This Present Darkness (74 page)

THE CONFERENCE ROOM
was quickly losing its calm atmosphere.

Delores Pinckston was distraught. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew we were all getting in too deep!”

“Hogan,” fumed Eugene Baylor, “you’re only bluffing. You have nothing.”

“I have
everything
, and you know it.”

Kaseph was beginning to look very ill. “Get out! Get out of here! I’ll kill you if you don’t leave!”

Was this the real Kaseph that Marshall had been tracking down all this time? Was this the ruthless occult mobster who controlled such a vast international empire? Was he actually
afraid?

“You’re sunk, Kaseph!” said Marshall.

“You’re defeated, Strongman!” said Hank.

The Strongman began to shake. The demons in the room could only cower.

“So let’s deal,” Marshall offered again. “Where’s my daughter?”

BRUMMEL WAS ABOUT
to have a heart attack, and he wished he really could. It was horrible! The others were sitting around the room listening raptly to this beast speaking through Langstrat, and actually relishing what was happening to Sandy. She trembled and shook in her chair, moaning, screaming, struggling against some unseen assailant.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

Her eyes were wide open, but she was seeing unspeakable horrors from another world. She gasped for air, pale with terror.

She’s going to die, Brummel! They are going to kill her!

The hulking, bug-eyed creature sitting in Langstrat’s chair was bellowing in a voice that made Brummel’s insides quiver. “You are lost, Sandy Hogan! We have you now! You belong to us, and we are the only reality you know!”

“Please, God,” she screamed. “Get me out of here, please!”

“Join us! Your mother has fled, your father is dead! He is gone! Think of him no longer! You belong to us!”

Sandy went limp in her chair as if she had been shot. Her face suddenly numbed with despair.

Brummel could take no more. Before he had time to realize what he was doing, he jumped out of his chair and ran to her. He shook her gently and tried to speak to her.

“Sandy!” he pleaded. “Sandy, don’t listen to them! It’s all a lie! Do you hear me?”

Sandy could not hear him.

But Rafar could. Langstrat jumped up from her chair and screamed at Brummel in that same deep, devilish voice, “Be silent, you little imp, and step aside! She belongs to
me!
”

Brummel ignored her. “Sandy, don’t listen to this lying monster. This is Alf Brummel talking to you. Your father is all right.”

Rafar’s rage grew so that Langstrat’s body nearly burst from the intensity of it. “Hogan is defeated! He is imprisoned!”

Brummel looked right into Langstrat’s—and Rafar’s—crazed eyes and shouted, “Marshall Hogan is free! Hank Busche is free! I released them myself! They are free, and they are coming to destroy you!”

Rafar was stymied for a moment. He simply could not believe the ravings of this weak little man, this insignificant little puppet who had never before acted in this brazen fashion. But then Rafar heard a very inappropriate snicker coming from behind Brummel, and he saw a familiar face laughing him to scorn.

Lucius!

TAL AND GUILO
swooped down into the Administration Building, but Tal suddenly stopped short.

“Wait now! What is this?”

LUCIUS DREW HIS
sword and said, “You are not so mighty, Rafar! Your plan has failed, and I am the only true Prince of Ashton!”

Rafar’s sword rang from its sheath. “Do you dare to oppose
me
?”

Rafar’s sword cut through the air with a rush of wind, but Lucius stopped the big blade with his own; the force of the blow almost knocked him over.

The many demons in the room were startled and confused. They let go of their hosts. What was
this
?

KASEPH WAS INDIGNANT
with his lawyers and even threw some punches at them. “Stop it! You will not tell me what to do! This is
my
world!
I
am in charge here!
I
say what is and what is not! These people are fools and liars, every one of them!”

Susan spoke directly to Kaseph. “You, Alexander Kaseph, are responsible for the murder of Patricia Krueger
and
the attempted murder of myself and Mr. Weed here. I have the many lists I helped you
write up, lists of people who ended up dead by your order.”

“Murder!” exclaimed one regent. “Mr. Kaseph, is this true?”

“Don’t answer that,” said a lawyer.

“No!” Kaseph screamed.

Several other regents looked at each other. They knew Kaseph pretty well by now. They didn’t believe him.

“How about it, Kaseph?” Marshall said grimly.

The Strongman wanted with all his evil heart to lunge at this brazen hound and maul him, and he would have, guards or no guards—if not for that horrible praying man who stood in the way.

LANGSTRAT STALKED LIKE
a lion toward Brummel, as many of the psychics, having lost their spirit guides, came out of their trances to see what in the world had happened.

“I will vanquish you for this treachery!” she hissed at him.

“What is this?” Oliver Young demanded. “Have you both gone mad?”

Brummel stood his ground and pointed a shaking finger at Langstrat. “You will no longer rule over me. This plan will not succeed for your glory. I will not let it!”

“Be quiet, you little fool!” Langstrat ordered.

“No!” Brummel shouted, driven on by the crazed and brazen Lucius. “The Plan is doomed. It has failed, just as I knew it would.”

“AND YOU ARE
doomed, Rafar!” Lucius screamed, dodging the lethal thrusts of Rafar’s sword. “Do you hear the battle outside? The Hosts of Heaven are everywhere!”

“Treachery!” Rafar hissed. “You will pay for your treachery!”

“Treachery!” some of the demons cried.

“No, Lucius speaks the truth!” others shouted back.

SANDY FORCED HERSELF
to look into those evil yellow eyes and plead, “What’s—what’s happened to you, Madeline? Why have you changed?”

Madeline only cackled and answered, “Do not believe what you see. What is evil? It is but an illusion. What is pain? It is but an illusion. What is fear? It is but an illusion.”

“But you lied to me! You deceived me!”

“I have never been other than I am. It is you who have deceived yourself.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going to set you free.”

Just as Madeline spoke those words, Sandy’s arms suddenly dropped with such a ponderous weight that she almost fell to the ground.

Chains! Links upon links of glistening, heavy chains hung around her wrists and her arms. Crooked hands were whipping them around her. The cold and bruising links slapped against her legs, her body, her neck. She could no longer struggle against them. She tried to scream, but her breath was gone.