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The hand lay on the floor, in a corner, palered explorer through the power of telekenesis, which his ineer into him An object of horror, he had nonetheless proved to be a successful experi machinery, the hand is now dead Karloff can still anier The flesh will rapidly deteriorate Even the power of telekenesis will not be able tomusculature
Surely, however, Victor had not anticipated that Karloff would be able to eain even a limited form of freedo his maker’s murder
With that same uncanny power, Karloff had activated the electric mechanis entrance to Erika With it, he had also controlled the television in the e rebellion
Being less of a cora of Victor’s e of the limitations placed upon the freedoainst her ested that he use his power to disable the machines that supported his existence, Erika discovered that he, too, had been prograainst despondency, her hope reduced to the shaky condition of a three-legged table The crawling hand and the other apparitions had not been the supernatural events that she had longed to believe they were
Oh, how badly she had wanted these miracles to be evidence of another world beyond this one What seerotesque Karloff
She ht have hated him, but she did not Instead she pitied this pathetic creature, as helpless in his power and conde hell
Perhaps what she felt wasn’t pity Strictly speaking, she should not be capable of pity But she felt so pleaded
The bloodshot eyes were haunted The half-foran to tell hiram forbade her to kill either the Old Race or the New except in self-defense or at the order of her ra to the Old Race, but he did not qualify as one of the New Race, either He was soular
None of the rules of conduct under which Erika lived applied in this norant of its function, she said, "I don’t want to cause you pain"
"Pain is all I know," he murmured "Peace is all I want"
She threitches, pulled plugs The purr of oing," Karloff said, his voice thickening into a slur His bloodshot eyes fell shut "Going…"
On the floor, in the corner, the hand spasmed, spasmed
The bodiless head’s last words were so slurred and whispery as to be barely intelligible: "Youabout what he’d said, for the poets of the Old Race had often written that God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform
In time she realized that Victor must not find her here
She studied the switches that she’d thrown, the plugs that she’d pulled She reinserted one of the plugs She repositioned the hand on the floor directly under the switches She put the reers around it, held them until they remained in place without her sustained pressure
In the pantry once more, she needed a minute to find the hidden switch The shelves full of canned food slid into place, closing off the entrance to Victor’s studio
She returned to the painting by van Huysu room So beautiful
To better thrill Victor sexually, she had been permitted shame From shame had come humility Now it seemed that from humility had perhaps come pity, and more than pity: mercy
As she wondered about her potential, Erika’s hope was reborn Her feathered thing, perched in her heart if not her soul, was a phoenix, rising yet again from ashes
CHAPTER 74
FROM THE SWIVELING BEACONS on the roofs of police cruisers and aht painted a patriotic phantas
Some in pajamas and robes, others dressed and priathered on the sidewalk They gossiped, laughed, drank beer from paper cups, drank beer fro, took snapshots of the police and of one another They seeard the eruption of sudden violence and the presence of a serial killer in their midst as reason for celebration
At the open trunk of the departun, Michael said, "How can he jump up and run away after a four-story face plant?"
"It’s onna write up this report without landing in a psych ward?"
Sla the trunk lid, Carson said, "We lie"
A Subaru Outback angled to the curb behind theot out "Can you believe--Harker?"
"He always seemed like such a sweetheart," Michael said
"The moment I saw that suicide note on Roy Pribeaux’s computer," Carson inforing Michael and me, Harker used the same phrase that ends Pribeaux’s note--’one level below Hell"‘
Michael confir to have to go to a weirder place--one level below Hell"
Surprised, Kathy said, "You mean you think he did it on purpose, he wanted you to tumble to him?"
"Maybe unconsciously," Carson said, "but yeah, he did He threw the pretty boy off the roof after setting hi of murders and those that Harker himself committed But with those four words--’one level below Hell’--he lit a fuse to destroy himself"
"Deep inside, they pretty reed "But I wouldn’t expect Harker’s psychology to …" "To what?"
She shrugged "To work that way I don’t know I’ him, the bastard’s on my doorstep"
"Don’t beat yourself up," Carson advised "None of us suspected Harker till he all but pointed the finger at himself"
"But htclub ie City," Carson recalled "Sounds like a place people go to pick their noses," Michael said
"Harker and Frye were on that case," Kathy said Michael shrugged "Sure Harker shot the perp It was an iffy shoot, but he was cleared"
‘After a fatal OIS," Kathy said, "he had six hours ofHe showed up at my office for two of the hours but then never came back"
"No offense, Dr Burke," Michael said, "but lots of us thinksucks Just because Harker bailed doesn’t erator"
"Yeah, but I knew soh to finish the sessions"
The previous night, Carson had passed on the opportunity to tell Kathy the Spooky Time Theater story about monsters in New Orleans Now there was no way to explain that she hadn’t any reason to feel conscious-stricken, that Harker’s psychology was not even huht of the situation as possible, Carson said to Michael, "Is she doomed to Hell, or what?"