Darkfall

wouldn’t have a chance.
    Lavelle closed his eyes and imagined he was standing over their bloody, lifeless bodies. That prospect thrilled him.
    The murder of children was a dangerous undertaking, one which a Bocor did not contemplate unless he had no other choice. Before he placed a curse of death upon a child, he had better know how to shield himself from the wrath of the Rada gods, the gods of white magic, for they were infuriated by the victimization of children. If a Bocor killed an innocent child without knowing the charms and spells that would, subsequently, protect him from the power of the Rada , then he would suffer excruciating pain for many days and nights. And when the Rada finally snuffed him out, he wouldn’t mind dying; indeed, he would be grateful for an end to his suffering.
    Lavelle knew how to armor himself against the Rada . He had killed other children, before this, and had gotten away with it every time, utterly unscathed. Nevertheless, he was tense and uneasy. There was always the possibility of a mistake. In spite of his knowledge and power, this was a dangerous scheme.
    On the other hand, if a Bocor used his command of supernatural machinery to kill a child, and if he got away with it, then the gods of Pétr o and Congo were so pleased with him that they bestowed even greater power upon him. If Lavelle could destroy Penny and Davey Dawson and deflect the wrath of Rada , his mastery of dark magic would be more awesome than ever before.
    Behind his closed eyelids, he saw images of the dead, torn, mutilated bodies of the Dawson children.
    He laughed softly.
    In the Dawson apartment, far across town from the shed where Baba Lavelle was performing the ritual, two dozen silver-eyed creatures swayed in the shadows, in sympathy with the rhythm of the Bocor ‘s chanting and singing. His voice could not be heard in the apartment, of course. Yet these things with demented eyes were somehow aware of it. Swaying, they stood in the kitchen, the living room-and in the dark hallway, where they watched the door with panting anticipation. When Lavelle reached the end of the ritual, all of the small beasts stopped swaying at exactly the same time, at the very instant Lavelle fell silent. They were rigid now. Watchful. Alert. Ready.
    In a storm drain beneath Wellton School, other creatures rocked back and forth in the darkness, eyes gleaming, keeping time with Lavelle’s chants, though he was much too far away to be heard. When he ceased chanting they stopped swaying and were as still, as alert, as ready to attack as were the uninvited guests in the Dawson apartment.
    IX
    The traffic light turned red, and the crosswalk filled with a river of heavily bundled pedestrians, their faces hidden by scarves and coat collars. They shuffled and slipped and slid past the front of the patrol car.
    Nick Iervolino said, “I wonder…”
    Jack said, “What?”
    “Well, just suppose voodoo does work.”
    “We’ve already been supposing it.”
    “Just for the sake of argument.”
    “Yeah, yeah. We’ve been through this already. Go on.”
    “Okay. So why does Lavelle threaten your kids? Why doesn’t he just put a curse on you, bump you off, forget about them? That’s the question.”
    “That’s the question,” Jack agreed.
    “Well, maybe, for some reason, his magic won’t work on you.”
    “What reason?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If it works on other people-which is what we’re supposing-then why wouldn’t it work on me?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If it’ll work on my kids, why wouldn’t it work on me?”
    “I don’t know. Unless… well, maybe there’s something different about you.”
    “Different? Like what?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You sound like a broken record.”
    “I know.”
    Jack sighed. “This isn’t much of an explanation you’ve come up with.”
    “Can you think of a better one?”
    “No.”
    The traffic light turned green. The last of the pedestrians had crossed. Nick pulled into the intersection and turned left.
    After a while, Jack said, “Different, huh?”
    “Somehow.”
    As they headed farther downtown, toward the office they talked about it, trying to figure out what the difference might be.
    X
    At Wellton School, the last classes of the day were over at three o’clock. By three-ten, a tide of laughing, jabbering children spilled through the front doors, down the steps, onto the sidewalk, into the driving snow that transformed the gray urban landscape of New York