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it's too late. It's more dangerous to kill him now than ever. If one of these
beasts comes through, and Misquamacus dies, then there is absolutely no way of
sending it back. Look at it, Harry. You want to risk that being loose in
Manhattan?"
The Star Beast rippled and shimmered in its own ghastly fluorescence.
Sometimes it seemed to be fat and glutinous, and at other times it seemed to
be composed of nothing but sinuous clouds. It gave off an indescribable
atmosphere of freezing terror, like a mad and vicious dog.
"It's no good, Singing Rock," I told him. "I have to try."
Singing Rock said: "Harry -- I can't warn you enough. It's no use."
But I had made up my mind. I put my hand on the ice-cold handle of the door,
and prepared to open it.
"Give me a spell or something to cover me," I said.
"Harry -- a spell isn't a six-gun! Just don't go, that's all!"
For the space of two seconds, I wondered just what the hell I was doing. I am
not the stuff from which heroes are usually made. But I had the means to
destroy Misquamacus, and the opportunity, and somehow it seemed easier and
more logical to try and kill him than it did to let him go. If there was
anything worse than the Star Beast, I didn't want to see it, and the only way
to stop any more manifestations was to get rid of the medicine man. I counted
to three and flung open the door.
I was not at all prepared for what it was like in there. It was so cold that
it was like being in a dark refrigerator. And somehow, as I tried to rush
forward, my legs could only move in slow motion, and whole minutes seemed to
pass as I waded through the gluey air, my arm upraised with the glass vial of
virus, and my eyes wide.
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It was the sound that was the worst, though. It was like a terrible chill
depressing wind, a note that was constantly falling and yet which never sank
below a dull rushing monotone. There was no wind at all in the room, but that
intangible hurricane screamed and roared and blotted out all sense of time and
space.
Misquamacus turned toward me, slowly, like a man in a nightmare. He made no
attempt to ward me off or to protect himself. The Star Beast, only yards away
in the center of the frosty gateway, shifted and pulsated like coils of
toadspawn, or twists of smoke.
"Misquamacus!" I shrieked. The words came out of my mouth like slow drips of
melting wax, and seemed to freeze in mid-air. "Misquamacus!"
I stopped only two or three feet away from him. I had to hold one hand against
my ear to try and blot out the deafening moan of the wind that wasn't there.
But in my other hand, I gripped the infected vial of influenza, and held it up
above me like a holy crucifix.
"Misquamacus -- this is the invisible spirit which struck down your people! I
have it here -- in this bottle! Close the gateway -- send back the Star Beast
-- or I will release it!"
Somewhere in the back of my brain I heard Singing Rock shouting "Harry -- come
back!" But the hurricane was too loud, and my adrenalin was pumping too fast,
and I knew that if I didn't push Misquamacus to the brink, we might never rid
ourselves of the wonder-worker, or his demons, or any of the fearful legacy
from a magical past.
But I'm a clairvoyant, not a medicine man, and what happened next was
something I just couldn't cope with. I felt something cold and wriggly in the
palm of my hand. When I looked up at the vial, it had turned into a black
squirming leech. I almost dropped it in disgust -- but then a small warning in
my mind said it's an illusion, another of Misquamacus's tricks -- and I held
it tight instead. As I gripped it, though, the wonder-worker outmaneuvered me.
The vial appeared to burst into flames, and my brain wasn't fast enough to
override my nervous responses and reassure me that this was an illusion, too.
I dropped the vial, and it sank slowly toward the floor -- unnaturally slowly,
like a stone sinking in transparent oil.
Terrified, I tried to turn away and run for the door. But the air was heavy
and limpid, and every step was congealed into a massive effort. I saw Singing
Rock in the doorway, his hands stretched out toward me, but he seemed to be
miles and miles distant, a lifesaver on a shore I couldn't reach.
The writhing, colorless shape of the Star Beast had an irresistible attraction
all of its own. I felt myself being physically drawn away from the door and
back toward the center of the magic gateway, even though I was using all my
strength to try and escape. I saw the vial of influenza virus literally change
course in mid-fall, and move through the air toward the Star Beast tumbling
and turning like a satellite falling through space.
Intense cold drowned itself over me, and in the dirgelike din of that windless
wind, I saw my breath forming clouds of vapor, and stars of frost collecting
on my coat. The vial of virus froze into crystals of glass and ice, which
rendered it as harmless to Misquamacus as an empty gun.
I turned -- I couldn't help turning -- to look at the Star Beast behind me.
Even though I was struggling across the room away from the gateway, my steps
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took me no further in the direction of the door. My feet were now only inches
away from the chalked circle, and within the center of the circle, the
horrifying tangle of disturbed air that constituted the Star Beast was drawing
me nearer. Misquamacus, his head lowered and his left arm raised, was intoning
a long and deafening chant that appeared to excite the Star Beast even more.
The monster was like the shadowy X-ray of a stomach, churning and twitching in
digestive peristalsis.
I had been fighting to escape, but the cold was so bitter that it was
difficult to think about anything else except how good it would be to get
warm. My muscles ached with the frosty clutch of zero degrees and below, and
the effort of running through the moaning gale and the oil-thick air was
almost beyond me. I knew that I would probably have to surrender, and that
whatever Misquamacus had in store for me, I would have to accept I remember I
dropped to my knees.
Singing Rock was screaming at me from the doorway. "Harry!" he yelled. "Harry!
Don't give up!"
I tried to lift my head to look at him. My neck muscles seemed to be frozen,
and the hoar frost on my eyebrows and hair was so thick that I could hardly
see anything at all. My hair was laden with frost, and there was a beard of
icicles around my nose and mouth, where my breath had frozen. I felt nothing
but a distant Arctic numbness, and all I could hear was the terrifying rush of
that wind.
"Harry!" screamed Singing Rock. "Harry -- move, Harry! Move!"
I raised my hand. I tried to struggle to my feet again. Somehow, I managed to
pull myself a few inches away from the gateway, but the Star Beast was far too
strong for me, and the magic charms of Misquamacus held me like a weakly
flapping fish in a net.
There was an electric typewriter, its keys thick with ice, lying on its side
on the floor. It suddenly occurred to me that if I threw something like that
at Misquamacus, or maybe at the Star Beast itself, it would give me a few
seconds' diversion to pull myself free. That was how little I knew about the
powers of occult beings -- I was still treating them like cowboys and Indians.
I reached out my frostbitten hands and lifted the typewriter up with
tremendous effort. It had so much ice on it, it was nearly twice its normal
weight.
I turned, I rolled over, and I hurled the typewriter toward the magic gateway
and the dim outline of the Star Beast. Like everything else in this occult
environment, it flew in a long slow motion arc, turning over and over as it
flew, and it seemed to take an age to reach the circle.
I didn't know what was going to happen. I just lay there, frozen stiff and
bunched up like a fetus, waiting for the moment when the tumbling typewriter
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