Chapter 30

The scene swam before the boy's eyes. The man's muscles tensed. He was cold, then hot, then cold again.

The soothing voice of Dr. Protius: "It's all right, Brian. You're safe. You're in my office. Relaxed and comfortable. Deep breaths. Nothing can reach you now. You know exactly where you are. You can remember everything we've been doing. Anytime you want to come back, you can. Nothing is holding you. We will continue only if you want to."

Kettering pulled oxygen deep into his lungs, held it, let it out. He felt his muscles loosen up, his nerves slacken. He was in control. He said, "Yes, let's do it all."

"Good. Now you're going to go back there. Back to your house on Bailey Street. You are a little boy again. You are six years old, kneeling on your porch, listening to the voices inside. Can you hear them now, Brian?"

The man nodded. The little boy heard.

The voices of his father and Mr. Riggio seemed to crackle and boom with the tension of the moment.

"You're finished here," said the Reverend Kettering.

"Don't be foolish," Riggio answered. "You can't hurt me."

"I have the weapon that will destroy you."

Riggio's laugh was an ugly rumble. "There is no such weapon. Not on this earth."

"There is," said Kettering, "for one who knows how to use it. And I know."

"You would not attack me with a gun or a knife. You are not that stupid."

"No, I am not. I would not fight you as I would a man."

A rumbling laugh. "Surely you are not going to brandish a crucifix. Even you must know the folly of that old myth."

"No, not a crucifix. The power of the Christian cross is great, and I respect it. I also know its limitations, and that the strength of your evil comes from a more ancient source."

"More ancient and more powerful than anything you can use against me."

"Perhaps not. My weapon is ancient too. It came into my possession years ago, before I truly understood its power."

Brian rose cautiously from his crouch and peered over the windowsill. His father, dressed in the warm-up jacket and chinos he had worn to the picnic, was holding something in his right hand, down below the boy's line of vision.

"You are all talk, preacher. Where is this weapon?"

The Reverend Kettering raised his right arm. Whatever he held was still out of sight.

"Here," he said.

The thick lips of the pizza man twisted into an ugly grimace.

"That does not even belong to your religion."

"It belongs to a faith more ancient than mine. In the timeless struggle against you and your master, all religions are one."

"You are a fool! Religions are myths and fairy tales. Your own as much as the others. Mine is the true power, as any study of history will tell you. Now give me that toy."

"Never."

"Hand it over. It is useless to you. Give it to me and perhaps we can strike some bargain, as reasonable men have done with me since the dawn of time."

"I know better. And you know that I do. It is I who have the power now. And I will use it."

Brian could not understand his father talking in the formal cadences of the pulpit on this sunny Saturday morning. He shifted his position on the porch so he could see more clearly what was going on inside.

The transformation in Mr. Riggio was staggering. Gone was the fat, smiling pizza man. In his place loomed a tall stranger with high, powerful shoulders. His arms hung down to his knees. At the end of his hands, where there should have been fingers, were cruel, curved talons. Unearthly fires burned in his eyes. The flesh of his face was splotched with angry crimson.

Brian saw the sudden movement as the menacing stranger reached out toward his father.

The Reverend Kettering's reaction was startlingly quick and catlike. He sidestepped and shot his right arm straight out at the other man. Clenched in his fist was ... something ... something all blurry in the sunlight that filtered in through the window. Kneeling outside, Brian cocked his head and squinted. The object seemed to be made of a polished red material and was about the size of a Coke bottle. Try as he might, Brian could not make out any details.

Kettering took a step toward the larger man, and for a moment Brian feared one or the other would turn toward the window and see him. He ducked down again below the sill and crouched there, listening.

"You fool!" The snarling voice of Mr. Riggio was like a whiplash. "You utter fool! Don't you know this is a fight you cannot win? Even if you banish me, sooner or later I will return in one guise or another. You will succeed only in destroying yourself."

"Do you, think I fear for my own life?"

"If not, then what of your family? The woman, the boy. The little girl. And their children in years to come. They will suffer torments for your self-righteous wrath long after you are gone. This I promise you. Think about what you are doing, preacher."

"Be damned!" thundered the Reverend Kettering in his most powerful pulpit voice. "In the name of the Christian God and all the honorable gods in all the religions of the world since time began, I consign you now and forever to the fires of Hell!"

Brian longed to stand up and look, but the fury of the men inside was a palpable force keeping him down and out of sight.

There was a long moment of charged silence, then his father spoke one more sentence. He spoke in a voice solemn as the tomb and in words of no language young Brian had ever heard. Strange-sounding, alien words that burned themselves forever into some dark recess of the boy's mind.

The incantation was cut off abruptly. From inside the house Brian heard a shout, a strangled cry, and the thump of a body hitting the floor.

The cry, unmistakably from the throat of his father, released Brian from his paralysis. He lurched upright and ran, stumbling, to the front door. After a moment fumbling with the latch, he flung open the door and rushed in.

Pale ribbons of brown smoke floated in the room. To the boy's nostrils came a sharp scent of something burned. Something foul. His father lay facedown on the floor, his right hand still clutching ... something. The fingers clamped tight around it, tendons in his wrist straining even in death.

No trace remained of Franco Riggio, the pizza man; only a scattering of pale ashes and an irregular scorched spot on the carpet.

With some difficulty Brian rolled Harlan Kettering over onto his back. Even to the eyes of a six-year-old boy, the minister was unquestionably dead. The strong, gaunt face was unnaturally pale. While the expression was tranquil, there was a tightness around the mouth that showed the strain of his last moments of life. But it was the eyes that most clearly reflected death. They were open and empty, and they looked up at and through young Brian Kettering. As the boy watched, the eyes of his father slowly closed.

He was back out on the porch, feeling dizzy, like the time at recess that his friend Billy Riddell showed him how to press a vein on the side of your neck and you'd pass out.

He never felt it when his head hit the boards.

"It's all right, Brian," said Dr. Protius. "You're feeling fine. You can see clearly. Nothing can hurt you. You can look in that window now and you can see what was hidden from you before. You can see anything you want. Go and look, Brian. Look in the window again."

The boy rose from the porch, walked back and looked. His father stood again facing the transformed Mr. Riggio. His right arm was held straight out, his hand gripped something ... something made of polished red stone. Energy pulsed from the object his father held. The pizza man cowered back from it. His face began to change color.

The voice of Dr. Protius: "What do you see, Brian?"

"My father."

"What is he doing?"

"He's fighting with the pizza man. And he's holding something in his hand. Holding it out in front of him." Kettering felt his own arm raise in a thirty-years-later imitation of the gesture.

"What is he holding?"

The sun glinted from the polished surface, making the boy on the porch shade his eyes.

"I ... I can't tell. It makes my eyes hurt."

The muscles in Kettering's arm began to jump.

"Relax, Brian. You can put your arm down now. You're feeling very relaxed. Very comfortable."

And so he was. How could Doc Protius always tell what he was feeling?

"You are still on the porch, Brian. Still six years old."

No he wasn't, but if Doc Protius wanted to pretend, he would go along with it.

"What is happening now, Brian?"

"I don't know. I'm scrunched down where I can't see. I hear a noise inside, like a bang. I hear my dad yell."

"Do you go into the house now, Brian?"

"Yes. I go in."

"What do you see?"

"I see my dad lying on the floor."

"Where is the other man?"

"I don't know. Mr. Riggio is gone. There's just some ashes on the rug."

"What do you do?"

"I ... I take it out of my dad's hand."

"You take what, Brian?"

"The thing. The red stone thing he used to burn Mr. Riggio."

"What does it look like? The thing you took from your dad's hand?"

"It ... it ... I don't know. It has kind of a face. A long nose like a fox. Pointy ears. It's a man, but not a man." Kettering twisted in the chair.

"What do you do with it?"

"I take it with me in my pocket. Later I put it in my box of toys. Down in the bottom where nobody will find it."

"You never told anyone about it?"

"No. It was my dad's. It was secret."

"And after that did you ever take it out of the box to look at it or anything?"

"No, I never."

"You never saw it again?"

"I never looked."

There was a silence. Then Dr. Protius said, "All right, Brian, that's good. That's a very good job. Now you're going to come back. Gently, softly, like the sea gull, you are floating back here to us. You are going to remember everything that happened. Everything we talked about. Will you remember, Brian?"

"I'll remember."

"I'm going to count to five now, and when I get to five you are going to be wide awake, feeling fine. Very refreshed. One. Two. Starting to awaken now. Three. A little more. Four. Almost awake now. Feeling fine. Feeling rested. Refreshed and ready to go. Five."

Kettering grinned at the print of the schooner with the sea gull just over the bow. He looked over at Charity, who smiled back encouragingly. He turned toward the desk where Dr. Protius sat cleaning his nails with a letter opener.

"Doc, you're all right. That didn't hurt a bit."

"How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Rested. Like I just had a good night's sleep."

"And do you remember everything we did?"

Kettering grew serious. "Yes. Sure. Why wouldn't I? Like you said, I wasn't really asleep. I never went under."

"Of course you didn't. Maybe you'll spread the word now that I don't really do magic tricks down here."

"I'll do a testimonial if you want, Doc." He turned back to Charity, who still sat over by the far wall. "Did you hear all that?"

She was excited. "I heard. The toy box."

"That's where I put it. That's probably where it still is."

"Have you any idea where that box is now?"

"Unless my aunt Alice has changed a whole lot from the time when I lived with her, I know exactly where it is."

Charity leaned forward. Dr. Protius put down the letter opener. They looked at Kettering.

"The toy box, and whatever I put in the bottom of it, is in Milwaukee in my aunt Alice's attic."