Darkfall

a minor feature of the huge beast rising from the Gates; it was as small, proportionately, as a human finger compared to an entire human body. Perhaps this was the only thing that the escaping Lovecraftian entity had thus far been able to extrude between the opening Gates-this one finger.
    The giant, insectile, tentacular limb bent toward Lavelle. The whiplike appendages at the tip lashed out, snared him, and lifted him off the ground, into the blood-red light. He screamed and flailed, but he could do nothing to prevent himself from being drawn into that obscene, drooling mouth. And then he was gone.
    In the cathedral, the last of the goblins had reached the communion railing. At least a hundred of them turned blazing eyes on Rebecca, Penny, Davey, and Father Walotsky.
    Their hissing was now augmented with an occasional snarl.
    Suddenly the four-eyed, four-armed manlike demon leaped off the rail, into the chancel. It took a few tentative steps forward and looked from side to side; there was an air of wariness about it. Then it raised its tiny spear, shook it, and shrieked.
    Immediately, all of the other goblins shrieked, too.
    Another one dared to enter the chancel.
    Then a third. Then four more.
    Rebecca glanced sideways, toward the sacristy door. But it was no use running in there. The goblins would only follow. The end had come at last.
    The worm-thing reached Carver Hampton where he sat on the floor, his back pressed to the wall. It reared up, until half its disgusting body was off the floor.
    He looked into those bottomless, fiery eyes and knew that he was too weak a Houngon to protect himself.
    Then, out behind the house, something roared; it sounded enormous and very much alive.
    The earth quaked, and the house rocked, and the worm-demon seemed to lose interest in Carver. It turned half away from him and moved its head from side to side, began to sway to some music that Carver could not hear.
    With a sinking heart, he realized what had temporarily enthralled the thing: the sound of other Hell-trapped souls screeching toward a long-desired freedom, the triumphant ululation of the Ancient Ones at last breaking their bonds.
    The end had come.
    Jack advanced to the edge of the pit. The rim was dissolving, and the hole was growing larger by the second. He was careful not to stand at the very brink.
    The fierce red glow made the snowflakes look like whirling embers. But now there were shafts of bright white light mixed in with the red, the same silvery-white as the goblins’ eyes, and Jack was sure this meant the Gates were opening dangerously far.
    The monstrous appendage, half insectile and half like a tentacle, swayed above him threateningly, but he knew it couldn’t touch him. Not yet, anyway. Not until the Gates were all the way open. For now, the benevolent gods of Rada still possessed some power over the earth, and he was protected by them.
    He took the jar of holy water from his coat pocket. He wished he had Carver’s jar, as well, but this would have to do. He unscrewed the lid and threw it aside.
    Another menacing shape was rising from the depths. He could see it, a vague dark presence rushing up through the nearly blinding light, howling like a thousand dogs.
    He had accepted the reality of Lavelle’s black magic and of Carver’s white magic, but now he suddenly was able to do more than accept it; he was able to understand it in concrete terms, and he knew he now understood it better than Lavelle or Carver ever had or ever would. He looked into the pit and he knew . Hell was not a mythical place, and there was nothing supernatural about demons and gods, nothing holy or unholy about them. Hell-and consequently Heaven-were as real as the earth; they were merely other dimensions, other planes of physical existence. Normally, it was impossible for a living man or woman to cross over from one plane to the other. But religion was the crude and clumsy science that had theorized ways in which to bring the planes together, if only temporarily, and magic was the tool of that science.
    After absorbing that realization, it seemed as easy to believe in voodoo or Christianity or any other religion as it was to believe in the existence of the atom.
    He threw the holy water, jar and all, into the pit.
    The goblins surged through the communion rail and up the steps toward the altar platform.
    The kids screamed, and Father Walotsky held his rosary out in front of him as if certain it would render him impervious to the