Extreme Instinct

TWENTY-ONE

John Thorpe had wasted no time in contacting Eriq Santiva at Jackson Hole to inform him that Agent Jessica Coran had deciphered the final mystery of Feydor Dorphmann's strange and bizarre odyssey. Santiva and Gallagher were far closer to Yellowstone than Thorpe was. They could intervene far more effectively and speedily. They had an army of FBI agents under their command.

Santiva and Gallagher now raced toward Old Faithful Lodge, knowing that it was Jessica Coran's new destination and that she was close on the heels of the madman Dorphmann. When their helicopter approached the lodge, they could see the evidence of a new blaze below them, the activity of firefighters, confirming J. T.'s suspicion. Nearby Jackson Hole had been quiet, a decoy jumping-off point for Dorphmann's kill spree. The near capture in Salt Lake City had spooked him and he had changed his plans, or so it appeared.

On the ground at Old Faithful Lodge, the evidence of Dorphmann's presence could hardly be denied: two fires, one under control, one being battled as they landed. And somewhere in all the confusion was Jessica Coran.

Behind them, in radio contact, Dr. John Thorpe followed in another helicopter. Over the radio, he was told the situation.

He blared out to Santiva, "We've gotta find her! Help her!"

"We're doing everything possible," replied Santiva. "Over and out."

Gallagher and Santiva leaped from the helicopter even before it touched earth, the powerful wind from the rotor blades dispersing the smoke, steam, and haze surrounding them, blinding them. They'd been in radio contact with Sam Fronval's people and had gotten word of Fronval's having been attacked, that he was rushed off to a nearby hospital, and word had it that Agent Coran had disappeared out into the Upper Geyser Basin springs along the visitor boardwalk that snaked inward for several miles along a honeycomb of hot springs.

Daylight had yet to break. Taking a helicopter over the basin might prove futile, but Eriq hailed J. T., who was still up in the air, to do so. They watched as the Salt Lake City police chopper carrying Thorpe turned up its powerful searchlights. Nose down, it zeroed in on the Upper Geyser Basin to begin visual pursuit. Santiva and Gallagher then raced for the boardwalk, which went in two directions where it forked in a huge circle around Old Faithful. "You take that way, I'll go north," Santiva told Gallagher. Both directions were obscured by ground clouds that swelled up from the hot springs here.

''Leave it to Jessica Coran to get into this kind of quicksand," bitched Eriq Santiva.

Before Jessica Coran stretched a lunar and Mars mix of landscape that must appeal to Dante or any aficionado of his Inferno, for here in the vast region of the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone, encircling the wondering gaze of the frail human form, were Hell's venting ports, the life-blood of Hades itself, touching God's morning breeze to singe His breath and turn it to sulfuric clouds. These clouds joined as they rose, moving across the land like the mightiest of ghosts heavenward, while still trailing an attachment for the dark underworld from which they came in the form of silicified rock.

As Jessica raced after the killer, her nostrils and eyes assaulted by the sulfuric acid, the stifling air all around her, she panted with running and swallowing the horrid stench that now enveloped her. The thermal clouds, at once beautiful, fantastic, alluring, captivating, and dangerous, now hid a killer who had enticed her this way, leading her to this time and place all the way from Las Vegas, Nevada, that first night when she heard the dying pleas of Chris Lorentian.

The killer had gotten off the footpath, or else he had stopped stone still somewhere in the sulfuric mist ahead of her. She felt dangerously close to the hot springs, which could be as hot as 180 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. All around her she heard the gurgle and burp, the sputter and swallow of the superheated minerals here, as if they called out a chorus to the aeons-old danse macabre between good and evil here. She could no longer hear Dorphmann's corporeal steps on the boardwalk. Where the hell was he?

Jessica cautiously continued her pursuit. "I'm here, Feydor!" she shouted, her anger rising. "For the first time you have to face a lucid victim, someone with her senses intact. You cowardly bastard!" She hoped insults might instigate a mistake on his part. She listened for any sound.

Nothing.

"Feydor! Feydor Dorphmann! It ends here!" she shouted.

"Yes! Agreed!" he shouted back and her gun went instinctively to the direction from which his voice came. She fired twice into the mist, his form hidden in the steam clouds ahead of her.

"You stand before the Vestibule, the mouth of Satan and the River Acheron," he shouted, and again her gun went up and fired at the sound, this time in another direction.

"Number nine is number one, you, Jessica Coran." Again she fired, this time three shots. She had two left in the Browning.

"Sonofabitch," she muttered, trying to hold her gun firmly on him, or what appeared ahead as possibly him, possibly a tourist who had gotten between them. She prepared to put a bullet through his brain, his heart, whatever it took, should he make one move toward her.

"Number nine is number one in Dante's Inferno, isn't it, Dorphmann," she replied. "That would be Limbo, now, wouldn't it?" she asked. "Satan has asked you to send me there, and that's the reason for this entire deadly charade, isn't it? Isn't it?"

The dark figure ahead of her spoke. ''Yes, I knew that you would finally understand… Wetherbine never fully believed, but you… you do, don't you? You know the power of the Dark One."

"I understand this much, mister: If there's going to be a ninth fire for a soul to be placed in Limbo, it'll be your damned soul and not mine."

A thick, choking cloud of sulfuric mist suddenly divided them, Feydor's form disappearing before her eyes. She fired where his heart had been, but she heard no result, no thud, no outcry. She'd missed.

She leaped into the cloud that had engulfed him, running along the boardwalk in an area without railings now when suddenly she felt someone grab hold of her ankle and snatch her feet from beneath her. She held tightly to her gun even as she fell from the boardwalk and onto the spongy, cracked earth that made up the lip of the hot springs called Hellsmouth. She fought to get to her feet, fearing to stand and take a step, fearing the ground beneath her not solid enough to hold her, but it held. Then she saw him, standing over her, a pair of ragged sneakers at her eye level.

"Go ahead then," he said, "shoot me… Kill me if-"

"If, hell!" she declared. "No ifs!" She raised the gun, but he had already aimed and fired from a Mace container, which she saw at the last moment before snatching her eyes away from the direct shower to her face. Jessica felt him wrench the gun from her grasp the instant she protected her eyes. His unearthly laughter followed.

She clambered to her feet and backed from him, in an attempt to avoid the brunt of the pepper gas he continued to taunt her with. She now backed frightfully close to the hot pool behind her, almost losing her balance, while her gleeful attacker followed with an attempt to shove her into the bubbling cauldron of the white sulfur and winking blue pit. She realized only now that he'd been under the boardwalk, like some ogre in a child's nursery rhyme.

She felt her foot slip and go under the scalding water, and instinctively she went to her knees to gain a foothold before the hot spring behind her, but she feared losing control as she clawed to stay on solid ground, fighting madly to regain her balance, just as he rushed her, kicking out at her, still laughing maniacally.

She dodged his first blow by rolling to one side. Screaming his victory, in hot pursuit and sure of victory, he charged, but Jessica brought up a board from below the boardwalk-left there for years, for this moment, for her to grab hold of-and she brought it against his charging temple. Both the board and Dorphmann fell into the pool, him up to his thighs, screaming with the pain of it, dropping to his waist in his frenzied fight to return to solid ground; the board was seared to boiling like a large hot dog, and then it sank below the superheated water.

He attacked with renewed vigor, although his legs and lower trunk must be tearing at him, burned as they were, smoke coming off his clothing. Unarmed, not wearing a second gun as was her usual habit, because she'd earlier insisted J. T. take it, she attacked him with a molten rock that had solidified here.

This creature was trying to send her to Hell via the hot springs beside them. The rock hit him solidly at the already fried kneecap, sending him dazed, reeling back, struggling anew for his footing, his lower extremities still seething and sending up a small cloud of smoke. Feydor Dorphmann now screamed in frustrated anger as well as pain.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" she shouted the familiar biblical epitaph just as he lost his battle with equilibrium and his footing. He toppled for the second time into the hottest of the hot springs here.

She struggled now to get a hand out to him, to help him save himself, searching frantically for something at hand to assist, but there was nothing, no trees or branches nearby.

She tried desperately to pull him out, but he appeared rigid, as if rigor mortis had prematurely set in, his eyes still alive, still staring back at her. But he remained unable to move, dead in the water-shock and rapid dehydration, she guessed. He was next pulled under by the heavy, hot saliva of Hell, and she somewhat gratefully watched him go, thinking him the most grateful of the grateful dead now…

Taking a deep breath and regretting it, for she'd filled her lungs with the sulfur fumes free-floating here, Jessica fell back against the earth at the edge of Hell, and relaxed her guard now, panting, catching her breath. Her breathing was just returning to normal when suddenly the scalding waters beside her erupted and Dorphmann's hand reached from Hell to take hold of her, his body surging upward, taking hold of her ankle, desperately attempting to drag her down with him, using his body weight against her.

Jessica kicked wildly out at him again and again, ramming her heels into him until both her shoes fell away and turned to searing, inert balls of boiling gruel before her eyes as Dorphmann continued to struggle to bring her into Hellsmouth with him.

His face emerged in a mask of madness and sloughing skin, portions of his face peeling away with the weight of the superheated waters that had infiltrated every pore and the spaces between his cells, turning him into a gelatinous creature.

Jessica pulled away and his palms came away with her while his bone remained with him.

She pulled farther and farther away, gasping and crying as she did so, frightened beyond all reason, seeing him rise now in some superhuman way from Satan's belly until he crawled on all fours from the pool, flopping onto the ground beside her, still desperately trying to pull her back in and down with him, a look of deepest pleading on his seared features, his white-red boiled skin falling away, tumbling with his eyebrows from his brow, his eyes now two red, unseeing oranges.

He was blind, his eyes having been boiled away. His skin sloughed off in a pasty, gelatinous material, exposing bone in places; what seemed an entire foot slipped off and, like a mackerel, slithered back into the nearby, bubbling pool, claimed by it.

It was too late for medical assistance for Dorphmann. He died in a blinding, searing, white-hot liquid heat that had become a part of him. Jessica kicked out again and again to release the frozen, solidified hold on her ankle, and when the monster's hand came off, the rest of him slid down into the pool. There, his clothing and skin finally consumed by Hellsmouth, the flesh became fishy and it wobbled and flopped from his every bone, his face a mask of pain so intense that a frozen rictus smile would forever remain.

He's dead… He's got to be dead now, she assured herself. Dead of dehydration and the burns suffered over one hundred percent of his evil body and brain. Only silicified bone and teeth would remain, if anything of him at all could be salvaged from Hellsmouth.

He still blindly reached out to her again and moaned in a sepulchral voice, "I didn't want to do it. He made me do it… Now he's got me…"

Jessica passed out as the dead man slipped away from her, back into the cauldron.

When she opened her eyes, Jessica found a crowd of onlookers staring and shouting at the scene, some calling for medical assistance.

Jessica found that her own burns frightened some of the onlookers. Dirt and tears stained her face. Her blouse ripped, her skirt torn, her shoes missing, she was lifted onto the boardwalk by Rideout and some of Fronval's rangers. Rangers with salves and clean gauze bandages began to wrap both her ankles and her hands where she had been scalded either by Hellsmouth's waters or Dorphmann's touch. She heard the words "second-degree burns" and "third-degree burns," but she felt no pain.

From the other side of the crowd, she heard J. T.'s voice and that of Eriq Santiva, each calling out her name, terrified of what they would find when the crowd parted around her. The cavalry had arrived just a bit late, but all the same, she was pleased to know that J. T. and Eriq were nearby.

J. T. fell to his knees over her, his hands feeling for any broken bones, his questions coming at her in rapid succession. "Are you hurt? Where does it hurt? How bad are the burns? Get those bandages around her wrists, hands, ankles before any infection can set in."

Santiva, equally concerned, now held her head in his lap, looking down over Jessica, asking if she were all right.

"I'm fine. A few aches and pains, but I'll survive. For some reason, I don't feel the burns."

"That's because you're in shock!" J. T. shouted at her, chastising her. "You fool, you bloody fool. You might've gotten yourself killed. You might be at the bottom of that searing hot pool right now."

Neil Gallagher now knelt over her, shaking his head. "I have to agree with Dr. Thorpe on that score, Coran. And Dorphmann, the Phantom? What's happened to him? Has he escaped into the park? Shouldn't we be launching a manhunt, Santiva?" he asked.

Jessica realized only now that no one besides her had actually seen the horror of Feydor Dorphmann's end, that no one else had witnessed the death. She imagined Karl Repasi's smug and debunking attitude now: With no body, who was to say if Dorphmann had actually been killed here or not? She was the only person alive to see him removed from this world. If nothing of Dorphmann were ever retrieved from Hellsmouth, there would always remain an element of doubt on the part of others. She alone would know the truth, that the monster had been relegated to another, more scorching environment.

Jessica's mouth had gaped open with her thoughts.

"Well, Dr. Coran?" pushed Gallagher.

"Let her be," snapped Thorpe.

Jessica said, "Someone here must've seen what happened to Dorphmann!"

"He's resting comfortably in Hellsmouth," pronounced Corey Rideout over Santiva's and Gallagher's considerable shoulders. "Isn't that right, Dr. Coran?"

Karl Repasi came into Jessica's line of vision, and she heard him ask, "Is that right, Dr. Coran?"

Jessica's eyes lit up, and she reached out with her half-bandaged right hand, the bandage like a spectral gauze peeling from a mummy, laden as it was now with the sulfur-filled, phantasm-like breezes here. She pointed to Rideout, asking, "Then you saw him die?"

Everyone turned to Rideout for an answer. He'd been ahead of the other men with his high-powered rifle, in search of the killer and first to hear Jessica's distressed cries, and first to find Jessica here. It had been Rideout who had lifted her onto the boardwalk with the help of other rangers.

"Well?" asked Santiva, "Did you see the man drown in that?" He pointed to the boiling, steaming water alongside the boardwalk.

Rideout had their attention, including Jessica's. His answer must corroborate her story. It meant at least a second witness to the man's final demise, that she would not be alone in that judgment, as she had been alone all along with the man's evil phone calls.

"Well, no, I didn't exactly see him go down, no… but I sure heard his screams, screams straight outta Hell. All the rangers and savages with me-park employees, I mean-they all heard him, too, didn't you, boys?"

A wave of agreement went up among the rangers and park employees, known in Yellowstone parlance as savages.

"He tried to drag me into Hell with him," she explained. "Had some idea that an exchange would be made, that his soul would be set free for mine. It was some supernatural message he'd received from the ruler of Hades himself."

"Satan himself wanted a go at you, heh, Dr. Coran?" asked Repasi. "That should play big in the press."

"Shut up, Karl!" shouted J. T., losing control. "One more word from you and I'll knock your lights out."

Repasi ignored J. T., continuing with, "You must admit, Jessica, your ahhh… relationship with this fiend is big news. The National Enquirer's gotten hold of it."

"And how much did they pay you for it, Karl?" snapped Santiva.

"Damn you, Repasi," J. T. exploded, gaining his feet and shoving the other man away from Jessica. "Go chew on somebody else's bones." When J. T. returned to Jessica, continuing to minister to her medical needs, he said to her, "Karl's rantings can't be taken any more seriously than those of that madman Dorphmann."

Repasi called out, ''I never meant to imply for one moment that Jessica was the root cause either of this man's obsession or the god-awful acts he has committed in the name of that obsession."

"Well, thank you for that," replied Jessica, but she didn't believe Karl was here in the interest of mending fences.

Gallagher quickly agreed with Repasi's last words. "Dr. Repasi is absolutely correct, Dr. Coran. Listen to him."

"Thank you, gentlemen," she replied. "Whatever the truth, we may never know, not completely. All the same, I'm just glad that we've been able to put an end to this madness."

"But did we?" asked Repasi. "Or did Dorphmann end it?"

"Either way, it's over," Jessica countered. "Thank God."

"Whose god, yours or Dorphmann's?"

"Goddamn you, Repasi," said J. T. "I mean, it! Shut up!"

Around them, the park was coming awake, into the light of a new dawn. There was a softness to the light as it filtered in among the steam pools here, like a scene filmed through a filter, Jessica thought.

"Dorphmann was a raving lunatic, a madman," muttered Santiva. "No doubt his god was also a lunatic."

"A lunatic god," muttered Repasi. "Very good, Agent Santiva."

Eriq ignored Repasi and spoke directly to Jessica. "We'll have the pool dredged now that light is coming on. We'll recover the body."

"Maybe the skeletal remains, the bone and teeth," she replied, "but nothing else."

J. T. quickly added, "We have the bastard's dental records. We'll ID him."

"Problem is, sometimes these pools don't give back anything of a person who's fallen victim to 'em," said Rideout. "We might get lucky, maybe in a few days, what little remains of the man might rise to the surface, maybe not."

''Just hafta wait and see's all,'' added one of the rangers standing by.

"How's Sam Fronval?" asked Jess.

"Hold still, Jess," complained J. T. as he continued bandaging her hands. "Both your hands are badly scalded. It's going to be a while before you wield a scalpel again."

"How bad, J. T.? How bad is Fronval?"

The ranger in charge replied, "Sam's a tough ol' bird. From what everyone could tell, he's going to be all right. The medics took him on down to Mammoth, to the hospital there. He was sittin' up and cursin' when they hauled his ornery ass off."

This made for an eruption of laughter from all those who knew Sam.

"I'm more worried about your burns, Jess," J. T. told her.

Jessica considered her injuries. "I don't feel any pain. How bad off can I be?"

"You will," he replied.

Her eyes implored him for the truth.

"Don't worry. Like I said, it'll take some time, but you'll heal. Your ankles and feet aren't quite so badly burned. You must have had quite a struggle with that maniac. I can't believe you got so close!" He was angry with her. "Can't believe you let him get his hands on you. Damn you, Jess." J. T. was near to tears, and to combat them, he finished off the bandages about her feet and ankles, shouting orders to the rangers to get a stretcher out to them and to have an ambulance waiting, that he wanted Dr. Coran transported to the nearest burn facility.

"That'd be Mammoth hospital, over to Mammoth," said Rideout. "We don't need to wait for assistance. I'll take her in my bird."

Jessica felt herself being lifted in the hands of her pallbearers, but these pallbearers were carrying her away from the death that Dorphmann and his Devil had planned for her, Gallagher, Repasi, J. T., Santiva, and Rideout, all fussing for the privilege to help her away from the grave. She closed her eyes, exhaustion settling in over her, and she blacked out.