At the end of the corridor, Lucifer opened a door and found himself staring out into the rain.
Urged on by a growing eagerness to learn as much as he could before he was stopped, he ducked outside and ran across a mossy stretch of courtyard toward a second building.
Rain plastered his hair, and trickled down his neck, but his tunic and leggings seemed waterproof.
The rain was hot and stinging, and the wind surged out of the forest with lashing force. Half-blinded, Lucifer stumbled over some unseen object. He sprawled to his knees. He got up, slipped again, and skidded into the partial shelter of a doorway.
The door couldn't be moved. Lucifer moved out into the rain again, and groped his way along the side of the building.
He stumbled over something else, fell heavily.
A hoarse outcry, lifting above the wind and the rain, brought him to his knees. Shielding his eyes, he saw that he had stumbled over a figure huddled in a corner of the building. The figure straightened above him. Its movements were jerky, like a carpenter's rule unfolding.
It was one of the grotesque, misshapen creatures Lucifer had glimpsed on first approaching Center. Through the slanting rain, Lucifer could make out a gigantic head that bulged sickeningly and was utterly devoid of hair. The head sagged forward, flopped back again until it struck the wall of the building, then snapped forward. It had two blank eyes, a flattened horror of a nose, a mouth that sagged and twitched.
The mouth was trying to say something, but the words dissolved in a bubble of red saliva and a merciful wash of rain.
The head flopped back and forth. The figure jerked toward Lucifer, lunged and fell on top of him.