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from its neck, its scarred and mutilated chest rising and falling with the
breath of one of man's oldest and most terrible enemies, a devil even more
vicious than Lucifer.
Skrolnik said, "Now will you get the gasoline?"
"Evans!" bellowed Calsbeek. "Guttierez! Get out to the wagon and bring in
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those spare cans of gas, and do it so damn fast I don't know you've gone!"
Calsbeek's two officers elbowed their way as quickly as they could through the
last stragglers pushing each other to get out of the hospital, while Skrolnik
and Calsbeek and Pullet retreated toward the reception counter, drawing their
revolvers and watching the Tengu warily. For a while, the Tengu stayed where
it was, in the doorway, no flames dancing around its shoulders at the moment,
no movement to suggest what it might be considering next. But as Evans and
Guttierez came clanging back with their heavy
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cans of gasoline, the Tengu took one clumsy step forward and raised both arms
as if it were feeling its way across the lobby, sensing the presence of
vulnerable humans through the nerves in the palms of its hands.
To Skrolnik, the Tengu looked like a bloody carcass of beef, headless and
gutted; or the hideous human corpse in Goya's painting of Saturn devouring his
children. The body was human, but the missing head had taken away all its
identity, all its humanity.
"Get your men to splash as much gas on that thing as they can," said Skrolnik.
"Just tell them to keep out of its way. Once it gets hold of you, you're dead
beef."
Calsbeek gave the order, and Evans and Guttiercz opened up two of the gasoline
cans and began circling the Tengu cautiously, swinging the cans back so that
they could slosh as much fuel over the creature as possible. The Tengu didn't
even flinch, but kept walking slowly and deliberately across the lobby toward
the reception counter. Skrolnik and Calsbeek retreated from the counter, and
climbed clumsily around the edge of the ornamental pool to keep as much
distance between themselves and the Tengu as they possibly could.
The Tengu hesitated for a second or two, confused by their movement.Then
Skrolnik saw the tiny foxfires glittering around its severed neck again, and
it swung toward them, its hands still extended, a grisly caricature of
Frankenstein's monster. Skrolnik thought, I'm going to wake up in a minute.
I'm going to wake up and find that I'm late for breakfast. Oh, holy Jesus,
please let me wake up in a minute. Or preferably sooner.
Pullet reached across to the low coffee table in the middle of the waiting
area and picked up a copy of Los Angeles magazine. He attempted to rip it in
half, but because this was August, it was the 404-page restaurant-guide
special, and he couldn't do it. "For Christ's sake," said Skrolnik. "Tear out
individual pages, roll them up, make a torch."
Step by step, they backed off toward the open hospital
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door. Evans and Guttierez splashed the last of the third can of gasoline over
the Tengu, until the creature was so drenched that it gave off rippling fumes.
Pullet had made his torch now, and was lighting it with a book of matches.
The paper flared up. The Tengu suddenly made a volent and unnervingy accurate
rush toward them. The ghostly blue fires around its shoulders roared up like a
locomotive roaring through a tunnel. Calsbeek said, "Oh, shit," and collided
with the doorframe as he tried to scramble his way out. Skrolnik yelled,
"Throw the goddamned torch, PulletV
Pullet threw it. It fell immediately to pieces and fluttered into separate
blazing pages. Skrolnik thought for one dreadful second that Pullet had missed
altogether, but then a wayward draft from the open door blew one of the
burning pages up against the Tengu's chest.
The Tengu stumbled toward them, arms outstretched, groping for them, but then
the burning paper ignited the gasoline on its chest and fanned a pattern of
orange flames across its ribcage. There was a dull, breathy, thumping noise,
and the gasoline that Calsbeek's two officers had splashed into the Tengu's
lungs and stomach through its wide-open neck exploded, and blew chunks of
flaming flesh across the hospital patio.
The Tengu staggered, burning fiercely from thighs to shoulders. It took one
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slow step forward, then another, even though Skrolnik could see right through
its charred ribs to where the fire was blazing inside its chest, and its bones
were crackling and popping with heat.
Unnerved, Calsbeek fired off two shots, but they made no impression on the
Tengu at all. It stood where it was, fiery and defiant, a walking corpse that
refused to bow down, even to immolation. It was only when the flesh of its
thighs had actually burned through to the femur that it spun around and
collapsed onto the paving stones with a noise of flaring fat.
Skrolnik limped closer, and stood over the guttering body with horror and
relief. As the flesh burned away from
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Tengu
the neck and upper cheset, the ax blade suddenly dropped onto the patio with a
clunk, and he jerked back in involuntary shock.
Calsbeek was calling harshly on his radio for reinforcements, so that the
hospital could be screened off. The hospital administrator, with a great deal
of shouting and bustling about, had already arranged for the patients to be
moved to different rooms, away from the intensive-care unit where Admiral
Thorson had been murdered. The night was echoing with whooping choruses of
sirens, and the trees around the hospital were alight with the flashing of
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