Darkfall Read Free Page A

lightly frosting the eighteenth century Italian canopy bed and the other antiques, gleaming on the beveled edges of the crystal paperweights that were displayed along the top of the writing desk that stood between the two windows. If Vince had turned and looked back, he would have been able to see at least the bare outline of his pursuer. But he didn’t look. He was afraid to look.
    He got a whiff of a foul odor. Sulphur? Not quite, but something like it.
    On a deep, instinctual level, he knew what was coming after him. His conscious mind could not-or would not-put a name to it, but his subconscious knew what it was, and that was why he fled from it in blind panic, as wide-eyed and spooked as a dumb animal reacting to a bolt of lightning.
    He hurried through the shadows to the master bath, which opened off the bedroom. In the cloying darkness he collided hard with the half-closed bathroom door. It crashed all the way open. Slightly stunned by the impact, he stumbled into the large bathroom, groped for the door, slammed and locked it behind him.
    In that last moment of vulnerability, as the door swung shut, he had seen nightmarish, silvery eyes glowing in the darkness. Not just two eyes. A dozen of them. Maybe more.
    Now, something struck the other side of the door. Struck it again. And again. There were several of them out there, not just one. The door shook, and the lock rattled, but it held.
    The creatures in the bedroom screeched and hissed considerably louder than before. Although their icy cries were utterly alien, like nothing Vince had ever heard before, the meaning was clear; these were obviously bleats of anger and disappointment. The things pursuing him had been certain that he was within their grasp, and they had chosen not to take his escape in a spirit of good sportsmanship.
    The things . Odd as it was, that was the best word for them, the only word: things .
    He felt as if he were losing his mind, yet he could not deny the primitive perceptions and instinctive understanding that had raised his hackles. Things . Not attack dogs. Not any animal he’d ever seen or heard about. This was something out of a nightmare; only something from a nightmare could have reduced Ross Morrant to a defenseless, whimpering victim.
    The creatures scratched at the other side of the door, gouged and scraped and splintered the wood. Judging from the sound, their claws were sharp. Damned sharp.
    What the hell were they?
    Vince was always prepared for violence because violence was an integral part of the world in which he moved. You couldn’t expect to be a drug dealer and lead a life as quiet as that of a schoolteacher. But he had never anticipated an attack like this. A man with a gun-yes. A man with a knife-he could handle that, too. A bomb wired to the ignition of his car-that was certainly within the realm of possibility. But this was madness.
    As the things outside tried to chew and claw and batter their way through the door, Vince fumbled in the darkness until he found the toilet. He put the lid down on the seat, sat there, and reached for the telephone. When he’d been twelve years old, he had seen, for the first time, the telephone in his uncle Gennaro Carramazza’s bathroom, and from that moment it had seemed to him that having a phone in the can was the ultimate symbol of a man’s importance, proof that he was indispensable and wealthy. As soon as he’d been old enough to get an apartment of his own, Vince had had a phone installed in every room, including the john, and he’d had one in every master bath in every apartment and house since then. In terms of self-esteem, the bathroom phone meant as much to him as his white Mercedes Benz. Now, he was glad he had the phone right here because he could use it to call for help.
    But there was no dial tone.
    In the dark he rattled the disconnect lever, trying to command service.
    The line had been cut.
    The unknown things in the bedroom continued to scratch and pry and pound on