999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [103]
“What is it?” Vav had halted at my cry and now she turned.
“There’s someone coming after us,” I said. “Can’t you see him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t see anything,” she said. “I thought you’d guessed. I’m quite blind.”
“Oh, hell.”
“No, no, it’s all part of my gift,” she said, misunderstanding me. Out of the wok and into the inferno, I thought as I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her backward down the alley.
“Hurry,” she said. “Hurry now, William.”
The figure was gaining on us at an alarming rate. All of a sudden I knew what it felt like to have my blood run cold, because I found myself staring face-to-face—if you could call it that—with the hideous gargoyle. It was so hideous I could barely glance at it. Now I knew what had drawn my eye up to it in the first place: I had seen it stir. The problem was I hadn’t been able to believe it. Now I had no choice. It was alive and it was after us.
“It’s the gargoyle,” I managed to get out. “Vav, if you have any idea what the hell is going on, now would be the time to tell me.” Right about then it occurred to me that the Tazzman had shot me and this was really … Hell?
“Vav, tell me I’m not dead.”
“It’s worse than I had been led to believe,” she said more to herself than to me. What mystery were her blind bronze eyes seeing? “Trust me, William, you’re not dead.”
No sooner had Vav said this than a gargoyle leapt at us with such frightening speed that it was all I could do to duck out of its way. A misshapen taloned hand swung across my vision and struck Vav with such force that she flew out of my grip and bounced like a ball against the stones of the alley. Then, to my surprise, the beast drew back as if sensing something I could neither see nor hear. Foolishly, I turned my back on the horror while I knelt beside her.
“William, are you there?”
“You know I am.” There was blood all over, hot and sticky. “I’ve got to call an ambulance.”
“Too late. You must get to the exhibition,” she whispered. “It’s absolutely vital.”
“Vav, please tell me why.” But she was gone, and I could feel the beast almost upon me, so I let her go and ran. But I had left it too late. One of its paws tripped me and I went sprawling face first onto the cobblestones. I tried to get up, but I seemed paralyzed. I had only strength enough to turn over. I saw it looming over me, its awful snout contorted in what seemed to be a ghastly grin.
I threw a hand across my face and at once I was seized by a violent bout of vertigo. The very cobblestones beneath me seemed to melt as I plunged into a dark and formless pit. I think I screamed. Then I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a cool, leafy glade. Birds chirped and sang in the oak branches in counterpoint to the soft lazy drone of insects. I could smell clover and the tangy scents of loosestrife and mock orange. Looking up at the sky, I could see it was that time of the day when, having riven out the sunlight, the lovely cobalt of evening has spread like inscrutable words upon a page.
I heard a horse whinny and, turning my head, discovered close by a magnificent chestnut hunter-jumper cropping the grass. He was fitted out in English riding habit.
The quick beat of a horse’s hooves caused me to look up into the face of a woman. She was quite striking, with emerald eyes and lustrous dark-blond hair that fell thick as the forest around us to the edge of her jawline. Radiant, that was the word one might use in defining her; radiant in the way few people ever are or could hope to be. Seated confidently astride a black mare with a white blaze in the center of its forehead, she was dressed in expensive