The Talisman

ram’s horns jutting from the sides of its head and wearing only a pair of patched L’il Abner britches, fell down and was trampled by the others.
    Heat against Jack’s leg in a circle.
    Reuel, now throwing one reedy leg over the side of the cab. It was slobbering, reaching for him, and the leg was writhing, it wasn’t a leg at all, it was a tentacle. Jack raised the Uzi and fired.
    Half of the Reuel-thing’s face sheered away like pudding. A flood of worms began to fall out of what was left.
    Reuel was still coming.
    Reaching for him with those webbed fingers.
    Richard’s shrieks, Osmond’s shrieks merging, melting together into one.
    Heat like a branding iron against his leg and suddenly he knew what it was, even as Reuel’s hands squashed down on his shoulders he knew – it was the coin Captain Farren had given him, the coin Anders had refused to take.
    He drove his hand into his pocket. The coin was like a chunk of ore in his hand – he made a fist around it, and felt power ram through him in big volts. Reuel felt it, too. His triumphant slobberings and grunts became mewlings of fear. He tried to back away, his one remaining eye rolling wildly.
    Jack brought the coin out. It glowed red-hot in his hand. He felt the heat clearly – but it was not burning him.
    The profile of the Queen glowed like the sun.
    ‘ In her name, you filthy, aborted thing! ’ Jack shouted. ‘ Get you off the skin of this world! ’ He opened his fist and slammed his hand into Reuel’s forehead.
    Reuel and his father shrieked in harmony – Osmond a tenor-verging-on-soprano, Reuel a buzzing, insectile bass. The coin slid into Reuel’s forehead like the tip of a hot poker into a tub of butter. A vile dark fluid, the color of overbrewed tea, ran out of Reuel’s head and over Jack’s wrist. The fluid was hot. There were tiny worms in it. They twisted and writhed on Jack’s skin. He felt them biting. Nevertheless, he pressed the first two fingers of his right hand harder, driving the coin farther into the monster’s head.
    ‘Get you off the skin of this world, vileness! In the name of the Queen and in the name of her son, get you off the skin of this world!’
    It shrieked and wailed; Osmond shrieked and wailed with it. The reinforcements had stopped and were milling behind Osmond, their faces full of superstitious terror. To them Jack seemed to have grown; he seemed to be giving off a bright light.
    Reuel jerked. Uttered one more bubbling screech. The black stuff running out of his head turned yellow. A final worm, long and thickly white, wriggled out of the hole the coin had made. It fell to the floor of the engine compartment. Jack stepped on it. It broke open under his heel and spattered. Reuel fell in a wet heap.
    Now such a screaming wail of grief and fury arose in the dusty stockade yard that Jack thought his skull might actually be split open with it. Richard had curled into a fetal ball with his arms wrapped around his head.
    Osmond was wailing. He had dropped his whip and the machine-pistol.
    ‘ Oh, filthy! ’ he cried, shaking his fists at Jack. ‘ Look what you’ve done! Oh, you filthy, bad boy! I hate you, hate you forever and beyond forever! Oh, filthy Pretender! I’ll kill you! Morgan will kill you! Oh my darling only son! FILTHY! MORGAN WILL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE! MORGAN —’
    The others took up the cry in a whispering voice, reminding Jack of the boys in the Sunlight Home: can you gimme hallelujah . And then they fell silent, because there was the other sound.
    Jack was tumbled back instantly to the pleasant afternoon he had spent with Wolf, the two of them sitting by the stream, watching the herd graze and drink as Wolf talked about his family. It had been pleasant enough . . . pleasant enough, that is, until Morgan came.
    And now Morgan was coming again – not flipping over but bludgeoning his way through, raping his way in.
    ‘Morgan! It’s –’
    ‘– Morgan, Lord –’
    ‘Lord of Orris –’
    ‘Morgan . . . Morgan . . . Morgan . . .’
    The ripping sound grew louder and louder. The Wolfs were abasing themselves in the dust. Osmond danced a shuffling jig, his black boots trampling the steel-tipped rawhide thongs woven into his whip.
    ‘Bad boy! Filthy boy! Now you’ll pay! Morgan’s coming! Morgan’s coming!’
    The air about twenty feet to Osmond’s right began to blur and shimmer, like the air over a burning incinerator.
    Jack looked around, saw Richard curled up in the