draw veves all over the inside of the tub.
Then he filled it with hot water. To the water, he added a number of
substances and items that he had brought upstairs from his shop: dried
rose petals; three bunches of parsley; seven vine leaves; one ounce of
orgeat, which is a syrup made from almonds, sugar, and orange blossoms;
powdered orchid petals; seven drops of perfume; seven polished stones in
seven colors, each from the shore of a different body of water in
Africa; three coins; seven ounces of seawater taken from within the
territorian limits of Haiti; a pinch of gunpowder; a spoonful of salt;
lemon oil; and several other materials.
When Hampton told him that the time had come, Jack stepped into the
pleasantly scented bath. The water was almost too hot to bear, but he
bore it. With steam rising around him, he sat down, pushed the coins
and stones and other hard objects out of his way, then slid onto his
tailbone, until only his head remained above the waterline.
Hampton chanted for a few seconds, then said, “Totally immerse yourself
and count to thirty before coming up for air.”
Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slid flat on his back, so
that his entire body was submerged. He had counted only to ten when he
began to feel a strange tingling from head to foot. Second by second,
he felt somehow . . . cleaner . . . not just in body but in mind
and spirit, as well. Bad thoughts, fear, tension, anger, despair-all
were leeched out of him by the specially treated water.
He was getting ready to confront Lavelle.
The engine died.
A snowbank loomed.
Rebecca pumped the brakes. They were extremely soft, but they still
worked. The car slid nose-first into the mounded snow, hitting with a
thank and a crunch, harder than she would have liked, but not hard
enough to hurt anyone.
Silence.
They were in front of the main entrance to St. Patrick’s.
Davey said, “Something’s inside the seat! It’s coming through! ”
“What?” Rebecca asked, baffled by his statement, turning to look at him.
He was standing behind Penny’s seat, pressed up against it, but facing
the other way, looking at the backrest of the rear seat where he had
been sitting just a short while ago. Rebecca squinted past him and saw
movement under the upholstery. She heard an angry, muffled snarling,
too.
One of the goblins must have gotten into the trunk. It was chewing and
clawing through the seat, burrowing toward the interior of the car.
“Quick,” Rebecca said. “Come up here with us, Davey. We’ll all go out
through Penny’s door, one after the other, real quick, and then straight
into the church.”
Making desperate wordless sounds, Davey climbed into the front seat,
between Rebecca and Penny.
At the same moment, Rebecca felt something pushing at the floorboards
under her feet. A second goblin was tearing its way into the car from
that direction.
If there were only two of the beasts, and if both of them were busily
engaged in boring holes into the car, they might not immediately realize
that their prey was making a run for the cathedral. It was at least
something to hope for; not much, but something.
At a signal from Rebecca, Penny flung open the door and went out, into
the storm.
Heart hammering, gasping in shock when the bitterly cold wind hit her,
Penny scrambled out of the car, slipped on the snowy pavement, almost
fell, windmilled her arms, and somehow kept her balance. She expected a
goblin to rush out from beneath the car, expected to feel teeth sinking
through one of her boots and into her ankle, but nothing like that
happened. The streetlamps, shrouded and dimmed by the storm, cast an
eerie light like that in a nightmare. Penny’s distorted shadow preceded
her as she clambered up the ridge of snow that had been formed by
passing plows. She struggled all the way to the top, panting, using her
hands and knees and feet, getting snow in her face and under her gloves
and inside her boots, and then she jumped down to the sidewalk, which