.e.m.e.nt at twelve ten, with the long hand five minutes from brenschluss.

That hand seemed painted to the face as I waited. My candles had left a peculiar odor in the bas.e.m.e.nt, an odor overlaid with the stink of demon and the stink of fear. The demon hovered against the wall, no longer in a pentagram, trapped halfway through a wide-armed leap of triumph.

I had an awful thought.

Why had I believed the demon? Everything hed said might have been a lie. And probably was! I'd been tricked into accepting a gift from the devil! I stood up, thinking furiously- I'd already accepted the gift, but- The demon glanced to the side and grinned wider when he saw the chalk lines gone. He nodded at me, said, ”Back in a flash,” and was gone.

I waited. I'd thought my way into this, but- A cheery ba.s.s voice spoke out of the air. ”I knew you'd move the pentagram. Made it too small for me, didn't you? Tsk, tsk. Couldn't you guess I'd change my size?”

There were rustlings, and a s.h.i.+mmering in the air. ”I know it's here somewhere. I can feel it. Ah.”

He was, back, spread-eagled before me, two feet tall and three feet off the ground. His black know-it-all grin disappeared when he saw the pentagram wasn't there. Then- he was seven inches tall, eyes bugged in surprise, yelling in a contralto voice. ”Whereinh.e.l.l's the-” he squealed.

He was two inches of bright red toy soldier.

I'd won. Tomorrow I'd get to a church. If necessary, have somebody lead me in blindfold.

He was a small red star.

A buzzing red housefly.

Gone.

It's odd, how quickly you can get religion. Let one demon tell you you're d.a.m.ned... Could I really get into a church? Somehow I was sure I'd make it. I'd gotten this far; I'd outthought a demon.

Eventually he'd look down and see the pentagram. Part of it was in plain sight. But it wouldn't help him. Spread-eagled like that, he couldn't reach it to wipe it away. He was trapped for eternity, shrinking toward the infinitesimal but doomed never to reach it, forever trying to appear inside a pentagram which was forever too small. I had drawn it on his bulging belly.

She thrust herself into the sky, naked; waved her arms and yelled. The Dark shark froze. A window came open in a nearby cl.u.s.ter of cubes. The beast beast charged. charged.

Rather didn't have his wings. He called, ”Sectry! Dark sharks aren't funny!”

”Are you nuts?” he bellowed, and she laughed. Then the Dark shark burst through In a shower of leaves and splintered wood.

The predator snapped Its Its teeth at them, raging and impotent. Sectry murmured in his ear. ”Gives it a kick, doesn't it?” teeth at them, raging and impotent. Sectry murmured in his ear. ”Gives it a kick, doesn't it?”

THE SMOKE RING, 1987 SMOKE RING, 1987.

ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS.

There were timelines branching and branching, a mega-universe of universes, millions more every minute. Billions? Trillions? Trimble didn't understand the theory, though G.o.d knows he'd tried. The universe split every time someone made a decision. Split, so that every decision ever made could go both ways. Every choice made by every man, woman, and child on Earth was reversed in the universe next door. It was enough to confuse any citizen, let alone Detective-Lieutenant Gene Trimble, who had other problems to worry about.

Senseless suicide, senseless crime. A citywide epidemic. It had hit other cities too. Trimble suspected that it was worldwide, that other nations were simply keeping it quiet.