Free Books of Blood by Clive Barker

time,' the demon said.
    Harry left him at the chained door. 'Can you get Swann?' he said as he ran.
    Til do my best.'
    By the time Harry reached the top of the stairs the last chatterings were dying away; as he began down the flight they ceased altogether. There was no way now to judge how close the enemy were. On the next floor? Round the next corner? He tried not to think of them, but his feverish imagination populated every dirty shadow.
    He reached the bottom of the flight without incident,
    however, and slunk along the darkened second-floor corridor to Shapiro's office. Halfway to his destination,
    he heard a low hiss behind him. He looked over his shoulder, his body itching to run. One of the radiators,
    heated beyond its limits, had sprung a leak. Steam was escaping from its pipes, and hissing as it went. He let his heart climb down out of his mouth, and then hurried on to the door of Shapiro's office, praying that the man hadn't simply been shooting the breeze with his talk of axes. If so, they were done for. The office was locked,
    of course, but he elbowed the frosted glass out, and reached through to let himself in, fumbling for the light switch. The walls were plastered with photographs of sex-goddesses. They scarcely claimed Harry's attention;
    his panic fed upon itself with every heartbeat he spent here. Clumsily he scoured the office, turning furnitureover in his impatience. But there was no sign of Shapiro's axe.
    Now,  another noise from below. It crept up the staircase and along the corridor in search of him - an unearthly cacophony like the one he'd heard on 83rd Street. It set his teeth on edge; the nerve of his rotting molar began to throb afresh. What did the music signal?
    Their advance?
    In desperation he crossed to Shapiro's desk to see if the man had any other item that might be pressed into service, and there tucked out of sight between desk and wall, he found the axe. He pulled it from hiding. As Shapiro had  boasted, it was hefty, its weight the first reassurance Harry had felt in too long. He returned to the corridor. The steam from  the fractured pipe had thickened. Through  its veils it was apparent that the concert had taken on new fervour. The doleful wailing rose and fell, punctuated by some flaccid percussion.
    He  braved the cloud of steam and hurried to the stairs.
    As he put his foot on the bottom step the music seemed to catch him by the back of the neck, and whisper: 'Listen'
    in his ear. He had no desire to listen; the music was vile.
    But somehow  - while he was distracted by finding the axe - it had wormed its way into his skull. It drained his limbs of strength. In moments the axe began to seem an impossible burden.
    'Come on down,' the music coaxed him, 'come on down and join the band.'
    Though  he tried to form the simple word 'No', the music was gaining influence upon him with every note played. He began to hear melodies in the caterwauling;
    long circuitous themes that made his blood sluggish and his thoughts idiot. He knew there was no pleasure to be had  at the music's source - that it tempted him only to pain and desolation - yet he could not shake  its delirium off. His feet began to move to the call of the pipers. He forgot Valentin, Swann and all ambition for escape, and instead began  to descend  the stairs.
    The melody  became  more intricate. He could hear voices now, singing some charmless accompaniment in a language he didn't comprehend. From somewhere above, he heard his name called, but he ignored the summons. The  music clutched him close, and now -
    as he descended the next flight of stairs - the musicians came into view.
    They  were brighter than he had  anticipated, and more  various. More baroque  in their configurations (the manes, the multiple heads); more particular in their decoration (the suit of flayed faces; the rouged anus);
    and, his drugged eyes now stung to see, more atrocious in their choice of instruments. Such instruments! Byron