the creature was toppling into the shallow end of the empty swimming
pool, she fell to the concrete decking, free, freexcept that her shoes
were on fire.
“Leben,” Sharp said. “Holy shit, it must be Leben.”
Jerry Peake understood at once, even though he didn’t want to
understand, did not want to know, for this was a secret that it would be
dangerous to know, dangerous not only to his physical well-being but to
his sanity.
The gasoline seemed to have choked and temporarily blinded it, but
Rachael knew that it would recover from this assault as quickly as it
had recovered from being shot.
So, as Benny dropped the empty bucket and stepped out of the way, she
struck the match and only then realized she should have had a torch,
something she could have set aflame and then thrown at the creature.
Now she had no choice but to step in close with the short-stemmed match.
The Eric-thing had stopped shrieking and, temporarily overcome by the
gasoline fumes, was hunched over, wheezing noisily, gasping for air.
She took only three steps toward it before the wind or the rainH)r
bothxtinguished the match.
Making a strange terrified mewling that she could not control, she slid
open the box, took out another match, and struck it. This time she had
not even taken one step before the flame went out.
The demonic mutant seemed to be breathing easier, and it began to
straighten up, raising its monstrous head again.
The rain, Rachael thought desperately, the rain is washing the gasoline
off its body.
As she shakily withdrew a third match, Benny said, “Here,” and he turned
the empty bucket upright on the concrete at her feet.
She understood. She rasped the third match against the striking pad on
the side of the box, couldn’t get it to light.
The creature drew in a deep breath at last, another.
Recovering, it shrieked at them.
She scraped the match against the box again and let out a cry of relief
when the flame spurted up. The instant Ben delivered the kick and threw
himself to the left, hit the decking, rolled, and came immediately onto
his feet in time to see the creature falling into the shallow end of the
empty pool. He also saw that Rachael’s shoes were afire from gasoline,
and he dove for her, threw himself upon her, and smothered the flames.
For a moment, she clung fiercely to him, and he held her tightly with an
equal need of reassurance. He had never before felt anything half as
good as her heart’s frantic pounding, which was conveyed through her
breast to his.
“Are you all right?”
“Good enough,” she said shakily.
He hugged her again, then gave her a quick examination. There was a
bleeding circlet on her arm and another on her neck, where the mouths in
the mutant’s hands had attached themselves to her, but neither wound
looked serious.
In the pool, the creature was screaming in a way it had not screamed
before, and Ben was sure that these must be its death cries-although he
would not have taken any bets on it.
Together, with his arm around her waist and her arm encircling him, they
went to the edge of the pool, where Lieutenant Verdad was already
standing.
Burning as if it were made of the purest candle tallow, the beast
staggered down the sloping floor of the pool, perhaps trying to reach
the collected rainwater at the deep end. But the falling rain did
nothing to quench the flames, and Ben suspected that the puddle below
would be equally ineffective. The fire was inexplicably intense, as if
the gasoline were not the only fuel, as if something in the mutant’s
body chemistry were also feeding the flames.
At the halfway point, the creature collapsed onto its knees, clawing at
the air and then at the wet concrete before it. It continued to the
bottom, crawling, then slithering along on its belly finally dragging
itself laboriously toward hoped-for salvation.
The shadowfire burned within the water, down under the cooling surface,
and he was drawn toward it, not merely to extinguish the flames that
were consuming his body but to snuff out the changefire within him, too.