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suit and blue check shirt.
"Not with guns," said Singing Rock. "He doesn't need to be. His magical powers
are far more effective than guns. What's more, your guns will be quite useless
against him, and potentially dangerous to yourselves. If I can't impress
anything else on you, let me convince you of that. Please -- no guns."
Lieutenant Marino raised his eyebrows. "What do you suggest we use as an
alternative -- bows and arrows?"
Singing Rock frowned. "Your humor is a little out of line, lieutenant. There's
nothing funny about what's happening downstairs, and you're going to need all
the help and all the information you can get."
"Well," said Lieutenant Marino, "what is happening downstairs?"
"It's not easy to understand," said Singing Rock. "I'm not even sure of this
myself. But here's the way I read it right now. Misquamacus, the medicine man,
is preparing a magical gateway to summon Red Indian demons and spirits from
the other side."
"The other side of what?"
"The other side of physical existence. The spirit world. He's already managed
to conjure up the Star Beast, which is the servant and messenger of the Great
Hierarchy of Red Indian demons. Mr. Erskine here -- well, he saw the Star
Beast with his own eyes, and nearly died."
Lieutenant Marino said: "Is that true, Mr. Erskine?"
I nodded. "It's true. I swear it. Look at the state of my hands."
Lieutenant Marino peered at my blue and blotchy patches of frostbite and said
nothing.
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Singing Rock said: "It isn't easy for any medicine man to conjure up beings
from beyond. They're pitiless, dangerous and powerful. Most of the greater
beings from Red Indian history are sealed off from us by ancient locks and
spells that were imposed on them before the white man even placed one foot on
our continent. The medicine men who locked them away in the spirit world were
masters of their craft, and there isn't a single spiritual wonder-worker alive
today who can match them. That's why these manitous are so perilous. If
Misquamacus releases them, there is no one who can send them back. I'm not
even sure that Misquamacus could send them back himself."
Detective Narro was confused. He said: "These beings -- do you mean they're
hiding in the building?"
Singing Rock shook his head. "They are all around us. In the air we breathe.
In the woods and rocks and trees. Everything has its manitou, its spirit.
There are the natural manitous of the skies and the earth and the rains, and
there are manitous in everything that is made or created by man. Every Indian
lodge had its manitou; every Indian weapon had its manitou. Why do some bows
shoot straight and others crooked? It depends on the faith of the man who
holds the bow, and the sympathy he has for the manitou of his weapon. That is
why your guns would be so dangerous to you. A gun has a manitou, according to
whatever faith and craft has been invested in it, but your men do not believe
that, and the manitous of their own weapons could quite easily be turned
against them."
Lieutenant Marino was still listening, but he was looking more and more
miserable with every word that Singing Rock spoke. Detective Narro was trying
to keep up with it, but it was plain that he believed that Misquamacus was a
criminal maniac with a hidden gang. In Detective Narro's life, spirits and
insubstantial shades from nether worlds just didn't exist. I wished to God
that they didn't exist in mine.
Singing Rock said: "From the gateway that Misquamacus is preparing, I think
that he is calling on the most terrible of all spirits, the Great Old One."
Lieutenant Marino said: "The Great Old One? Who is the Great Old One?"
"He is the equivalent to your Satan, or Devil. Gitche Manitou is the great
spirit of life and Red Indian creation, but the Great Old One is his constant
enemy. There are many accounts of the Great Old One in ancient Indian
writings, although none of them agree what he looked like, or how he could be
summoned. Some say he looked like a huge toad, the size of several pigs, and
others say he looked like a cloud with a face made of snakes."
Lieutenant Marino sniffed. "Kind of hard to send out an APB on that
description."
Singing Rock nodded. "You wouldn't get the opportunity, Lieutenant. The Great
Old One is the most ravenous and hideous of all demons. I have said that he's
like your Satan; but Satan, by comparison, is a gentleman. The Great Old One
is a being of infinite cruelty and malevolence."
There was a long silence. Finally, Lieutenant Marino stood up, and adjusted
his revolver in his belt. Detective Narro closed his notebook and buttoned up
his coat.
"Thank you for your information and your assistance," said Lieutenant Marino.
"Now I think we'll go catch ourselves a homicide." Singing Rock said:
"Lieutenant -- you're not taking your gun?"
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Marino simply smiled. "Your stories about demons and all that stuff are very
imaginative, Mr. Singing Rock, but I have a homicide squad to run. The
hospital has asked us to winkle out a mad patient who's already killed one
nurse and injured a doctor, and it's my duty to go down there and get him out.
Dead or alive, you understand, depending on how he wants it. What did you say
his name was? Mickey something?"
"Misquamacus," corrected Singing Rock quietly. "Lieutenant, I'm warning you --
"
"Warn me no warns," said Lieutenant Marino. "I've been serving this force for
longer than a coon's age, and I know what to do in situations like this one.
There won't be no trouble, and there won't be no fuss. Just keep your heads
down until it's all over."
He opened the office door, and the press and the TV people came pushing in.
Singing Rock and I stood amongst them, silent and depressed and frightened,
while Marino gave a tough two-minute resume of what he planned to do.
"We're going to seal off the whole floor, then comb the corridors with
marksmen and tear gas. We're going to do it real systematic, and we're going
to issue regular warnings to this nut that if he doesn't come quiet he's in
genuine trouble. I'm also sending three men down in the elevator to cut him
off from that direction."
The reporters scribbled down Marino's plan, and then bombarded him with more
questions. Marino raised his hands for silence.
"I'm not saying anything else for now. Just watch how we flush him out, and
then we'll chew the fat later. Is everyone ready, detective?"
"Ready, sir," said Narro.
We watched despondently as a squad of eight armed patrolmen went to the
staircase and disappeared through the door. Lieutenant Marino was standing by
the elevator with his hand held intercom, checking for the moment when the
search-and-destroy team would reach the tenth floor. Three men -- two
uniformed officers and Detective Narro -- were waiting by the elevator,
revolvers ready, all keyed up for the moment to go down there and shoot it
out. After nine or ten minutes of restless waiting, there was a buzz from the
men down below.
"How you doing down there?" called Lieutenant Marino through the intercom.
There was a crackle of static, then a voice said: "It's dark. We can't get the
lights to work. We may need some floods."
"Are you into the corridor yet?" asked Lieutenant Marino. "Can you see
anything?"
"We're just through the door and we're ready to fan out and start looking. No
sign of any trouble so far."
Lieutenant Marino gave the thumb's up to Detective Narro and his two uniformed
buddies, and they entered the elevator and pressed the button for 10. Singing
Rock and I didn't look at each other as the doors slid shut and the floor
indicator blinked 18 -- 17 -- 16 -- 15 -- 14 and down. It stopped at 10.
"How you guys doing?" asked Marino, into his intercom.
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"We're fine," came the voice of the search-and-destroy leader. "So far there's
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