Darkfall

than before, opened the door, held it wide, turned, and finally looked back the way she’d come.
    Davey was two-thirds of the way up the steps, his breath puffing out of him in jets of frost-white steam. He looked so small and fragile. But he was going to make it.
    Rebecca came down off the ridge of snow at the curb, onto the sidewalk, stumbled, fell to her knees.
    Behind her, two goblins reached the top of the piled-up snow.
    Penny screamed. “They’re coming! Hurry!”
    When Rebecca fell to her knees, she heard Penny scream, and she got up at once, but she took only one step before the two goblins dashed past her, Jesus, as fast as the wind, a lizard-thing and a cat-thing, both of them screeching. They didn’t attack her, didn’t nip at her or hiss, didn’t even pause. They weren’t interested in her at all; they just wanted the kids.
    Davey was at the cathedral door now, standing with Penny, and both of them were shouting at Rebecca.
    The goblins reached the steps and climbed half of them in what seemed like a fraction of a second, but then they abruptly slowed down, as if they had realized they were rushing toward a holy place, although that realization didn’t stop them altogether. They crept slowly and cautiously from step to step, sinking half out of sight in the snow.
    Rebecca yelled at Penny-“Get in the church and close the door!”-but Penny hesitated, apparently hoping that Rebecca would somehow make it past the goblins and get to safety herself (if the cathedral actually was safe), but even at their slower pace the goblins were almost to the top of the steps. Rebecca yelled again. And again Penny hesitated. Now, moving slower by the second, the goblins were within one step of the top, only a few feet away from Penny and Davey… and now they were at the top, and Rebecca was shouting frantically, and at last Penny pushed Davey into the cathedral. She followed her brother and stood just inside the door for a moment, holding it open, peering out. Moving slower still, but still moving, the goblins headed for the door. Rebecca wondered if maybe these creatures could enter a church when the door was held open for them, just as (according to legend) a vampire could enter a house only if invited or if someone held the door for him. It was probably crazy to think the same rules that supposedly governed mythical vampires would apply to these very real voodoo devils. Nevertheless, with new panic in her voice, Rebecca shouted at Penny again, and she ran halfway up the steps because she thought maybe the girl couldn’t hear her above the wind, and she screamed at the top of her voice, “Don’t worry about me! Close the door! Close the door!” And finally Penny closed it, although reluctantly, just as the goblins arrived at the threshold.
    The lizard-thing threw itself at the door, rebounded from it, and rolled onto its feet again.
    The cat-thing wailed angrily.
    Both creatures scratched at the portal, but neither of them showed any determination, as if they knew that, for them, this was too great a task. Opening a cathedral door-opening the door to any holy place-required far greater power than they possessed.
    Frustrated, they turned away from the door. Looked at Rebecca. Their fiery eyes seemed brighter than the eyes of the other creatures she had seen at the Jamisons’ and in the foyer of that brownstone apartment house.
    She backed down one step.
    The goblins started toward her.
    She descended all the other steps, stopping only when she reached the sidewalk.
    The lizard-thing and the cat-thing stood at the top of the steps, glaring at her.
    Torrents of wind and snow raced along Fifth Avenue, and the snow was falling so heavily that it almost seemed she would drown in it as surely as she would have drowned in an onrushing flood.
    The goblins descended one step.
    Rebecca backed up until she encountered the ridge of snow at the curb.
    The goblins descended a second step, a third.

Chapter Eight

    I
    The bath of purification lasted only two minutes. Jack dried himself on three small, soft, highly absorbent towels which had strange runes embroidered in the corners; they were of a material not quite like anything he had ever seen before.
    When he had dressed, he followed Carver Hampton into the living room and, at the Houngon ‘s direction, stood in the center of the room, where the light was brightest.
    Hampton began a long chant, holding an asson over Jack’s head, then slowly moving it down the front