Lavelle staggered back a few steps, but he was evidently too terrified
to be able to turn and run.
The earth trembled.
Within the pit, something roared. It had a voice that shook the night.
The air stank of sulphur.
Something snaked up from the depths. It was like a tentacle but not
exactly a tentacle, like a chitinous insect leg but not exactly an
insect leg, sharply jointed in several places and yet as sinuous as a
serpent. It soared up to a height of fifteen feet. The tip of the thing
was equipped with long whiplike appendages that writhed around a loose,
drooling, toothless mouth large enough to swallow a man whole. Worse,
it was in some ways exceedingly clear that this was only a minor feature
of the huge beast rising from the Gates; it was as small,
proportionately, as a human finger compared to an entire human body.
Perhaps this was the only thing that the escaping Lovecraftian entity
had thus far been able to extrude between the opening Gates-this one
finger.
The giant, inseetile, tentacular limb bent toward Lavelle. The whiplike
appendages at the tip lashed out, snared him, and lifted him off the
ground, into the blood-red light. He screamed and flailed, but he could
do nothing to prevent himself from being drawn into that obscene,
drooling mouth. And then he was gone.
In the cathedral, the last of the goblins had reached the communion
railing. At least a hundred of them turned blazing eyes on Rebecca,
Penny, Davey, and Father Walotsky.
Their hissing was now augmented with an occasional snarl.
Suddenly the four-eyed, four-armed manlike demon leaped off the rail,
into the chancel. It took a few tentative steps forward and looked from
side to side; there was an air of wariness about it. Then it raised its
tiny spear, shook it, and shrieked.
Immediately, all of the other goblins shrieked, too.
Another one dared to enter the chancel.
Then a third. Then four more.
Rebecca glanced sideways, toward the sacristy door.
But it was no use running in there. The goblins would only follow. The
end had come at last.
The worm-thing reached Carver Hampton where he sat on the floor, his
back pressed to the wall. It reared up, until half its disgusting body
was off the floor.
He looked into those bottomless, fiery eyes and knew that he was too
weak a Houngon to protect himself.
Then, out behind the house, something roared; it sounded enormous and
very much alive.
The earth quaked, and the house rocked, and the worm-demon seemed to
lose interest in Carver. It turned half away from him and moved its
head from side to side, began to sway to some music that Carver could
not hear.
With a sinking heart, he realized what had temporarily enthralled the
thing: the sound of other Hell-trapped souls screeching toward a
long-desired freedom, the triumphant ululation of the Ancient Ones at
last breaking their bonds.
The end had come.
Jack advanced to the edge of the pit. The rim was dissolving, and the
hole was growing larger by the second. He was careful not to stand at
the very brink.
The fierce red glow made the snowflakes look like whirling embers. But
now there were shafts of bright white light mixed in with the red, the
same silvery-white as the goblins’ eyes, and Jack was sure this meant
the Gates were opening dangerously far.
The monstrous appendage, half insectile and half like a tentacle, swayed
above him threateningly, but he knew it couldn’t touch him. Not yet,
anyway. Not until the Gates were all the way open. For now, the
benevolent gods of Rada still possessed some power over the earth, and
he was protected by them.
He took the jar of holy water from his coat pocket.
He wished he had Carver’s jar, as well, but this would have to do. He
unscrewed the lid and threw it aside.
Another menacing shape was rising from the depths.
He could see it, a vague dark presence rushing up through the nearly
blinding light, howling like a thousand dogs.
He had accepted the reality of Lavelle’s black magic and of Carver’s