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Authors: Clive Barker
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had hired to do the work of removing the tiles had first been obliged to empty the room of all the monks had left in there. Some of the furniture had subsequently been stolen, some broken up for firewood, and the rest—perhaps a quarter of the bounty—simply left to decay where it had been piled up. The snow, spiraling down, settled in little patches on the floor; patches which would not melt for the next four months, but only get wider and deeper as the winter’s storms got worse, the snow heavier.
Just before the thaw, in the middle of the following April, the weight of snow and ice finally brought the vaults down, in one calamitous descent.
There was nobody there to witness it, nor anyone within earshot to hear it. The room which had contained the Hunt was buried in the debris of all the vaults, plaster and wood and stone filling the chamber to the middle of the walls. Nobody who visited the Fortress in subsequent years—and there were a few explorers who came there every summer, usually imagining they’d stumbled on something darkly marvelous—a Fortress, per-
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haps belonging to Vlad the Impaler, whose legendary territories lay only a few hundred miles off to the west, in Transylvania—none of these visitors dug through the overgrown ruins with any great enthusiasm; certainly none ever asked themselves what function the half-buried room might once have served. Nor, should it be said, would they have been able to guess, even the cleverest of them. The mystery of the ruined chamber had been removed to another continent, where it was presently unfolding its dubious raptures for the delectation of a new and vulnerable audience.
Men and women who—like the tiles—had in many cases lately left their homelands; and in their haste to be famous left behind them such talis-mans as hearth and altar might have offered by way of protection against the guileful Hunt.
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P A R T T W O
The Heart-throb
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O N E
There’s a premiere in Los Angeles tonight, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The Chinese has been housing such events since 1927, but of course the crowds were much larger back then, tens of thousands of people, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, would block Hollywood Boulevard in their hunger to see the star of the moment. Tonight’s event is nowhere near that scale. Though the studio publicists will massage the numbers for tomorrow’s Variety and Hollywood Reporter , claiming that a crowd of four thousand people waited in the chilly evening air for the appearance of the star of tonight’s movie, Todd Pickett, the true numbers are in fact less than half that.
Still, a third of the Boulevard is barricaded off, and there are a few cop cars in evidence, just to give the whole event more drama.
As the limos approach the red carpet, and the ushers, who are dressed in the black leather costumes of the villains in the movie, step forward to open the doors, a few “screamers,” paid and planted in the crowd by the studio publicity people to get a little excitement going, start to do their job, yelling even before the face of the limo’s passenger has been seen.
There’s a large contingent of A-list names on tonight’s guest-list, and plenty of faces that elicit screams as they appear. Cruise isn’t here, but Nicole Kidman is; so is Schwarzenegger, who has a small role in the picture as the retiring Gallows, a vengeful, mythological character whom our hero, played by Todd Pickett, must either choose to embody when his time comes round, or—should he refuse—be pursued by the ghosts of several generations of former incarnations of the character, to persuade CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 54
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him otherwise. Sigourney Weaver plays the woman who has broken the curse of Gallows once before, to whom Pickett’s character must go when
Just before the thaw, in the middle of the following April, the weight of snow and ice finally brought the vaults down, in one calamitous descent.
There was nobody there to witness it, nor anyone within earshot to hear it. The room which had contained the Hunt was buried in the debris of all the vaults, plaster and wood and stone filling the chamber to the middle of the walls. Nobody who visited the Fortress in subsequent years—and there were a few explorers who came there every summer, usually imagining they’d stumbled on something darkly marvelous—a Fortress, per-
CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 50
50
CLIVE BARKER
haps belonging to Vlad the Impaler, whose legendary territories lay only a few hundred miles off to the west, in Transylvania—none of these visitors dug through the overgrown ruins with any great enthusiasm; certainly none ever asked themselves what function the half-buried room might once have served. Nor, should it be said, would they have been able to guess, even the cleverest of them. The mystery of the ruined chamber had been removed to another continent, where it was presently unfolding its dubious raptures for the delectation of a new and vulnerable audience.
Men and women who—like the tiles—had in many cases lately left their homelands; and in their haste to be famous left behind them such talis-mans as hearth and altar might have offered by way of protection against the guileful Hunt.
CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 51
P A R T T W O
The Heart-throb
CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 52
CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 53
O N E
There’s a premiere in Los Angeles tonight, at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The Chinese has been housing such events since 1927, but of course the crowds were much larger back then, tens of thousands of people, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, would block Hollywood Boulevard in their hunger to see the star of the moment. Tonight’s event is nowhere near that scale. Though the studio publicists will massage the numbers for tomorrow’s Variety and Hollywood Reporter , claiming that a crowd of four thousand people waited in the chilly evening air for the appearance of the star of tonight’s movie, Todd Pickett, the true numbers are in fact less than half that.
Still, a third of the Boulevard is barricaded off, and there are a few cop cars in evidence, just to give the whole event more drama.
As the limos approach the red carpet, and the ushers, who are dressed in the black leather costumes of the villains in the movie, step forward to open the doors, a few “screamers,” paid and planted in the crowd by the studio publicity people to get a little excitement going, start to do their job, yelling even before the face of the limo’s passenger has been seen.
There’s a large contingent of A-list names on tonight’s guest-list, and plenty of faces that elicit screams as they appear. Cruise isn’t here, but Nicole Kidman is; so is Schwarzenegger, who has a small role in the picture as the retiring Gallows, a vengeful, mythological character whom our hero, played by Todd Pickett, must either choose to embody when his time comes round, or—should he refuse—be pursued by the ghosts of several generations of former incarnations of the character, to persuade CC[001-347] 9/10/01 2:26 PM Page 54
54
CLIVE BARKER
him otherwise. Sigourney Weaver plays the woman who has broken the curse of Gallows once before, to whom Pickett’s character must go when
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