Image of the Beast








     
CHAPTER 1
     
    Green milk curdled.
    Smoke rose to the light, and smoke and light fused to become green milk. The 
milk fissioned to become smoke and darkness above. As below.
    Smog was outside, and smog was inside.
    Green and sour.
    The green and sour odor and taste came not only from the smog, which had 
forced its tendrils into the air-conditioned building, nor from the tobacco 
plumes in the room. It came from memory of what he had seen that morning and 
anticipation of what he would see within the next few minutes.
    The film room of the Los Angeles Police Department was darker than Herald 
Childe had ever seen it. The beam of light from the projection booth usually 
tended to make gray what otherwise would have been black. But the cigar and 
cigarette smoke, the smog, and the mood of the viewers, blackened everything. 
Even the silver light from the screen seemed to pull light in instead of casting 
it back at the viewers.
    Where the beam overhead struck the tobacco fumes, green milk formed and 
curdled and soured. So thought Herald Childe. The image was unforced. The worst 
smog in history was smothering Los Angeles and Orange counties. Not a mouse of a 
wind had stirred for a day and a night and a day and a night. On the third day, 
it seemed that this condition might go on and on.
    The smog. He could now forget the smog.
    Spread-eagled on the screen was his partner (possibly ex-partner). The 
wine-red draperies behind him glowed, and Matthew Colben's face, normally as red 
as Chianti half-diluted with water, was now the color of a transparent plastic 
bag bulging with wine.
    The camera swung away to show the rest of his body and some of the room. He 
was flat on his back and nude. His arms were strapped down beside him and his 
legs, also strapped down, formed a V. His penis lolled across his left thigh 
like a fat drunken worm.
    The table must have been made for just this purpose of tying down men with 
their legs separated so others could walk in between the legs.
    There was only the Y-shaped wooden table, the thick wine-red carpet, and the 
wine-red draperies. The camera swept around to show the circle of draperies and 
then turned back and swooped up to show the full form of Matthew Colben as seen 
by a fly on the ceiling. Colben's head was on a dark pillow. He looked straight 
up at the camera and smiled sillily. He did not seem to care that he was bound 
and helpless.
    The previous scenes had shown why he did not care and had demonstrated how 
Colben had progressed, through conditioning, from impotent fear to rigid 
anticipation.
    Childe, having seen the complete film once, felt his entrails slip about 
each other and knot each other and, their tails coiled around his backbone, pull 
until they were choking each other.
    Colben grinned, and Childe murmured, "You fool! You poor fucking fool!"
    The man in the seat on Childe's right shifted and said, "What'd you say?"
    "Nothing, Commissioner."
    But his penis felt as if it were being sucked back up into his belly and 
drawing his testicles after it.
    The draperies opened, and the camera moved in to show a huge black-rimmed, 
long-lashed, dark-blue eye. Then it moved down along a straight narrow nose and 
broad, full, and bright red lips. A pink-red tongue slipped out between 
unnaturally white and even teeth, shot back and forth a few times, dropped a 
bead of saliva on the chin, and then disappeared.
    The camera moved back, the draperies were thrust open, and a woman entered. 
Her black glossy hair was combed straight back and fell to her waist. Her face 
was garish with beauty patches, rouge, powder, green and red and black and azure 
paint around the eyes and a curl of powder-blue down her cheeks, artificial 
eyelashes, and a tiny golden nose-ring. A green robe, tied at her neck and 
waist, was so thin that she might as well have been naked. Despite which, she 
untied the cords about the neck and waist and slid the robe off and showed that 
she could be even more naked.
    The camera moved downward and closer. The hollow at the base of the neck was 
deep and the bones beneath hinted at exquisiteness. The breasts were full but 
not large, slightly conical and up-tilted, with narrow and long, almost sharp, 
nipples. The breasts were hung upon a large rib cage. The belly sank inward; she 
was skinny about the hips, the bones stuck out just a little. The camera went 
round, and she pivoted--Childe could not tell which because the camera was so 
close to her and he had no reference point. Her buttocks were like huge 
unshelled soft-boiled eggs.
    The camera traveled around her, showing the narrow waist and ovoid hips and 
then turned so that it was looking up toward the ceiling--which was covered with 
a drape-like material the color of a broken blood-vessel in a drunkard's eye. 
The camera glanced up her white thigh; light was cast into the hollow between 
the legs--she must have spread her legs then--and there was the little brown eye 
of the anus and the edge of the mouth of her vagina. The hairs were yellow, 
which meant that the woman had either dyed her head hairs or her pubic hairs.
    The camera, still pointing upward, passed between her legs--which looked 
like the colossal limbs of a statue now--and then traveled slowly upward. It 
straightened out as it rose and was looking directly at her pubes. These were 
partly covered by a triangular cloth which was taped on. Childe did not know 
why. Modesty certainly was not the reason.
    He had seen this shot before, but he braced himself. The first time, he--in 
common with the others in the room--had jumped and some had sworn and one had 
yelled.
    The cloth was tight against the genitals, and a shift in angle of lighting 
suddenly revealed that the cloth was semitransparent. The hairs formed a dark 
triangle, and the slit took in the cloth enough to show that the cloth was tight 
against the slit.
    Abruptly, and Childe jumped again even though he knew what was coming, the 
cloth sank in more deeply, as if something inside the vagina had spread the lips 
open.
    Then something bulged against the cloth, something that could only have come 
from within the woman. It thrust the cloth up; the cloth shook as if a tiny fist 
or head were beating against it, and then the bulge sank back, and the cloth was 
quiet again.
    The Commissioner, two seats away from Childe, said, "What the bell could 
that be?" He blew out cigar smoke and then began coughing. Childe coughed, too.
    "It could be something mechanical up her cunt," Childe said. "Or it could 
be..." He let the words, and his thoughts, hang. No hermaphrodite, as far as he 
knew, had a penis within the vaginal canal. Anyway, that wasn't a penis sliding 
out; that looked like an independent entity--gave the feeling of one, 
rather--and certainly the thing had beat against the cloth at more than one 
place.
    Now the camera swung around at a level a few inches above Colben and several 
feet in front of him. It showed the feet, seemingly enormous at this narrow 
distance, the thickly muscled and hairy calves and thighs spread out on the 
Y-shaped table, the big testicles, the fat worm of the penis, no longer lolling 
against the thigh but beginning to get fatter and to lift its swollen red head. 
Colben could not have seen the woman enter, but he had evidently been 
conditioned so that he knew she would come in within a certain time after he was 
strapped to the table. The penis was coming to life as if its ears--buried 
within the flesh like a snake's--had heard her or as if the slit in its head 
were a detector of body heat--like an adder's nose pits--and it knew that she 
was in the room.
    The camera moved to one side so that it could start with the profile of 
Matthew Colben's head. The thick curly gray-and-black hair, the big red ears, 
the smooth forehead, the big curved nose, the thin lips, massive jawbone, chin 
thick and heavy as the head of a sledge, big fat chest, the outcurve of a paunch 
grown with much stuffing of steak and beer, the down-curve to the penis, now 
fully up and swollen and hard. The camera moved in for a close shot; the veins 
were ropes run into the lanyard of lust (Childe could not help thinking in such 
images; he fingered concepts with a Midas touch). The head, fully exposed, 
glistened with lubricating fluid.
    Now the camera moved up and away and took a position where both the man and 
woman could be seen. She approached slowly, swaying her hips, and came up to 
Colben and said something. Her lips moved, but there was no sound, and the 
police lip-reader could not tell what she was saying because her head was bent 
too far over. Colben said something too, but his words were undecipherable for 
the same reason.
    The woman bent over and let her left breast fall so that Colben could take 
it in his mouth. He sucked for a while; and then the woman removed it. The 
camera moved in to show the nipple, which was wet and swollen. She kissed him on 
the mouth; the camera moved in sidewise to show her as she raised her head a 
little to permit the camera to record the tongue sliding back and forth into 
Colben's mouth. Then she began to kiss and to lick his chin, his neck, his 
chest, his nipples, and she smeared his round belly with saliva. She worked 
slowly down to his pubic hairs, slobbered on them, gently tapped his penis with 
her tongue many times, kissed it lightly several times, flicked out her tongue 
to dab its head with the tip while she held it at the root. Then she walked 
around the leg of the Y and between the legs and began to suck on his penis 
energetically.
    At this point, a tinny piano, like those played in the old-time bars or in 
the silent movie theaters, began Dvorak's Humoresque. The camera shifted to a 
position above Colben's face; his eyes were closed and he was looking ecstatic, 
that is, stupidly happy.
    For the first time, the woman spoke.
    "Tell me just before you're ready to come, darling. Maybe thirty or so 
seconds before, yes? I have a beautiful surprise for you. Something new."
    The voice had been printed and run off by the police on an oscilloscope and 
studied. But distortions had been introduced into it. That was why the voice 
sounded so hollow and wavery.
    "Go slower, baby," Colben said. "Take it easy, put it off like you did the 
last time. That was the greatest orgasm I ever had in my life. You're going a 
little too fast now. And don't stick your finger up my ass like you did then. 
You cut my piles."
    The first time the scene had been shown, some of the cops had snickered. 
Nobody snickered now. There was an unheard but easily felt shift in the audience 
now. The smoke seemed to get hard and brittle; the green milk in the light beam 
became more sour. The Commissioner sucked in air so hard a rattle sounded in his 
throat and then he began coughing.
    The piano was playing The William Tell Overture now. The tinny music was so 
incongruous, and yet it was the incongruity that made it seem so horrible.
    The woman raised her head and said, "You about ready to come, mon petit?"
    Colben breathed, "Oh, Jesus, just about!"
    The woman looked into the camera and smiled. The flesh seemed to fade away, 
the bones beneath were faintly glowing and cloudy. Then the flesh was cloudy; 
the skull was hard and bright. And then the skull faded and flesh fell back into 
place.
    She leered into the camera and put her head down again, but this time she 
went past the corner of the Y and squatted down below the table, where the 
camera followed her. There was a small shelf fixed to one leg of the table. She 
picked up something off it; the light brightened, the camera moved in nearer.
    She held a pair of false teeth. They looked as if they were made of iron; 
the teeth were sharp as a razor and pointed like a tiger's.
    She smiled and put the iron teeth on the shelf and used both hands to remove 
her own teeth. She looked thirty years older. She placed the white teeth on the 
shelf and then inserted the iron teeth into her mouth. She held the edge of her 
forefinger between the two teeth and bit gently down. Then she removed the 
finger and held it so that the camera could zero in on it. Bright red blood was 
welling out from the bite.
    She stood up and wiped the cut on the fat glands of Colben's penis and she 
bent over and licked the blood off. Colben groaned and said, "Oh, God, I'm going 
to come!"
    Her mouth went around the head and she sucked in loudly. Colben began to 
jerk and to groan. The camera showed his face for a second before it moved back 
to a position alongside the woman's.
    She raised her head quickly. The penis was jerking and spurting the thick 
oily whitish fluid. She opened her mouth widely, bent down swiftly, and bit. The 
muscles along her jaw lumped; her neck muscles became cords. Colben screamed.
    She whipped her head back and forth and bit again and again. Blood ran down 
from her mouth and reddened the pubic hairs.
    The camera moved away from her to show the draperies through which she had 
entered. There was a flourish of trumpets. A cannon boomed in the distance. The 
piano played Tschaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
    Trumpets sounded again as the music faded. The draperies shot open, 
propelled by two stiff arms. A man stepped inside and posed for a moment, his 
right arm raised so that his black cloak half-hid his face. His hair was black 
and shiny as patent leather and was parted down the middle. His forehead and 
nose were white as the belly of a shark. His eyebrows were thick and black and 
met over his nose. The eyes were large and black.
    He was dressed as if he were going to a movie premiere. He had on a formal 
suit, a stiff white shirt with a black formal tie and a diagonal red band across 
his chest and a medal or order on his lapel.
    He wore blue sneakers.
    Another comic element which only made the situation more horrible.
    The man lowered the cloak to show a large hooked nose, a thick black 
moustache which curved down around the ends of his thick rouged lips, and a 
prominent cleft chin.
    He cackled, and this deliberately corny element was even more horrible than 
the sneakers. The laugh was a parody of all the gloating laughs cranked forth by 
all the monsters and Draculas of every horror movie.
    Up went the arm, and, his face hidden behind the cloak, the man rushed 
toward the table. Colben was still screaming. The woman jumped away swiftly and 
let the man into the Y. The penis was still jerking and emitting blood and 
spermatic fluid; the head was half-bitten off. The camera switched to the 
woman's face. Blood was running down her chin and over her breasts.
    Again, the camera panned back to the Dracula (so Childe thought of him). 
Dracula cackled again, showing two obviously false canines, long and sharp. Then 
he bent down and began to chew savagely on the penis but within a short time 
raised his head. The blood and spermatic fluid was running out of his mouth and 
making the front of his white shirt crimson. He opened his mouth and spit out 
the head of the penis onto Colbert's belly and laughed, spraying blood over 
himself and Colben.
    The first time, Childe had fainted. This time, he got up and ran toward the 
door but vomited before he reached it. He was not alone.



     
CHAPTER 2
     
    The Dracula and the woman had looked into the camera and laughed wildly as 
if they had been having a hilarious time. Then, fade-out, and a flash of TO BE 
CONTINUED? End of film.
    Herald Childe did not see the ending the second time. He was too occupied 
with groaning, with wiping the tears from his eyes and blowing his nose and 
coughing. The taste and odor of vomit were strong. He felt like apologizing, but 
he repressed the impulse. He had nothing to apologize for.
    The Commissioner, who had not thrown up but who might have looked better if 
he had, said, "Let's get out of here."
    He stepped over the mess on the wooden floor. Childe followed him. The 
others came out. The Commissioner said, "We're going to have a conference, 
Childe. You can sit in on it, contribute, if you wish."
    "I'd like to keep in touch with the police, Commissioner. But I don't have 
anything to contribute. Not just yet, anyway."
    He had told the police, more than once, everything he knew about Matthew 
Colben, which was much, and everything he knew about his disappearance, which 
was nothing.
    The Commissioner was a tall lean man with a half-bald head and a long thin 
face and melancholy black moustache. He was always tugging at the right end of 
his moustache--never the left. Yet he was left-handed. Childe had observed this 
habit and wondered about its origin. What would the Commissioner say if he were 
made aware of it?
    What could he say? Only he and a psychotherapist would ever be able to find 
out.
    "You realize, Childe, that this comes at a very bad time for us," the 
Commissioner said. "If it weren't for the...uh, extraordinary aspects of the 
case...I wouldn't be able to spend more than a few minutes on it. As it is..."
    Childe nodded and said, "Yes. I know. The Department will have to get on it 
later. I'm grateful that you've taken this time."
    "Oh, it's not that bad!" the Commissioner said. "Sergeant Bruin will be 
handling the case. That is, when he has time. You have to realize..."
    "I realize," Childe said. "I know Bruin. I'll keep in touch with him. But 
not so often he'll be bugged."
    "Fine, fine!"
    The Commissioner stuck out a skinny and cold but sweating hand, said, "See 
you!" and turned and walked off down the hall.
    Childe went into the nearest men's room, where several plainclothesmen and 
two uniformed men were washing the taste of vomit out. Sergeant Bruin was also 
there, but he had not been sick. He came from the stall zipping up his fly. 
Bruin was rightly named. He looked like a grizzly, but he was far less easily 
upset.
    As he washed his hands, he said, "I gotta hurry, Childe. The Commissioner 
wants a quick conference about your partner, and then we all gotta get back on 
this smog thing."
    "You have my phone number, and I got yours," Childe said. He drank another 
cup of water and crumpled the paper and threw it into the wastepaper basket. 
"Well, at least I'll be able to move around. I got a permit to use my car."
    "That's more'n several million citizens got right now," Bruin said 
cheerfully. "Be sure you burn the gas in a good cause." 
    "So far, I haven't got much reason to burn anything," Childe said. "But I'm 
going to try."
    Bruin looked down at him. His big black eyes were as impenetrable as a 
bear's; they did not look human. He said, "You going to put in time for free on 
this job?"
    "Who's going to pay me?" Childe said. "Colben's divorced. This case is tied 
up with Budler's, but Budler's wife discharged me yesterday. She says she 
doesn't give a shit any more."
    "He may be dead, just like Colben," Bruin said. "I wouldn't be surprised if 
we got another package through the mails."
    "Me neither," Childe said.
    "See you," Bruin said. He put a heavy paw on Childe's shoulder for a second. 
"Doing it for nothing, eh? He was your partner, right? But you was going to 
split up, right? Yet you're going to find out who killed him, right?"
    "I'll try," Childe said.
    "I like that," Bruin said. "There ain't much sense of loyalty kicking around 
nowadays." He lumbered off; the others trailed out after him. Childe was alone. 
He looked into the mirror over the washbowl. The pale face resembled Lord 
Byron's enough to have given him trouble with women--and a number of jealous or 
desirous men--ever since he was fourteen. Now, it was a little lumpy, and a scar 
ran down his left cheek. Memento of Korea, when a drunken soldier had objected 
to being arrested by Childe and had slashed his face with the broken end of a 
beer bottle. The eyes were dark gray and just now much bloodshot. The neck below 
the slightly lumpy Byronic head was thick and the shoulders were wide. The face 
of a poet, he thought as he had thought many times, and the body of a cop, a 
private investigator. Why did you ever get into this sordid soul-leaching 
depressing corrupting racket? Why didn't you become a quiet professor of English 
or psychology in a quiet college town?
    Only he and a psychotherapist would ever know, and he evidently did not want 
to know, since he had never gone to a psychotherapist. He was sure that he 
enjoyed the sordidness and tears and grief and hatred and the blood, somewhere 
in him. Something fed on contemptible food. Something enjoyed it, but that 
something sure as hell wasn't Herald Childe. Not at this moment, anyway.
    He left the washroom and went down the hall to an elevator and dropped while 
he turned his thoughts so inwardly that he did not know whether or not he was 
alone in the cage. On the way to the exit, he shook his head a little as if to 
wake himself up. It was dangerous to be so infolded.
    Matthew Colben, his partner, had been on his way to being his ex-partner. 
Colben was a big-mouthed braggart, a Don Juan who let his desire to make a pass 
interfere with his business. He had not allowed his prick to get in the way of 
business when he and Childe had become partners six years ago. But Colben was 
fifty now and perhaps trying to keep the thoughts of a slowing-down body and 
thickening flesh and a longer time to recover from hangovers away from him. 
Childe didn't accept this reason; Colben could do whatever he wanted after 
business hours, but he was cheating his partner when he cheated himself with the 
booze and the women. After the Budler case, they would be through. So Childe had 
promised himself.
    Now Colben was dead and Budler could be in the hands of the same people who 
had taken Colben--although there was no evidence to indicate so. But Budler and 
Colben had disappeared the same night, and Colben had been tailing Budler.
    The film had been mailed from a Torrance post office three days ago. Colben 
and Budler had been missing for fourteen days.
    Childe stopped at the tobacco stand and bought a morning Times. At any other 
time, the Colben case would have been headline material. Not today. It was, 
however, a feature on the front page. Childe, hating to go outside, leaned 
against the wall and read the story. It had been considerably bowdlerized by the 
reporters who had seen the film. They had not been present at either of the 
showings he had witnessed, but Bruin had told him they were at a special 
running. Bruin had laughed like a bear with a sore throat, and described how at 
least half of them had thrown up or been close to throwing up.
    "Some of them been in battles and seen men with their guts blowed inside 
out!" Bruin had said. "You was in the Korean action and you was an officer, 
right? Yet you got sick! How come?"
    "Didn't you feel your cock drawing up in your belly?" Childe had said.
    "Naw."
    "Maybe you don't have one," Childe had said. Bruin thought that was funny, 
too.
    The whole story was in two columns, and it covered most of what Childe knew 
except for the details of the film. Colben's car had been found in a parking lot 
behind a trust and security building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. 
Colben had been trailing Benjamin Budler, a wealthy Beverly Hills lawyer. Budler 
had been stepping out on his wife, not to mention his regular mistress. The wife 
had hired Childe & Colben, Private Investigators, to get enough evidence for her 
to file for divorce.
    Colben, using the tape recorder in his car, had described Budler's moves. 
Budler had picked up a lovely brunette (described in detail but unidentified) on 
the corner of Olympic and Veteran. The traffic light had been green, but Budler 
had held up a long line of cars, horns blaring, while he opened the door and let 
the woman in. She was well-dressed. Colben had surmised that her car was parked 
somewhere close; she did not look as if she would live in this neighborhood.
    Budler's Rolls-Royce had turned right on Veteran and gone to Santa Monica, 
where it had turned left and traveled down Santa Monica until it stopped a block 
from a quiet and expensive restaurant. Here Budler had let the woman off and 
driven to a parking place on a side street. He had walked to the restaurant 
where they had dined and wined (presumably) for three hours. Though they went in 
separately, they came out together. Budler was red-faced, talking loudly and 
laughing much. The woman laughed much also but she walked steadily. His balance 
was a little uncertain; he stumbled when he started across the street and almost 
fell.
    They had taken the Rolls-Royce (with Budler driving too swiftly and weaving 
in and out of traffic) up Santa Monica and turned left at Bedford Drive to go 
north.
    The tape was wiped clean from this point on.
    Colben had stated that he had gotten some long-range pictures of the woman 
when Budler had picked her up. The camera was in the car but the film had been 
removed.
    The car had been thoroughly cleaned; there was not a single fingerprint. 
Some dirt particles, presumably from the shoes of whoever had driven the car to 
the parking lot, were on the mat, but an analysis had shown only that the dirt 
could have come from anywhere in the area. There were some fibers; these had 
been rubbed off the rag used to wipe the seats.
    Budler's Rolls-Royce was also missing.
    The police had not discovered that Budler had dropped out of his normal 
pattern of life until two days after Colben was reported missing. His wife had 
known that he was gone, but she had not bothered to report this. Why should she? 
He often did not come home for two to four days.
    As soon as she was informed that her husband might have been kidnapped or 
murdered, that his disappearance was connected with that of Colben's (or seemed 
likely to be connected), she had told Childe that he was no longer employed by 
her.
    "I hope they find the son of a bitch dead! And soon!." she had screamed over 
the phone. "I don't want his money tied up forever! I need it now! It's just 
like him to never be found and tie me up with litigation and red tape and all 
that shit! Just like him! I hate him!" and so on.
    "I'll send you my bill," Childe had replied. "It was nice working for you," 
and he had hung up.
    His bill would be delivered, but how soon he would be paid was doubtful. 
Even if a check was sent by Mrs. Budler by return mail, it might not be cashable 
for some time. The newspapers reported that the authorities were discussing 
closing down all banks until the crisis was over. Many people were protesting 
against this, but it would not make much difference for the protesters if the 
banks did stay open. What good did that do if most of the customers could not 
get to their bank unless they were within walking distance or wanted to stand in 
line for hours to take the infrequent bus?
    He looked up from the paper. Two uniformed, gas masked men were bringing in 
a tall dark man between them. He held up handcuffed hands as if to demonstrate 
his martyrdom to the world. One cop carried a third gas mask, and by this Childe 
knew that the arrested man had probably been using a mask while holding up a 
store or robbing a loan company or doing something which required concealing his 
face.
    Childe wondered why the cops were bringing him in through this entrance. 
Perhaps they had caught him just down the street and were taking the short cut.
    The situation was advantageous for criminals in one respect. Men wearing gas 
masks or water-soaked cloths over their faces were not uncommon. On the other 
hand, anyone abroad was likely to be stopped and questioned. One thing balances 
out another.
    The cops and the arrestee were coughing. The man behind the tobacco counter 
was coughing. Childe felt a tickling in his throat. He could not smell the smog, 
but the thought of smelling it evoked the ghost of a cough.
    He checked his I.D. cards and permit. He did not want to be caught without 
them, as he had been yesterday. He had lost about an hour because, even after 
the cops had called in and validated his reasons for being out, he had been 
required to go home and pick up his papers, and he had been stopped again before 
he could get home.
    He tucked the paper under his arm, walked to the door, looked through the 
glass, shuddered, wished he had lightweight scuba diver's equipment, opened the 
door and plunged in.



     
CHAPTER 3
     
    It was like walking at the bottom of a sea of very thin bile.
    There were no clouds between the sun and the sea. The sun shone brightly as 
if it were trying to burn a path through the sea. The August sun burned fiercely 
and the more it burned, the more it cut with its yellow machetes, the thicker 
and more poisonous grew the gray-green foliage.
    (Childe knew he was mixing metaphors. So what? The Cosmos was a mixed 
metaphor in the mind of God. The left mind of God did not know what the right 
mind of God was doing. Or did not care. God was a schizophrenic? Herald Childe, 
creature of God, image of God, certainly was schizophrenic. Levorotatory image?)
    Eyes burned like heretics at the stake. Sinuses were scourged; fire ran 
along the delicate bones; spermaticky fluid collected to fill the chambers of 
the sinuses and dripped, waiting for the explosion of air voluntarily or 
involuntarily set off to discharge the stuff with the mildest of orgasms.
    Not a twitch of wind. The air had been unmoving for a day and a night and 
half a day, as if the atmosphere had died and was rotting.
    The gray-green stuff hung in sheets. Or seemed to. The book of judgment was 
being read and the pages, the gray-green sheets, were being turned as the eye 
read and more and more pages were being piled toward the front of the book. How 
far to read before the end?
    Childe could see no further than one hundred and ten feet, if that. He had 
walked this path from the door to the parking lot so many times that he could 
not get lost. But there were those who did not know where they were. A woman, 
screaming, ran by him, and was lost in the greenishness. He stopped. His heart 
was pounding. Faintly, he could hear a car horn. A siren wailed somewhere. He 
turned slowly, trying to see or hear the woman or her pursuer, if any, but there 
was none. She ran; no one pursued.
    He began to trot. He sweated. His eyes smarted and flowed tears, and little 
flames seemed to be creeping down his throat toward his lungs. He wanted to get 
to the car, which held his gas mask. He forced himself to walk. There was panic 
hanging in the air, the same panic that came to a man when he felt hands 
squeezing his neck and thumbs pressing in on his windpipe.
    A car emerged from the cloud. It was not his. He passed by it and, ten 
parking spaces on, found his 1970 Oldsmobile. He put the mask on, started the 
motor, winoing a little at the thought of the poisons shooting out of the 
exhaust, turned his lights on and drove out of the lot. The street held more 
moving bright lights than he had expected. He turned on the radio and found out 
why. Those who had some place to go outside the area of smog were going whether 
or not the authorities gave permission, and so the authorities were giving 
permission. Many who had no place to go, but were going anyway, were also 
driving out. The flood had started. The streets weren't jammed as yet, but they 
soon would be.
    Childe cursed. He had planned on easy drives to his various destinations 
that day because, although he could not drive swiftly, he could drive unimpeded 
by traffic.
    The voice of the governor issued from the speaker. The governor pleaded for 
restraint and calm. Everybody should continue to stay home--if they were able to 
do so. However, those who had to get out for health reasons (which would include 
the entire population now, Childe thought) should drive carefully and should 
realize that there just were not enough accommodations for them outside the Los 
Angeles-Orange County area in this state. Nevada and Arizona had been notified 
of the invasion, and Utah and New Mexico were readying themselves. Troops were 
being moved into the area but only to act as traffic policemen and to assist the 
hospitals. There was no martial law; there was no need for it. There was an 
upswing in crimes of passion, theft, and robbery, but there had been no riots.
    No wonder, thought Childe. There was something irritating about smog; it did 
eat the skin off the nerves, but people did not like to get out in it, and 
people did not collect in large numbers. To every man, others looked like ghosts 
coming toward him out of the gray-greenness or like strange fish appearing 
suddenly from the shadows. Strange fish could be sharks.
    He passed a car with three goggled, shouted monstrosities in it. Their heads 
swiveled, the cyclopean eyes stared blindly, the noses seemed to sniff. He sped 
away from them until their headlights were muffled and then slowed down. Once, a 
car suddenly appeared behind him, and a red light flashed. He looked through the 
rear view mirror before he stopped; there were fake prowl cars stopping 
motorists and robbing, beating, or even killing them on the streets during 
daylight, within twenty feet of passers-by. He decided to pull over, eased the 
car gently toward the dimly visible curb, and stopped. He kept the motor running 
and peered at the car and the cop getting out of it on the right side. If he did 
not like the looks of them he could still get out of the right side of his car 
and take off into the dimness. But he recognized the cop, although he did not 
know his name, and stayed behind the wheel. He flipped open his coat and slowly 
reached within it so that the cop would not get the impression he was reaching 
for a gun. He had a license for a gun but it was at home.
    The cops had stopped too many to make him get out of the car and assume the 
stance of the friskee. Besides, there were many legitimate drivers, and within a 
short time, there would be so many cars on the streets that they might as well 
give up, except for obvious cases.
    Childe established his identity quickly enough. They knew of him by hearsay 
and had also read the papers. One, Chominshi, wanted to discuss the case, but 
the other was coughing, and Childe started to cough, so they let him go. He 
continued up Third toward West Los Angeles. His apartment and his office were a 
few blocks away from Beverly Hills. He planned to go straight home and do some 
thinking.
    If he could think. He was in a mild state of shock. His reflexes seemed to 
be slow as if he had been drugged or was recovering from being knocked out. He 
felt a slight sense of detachment, as if he had been disengaged somewhat from 
reality, no doubt to soften the effects of the film. The smog did not help him 
keep an anchor on things; it induced a feeling of slippage of self.
    He was not burning with lust for revenge on those who had killed Colben. He 
had not liked Colben, and he knew that Colben had done some things which were 
criminal but he had escaped without (as far as Childe knew) even the punishment 
of conscience. He had knocked up a teenager and kicked her out, and the girl had 
taken sleeping pills and died. There were others, although none had ended in 
death for the girls. But some would have been better off dead. And there was the 
wife of a client who had been found beaten and would always be an idiot. Childe 
had had no basis for suspicion of Colben, but he had felt that Colben might have 
done the beating for the client, especially after he had discovered that Colben 
was going to bed with the woman. He could prove nothing; he could not even make 
an accusation which would not sound stupid, because he lacked any evidence. That 
Colben was neglecting the business, however, was reason enough to get rid of 
him. Childe did not have enough money to buy Colben out; he had meant to make it 
so unpleasant for Colben that he would be glad to dissolve the partnership.
    Nevertheless, no man deserved to die as Colben had. Or did he? The horror 
was more in the viewers minds than in Colben's. He had been hurt very much, but 
only briefly, and had died quickly.
    That did not matter. Childe intended to find out all he could, although he 
suspected that he would find out very little. And soon enough the need to pay 
bills would take him off the case; he would only be able to work on it during 
his leisure moments. Which meant that, in effect, he would be able to accomplish 
almost nothing.
    But he had nothing else to do, and he certainly did not intend to sit still 
in his apartment and breathe in poison gas. He had to do something to keep 
going. He could not even read comfortably because of the burning and the tears. 
He was like a shark that has to keep moving to allow water to flow through the 
gills. Once he stopped, he would suffocate.
    But a shark can breathe and also stand still if the water is moving. Sybil 
could be his flowingness. Sybil was a name that sounded like running brooks and 
sunshine in quiet green glades and wisdom like milk from full flowing breasts. 
Certainly not green milk. White creamy milk of tenderness and good sense.
    Childe smiled. The Great Romanticist. He not only looked like Lord Byron, he 
thought like him. Reincarnation come. George Gordon, Lord Byron, reborn as a 
private eye and without a club foot. One thing about a club mind, it didn't 
show. Not at first. But the limp became evident to others who had to walk with 
him day, after day.
    The Private Eyes of the novels. They were simple straightforward men with 
their minds made up--all black and white--vengeance is mine, saith Lord 
Hammer--true heroes with whom the majority of readers had no trouble 
identifying.
    This was strange, because the antiheroes of the existential novels were 
supposed to be representative of the modern mind, and they certainly were 
uncertain. The antihero got far more publicity, far more critical trumpeting, 
than the simple, stable, undoubting private eye, the hero of the masses.
    Childe told himself to cut, as if his thoughts were a strip of film. He was 
exaggerating and also simplifying. Inwardly, he might be an existential 
antihero, but outwardly he was a man of action, a Shadow, a Doc Savage, a Sam 
Spade. He smiled again. Truth to tell, he was Herald Sigurd Childe, red-eyed, 
watery-eyed, drippy-nosed, sickened, wanting to run home to Mother. Or to that 
image named Sybil.
    Mother, unfortunately, became angry if he did not phone her to ask if he 
could come over. Mother wanted privacy and independence, and if she did not get 
it, she expressed herself unpleasantly and exiled him for an indeterminate time.
    He parked the car outside his apartment, ran up the steps, hearing someone 
cough behind a door as he passed, and unlocked his door. The apartment was a 
living room, a kitchenette, and a bedroom. Normally, it was bright with white 
walls and ceilings and creamy woodwork and lightly colored, lightly built 
furniture. Today, it was gloomy; even the unshadowed places had a greenish 
tinge.
    Sybil answered the phone before the second ring had started.
    "You must have been expecting me," he said gaily.
    "I was expecting," she said. Her voice was not, however, unfriendly.
    He did not make the obvious reply. "I'd like to come over," he finally said.
    "Why? Because you're hard up?"
    "For your company."
    "You haven't got anything to do. You have to find some way to spend the 
time."
    "I have a case I'm working on;" he said. He hesitated and then, knowing that 
he was baiting the hook and hating himself for it, said, "It's about Colben. You 
read the papers?"
    "I thought that was what you'd be working on. Isn't it horrible?"
    He did not ask her why she was home today. She was the secretary of an 
advertising agency executive. Neither she nor her boss would have a driving 
priority.
    "I'll be right over," he said. He paused and then said, "Will I be able to 
stay a while or will I have to get out after a while? Don't get mad! I just want 
to know; I'd like to be able to relax."
    "You can stay for a couple of hours or more, if you like. I'm not going 
anyplace, and nobody is coming--that I know of."
    He took the phone from his ear but her voice was laud enough for him to 
hear, and he returned it to his ear. "Herald? I really do want you to come!"
    He said, "Good!" and then, "Hell! I've just been thinking of myself! Is 
there anything I can get you from the store?"
    "No, you know there's a supermarket only three blocks from here. I walked."
    "OK. I just thought you might not have gone out yet or you forgot something 
you might want me to pick up for you."
    They were both silent for a few seconds. He was thinking about his 
irritations when they had been married, about how many times he had had to run 
out to get things that she had forgotten during her shopping. She must be 
thinking about his recriminations, too; she was always thinking about them when 
they got together.
    "I'll be right over," he said hurriedly. "So long."
    He hung up and left the apartment. The man was still coughing behind the 
door. A stereo suddenly blared Strauss Thus Spake Zarathustra downstairs. 
Somebody protested feebly; the music continued to play loudly. The protests 
became louder, and there was a pounding on a wall. The music did not soften.
    Herald considered walking the four blocks to Sybil's and then decided 
against it. He might need to take off suddenly, although there did not seem much 
chance of it. His answering service was not operating; it had no priority. He 
did not intend to leave Sybil's number with the police operator or Sergeant 
Bruin while he was with her. She would get unreasonably angry about this. She 
did not like to be interrupted by calls while she was with him, at least, not by 
business calls. That had been one of the things bugging her when they were man 
and wife. Theoretically, she should not be bothered by such matters now. In 
practice, which operates more on emotion than logic, she was as enraged as ever. 
He well knew how enraged. The last time he had been at her apartment, the 
exchange had interrupted them at a crucial moment, and she had run him out. 
Since then, he had called several times but had been cooled off. The last time 
he'd phoned had been two weeks ago.
    She was right in one guess. He was hard up. But he did not expect to be any 
less so after seeing her. He intended to talk, to talk only, to soothe some 
troublings and to scare away the loneliness that had come more strongly after 
seeing the film of Colbert.
    It was strange, or, if not so strange, indicative. He had lived twenty of 
his thirty-five years in Los Angeles County. Yet he knew only one woman to whom 
he could really unburden himself and feel relaxed and certain of complete 
understanding. No. He was wrong. There was not even one woman, because Sybil did 
not completely understand him, that is, sympathize with him. If she did, she 
would not now be his ex-wife.
    But Sybil had said the same thing about men in general and about him in 
particular. It was the human situation--whatever that phrase meant.
    He parked the car in front of her apartment--no trouble finding parking 
space now--and went into the little lobby. He rang her bell; she buzzed; he went 
up the steps through the inner door and down the hall to the end. Her door was 
on the right. He knocked; the door swung open. Sybil was dressed in a 
floor-length morning robe with large red and black diamond shapes. The black 
diamonds contained white ankhs, the looped cross of the ancient Egyptians. Her 
feet were bare.
    Sybil was thirty-four and five feet five inches tall. She had long black 
hair, sharp black eyebrows, large greenish eyes, a slender straight nose perhaps 
a little bit too long, a full mouth, a pale skin. She was pretty, and the body 
under the kimono was well built, although she may have been just a little too 
hippy for some tastes.
    Her apartment was light, like his, with much white on the walls and 
ceilings, and creamy woodwork and light and airy furniture. But a tall gloomy El 
Greco reproduction hung incongruously on the wall; it hovered over everything 
said and done in the one room. Childe always felt as if the elongated man on the 
cross was delivering judgment upon him as well as upon the city on the plain.
    The painting was not as visible as usual. There was almost always a blue 
haze of tobacco--which accounted for the walls and ceiling not being as white as 
those of his apartment--and today the blue had become gray-green. Sybil coughed 
as she lit another cigarette, and then she went into a spasm of coughing and her 
face became blue. He was not upset by this, no more than usual, anyway. She had 
incipient emphysema and had been advised by her doctor to chop off the smoking 
two years ago. Certainly, the smog was accelerating her disease, but he could do 
nothing about it. Still, it was one more cause for quarreling.
    She finally went in to the kitchen for water and came out several minutes 
later. Her expression was challenging, but he kept his face smooth. He waited 
until she sat down on the sofa across the room from his easy chair. She ground 
the freshly lit cigarette out on an ash tray and said, "Oh God! I can't 
breathe!"
    By which she meant that she could not smoke.
    "Tell me about Colben," she said, and then, "first, could I get you...?"
    Her voice decayed. She was always forgetting that he had quit drinking four 
years ago.
    "I need to relax," he said. "I'm all out of pot and no chance to get any. 
You...?"
    "I'll get some," she said eagerly. She rose and went into the kitchen. A 
panel creaked as it slid back; a minute passed; she came back with two 
cigarettes of white paper twisted at both ends. She handed him one. He said, 
"Thanks," and sniffed it. The odor always brought visions of flat-topped 
pyramids, of Aztec priests with sharp obsidian knives, naked brown men and women 
working in red clay fields under a sun fiercer than an eagle's glare, of Arab 
feluccas scudding along in the Indian ocean. Why, he did not know.
    He lit up and sucked in the heavy smoke and held it in his lungs as long as 
he could. He tried at the same time to empty his mind and body of the horror of 
this morning and the irritations he had felt since calling Sybil. There was no 
use smoking if he retained the bad feelings. He had to pour them out, and he 
could do it--sometimes. The discipline of meditation that a friend had taught 
him--or tried to teach him--had sometimes been effective. But he was a 
detective, and the prosecution of human beings, the tracking down, the immersion 
in hate and misery, negated the ability to meditate. Nevertheless, stubborn, he 
had persisted in trying, and he could sometimes empty himself. Or seem to. His 
friend said that he was not truly meditating; he was using a trick, a technique 
without essence.
    Sybil, knowing what he was doing, said nothing. A clock ticked. A horn 
sounded faintly; a siren wailed. Sirens were always wailing nowadays. Then he 
breathed out and sucked in again and held his breath, and presently the 
crystallization came. There was a definite shifting of invisible lines, as if 
the currents of force that thread every centimeter of the universe had 
rearranged themselves into another, straighter configuration.
    He looked at Sybil and now he loved her very much, as he had loved her when 
they were first married. The snarls and knots were yanked loose; they were in a 
beautiful web which vibrated love and harmony through them with every movement 
they made. Never mind the inevitable spider.



     
CHAPTER 4
     
    He had hesitated to stop her when she kissed him all over his belly, 
although he knew what was coming. He continued to restrain himself when she took 
his penis and bent down to place her mouth around the head. He felt the tongue 
flicking it, shuddered, pushed her head away, though gently, and said, "No!"
    She looked up at him and said, "Why?"
    "I never got around to telling you the fine details of the film," he said.
    "You're getting soft!"
    She sat up in the bed and looked down at him. She was frowning.
    "Have you got a disease?"
    "For God's sake!" he said, and` he sat up, too. "Do you think I'd go to bed 
with you if I knew I had the syph or the clap? What kind of a question--what 
kind of a person do you think I am?"
    "I'm sorry," she said. "My God! What's wrong? What did I do?"
    "Nothing. Nothing under most circumstances. But I felt as if my cock was 
frozen when you...Never mind. Let me explain why I couldn't let you go down on 
me."
    "I wish you wouldn't use words like that!"
    "OK, my thing, then! Let me tell you."
    She listened with wide eyes. She was leaning on one arm near him. He could 
see the swollen nipple, which did not seem to dwindle a bit as she listened. It 
might have increased. Certainly, her eyes were bright, and, despite her 
expressed horror, she smiled now and then.
    "I really think you'd like to do that to me!" he said.
    "You're always saying something stupid like that," she said. "Even now. Do 
you hate me so much you can't even get a hard-on."
    "You mean erection, don't you?" he said. "If you can't understand why my 
penis wanted to crawl into my belly for safety, then you can't understand 
anything about men."
    "I won't bite," she said, and she grabbed his penis and lunged for it with 
her mouth wide open and smiling to show all her teeth.
    He jerked himself away, saying, "Don't!"
    "Forget about it, I was just kidding you," she said, and she crawled onto 
him and began kissing him. She thrust her tongue along his tongue and down his 
throat so far that he choked. "For God's sake!" he said, turning his head away. 
"What the hell are you trying to do? I can't breathe!"
    She sat up and almost hissed at him. "You can't breathe! How do you think I 
breathe when you're shoving that big thing down my throat?. What is the matter?"
    "I don't know," he said. He sat up. "Let's have a few more drags. Maybe 
things'll straighten out."
    "Do you have to depend upon that to be able to love me?"
    He tried to take her hand in his but she snatched it away.
    "You didn't see it," he said. "Those iron teeth. The blood! Spitting out 
that bloody flesh! God!"
    "I feel sorry for Colben," she said, "but I don't see what he has to do with 
us. You never liked him; you were going to get rid of him. And he gave me the 
creeps. Anyway...oh, I don't know."
    She rolled off the bed, went to the closet, and put on the kimono. She lit a 
cigarette and at once began coughing. It sounded as if her lungs were full of 
snot.
    He felt angry, and opened his mouth to say something--what, he did not know, 
just so it was something that would hurt. But the taste of cunt made him pause. 
She had a beautiful cunt, the hair was thick and almost blue-black and so soft 
it felt almost like a seal pelt. She lubricated freely, perhaps too much, but 
the oil was sweet and clean. And she could squeeze down on his cock as if she 
had a hand inside it. And then he remembered the thing bulging out the pad over 
the woman's cunt in the film; and the blood that had been pouring into his penis 
became slushy and slowly thawed out and drained back into his body.
    Sybil, who had seen the dawning erection, said, "What's wrong now?"
    "Sybil, there's nothing wrong with you. It's me. I'm too upset."
    She sucked in some more smoke and managed to check a cough.
    "You always did bring your work home. No wonder our life became such a 
hell."
    He knew that that was not true. They had rubbed each other raw for other 
reasons, the causes of most of which they did not understand. There was, 
however, no use arguing. He had had enough of that.
    He sat up and swung his legs over the bed and stood up and walked to the 
chair on which he had piled his clothes.
    "What are you doing?"
    "Some of the smog gotten in your brain?" he said. "It's obvious I'm going to 
dress, and it's fairly predictable that I'm getting out of here."
    He checked the impulse to say, "Forever!" It sounded so childish. But it 
could be true.
    She said nothing. She swayed back and forth with her eyes closed for a 
minute, then, after opening them, spun around and walked into the living room. A 
minute later, he followed her. She was on the divan and glaring at him.
    "I haven't had such a ball ache since I was a teenager and came home from my 
first necking party," he said. He did not know why he said it; certainly, he did 
not expect her to feel sorry for him, and to do something about it. Or did he?
    "Necking party? You're sure dating yourself, old man!"
    She looked furious. Unfortunately, fury did not make her beautiful.
    Yet, he hated to leave; he had a vague feeling that he was somehow at fault.
    He took one step toward her and stopped. He was going to kiss her, but it 
was force of habit that pushed him.
    "Good-by," he said. "I really am sorry, in a way."
    "In a way!" she screamed. "Now isn't that just like you! You can't be all 
sorry or all righteously indignant or all right or all wrong! You have to be 
half-sorry. You...you...half-assed half-man!"
    "And so we leave exotic Sybil-land," he said, as he swung the door open. "It 
sinks slowly into the smog of fantastic Southern California, and we say aloha, 
farewell, adieu, and kiss my ass!"
    Sybil sprang out of the chair with a scream and came at him with fingers 
hooked to catch his face with her nails. He caught them and shoved her back so 
that she staggered against the sofa. She caught herself and then yelled, "You 
asshole! I hate you! I had a choice to make! I let you come here, instead of Al! 
I wanted you, not him! He was strictly second-choice, and a bad second at that! 
You think you're hard up, you don't know what hard up is! I've turned down lots 
of men because I kept hoping every night you'd call me! I'd eat you up; you'd be 
days getting out of here. I'd love you, oh, how I'd love you! And now this, you 
stinking bastard! Well, I'm going to call Al, and he's going to get everything I 
was going to give you and more! More! More! Do you understand that, you?"
    He understood that he could still feel jealous. He felt like punching her 
and then waiting for Al and kicking him downstairs.
    But it would be no good trying to make up with her. Not now. Actually, not 
ever, but he wasn't quite ready to believe this. Not down there where certainty 
dwelt.
    Trying to grasp what ruined their love was like trying to close your fingers 
on a handful of smog.
    He strode through the door and, knowing that she expected him to slam it 
behind him, did not.
    Perhaps it was this that drove her to the last barbarism:
    She stepped into the hall and shouted, "I'll suck his cock! I'll suck his 
cock, you!"
    He turned and shouted, "You're no lady!" and spun around and walked off.
    Outside, in the biting veils of gray-green, he laughed until he coughed 
raspingly, and then he cried. Part of the tears was engendered by the smog, part 
by his grief and rage. It was sad and heart-rending and disgusting and comical. 
One-upmanship was all right, but the one-upman actually upped it up his own one.
    "When the hell is she going to grow up?" he groaned, and then, "When the 
hell am I? When will the Childe become father to the man?"
    Dante was thirty-five, midway in his life's journey, when he went astray 
from the straight road and woke to find himself alone in a dark wood.
    But he obtained a professional guide, and he had at least once been on the 
straight road, the True Way.
    Childe did not remember having been on the straight road. And where was his 
Virgil? The son of a bitch must be striking for higher pay and shorter hours.
    Every man his own Virgil, Childe said, and, coughing (like Miniver Cheevy), 
pushed through the smog.



     
CHAPTER 5
     
    Somebody had broken the left front window of the Olds while he was with 
Sybil. A glance at the front seat showed him why. The gas mask was gone. He 
cursed. The mask had cost him fifty dollars when he purchased it yesterday, and 
there were no more to be had except in the black market. The masks were selling 
for two hundred or more dollars, and it took time to locate a seller.
    He had the time, but he did not have the cash in hand and he doubted that 
his check would be accepted. The banks were closed, and the smog might disappear 
so suddenly that he would not need the mask and would stop payment of the check. 
There was nothing to do except use a wet handkerchief and a pair of goggles he 
had worn when he had a motorcycle. That meant he must return to his apartment.
    He made up a pile of handkerchiefs and filled a canteen with water as soon 
as he was home. He dialed the LAPD to report the theft, but, after two minutes, 
he gave up. The line was likely to be busy all day and all night and 
indefinitely into the future. He brushed his teeth and washed his face. The wash 
rag looked yellow. Probably it was his imagination, but the yellow could be the 
smog coming out. The yellow looked like the stuff that clouded his windshield in 
the morning after several days of heavy smog. The air of Los Angeles was an 
ocean in which poisonous plankton drifted.
    He ate a sandwich of cold sliced beef with a dill pickle and drank a glass 
of milk, although he did not feel hungry. Visualizations of Sybil with Al 
troubled him. He didn't know Al, but he could not bar shadowy images whose only 
bright features--too bright--were a rigid monstrosity and a pair of hairy, 
never-empty testicles. The pump-pump-pumping sound was also only a shadow, but 
it would not go away either. Shadows sometimes turned out to be indelible ink 
blots.
    He forced himself to consider Matthew Colben and his murderers. At least, he 
thought they were murderers. There was no proof that Colben had been killed. He 
might be alive, though not well, somewhere in this area. Or someplace else.
    Now that he was recovering from his shock, he could even think that Colben 
might be untouched and the film faked.
    He could think this, but he did not believe it.
    The phone rang. Someone was getting through to him, even if he could get 
through to no one. Suspecting that only the police could ram through a call, he 
picked up the phone. Sergeant Bruin's voice, husky and growling like a bear just 
waking up from hibernation, said, "Childe?"
    "Yes."
    "We got proof that they mean business. That film wasn't faked."
    Childe was startled. He said, "I was just thinking about a fraud. How'd you 
find out?"
    "We just opened a package mailed from Pasadena."
    Bruin paused. Childe said, "Yeah?"
    "Yeah.. Colben's prick was in it. The end of it, anyway. Somebody's prick, 
anyway. It sure as hell had been bitten off."
    "No leads yet?" Childe said after some hesitation.
    "The package's being checked, but we don't expect anything, naturally. And I 
got bad news. I'm being taken off the case, well, almost entirely taken off. We 
got too many other things just now, you know why. If there's going to be any 
work done on this, Childe, you'll have to do it. But don't go off half-cocked 
and don't do nothing if you get a definite lead, which I think you ain't going 
to get. You know what I mean. You been in the business."
    "Yes, I know," Childe said. "I'm going to do what I can, which, as you said, 
probably won't be much. I have nothing else to do now, anyway,"
    "You could come down here and swear in," Bruin said. "We need men right now! 
The traffic all over the city is a mess, like I never saw before. Everybody's 
trying to get out. This is going to be a ghost town. But it'll be a mess, a 
bloody mess, today and tomorrow. I'm telling you, I never seen nothing like it 
before."
    Bruin could be stolid about Colbert, but the prospect of the greatest 
traffic jam ever unfroze his bowels. He was really being moved.
    "If I need help, or if I stumble--and I mean stumble--across anything 
significant, should I call you?"
    "You can leave a message. I'll call you back when--if--I get in. Good luck, 
Childe."
    "Same to you, Bruin," Childe said and muttered as he hung up, "O Ursus 
Horribilis! Or whatever the vocative case is."
    He became aware that he was sweating, that his eyes felt as if they'd been 
filed, his sinuses hurt, he had a headache, his throat felt raw, his lungs were 
wheezing for the first time in five years since he had quit smoking tobacco, 
and, not too far off, horns were blaring.
    He could do something to ease the effects of the poisoned air, but he could 
do little about the cars out in the street. When he had left his wife's 
apartment; he had had a surprising amount of trouble getting across Burton Way 
to San Vicente. There was no stop light at this point on Le Doux. Cars had to 
buck traffic coming down Burton Way on one side and going up on the other side 
of the divider. Coming down to the apartment, he had not seen a car or even a 
pair of headlights in the dimness. But, going back, he had had to be careful in 
crossing. The lights sprang out of the gray-greenness with startling rapidity as 
they rounded a nearby curve of Burton Way to the west. He had managed to find a 
break large enough to justify gunning across. Even so, a pair of lights and a 
blaring horn and squealing brakes and a shouted curse--subject to the Doppler 
effect--told him that a speeder had come close.
    The traffic going west toward Beverly Hills was light, but that coming 
across Burton Way between the boulevards to cut southeast on San Vicente was 
heavy. There was panic among the drivers. The cars were two deep, then suddenly 
three deep, and Childe had barely had room to squeeze through. He was being 
forced out of his own lane and against the curb. Several times, he only got by 
by rubbing his tires hard against the curb.
    The light at San Vicente and Third was red for him, but the cars coming down 
San Vicente were going through it. A car going east on Third, horn bellowing, 
tried to bull its way through: It collided lightly with another. From what 
Childe could see, the only damage was crumpled fenders. But the two drivers, 
hopping out and swinging at each other, looked as if they might draw some blood, 
inept as they were with their fists. He had caught a glimpse of several 
frightened faces--children--looking through the windows of both damaged cars. 
Then he was gone.
    Now he could hear the steady honking of horns. The great herd was migrating, 
and God help them.
    The deadly stink and blinding smoke had been bad enough when most cars 
suddenly ceased operating. But now that two million automobiles were suddenly on 
the march, the smog was going to be intensified. It was true that, in time, the 
cars would be gone, and then the atmosphere could be expected to start cleaning 
itself. If it was going to do it. Childe had the feeling that the smog wasn't 
going to leave, although he knew that that was irrational.
    Meanwhile, he, Childe, was staying. He had work to do. But would he be able 
to do anything? He had to get around, and it looked as if he might not be able 
to do that.
    He sat down on the sofa and looked across the room at the dark golden 
bookcases. The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the two great boxed volumes, was his 
treasure, the culminating work of his collection unless you counted a copy of 
The White Company personally inscribed by A. Conan Doyle, once the possession of 
Childe's father. It was his father who had introduced him at an early age to 
interesting and stimulating books, and his father who had managed to pass on his 
devotion to the greatest detective to his son. But his father had remained a 
professor of mathematics; he had felt no burning to emulate The Master.
    Nor would any "normal" child. Most kids wanted to be airplane pilots or 
railroad engineers or cowboys or astronauts when they grew up. Many, of course, 
wanted to be detectives, Sherlock Holmeses, Mark Tidds (what boy nowadays knew 
of Mark Tidd?), even Nick Carters since he had been revived with modern settings 
and plots, but few stuck to that wish. Most of the policemen and private 
investigators whom he knew had not had these professions as boyhood goals. Many 
had never read Holmes or had done so without enthusiasm; he had never met a 
Holmes buff among them. But they did read true detective magazines and devoured 
the countless paperbacks of murder mysteries and of private eyes. They made fun 
of the books, but, like cowboys who also deride the genuineness of Westerns, 
they were addicted.
    Childe made no secret of his "vices." He loved them, even the bad ones, and 
gloried in the "good" ones.
    And so why was he trying to justify being a detective? Was it something to 
be ashamed of?
    In one way, it was. There was in every American, even the judge and the 
policeman, a more-or-less strong contempt for lawmen. This lived side by side 
with an admiration for the lawman, but for the lawman who is a strong 
individualist, who fights most of his battles by himself against overwhelming 
evil, who fights often outside the law in order to bring about justice. In 
short, the frontier marshal, the Mike Hammerish private eye. This lawman is so 
close to the criminal that there is a certain sympathy between the lawman and 
the criminal.
    Or so it seemed to Childe, who, as he told himself now, tended to do too 
much theorizing and also to project his own feelings as those of others.
    Matthew Colbert. Where was he now? Dead or suffering? Who had forcibly taken 
him to some dwelling somewhere in this area? Why was the film sent to the LAPD? 
Why this gesture of mockery and defiance? What could the criminals hope to gain 
by it, except a perverse pleasure in frustrating the police?
    There were no clues, no leads, except the vampire motif, which was nothing 
but a suggestion of a direction to take. But it was the only handle to grasp, 
ectoplasmic though it was, and he would try to seize it. At least, it would give 
him something to do.
    He knew something about vampires. He had seen the early Dracula movies and 
the later movies on TV. Ten years ago, he had read the novel Dracula, and found 
it surprisingly powerful and vivid and convincing. It was far better than the 
best Dracula movie, the first; the makers of the movie should have followed the 
book more closely. He had also read Montague Summers and had been an avid reader 
of the now-dead Weird Tales magazine. But a little knowledge was not dangerous; 
it was just useless.
    There was one man he knew who was deeply interested in the occult and the 
supernatural. He looked up the number in his record book because it was unlisted 
and he had not called enough to memorize it. There was no response. He hung up 
and turned on the radio. There was some news about the international and 
national situations, but most of the broadcast was about the exodus. A number of 
stalled cars on the freeways and highways had backed up traffic for a total of 
several thousand miles. The police were trying to restrict passage on the 
freeways to a certain number of lanes to permit the police cars, ambulances, and 
tow trucks to pass through. But all lanes were being used, and the police were 
having a hell of a time clearing them out. A number of fires had started in 
homes and buildings, and some of them were burning down with no assistance from 
the firemen because the trucks could not get through. There were collisions all 
over the area with no help available, not only because of the traffic but 
because there just was not enough hospital and police personnel available.
    Childe thought, to hell with the case! I'll help!
    He called the LAPD and hung on for fifteen minutes. No luck. He then called 
the Beverly Hills Police Department and got the same result. He had no more luck 
with, the Mount Sinai Hospital on Beverly Boulevard, which was within walking 
distance. He put drops in his eyes and snuffed up nose drops. He wet a 
handkerchief to place over his nose and put his goggles on top of his head. He 
stuck a pencil flashlight in one pocket and a switch-blade knife in another. 
Then he left the apartment building and walked down San Vicente to Beverly 
Boulevard.
    In the half hour that he had been home, the situation had changed. The cars 
that had been bumper-to-bumper curb-to-curb were gone. They were within earshot; 
he could hear the horns blaring off somewhere around Beverly Boulevard and La 
Cienega, but there was not a car in sight.
    Then he came across one. It was lying on its side. He looked down into the 
windows, dreading what he might see. It was empty. He could not understand how 
the vehicle had been overturned, because no one could have gone fast enough in 
the jam to hit anything and be overturned. Besides, he would have heard the 
crash. Somebody--somebodies--had rocked it back and forth and then pushed it 
over. Why? He would never know.
    The signal lights at the intersection were out. He could see well enough 
across the street to make out the thin dark shape of the pole. When he got to 
the foot of the light pole on his comer, he saw broken plastic, which would have 
been green, red, and yellow under more lightened circumstances, scattered about.
    He stood for a while on the curb and peered into the sickly gray. If a car 
were to speed down the street without lights, it could be on him before he could 
get across the street. Nobody but a damned fool would go fast or without lights, 
but there were many damned fools driving the streets of Los Angeles.
    The wailing of a siren became stronger, a flashing red light became visible, 
and an ambulance whizzed by. He looked up and down the street and dashed across, 
hoping that the light and noise would have made even the damnedest of fools 
cautious and that anybody following the ambulance would be blowing his horn. He 
got across with only a slight burning of the lungs. The smog was slowly rusting 
off their lining. His eyes ran as if they were infected.
    The sound of bedlam came to him before the hospital building loomed out of 
the mists. He was stopped by a white-haired man in the uniform of a security 
guard. Perhaps the old man had worked at an aircraft plant or at a bank as a 
guard and had been deputized by the police to serve at the hospital. He flashed 
his light into Childe's face and asked him if he could help him. The smog was 
not dark enough to make the light brilliant, but it did annoy Childe.
    He said, "Take that damned light away! I'm here to offer my services in 
whatever capacity I'm peered."
    He opened his wallet and showed his I.D.
    The guard said, "You better go in the front way. The emergency room entrance 
is jammed, and they're all too busy to talk to you."
    "Who do I see?" Childe said.
    The guard hurriedly gave the supervisor's name and directions for getting to 
his office. Childe entered the lobby and saw at once that his help might be 
needed, but he was going to have to force it on the hospital. The lobby was 
jammed and a sprawl with people who had been shunted out of the emergency room 
after more or less complete treatment, relatives of the wounded, people 
inquiring after lost or injured friends or relatives, and a number who, like 
Childe, had come to offer their services. The hall outside the supervisor's 
office was crowded too thickly for him to ram his way through even if he had 
felt like doing so. He asked a man on the fringes how long he had been trying to 
get into the office.
    "An hour and ten minutes, Mister," the man said disgustedly.
    Childe turned to walk away. He would return to his apartment and do whatever 
he could to pass the time. Then he would return after a reasonable amount of 
time (if there were such a thing in this situation), with the hope that some 
order would have been established. He stopped. There, standing near the front 
door of the hospital, his head wrapped in a white cloth, was Hamlet Jeremiah.
    The cloth could have been a turban, because the last time Childe had seen 
Jeremiah he was sporting a turban with a spangled hexagram. But the cloth was a 
bandage with a three-pointed scarlet badge, almost a triskelion. The 
Mephistophelean moustaches and beard were gone, and he was wearing a 
grease-smeared T-shirt with the motto: NOLI ME TANGERE SIN AMOR. His pants were 
white duck, and brown sandals were on his feet.
    "Herald Childe!" he called, smiling, and then his face twisted momentarily 
as if the smile had hurt.
    Childe held out his hand.
    Jeremiah said, "You touch me with love?"
    "I'm very fond of you, Ham," Childe said, "although I can't really say why. 
Do we have to go through that at this time?"
    "Any time and all time," Jeremiah said. "Especially this time."
    "OK. It's love then," and Childe shook his hand. "What in hell happened? 
What're you doing down here? Listen, did you know I tried to phone you a little 
while ago and I was thinking about driving up to see you. Then..."
    Jeremiah held up his hand and laughed and said, "One thing at a time! I'm 
out of my Sunset pad because my wives insisted we get out of town. I told them 
we ought to wait a day or so until the roads were cleared. By then, the smog'd 
be gone, anyway, or on its way out. But they wouldn't listen. They cried and 
carried on something awful, unreeled my entrails and tromped on them. One good 
thing about tears; they wash out the smog, keep the acids from eating up your 
corneas. But they're also acid on the nerves, so I said, finally, OK, I love you 
both, so we'll take off. But if we get screwed up or anything bad happens, don't 
blame me. Stick it up your own lovely asses. So they smiled and wiped away the 
tears and packed up and we took off down Doheny. Sheila had a little 
hand-operated prayer wheel spinning and Lupe was getting three roaches out so we 
could enjoy what would otherwise be a real drag, or so we at least could enjoy a 
facsimile of joy. We came to Melrose, and the light changed to red, so I 
stopped, being a law-abiding citizen when the law is for the benefit of all and 
well-founded. Besides, I didn't want to get run into. But the son of Adam behind 
me got mad; he thought I ought to run the light. His soul was really rued, 
Herald, he was in a cold-sweat panic. He honked his horn and when I didn't jump 
like a dog through a hoop and go through the light, he jumped out of his car and 
opened my door--dumb bastard, I didn't have it locked--and he jerked me out and 
whirled me around and shoved my head against the handle. It cut my head open and 
knocked me half-silly. Naturally, I didn't resist; I really believe this 
turn-the-other-cheek dictum.
    "I was half in the next lane, and the other cars weren't going to stop, so 
Sheila jumped out and shoved the man in the path of one and pulled me into the 
car. That Sheila has a temper, you got to forgive her. The man was hit; he 
bounced off one car and into ours. So Sheila drove the car then while Lupe was 
trying to heave the man out. He was lying on the back seat with his legs 
dragging on the street. I stopped her and told Sheila to take us to the 
hospital.
    "So she did, though reluctantly, I mean reluctant to take the man, too, and 
we got here, and my head finally got bandaged, and Sheila and Lupe are helping 
the nurses up on the second floor. I'll help as soon as I get to feeling 
better."
    "What happened to the man?" Childe said.
    "He's on a mattress on the floor of the second level. He's unconscious, 
breathing a few bubbles of blood, poor unhappy soul, but Sheila's taking care of 
him, too. She feels bad about shoving him; she's got a hasty temper but 
underneath it all she truly loves."
    "I was going to offer to help," Childe said, "but I can't see standing 
around for hours. Besides..."
    Jeremiah asked him what the besides meant. Childe told him about Colben and 
the film. Jeremiah was shocked. He said that he had heard a little about it over 
the radio. He had not received a paper for two days, so he had no chance to read 
anything about it. So Childe wanted somebody with, a big library on vampires and 
on other things that bump in the unlit halls of the mind?
    Well, he knew just the man. And he lived not more than six blocks away, just 
south of Wilshire. If anybody would have the research material, it would be 
Woolston Heepish.
    "Isn't he likely to be trying to get out of town?"
    "Woolie? By Dracula's moustache, no! Nothing, except maybe an atomic attack 
threat, would get him to desert his collection. Don't worry; he'll be home. 
There is one problem. He doesn't like unexpected visitors, you got to phone him 
ahead of time and ask if you can come, even his best friends--except maybe for 
D. Nimming Rodder--are no exceptions. Everybody phones and asks permission, and 
if he isn't expecting you, he usually won't answer the doorbell. But he knows my 
voice; I'll holler through the door at him."
    "Rodder? Where have...? Oh, yes! The book and TV writer! Vampires, 
werewolves, a lovely young girl trapped in a hideous old mansion high on a hill, 
that sort of thing. He produced and wrote the Shadow Land series, right?"
    "Please, Herald, don't say anything at all about him if you can't say 
something good. Woolie worships D. Nimming Rodder. He won't hit you if you say 
anything disparaging about him, but you sure as Shiva won't get any cooperation 
and you'll find yourself frozen out."
    Childe shifted from one foot to another and coughed.
    The cough was only partly from the burning air. It indicated that he was 
having a struggle with his conscience. He wanted to stay here and help--part of 
him did--but the other part, the more powerful, wanted to get out and away and 
on the trail. Actually, he couldn't be much use here, not for some time, anyway. 
And he had a feeling, only a feeling but one which had ended in something 
objectively profitable in the past, that something down there in the dark deeps 
was nibbling at his hook.
    He put his hand on Jeremiah's bony shoulder and said, "I'll try to phone 
him, but if..."
    "No use, Herald. He has an answering service, and it's not likely that'll be 
working now."
    "Give me a note of introduction, so I can get my foot in the door."
    Jeremiah smiled and said, "I'll do better than that. I'll walk with you to 
Woolie's. I'm just in the way here, and I'd like to get away from the sight of 
so much suffering."
    "I don't know," Childe said. "You could have a concussion. Maybe you..."
    Jeremiah shrugged and said, "I'm going with you. Just a minute while I find 
the women and tell them where I'm going."
    Childe, waiting for him, and having nothing to do but watch and listen, 
understood why Jeremiah wanted to get away. The blood and the groans and weeping 
were bad enough, but the many chopping coughs and loud, long 
pumping-up-snot-or-blood coughs irritated, perhaps even angered him, although 
the anger was rammed far down. He did not know why coughs set him on edge so 
much, but he knew that Sybil's nicotine cough and burbling lungs, occurring at 
any time of day or night and especially distressing when he was eating or making 
love, had caused their split as much as anything. Or had made him believe so.
    Jeremiah seemed to skate through the crowd. He took Childe's hand and led 
him out the front door. It was three minutes after 12:00. The sun was a 
distorted yellow-greenish lobe. A man about a hundred feet east of them was a 
wavering shadowy figure. There seemed to be thick and thin bands of smog sliding 
past each other and thus darkening and lightening, squeezing and elongating 
objects and people. This must have been an illusion or some other phenomenon, 
because the smog was not moving. There was not a rumor of a breeze. The heat 
seemed to filter down through the green-grayishness, to slide down the filaments 
of smog like acrobats with fevers and sprawl outwards and wrap themselves around 
people.
    Childe's armpits and back and face were wet but the perspiration only cooled 
him a little. His crotch and his feet were also sweating, and he wished that he 
could wear swimming trunks or a towel. It was better outside than in the 
hospital, however. The stench of sweaty frightened people had been powerful, but 
the noise and the sight of the misery and pain had made it less offensive. Now 
he was aware that Jeremiah, who was, despite being a "hippie," a lover of baths, 
a true "water brother" as he liked to say, stank. The odor was a peculiar 
combination of pipe tobacco, marijuana, a pungent heavy unidentifiable something 
suggestive of spermatic fluid, incense, a soupcon of rosewater on cunt, 
frightened sweat, extrusion of excited shit, and, perhaps, inhaled smog being 
sweat out.
    Jeremiah looked at Childe, coughed, smiled, and said, "You smell like 
something washed up out of the Pacific deeps and two weeks dead yourself, if 
you'll forgive my saying so."
    Childe, although startled, did not comment. Jeremiah had given too many 
evidences of telepathy or mindreading. However, there were other explanations 
which Childe did not really believe. Childe's expression could have told 
Jeremiah what he was thinking, although Childe would have said that his face was 
unreadable.
    He walked along with Jeremiah. They seemed to be in a tunnel that grew out 
of the pavement before them and fell flat onto the pavement behind them. Childe 
felt unaccountably happy for a moment despite the sinus ache, throat and eye 
burn, insidious crisping of lungs, and stabbing in his testicles. He had not 
really wanted to be a good servant in the hospital; he wanted to sniff out the 
tracks of criminals.



     
CHAPTER 6
     
    "You see, Ham," Childe said, "the vampire motif in the film could mean 
nothing--as a clue--but I feel that it's very important and, in fact, the only 
thing I can follow up. But the chances..."
    His voice died. He and Jeremiah stood on the curb of the north side of 
Burton Way and waited. The cars were like elephants in the grayness, gray 
elephants with trunks to tails, huge eyes glowing in the gloom. The lanes here 
were one-way for westward traffic, but all traffic was moving eastward.
    There was only one thing to do if they wished to cross today. Childe stepped 
out into the traffic. The cars were going so slowly that it was easy to climb up 
on the hood of the nearest and jump over onto the next hood and onto a third and 
then a fourth and onto the grass of the divider.
    Startled and outraged drivers and passengers cursed and howled at them, but 
Jeremiah only laughed and Childe jeered at them. They crossed the divider and 
jumped from hood to hood again until they got to the other side. They walked 
down Willaman, and every house was unlit. At Wilshire and Willaman, the street 
lights were operating, but the drivers were paying no attention to them. All 
were going eastward on both sides of Wilshire.
    The traffic was a little faster here but not too fast. Childe and Jeremiah 
got over, although Jeremiah slipped once and fell on top of a hood.
    "Middle of this block," Jeremiah said.
    The houses and apartments were middle middle-class. The homes were the usual 
California-Spanish bungalows; the apartment buildings were four or five story 
boxes with some attempts at decoration and terracing outside. There were lights 
in a few windows but the house before which Jeremiah stopped was dark.
    "Must not be home," Childe said.
    "Doesn't mean a thing. His windows are always dark. Once you get inside, 
you'll see why. He may not be home just now; he might've gone to the store or 
the gas station; they're supposed to be open, at least the governor said they 
would. Let's see."
    They crossed the yard. The front window looked boarded up. At least, 
something dark and woody looking covered it on the inside. Closer, he saw that 
the man-sized figure, which had stood so silently and which he had thought was 
an iron statute, was a wooden and painted cutout of Godzilla.
    They went around the side of the house to the driveway. There was a large 
red sign with glaring yellow letters: MISTER HORROR IS ALIVE AND WELL IN HERE.
    Beyond was a sort of courtyard with a tree which bent at forty-five degrees 
and the top of which covered the porch roof and part of the house roof like a 
great greenish hand. The tree trunk was so gray and twisted and knobbed that 
Childe thought for a moment that it was artificial. It looked as if it had been 
designed and built as background to a horror movie.
    There were many signs on the door and the walls beside the door, some of 
them "cute" and others "in" jokes. There were also masks of Frankenstein, 
Dracula, and the WolfMan nailed against the walls. And several NO SMOKING 
ABSOLUTELY signs. Another forbade any alcoholic beverages to be brought in.
    Jeremiah pressed the button, which was the nose of a gargoyle face painted 
around it. A loud clanging noise as of large bells came from within and then 
several bars of organ music: Gloomy Sunday.
    There was no other response. Jeremiah waited a moment and then rang the bell 
again. More bells and organ music. But no one at the door.
    Jeremiah beat on the door and shouted, "Open up, Woolie! I know you're in 
there! It's OK! It's me, Hamlet Jeremiah, one of your greatest fans!"
    The little peep-window slid back and light rayed out. The light was cut off, 
came back, was cut off again as the peep-window swung shut. The door opened with 
a screeching of rusty hinges. A few seconds later, Childe understood that the 
noise was a recording.
    "Welcome," a soft baritone said. Jeremiah tapped Childe's shoulder to 
indicate he should precede him. They walked in, and the man shut the door, 
rammed home three large bolts, and hooked two chains.
    The room was too confusing for Childe to take it in all at once. He 
concentrated on the man, whom Jeremiah introduced as Woolston Q. Heepish.
    "Woolie" was about six feet in height, portly and soft-looking, moderately 
paunched, with a bag of skin hanging under his chin, bronze walrus moustache, 
square rimless spectacles, a handsome profile from the mouth up, a full head of 
dark-red, straight, slick hair, and pale gray eyes. He hunched forward as if he 
had spent most of his life over a desk.
    The walls and windows of the room were covered with shelves of books and 
various objects and with paintings, movie stills, posters, masks, plastic busts, 
framed letters, and blow-ups of movie actors. There was a sofa, several chairs, 
and a grand piano. The room beyond looked much the same except for its lack of 
furniture.
    If he wanted to learn about vampires, he was at the right place.
    The place was jammed with anything and everything concerning Gothic 
literature, folklore, legendary, the supernatural, lycanthropy, demonology, 
witch-craft, and the movies made of these subjects.
    Woolie shook Childe's hand with a large, wet, plump hand.
    "Welcome to the House of Horror," he said.
    Jeremiah explained why they were there. Woolie shook his head and said that 
he had heard about Colben over the radio. The announcer had said that Colben had 
been "horribly mutilated" but he had not given any details.
    Childe told him the details. Heepish shook his head and tsk-tsked while his 
gray eyes seemed to get brighter and the corners of his lips dimpled.
    "How terrible! How awful! Sickening! My God, the savages still in our midst! 
How can such things be?"
    The soft voice murmured and seemed to become lost, as if it were breaking up 
into a half dozen parts which, like mice, scurried for the dark in the corners. 
The pale, soft wet hands rubbed together now and then and several times were 
clasped in a gesture which at first looked prayerful but also gave the 
impression of being placed around an invisible neck.
    "If there is anything I can do to help you track down these monsters; if 
there is anything in my house to help you, you are welcome," Heepish said. 
"Though I can't imagine what kind of clue you could find by just browsing 
through. Still..."
    He spread both hands out and then said, "But let me conduct you through my 
house. I always have the guided tour first for strangers. Hamlet can come with 
us or look around on his own, if he wishes. Now, this, blow-up here is of Alfred 
Dummel and Else Bennrich in the German film, The Blood Drinker, made in 1928. It 
had a rather limited distribution in this country, but I was fortunate enough--I 
have many many friends all over the world--to get a print of the film. It may be 
the only print now existing; I've made inquiries and never been able to locate 
another, and I've had many people trying to find another for me..."
    Childe restrained the impulse to tell Heepish that he wanted to see the 
newspaper files at once. He did not wish to waste any time. But Jeremiah had 
told him how he must behave if he wanted to get maximum cooperation from his 
host.
    The house was crammed with objects of many varieties, all originating in the 
world of terror and evil shadows but designed and manufactured to make money. 
The house was bright with illuminations of many shades: bile-yellow, blood-red, 
decay-purple, rigor mortis-grayblue, repressed-anger orange, but shadows seemed 
to press in everywhere. Where no shadow could be, there was shadow.
    An air-conditioner was moving air slowly and icily, as if the next glacial 
age were announcing itself. The air was well-filtered, because the burning of 
eyes and throat and lungs was fading. (Something good to say about ice ages.) 
Despite this, and the ridges of skin pinched by cold air, Childe felt as if he 
were suffocating with the closeness and bulk and disorder of the books, the 
masks, the heads of movie monsters, the distorted wavy menacing paintings, the 
Frankenstein monsters and wolfmen dolls, the little Revolting Robot toys, the 
Egyptian statues of jackal-headed Anubis, the cat-headed Sekhmet.
    The room beyond was smaller but also much more cluttered. Woolie gestured 
vaguely--all his gestures were as vague as ectoplasm--at the leaning and 
sometimes collapsed piles of books and magazines.
    "I got a shipment in from a collector in Utica, New York," Heepish said. "He 
died recently."
    His voice deepened and richened almost to oiliness. "Very sad. A fine man. A 
real fan of the horror. We corresponded for years, more than I care to say, 
although I never actually got to meet him. But our minds met, we had much in 
common. His widow sent me this stuff, told me to price it at whatever I thought 
was fair. There's a complete collection of Weird Tales from 1923 through 1954, a 
first edition of Chambers King in Yellow, a first edition of Dracula with a 
signature from Bram Stoker and Bela Lugosi, and, oh! there is so so much!"
    He rubbed his hands and smiled. "So much! But the prize is a letter from 
Doctor Polidori--he was Byron's personal physician and friend, you know--author 
of an anonymous book--I have several first editions of the first vampire novel 
in English--THE VAMPYRE. Doctor Polidori! A letter from him to a Lady Milbanks 
describing how he got the idea for his novel! It's unique! I've been 
lusting--literally lusting--for it ever since I heard about it in 1941! It'll 
occupy a prominent place--perhaps the most prominent--on the front room wall as 
soon as I can get a suitable frame!"
    Childe refrained from asking where he would find a bare place on the wall.
    Heepish showed him his office, a large room constricted by many rows of 
ceiling-high bookcases and by a huge old-fashioned rolltop desk engulfed by 
books, magazines, letters, maps, stills, posters, statuettes, toys, and a 
headsman's axe that looked genuine, even to the dried blood.
    They went back to the room between the office and living room, where Heepish 
led Childe into the kitchen. This had a stove, a sink, and a refrigerator, but 
other-wise was full of books, magazines, small filing cases, and some dead 
insects on the edges of the open cupboards and on the floor.
    "I'm having the stove taken out next week," Heepish said. "I don't eat in, 
and when I give a party, I have everything brought in."
    Childe raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Jeremiah had told him that the 
refrigerator was so full of microfilms that there was little room for food. And 
at the rate the film was coming in, there would soon not be space enough for a 
quart of milk.
    "I am thinking about building an extension to my house," Heepish said. "As 
you can see, I'm a teeny-weeny bit crowded now, and heaven knows what it will be 
like five years from now. Or even one."
    Woolston Heepish had been married--for over fifteen years. His wife had 
wanted children, but he had said no. Children could not be kept away from his 
books, magazines, paintings and drawings, masks and costumes, toys and 
statuettes. Little children were very destructive.
    After some years, his wife gave up her wish to have babies. Could she have a 
pet, a cat or a dog? Heepish said that he was indeed very sorry, but cats clawed 
and dogs chewed and piddled.
    The collection increased; the house shrank. Furniture was removed to make 
room for more objects. The day came when there was no room for Mrs. Heepish. The 
Bride of Frankenstein was elbowing her out. She knew better than to appeal for 
even a halt to the collecting, and a diminution was unthinkable. She moved out 
and got a divorce, naming as co-respondent The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
    It was only fair to Heepish, Jeremiah had said, to let Childe know that 
Heepish and his wife were the best of friends and went out together as much as 
when they had lived together. Perhaps, though, this was the ex-Mrs. Heepish's 
way of getting revenge, because she certainly rode herd on him, and he meekly 
submitted with only a few grumbles now and then.
    Now Heepish himself was being forced out. One day, he would come home after 
a late meeting of The Count Dracula Society and open the front door, and tons of 
books, magazines, documents, photographs, and bric-a-brac would cascade out, and 
the rescuers would tunnel down to find Woolston Heepish pressed flat between the 
leaves of The Castle of Otranto.
    Childe was led into an enclosed back porch, jammed with books like the other 
rooms. They stepped out the back door into a pale green light and an instant 
sensation as of diluted sulfuric acid fumes scraping the eyes. Childe blinked, 
and his eyes began to run. He coughed. Heepish coughed. 
    Heepish said, "Perhaps we should pass up the grand tour of the garage, 
but..."
    His voice trailed off. Childe had stopped for a moment; Heepish was a figure 
as dark and bulky and shapeless as a monster in the watery mists of a grade-B 
movie.
    The door squeaked upward. Childe hastened to enter the garage. The door 
squeaked down and clanged shut. Childe wondered i€ this door, too, were 
connected to a recording taken from the old Inner Sanctum radio program. Heepish 
turned on the lights. More of the same except that there was dust on the heads, 
masks, books, and magazines.
    "I keep my duplicates, second-rate things, and stuff I just don't have room 
for in the house at the moment," Heepish said. Childe felt that he was expected 
to ejaculate over at least a few items. He wanted to get out of the hot, close, 
and dead air into the house. He hoped that the files he wanted were not stored 
here.
    Childe commented on an entire bookshelf dedicated to the works of D. Nimming 
Rodder.
    Heepish said, "Oh, you noticed that he is the only living author with an 
individual placard in my collection in the house? Nim is my favorite, of course, 
I think he's the greatest writer of all time, in the Gothic or horror genre, 
even greater than Monk Lewis or H. P. Lovecraft or Bram Stoker. He is a very 
good friend of mine.
    "I keep many duplicates of his works out here because he needs one now and 
then to use as tearsheets or reference for a new anthology. He has had many 
anthologies, you know, just scads of reprints and collections taken from his 
collections, and collections from these. He's probably the most recollected man 
on Earth."
    Childe did not smile. Heepish shrugged.
    There was a large blow-up of Rodder tacked to an upright. In heavy black ink 
below: TO MY FIRST FAN AND A GREAT FRIEND, MISTER HORROR HIMSELF, WITH INTENSE 
AFFECTION FROM NIM. The thin, pale face with the collapsed cheeks, sharp nose, 
and the huge-rimmed spectacles looked like that of a spooky and spooked primate 
of the Madagascar jungle, like a lemur's. And lemur, now that Childe considered 
it, originally meant a ghost. He grinned. He remembered the entry in the big 
unabridged dictionary he had referred to so often at college.
    Lemur--Latin lemures nocturnal spirits, ghosts; akin to Greek lamia, a 
devouring monster, lamas crop, maw, lamia, pl., chasm, Lettish lamata mousetrap; 
basic idea, open jaws.



     
CHAPTER 7
     
    Childe, looking at Rodder's photograph, grinned widely.
    Heepish said, "What's so funny? I could stand a little laugh in these trying 
times."
    "Nothing, really."
    "Don't you like Rodder?"
    Heepish's voice was controlled, but it contained a hint of a well-oiled 
mousetrap aching to snap shut.
    Childe said, "I liked his Shadow Land series. And I liked his underlying 
themes, aside from the spooky element. You know, the little man fighting bravely 
against conformity, authoritarianism, vast forces of corruption, and so on, the 
lone individual, the only honest man in the word--I liked those things. And 
every time I read an article in the newspapers about Rodder, he's always 
described as honest, as a man of integrity. Which is really ironic."
    Childe stopped and then, not wishing to continue but impelled to, said, "But 
I know a guy..."
    He stopped. Why tell Heepish that the guy was Jeremiah?
    "This guy was at a party which consisted mainly of science-fiction people. 
He was standing within earshot of a group of authors. One was the great fantasy 
writer, Breyleigh Bredburger. You know of him, of course?"
    Heepish nodded and said, "After Rodder, Monk Lewis, and Bloch, my favorite."
    Childe said, "Another author, I forget his name, was complaining that Rodder 
had stolen one of his magazine stories for his series. Just lifted it, changed 
the title and few things, credited it to somebody with an outlandish Greek name, 
and had, so far, refused to correspond with the author about the alleged theft. 
Bredburger said that was nothing. Rodder had stolen three of his stories, giving 
credit to himself, Rodder, as author. Bredburger cornered Rodder twice and 
forced him to admit the theft and to pay him. Rodder's excuse was that he'd 
signed to write two-thirds of the series himself and he wasn't up to it, so, in 
desperation, he'd lifted Bredburger's stories. He didn't say anything about 
plagiarizing from other people, of course. Bredburger said he'd been promised 
payment for the third stolen story but so far hadn't gotten it and wouldn't 
unless he vigorously pursued Rodder or went through the courts.
    "A third author then said that the first would have to stand in line behind 
about twenty if he wanted to sue or to take it out of Rodder's hide.
    "That's your D. Nimming Rodder. Your great champion of the little man, of 
the nonconformist, of the honest man."
    Childe stopped. He was surprised that he had run on so. He did not want to 
quarrel. After all, he was to be indebted to this man, if this grand tour ever 
ended. On the other hand, he was itchy with anger. He had seen too many corrupt 
men highly honored by the world, which either did not know the truth or ignored 
it. Also, the irritation caused by the smog, the repressed panic arising from 
fear of what the smog might become, Colben's death, the frustrating scene with 
Sybil, and Heepish's attitude, undefinedly prickly, combined to wear away the 
skin and fat over his nerves.
    Heepish's gray eyes seemed to retreat, as if they were afraid they might 
combust if they got too close to the light and air. His neck quivered. His 
moustache drew down; invisible weights had been tied to each end. His nostrils 
flared like bellows. His pale skin had become red. His hands clenched.
    Childe waited while the silence hardened like bird lime. If Heepish got 
nasty, he would get just as nasty, even though he would lose access to the 
literature he needed. Childe had been told by Jeremiah that Heepish had gotten 
the idea for his collection from observing a man by the name of Forrest J 
Ackerman, who had probably the greatest private collection of science-fiction 
and fantasy in the world. In fact, Heepish had been called the poor man's 
Ackerman, though not to his face. However, he was far from poor, he had much 
money--from what source nobody knew--and his collection would someday be the 
world's greatest, private or public.
    But at this moment he was very vulnerable, and Childe was willing to thrust 
through the crack in the armor.
    "Well!" Heepish said.
    He cocked his head and smiled thinly. The moustache, however, was still 
swelled like an elephant seal in mating season, and his fingers were making a 
steeple, then separating to form the throat-holding attitude.
    "Well!" he said again. His voice was as hard, but there was also a whine in 
it, like a distant mosquito.
    "Well!" Childe said, aware that he would never know what Heepish was going 
to say and not caring. "I'd like to see the newspaper files, if possible."
    "Oh? Oh, yes! They're upstairs. This way, please."
    They left the garage, but Heepish put the photograph of Rodder under his arm 
before following him out. Childe had wondered what it was doing out in the 
garage, anyway, but on re-entering the house, he saw that there were many more 
photographs and paintings and pencil sketches and even framed newspaper and 
magazine clippings containing Rodder's portrait--than he had thought. Heepish 
had had one too many and stored that one in the garage. But now, as if to show 
Childe his place, to put him down in some obscure manner, Heepish was also 
bringing this photograph into the house.
    Childe grinned at this as he waited for Heepish to lead him through the 
kitchen and hall-room and turn right to go up the narrow stairs. The walls were 
hung with many pictures and paintings of Frankenstein's monster and Dracula and 
an original by Hannes Bok and another by Virgil Finlay, all leaning at slightly 
different angles like headstones in an old neglected graveyard.
    They went down a short hallway and into a room with the walls covered with 
paintings and photographs and posters and movie ad stills. There were a number 
of curious wooden frames, sawhorses with castles on their backs, which held a 
series of illustrations and photos and newspaper clippings on wooden frames. 
These could be turned on a central shaft, like pages of a book.
    Childe looked through all of them and, at any other time, would have been 
delighted and would have lingered over various nostalgic items.
    Heepish, as if the demands on him were really getting to be too much, sighed 
when Childe asked to see the scrapbooks. He went into an enormous closet the 
walls of which were lined with bookshelves stuffed with large scrapbooks, many 
of them dusty and smelling of decay.
    "I really must do something about these before it's too late," Heepish said. 
"I have some very valuable--some invaluable and unreplaceable--material here."
    He was still carrying Rodder's photo under one arm.
    It was Childe's turn to sigh as he looked at the growing hill of stuff to 
peruse. But he sat down in a chair, placed his right ankle over his left thigh, 
and began to turn the stiff and often yellowed and brittle pages of the 
scrapbooks. After a while, Heepish said that he would have to excuse himself. If 
Childe wanted anything, he should just holler. Childe looked up and smiled 
briefly and said that he did not want to be any more bother than he had to be. 
Heepish was gone then, but left an almost visible ectoplasm of disdain and hurt 
feelings behind him.
    The scrapbooks were titled with various subjects: MOVIE VAMPIRES, GERMAN AND 
SCANDINAVIAN, 1919-1939; WEREWOLVES, AEMRICAN, 1865-1900; WITCHES, 
PENNSYLVANIAN, 1880-1965; GOLEM, EXTRA-FORTEANA, 1929-1960; SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 
VAMPIRE FOLKLORE AND GHOST STORIES, 1910-1967; and so on.
    Childe had gone through thirty-two such titles before he came to the last 
one. They had all been interesting but not very fruitful, and he did not know 
that the one which was in his hands was relevant. But he felt his heart quicken 
and his back became less stiff. It could not be called a clue, but it at least 
was something to investigate.
    An article from the Los Angeles Times, dated May 1, 1958, described a number 
of reputedly "haunted" houses in the Los Angeles area. Several long paragraphs 
were devoted to a house in Beverly Hills which not only had a ghost, it had a 
"vampire."
    There was a photograph of the Trolling House taken from the air. According 
to the article, no one could get close enough to it on the ground to use a 
camera effectively. The house was set on a low hill in the middle of a 
large--for Southern California--walled estate. The grounds were well wooded so 
that the house could not be seen from anywhere outside the walls. The newspaper 
cameramen had been unable to get photos of it in 1948, when the owner of 
Trolling House had become temporarily famous, and the newsmen had no better luck 
in 1958, when this article, recapitulating the events of ten years before, had 
been published. There was, however, a picture of a pencil sketch made of the 
"vampire," Baron Igescu, by an artist who had depended upon his memory after 
seeing the baron at a charity ball. No photographs of the baron were known to be 
in existence. Very few people had seen the baron, although he had made several 
appearances at charity balls and once at a Beverly Hills taxpayers protest 
meeting.
    Trolling House was named after the uncle of the present owner. The uncle, 
also an Igescu, had traveled from Rumania to England in 1887, stayed there one 
year, and then moved on to America in 1889. Upon becoming a citizen of the 
United States of America, Igescu had changed his name to Trolling. No one knew 
why. The mansion was on woodland surrounded on all sides by a high brick wall 
topped with iron spikes between which barbed wire was strung. Built in very late 
Victorian style in 1900 in what was then out-of-the-way agricultural land, it 
was a huge rambling structure. The nucleus was a part of the original house. 
This was, naturally, a Spanish-style mansion which had been built by the 
eccentric (some said, mad) Don Pedro del Osorojo in the wilderness of what was 
to become, a century later, Beverly Hills. Del Osorojo was supposed to have been 
a relative of the de Villa family, which owned this area, but that was not 
authenticated. Actually little was known of del Osorojo except that he was a 
recluse with an unknown source of wealth. His wife came from Spain (this was 
when California was under Spanish rule) and was supposed to have been a 
Castilian noble.
    The present owner, Igescu, was involuntarily publicized in 1938 when he was 
brought dead-on-arrival into the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital after a car 
collision at Hollywood and La Brea. At twilight of the following day, the county 
coroner was to perform an inquest. Igescu had no perceptible wounds or injuries.
    At the first touch of the knife, Igescu sat up on the dissection slab.
    This story was picked up by newspapers throughout the States because a 
reporter jestingly pointed out that Igescu had (1) never been seen in the 
daytime, (2) was of Transylvanian origin, (3) came from an aristocratic family 
which had lived for centuries in a castle (now abandoned) on top of a high steep 
hill in a remote rural area, (4) had shipped his uncle's body back to the old 
country to be buried in the family tomb, but the coffin had disappeared en 
route, and (5) was living in a house already well known because of the ghost of 
Dolores del Osorojo.
    Dolores was supposedly the spirit of Don Pedro's daughter. She had died of 
grief, or killed herself because of grief. Her lover, or suitor, was a Norwegian 
sea-captain who had seen Dolores at a governor's ball during one of her rare 
appearances in town. He seemed to have lost his sanity over her. He neglected 
his ship and its business, and his men deserted or were thrown into the local 
jail for drunkenness and vagrancy.
    Lars Ulf Larsson, the captain, barred by the old don from seeing Dolores, 
managed to sneak into the house and woo her so successfully that she promised to 
run off with him within a week. But the night of the elopement came, and Larsson 
did not show up. He was never seen again; a legend had it that Don Pedro had 
killed him and buried his body on the estate. Another said that the body had 
been thrown into the sea.
    Dolores had gone into mourning and died several weeks later. Her father went 
hunting into the hills several weeks after she was buried and failed to return. 
Search parties could not find him; it was said that the Devil had taken him.
    Later occupants of the house reported that they sometimes saw Dolores in the 
house or out on the lawn. She was always dressed in a black formal gown of the 
1810's and had black hair, a pale skin, and very red lips. Her appearances were 
not frequent, but they were nerve wracking enough to cause a long line of 
tenants and owners to move out. The old mansion had fallen into ruins, except 
for two rooms, when Uncle Igescu bought the property and built his house around 
the still-standing part.
    Despite the publicity about the present Igescu, not much was really known 
about him. He had inherited a chain of grocery stores and an export business 
from his uncle. He, or his managers, had built the stores into a large chain of 
supermarkets in the Southwest and had expanded the export business.
    Childe found the ghost interesting. Whether or not she had been seen 
recently was not known, because Igescu had never said anything about her. Her 
last recorded appearance was in 1878, when the Reddes had moved out.
    Igescu's sketch in the newspaper showed a long lean face with a high 
forehead and high cheekbones and large eyes and thick eyebrows. He had a thick 
down drooping Slovak coal miner's type of moustache.
    Heepish returned, and Childe, holding the sketch so he could see it, said, 
"This man certainly doesn't look Draculaish does he? More like the grocery store 
man, which he is, right?"
    Heepish poked his head forward and squinted his eyes. He smiled slightly. 
"Certainly, he doesn't look like Bela Lugosi. But the Dracula of the book, Bram 
Stoker's, had just such a moustache. Or one like it, anyway. I tried to get in 
touch with Igescu several times, you know, but I couldn't get through his 
secretary. She was nice but very firm. The Baron did not want to be disturbed 
with any such nonsense."
    Heepish's tone and weak hollow chuckle said that, if there were any 
nonsense, it was on the Baron's part.
    "You have his phone number?"
    "Yes, but it took me a lot of trouble to get it. It's unlisted."
    "You don't owe him anything," Childe said. "I'd like to have it. If I find 
anything you might be interested in, I'll tell you. How's that? I feel I owe you 
something, for your time and fine cooperation. Perhaps, I might be able to dig 
up something for your collection."
    "Well, you can have the number," Heepish said, warming up. "But it's 
probably been changed."
    He conducted Childe downstairs and, while Childe waited under a shelf which 
held the heads of Frankenstein's monster, The Naked Brain, and a huge black 
long-nailed warty rubbery hand of some nameless creature from some (deservedly) 
forgotten movie, Heepish plunged into the rear of the house down a dim corridor 
with plastic cobwebs and spiderwebs between ceiling and wall. He dived out of 
the shadows and webs with a little black book in his hand. Childe wrote down the 
number and address in his own little black book and asked permission to try the 
number. He dialed and got what he expected, nothing. The lines were still tied 
up. He tried the LAPD number. He tried his own phone. More nothing.
    Just for stubbornness, he tried Igescu's number again. And this time, as if 
the fates had decided that he should be favored, or by one of those coincidences 
too implausible to be believed in a novel but sometimes happening in "real" 
life, the connection went through. A woman's voice said, "Hello? My God, the 
phone works! What happened?"
    "May I speak to Baron Igescu?" Childe said.
    "Who?"
    "Isn't this Baron Igescu's residence?"
    "No! Who is this speaking?"
    "Herald Wellston," Childe said, giving the name he had decided to use. "May 
I ask who is speaking?"
    "Go away! Or I'll call the police!" the woman screamed, and she hung up.
    "I don't think that was Igescu's secretary," Childe said in answer to 
Heepish's quizzical expression. "Somebody else has their number now."
    Not believing that it would work but willing to try, he dialed information. 
The call went right through, and he succeeded almost immediately in getting 
transferred to his contact. She did not have to worry about a supervisor 
listening in; she was the supervisor.
    "What happened, Linda? All of a sudden, the lines're wide open."
    "I don't know, one of those unexplainable lulls, the eye of the storm, 
maybe. But it won't last, you can bet your most precious possession on that, 
Herald. You better hurry."
    He told her what he wanted, and she got Igescu's unlisted number for him 
within a few seconds.
    "I'll drop off the usual to you in the mail before evening. Thanks, Linda, 
you beautiful beautiful."
    "I may not be here to get it if this smog keeps up," she said. "Or the 
mailman may have skipped town with everyone and his brother."
    He hung up the telephone. Heepish, who had stepped out of the room but not 
out of hearing range, raised his eyebrows. Childe did not feel that he had to 
justify himself, but, since he was using Heepish's phone, he did owe him some 
explanation.
    "The forces of good must use corruption to fight corruption," he said. "I 
occasionally have to find a number, and I send a ten to my informant, or used 
to; now it's a twenty, what with inflation. In this case, I suspect I've wasted 
my money."
    Heepish harrumphed. Childe got out quickly; he felt as if he could no longer 
stand this shadowy, musky place with its monsters frozen in various attitudes of 
attack and their horrified paralyzed victims. Nor could he endure the custodian 
of the museum any longer.
    Yet, when he stood at the door to say good-bye and to thank his host, he 
felt ashamed. Certainly, the man's hobby--passion, rather--was harmless enough 
and even entertaining--even emotionally purgative--for millions of children and 
adults who had never quite ceased being children. Though dedicated to archetypal 
horror and its Hollywood sophisticated developments, the house had defeated 
itself, hence, had a therapeutic value. Where there is a surfeit of horrors, 
horror becomes ho-hum.
    And this man had helped him to the best of his ability.
    He thanked Heepish and shook his hand, and perhaps Heepish felt the change 
in his guest, because he smiled broadly and radiated warmth and asked Childe to 
come back--any time.
    The door swung shut with the Inner-Sanctum creakings, but it did not propel 
Childe and Jeremiah into the acid-droplet mist. A breeze ruffled them, and 
sunshine was bright, and the sky was blue.
    Childe had not known until then how depressed and miserable he had been. 
Now, he blinked eyes that did not burn or weep and sucked in the precious clean 
air. He chortled and did a little jig arm in arm with Jeremiah. The walk back to 
his apartment was the most delightful walk in his life. Its delight exceeded 
even that of his first walk with Sybil when he was courting her. The yards and 
sidewalks held a surprising number of people, all enjoying the air and sun. 
Apparently, fewer than he--and the radio and TV experts--had thought had fled 
the area.
    There were, however, few cars on the streets. Wilshire Boulevard held only 
one auto between La Cienega and Robertson, and when they crossed Burton Way on 
Willaman, they could see no cars.
    However, there were great green-gray clouds piled against the mountains. 
Pasadena and Glendale and other inland cities were still in the fist of the 
smog.
    By the time he had said good-bye to Jeremiah, who turned off toward Mt. 
Sinai Hospital, the wind had slid to a halt, and the air was as still as a dead 
jellyfish again. There was a peculiar glow on the western horizon; a hush 
descended as if a finger had been placed against the lips of the world.
    He still felt happy as he went into the apartment building. The phone lines 
were busy, but he stuck it out, and, within three hundred seconds by his 
wristwatch, the phone rang. The voice that answered was female, low, and lovely.
    Magda Holyani was Mr. Igescu's secretary; she stressed the "Mister."
    No, Mr. Igescu could not talk to him. Mr. Igescu never talked to anybody 
without an appointment. No, he would not grant an interview to Mr. Herold 
Wellston, no matter how far Mr. Wellston had traveled for it nor how important 
the magazine Mr. Wellston represented. Mr. Igescu never gave interviews, and if 
Mr. Wellston was thinking of that silly vampire and ghost story in the Times, he 
had better forget it--as far as talking to Mr. Igescu about it. Or about 
anything.
    And how had Mr. Wellston gotten this unlisted number?
    Childe did not answer the last. He asked that his request be forwarded to 
her employer. She said that he would be informed of it as soon as possible. 
Childe gave her his number--he said he was staying with a friend--and told her 
that if Igescu should change his mind, he should call him at that number. He 
thanked her and hung up. Throughout the conversation, neither had said a word 
about the smog.
    Childe decided to do some thinking, and, while he was doing that, he had 
better attend to some immediate matters--such as his survival. He drove to the 
supermarket and found that it had just been reopened. Apparently, the manager 
was staying on the premises, and several of the checkout women and the liquor 
store clerk lived nearby. Cars were beginning to fill the parking lot, and 
people on foot were numerous. Childe was glad that he had thought of this, 
because the shelves were beginning to look bare. He stocked up on canned goods 
and powdered milk and purchased a five-gallon bottle of distilled water.
    On the way back, he heard six sirens and saw two ambulances. Hospitals were 
not about to complain of lack of business.
    By the time he had put away the groceries, he had made up his mind. He would 
drive out and scout around the Igescu estate. He had no rational cause to do so. 
There was not the thinnest of threads to connect Igescu with Colben. 
Nevertheless, he meant to investigate. He had nowhere else to go and nothing to 
do. He could spend the rest of the day with this doubtless unrewarding lead, and 
tomorrow, if the city began to return to normal, he would start on a definite 
and profitable case, if one showed up. And one should. There were bound to be 
many missing persons, gone somewhere with the smog.



     
CHAPTER 8
     
    The drive out was pleasant. He saw only ten cars moving on the streets; two 
were police. The black-and-whites, red lights flashing but sirens quiet, raced 
past him.
    Childe went west on Santa Monica Boulevard, turned right at Rexford Drive, 
and began the safari through the ever wealthier and more exclusive houses and 
mansions (northward was the hierarchical goal). He went up Coldwater Canyon and 
into the hills, which are labeled on the map as the Santa Monica Mountains. He 
swung left onto Mariconado Lane, drove for a mile and a half on the narrow, 
winding, macadam road, almost solidly walled with great oaks, firs, and high 
thick bushes and hedges, turned right on Daimon Drive, drove for a mile past 
several high-walled estates, and came finally to Igescu's (if Heepish had given 
him correct directions).
    At the end of the high brick mortared-with-white wall, three hundred yards 
past the gateway, the road ended. There were no walls to keep anybody from 
walking past the end of the drive. Whoever owned the land next to the Baron's 
felt no need for enforcing privacy. Childe drove to the end of the pavement, and 
after some maneuvering, turned the car around. He left it with its rear against 
a bush and facing down the road. After locking the doors, he put an extra key in 
the earth under a bush (always prepare for emergencies) and then walked to the 
gateway.
    The wall was ten feet high and topped by iron spikes between which were from 
four to six strands of barbed wire. The gateway was a single heavy iron 
grill-work which swung out when electrically actuated. He could see no keyholes. 
A tongue of metal must insert into a slot in a metal fitting in the side of the 
gateway. The grill-work was painted dull black and separated into eight squares 
by thick iron bars. Each square held a sheet of iron formed into the profile of 
a griffin with the wings of a bat. This was a grade-B movie touch, but, of 
course, only coincidence. The bat wings probably had some heraldic significance.
    A metal box six feet up on the right post could be a voice transceiver. 
Beyond the gate was a narrow tar-topped road which curved and disappeared into 
the thick woods. The only sign of life was a listless black squirrel, (The radio 
had reported that all wild land birds had fled the area.)
    Childe walked into the woods at the end of the road, He ignored the 
TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIGOROUSLY PROSECUTED sign--he liked the VIGOROUSLY--to walk 
along the wall. The going was not easy, The bushes and thorns seemed determined 
to hold him back. He shoved against them and wriggled a few time: and then the 
wall curved to the right and went up a steel hill. Panting, he scrambled up on 
all fours to the top. He wondered if he were that much out of shape or if the 
smog had cut down his ability to take in enough oxygen.
    The wall still barred his way. After resting, he climbed a big oak. Near the 
top, he looked around, but he could see only more trees beyond the wall. No 
branches offered passage over the walls.
    He climbed down slowly and carefully. When he was a child, he had at times 
thought that he might prefer to be Tarzan instead of Sherlock Holmes. He had 
grown up to be neither, but he was much closer to Holmes than to Tarzan. He 
wouldn't even make a good Jane. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his 
undershirt below the armpits. His pants were torn in two places, a small scratch 
on the back of his left hand was bleeding, his hands were sore on the palms and 
dirty all over, and his shoes were badly scuffed. The sun, in sympathetic 
altitude with his spirits, was low. It was just about to touch the ridge of the 
western hills he could see through a break. He would have to go back now and 
conduct a tour of the wall some other time--if ever. To run and bumble through 
the woods in the dark would be more than exasperating.
    He hastened back to the car, tearing a button off his shirt this time, and 
got to it just at dusk. The silence was like that in a deep cave. No birds 
twittered or chirped. Even the buzz and hum of insects were absent. Perhaps the 
smog had killed them off. Or, at least, thinned their ranks or discouraged them. 
There were no sounds of airplanes or cars, sounds which it had been difficult to 
escape anywhere in Los Angeles County night or day. The atmosphere seemed heavy 
with a spirit of--what?--of waiting. Whether it was waiting for him or someone 
else, and what it was waiting for, was dubious. And, after he considered the 
feeling, he found it ridiculous.
    He got into the car behind the wheel, remembered that he had left a key in 
the dirt under a bush, started to get out to retrieve it, then thought better of 
it, and closed the door again. He drummed his fingers, wished he had not quit 
smoking, and chewed some gum. He almost turned the radio on but decided that, in 
this stillness, its sound would go too far.
    The suncast fell away from the sky at last. The darkness around him became 
thicker, as if it were the sediment of night. The glow thrown by the million 
lights of the city and reflected back onto the earth was missing tonight. There 
were no clouds to act as mirrors, and the surrounding hills and trees barred the 
horizon-shine. Stars began to thrust through the black. After a while, the 
almost full moon, edged in black, like a card announcing a death, rose above the 
trees.
    Childe waited. He got out after a while and went to the gate and looked 
through, but he could not even see a faint nimbus which might have revealed 
that, somewhere in that dense blackness, was a large house with many lights and 
at least two people. He returned to the car, sat for perhaps fifteen minutes 
longer, and then reached for the ignition key. His hand stopped an inch from the 
key.
    He heard a sound which turned his scalp cold.
    He had hunted enough in Montana and the Yukon to recognize the sound. It was 
the howling of wolves. It rose from somewhere in the trees behind the walls of 
Igescu's estate.



     
CHAPTER 9
     
    He was tired when he returned to his apartment. It was only ten p.m. but he 
had been through much. Besides, the poisoned air had burned away his vitality. 
The respite of the breeze had not helped much. The air was still dead, and it 
seemed to him that it was getting gray again. That must be one of the tricks his 
imagination was playing him, because there were not enough cars on the streets 
to account for another build-up of smog.
    He called the LAPD and asked for Sergeant Bruin. He did not expect Bruin to 
be there, but he was lucky. Bruin had much to say about his troubles with 
traffic that day. Not to mention that his wife had suddenly decided to get out 
of town. For Christ's sake! The smog was gone! For a while, anyway. No telling 
what would happen if this crazy weather continued. He had to get to bed now, 
because tomorrow looked even worse. Not the traffic. Most of the refugees should 
be past the state line by now. But they'd be back. That wasn't what was worrying 
him. The crazy weather and the smog, the sudden departure of the smog, rather, 
had resulted in a soaring upward of murders and suicides. He'd talk to Childe 
tomorrow, if he had time.
    "You sound as if you're out on your feet, Bruin," Childe said. "Don't you 
want to hear about what I've been doing on the Colben case?"
    "You found out anything definite?" Bruin said.
    "I'm on to something. I got a hunch..."
    "A hunch! A hunch! For God's sake, Childe, I'm tired! See you!"
    The phone clicked.
    Childe cursed, but after a while he had to admit that Bruin's reaction was 
justified. He decided to go to bed. He checked his automatic-answer device. 
There was one call. At 9:45, just before he had gotten home. Magda Holyani had 
phoned to inform him that Mr. Igescu had changed his mind and would grant him an 
interview. He should call back if he got in before ten. If he didn't, he was not 
to phone until after three the following afternoon.
    Childe could not go to sleep for a long time because of wondering what could 
have made the Baron change his mind. Could he have seen Childe outside the walls 
and decided to invite him within for some sinister reason?
    He awoke suddenly, sitting up, his heart racing. The phone was ringing on 
the stand beside him. He knocked it over and had to climb down out of bed to get 
it off the floor. Sergeant Bruin's voice answered him.
    The crooked hands of the clock on the stand touched the Gothic style 12 and 
8.
    "Childe? Childe. OK! I'd feel bad about getting you up, but I been up since 
six myself. Listen, Budler's car was found this morning! In the same lot 
Colben's car was found in, how you like that? The lab boys, what're available, 
are going over it now."
    "What time in the morning?" Childe said.
    "About six, why, what difference does that make? You got something?"
    "No. Listen, if you got time," and Childe outlined what he had done. "I just 
wanted you to know that I was going there tonight in case I didn't..."
    He stopped. He suddenly felt foolish, and Bruin's chuckle deepened the 
feeling.
    "In case you don't report back? Haw! Haw!"
    Bruin's laughter was loud. Finally, he said, "OK, Childe. I'll watch out you 
check in. But this deal about this vampire--a baron, no shit? A real live 
Transylvanian vampire-type Rumanian baron, what runs a line of supermarkets, 
right? Haw! Haw! Childe, you sure the smog ain't been eating away your brain 
cells?"
    "Have your fun," Childe said dignifiedly. "Have you got any leads, by the 
way?"
    "How the hell could we? You know we've had no time!"
    "What about the wolves, then?" Childe said. "Isn't there some sort of law 
about having wild animals, dangerous animals, on the premises? These sounded as 
if they were running loose."
    "How do you know they were wolves? Did you actually see them?"
    Childe admitted that he hadn't. Bruin said that even if there were laws 
against keeping wolves in that area, it would be the business of the Beverly 
Hills Police or perhaps the county police. He wasn't sure, because that area was 
doubtful; it was on the very edge of Beverly Hills, if he remembered right. He'd 
have to look it up.
    Childe did not insist on finding out. He knew that Bruin was too busy to be 
interested and even if he wasn't busy he probably thought Childe was on a false 
trail. Childe admitted to himself that this was most likely. But he had nothing 
else to do.
    The rest of the day he spent cleaning up his apartment, doing his washing in 
the building's basement machines, planning what he would do that evening, 
speculating, and collecting some material, which he put into his trunk.
    He also watched the TV news. The air was as motionless and as gray as lead. 
Despite this, most of the citizens seemed to think that conditions were 
returning to normal. Businesses were open again, and cars were filling the 
streets. The authorities, however, had warned those who had left the area not to 
return if they had some place to stay. The "unnatural" weather might continue 
indefinitely. There was no explanation for it which could be proved or even 
convincingly presented. But if normal atmospheric conditions did return, it 
would be best for those whose health was endangered by smog to stay away, or to 
plan on returning only long enough to settle their affairs before getting out.
    Childe went to the supermarket, which was operating at almost sixty percent 
normalcy, to stock up. The sky was graying swiftly, and the peculiar ghastly 
light had now spread over the sky from the horizon. It subdued the human beings 
under its dome; they spoke less frequently and more quietly and even the blaring 
of horns was reduced.
    The birds had not returned.
    Childe called Igescu twice. The first time, a recording said that all calls 
would be answered only after six. Childe wondered why the recorded call of the 
evening before had said he could phone in after three. Childe called again a few 
minutes after six. Magda Holyani's low voice answered.
    Yes, Mr. Igescu would see him at eight that evening. Sharp. And the 
interview would be over at nine. Mr. Wellston would have to sign a paper which 
would require that any material to be published could be bluelined by Mr. 
Igescu. He could not bring a camera. The chauffeur, Eric Glam, would meet Mr. 
Wellston at the gate and would drive him up. Mr. Wellston's car would have to be 
parked outside the wall.
    Childe had hung up and taken three steps from the phone when it rang. Bruin 
was calling. "Childe, the report from the lab has been in for some time but I 
didn't have a chance to see it until a coupla minutes ago."
    He paused. Childe said, "Well?"
    "It was clean, just like Colben's car. Except for one thing.
    Bruin paused again. Childe felt a chill run over his back and then up his 
neck and over his scalp. When he heard Bruin, he had the feeling of deja vu, of 
having heard the words before under exactly identical circumstances. But it was 
not so much deja vu as expectation.
    "There were hairs on the front seat. Wolf hairs."
    "You've changed your mind about the possible worthwhileness of investigating 
Igescu?"
    Bruin grunted and said, "We can't. Not just now. But, yeah, I think you 
ought to. The wolf hairs were put on the seat on purpose, obviously, since 
everything else was so clean. Why? Who knows? I was looking for another film, 
this time about Budler, but we didn't get any in. So far."
    "It could be just a coincidence," Childe said. "But in case I don't report 
in to you by ten tonight, if it's OK for me to call your house then you better 
call on the baron."
    "Hell, I probably won't be off duty by ten and no telling where I'll be. I 
could have your call relayed, but the lieutenant wouldn't like that, we're 
pretty tied up with official calls and this wouldn't rate as that. No, call 
Sergeant Mustanoja, he'll be on duty, and he'll take a message for me. I'll 
contact him when I get time."
    "Then let's make it eleven," Childe said. "Maybe I'll get hung up out 
there."
    "Not by the balls, I hope," Bruin said, and, laughing, clicked the phone.
    Childe felt his testicles withdraw a little. He did not care much for 
Bruin's humor. Not while the film about Colben was still bright in his mind.
    He took three paces, and the phone rang again. Magda Holyani said that she 
was sorry, but it was necessary that the interview be put off until nine.
    Childe said that it would make little difference to him. Holyani said that 
that was nice and please make it nine sharp.
    Childe called Bruin back to report the change in plans. Bruin was gone, so 
he left a note with Sergeant Mustanoja.
    At 8:30 he drove out. From Beverly Boulevard, the hills appeared like ghosts 
too timorous or too weak as yet to clothe themselves with dense ectoplasm.
    By the time he had pulled up before the gateway to the Igescu estate, night 
had settled. A big car inside the gate was pouring out light from its beams up 
the private road away from the gate.
    A large form leaned against the gate. It turned, and the extraordinarily 
broad-shouldered and lean-waisted figure of a giant was silhouetted against the 
lights. It wore a chauffeur's cap.
    "I'm Mr. Wellston. I have an appointment at nine."
    "Yes, sir. May I see your I.D., sir?"
    The voice sounded as if it were being pounded out on a big drum.
    Childe produced several cards, a driver's license, and a letter, all 
counterfeit. The chauffeur looked them over with the aid of a pencil-thin 
flashlight, handed them back through the opening in the gate, and walked off to 
one side. He disappeared behind the wall. The gate noiselessly swung inward. 
Childe walked in, and the gate swung back. Glam strode up, opened the rear door 
for him, and then shut it after Childe was in the back seat. He got into the 
driver's seat, and Childe could see that his ears were huge and at right angles 
to his head, seemingly as big as bat's wings. This, was an exaggeration, of 
course, but they were enormous.
    The drive was made in silence; the big Rolls-Royce swung back and forth 
effortlessly and without any noticeable motor noise. Its beams sprayed trees, 
firs, maples, oaks, and many thick bushes trimmed into various shapes. The light 
seemed to bring the vegetation into existence. After going perhaps a half a mile 
as the crow flies, but two miles back and forth, the car stopped before another 
wall. This was of red brick, about nine feet high, and also had iron spikes with 
barbed wire between the spikes. Glam pressed something on the dashboard, and the 
gate's grille ironwork swung inward.
    Childe looked through the windows but could see only more road and woods. 
Then, as the car came around the first bend, he saw the beams reflected against 
four gleaming eyes. The beams turned away, the eyes disappeared, but not before 
he had seen two wolfish shapes slinking off into the brush.
    The car started up a steep hill and as it got near the top, its beams struck 
a Victorian cupola. The drive curved in front of the house and, as the beams 
swept across the building, Childe saw that it was, as the newspaper article had 
described it, rambling. The central part was obviously older and of adobe. The 
wings were of wood, painted gray, except for the red-trimmed windows, and they 
extended part way down the side of the hill, so that the house seemed to be like 
a huge octopus squatting on a rock.
    This flashed across his mind, like a frame irrelevantly inserted in a reel, 
and then it became just a monstrous and incongruous building.
    The original building had a broad porch, and the added-on buildings had also 
been equipped with porches. Most of the porch was in shadows, but the central 
portion was faintly illuminated with light leaking through thin blinds. A shadow 
passed across a blind.
    The car stopped. Glam lunged out and opened the door for Childe. Childe 
stood for a minute, listening. The wolves had not howled once. He wondered what 
was to keep them from attacking the people in the house. Glam did not seem 
worried about them.
    "This way, sir," Glam said and led him up the porch and to the front door. 
He pressed a button, and a light over the door came on. The door was of massive 
highly polished hardwood--mahogany?--carved to represent a scene from (it seemed 
likely) Hieronymous Bosch. But a closer look convinced him that the artist had 
been Spanish. There was something indefinably Iberian about the beings (demons, 
monsters, humans) undergoing various tortures or fornicating in some rather 
peculiar fashions with some rather peculiar organs.
    Glam had left his chauffeur's cap on the front seat of the Rolls. He was 
dressed in a black flannel suit, and his trousers were stuffed into his 
boot-tops. He unlocked the door with a large key he produced from a pocket, 
swung the door open (it was well-oiled, no Inner-Sanctum squeaks), and bowed 
Childe on through. The room inside was a large (it could even be called great) 
hall. Two halls, rather, because one ran along the front of the house and 
halfway down it was a broad entrance to another hall which seemed to run the 
depth of the house. The carpets were thick and wine-colored with a very faint 
pattern in green. A few pieces of heavy, solid Spanish-looking furniture sat 
against the walls.
    Glam asked Childe to wait while he announced him. Childe watched the giant 
stoop to go through the doorway to the center hall. Then he jerked his head to 
the right because he had caught a glimpse of somebody down at the far end just 
going around the corner. He was startled, because he had seen no one at that end 
when he came in. Now he saw the back of a tall woman, the floor-length full 
black skirt, white flesh of the back revealed in the V of the cut, high-piled 
black hair, a tall black comb.
    He felt cold and, for a second, disoriented.
    He had no more time to think about the woman then, because his host came to 
greet him. Igescu was a tall slim man with thick, wavy, brown-blond hair, large, 
bright green eyes, pointed features, a large curving nose and a dimple in his 
right cheek. The moustache was gone. He seemed to be about sixty-five years old, 
a vigorous athletic sixty-five. He wore a dark-blue business suit. His tie was 
black with a faint bluish symbol in its center. Childe could not make it out; 
the outlines seemed to be fluid, to change shape as Igescu changed position.
    His voice was deep and pleasant, and he spoke with only a tinge of foreign 
pronunciation. He shook hands with Childe. His hands were large and 
strong-looking and his grip was powerful. His hand was cold but not abnormally 
so. He was a very amiable and easygoing host but made it clear that he intended 
to allow his guest to remain only an hour. He asked Childe a few questions about 
his work and the magazine he represented. Childe gave him glib answers; he was 
prepared for more interrogation than he got.
    Glam had disappeared somewhere. Igescu immediately took Childe on a guided 
tour. This lasted about five minutes and was confined to a few rooms on the 
first floor. Childe could not get much idea of the layout of the house. They 
returned to a large room off the central hall where Igescu asked Childe to sit 
down. This was also fitted with Spanish-type furniture and a grand piano. There 
was a fireplace, above the mantel of which was a large oil painting. Childe, 
sipping on an excellent brandy, listened to his host but studied the portrait. 
The subject was a beautiful young woman dressed in Spanish costume and holding a 
large ivory-yellowish fan. She had unusually heavy eyebrows and extremely dark 
eyes, as if the painter had invented a paint able to concentrate blackness. 
There was, a faint smile about the lips--not Mona Lisa-ish, however--the smile 
seemed to indicate a determination to--what? Studying the lips, Childe thought 
that there was something nasty about the smile, as if there were a deep hatred 
there and a desire to get revenge. Perhaps the brandy and his surroundings made 
him think that, or perhaps the artist was the nasty and hateful one and he had 
projected onto the innocent blankness of the subject his own feelings. Whatever 
the truth, the artist had talent. He had given the painting the authenticity of 
more than life.
    He interrupted Igescu to ask him about the painting. Igescu did not seem 
annoyed.
    "The artist's name was Krebens," he said. "If you get close to the painting, 
you'll see it in miniscule letters at the left-hand corner. I have a fairly good 
knowledge of art history and local history, but I have never seen another 
painting by him. The painting came with the house; it is said to be of Dolores 
del Osorojo. I am convinced that it is, since I have seen the subject."
    He smiled. Childe felt cold again. He said, "Just after I came in, I saw a 
woman going around the corner down the hall. She was dressed in old-fashioned 
Spanish clothes. Could that be...?"
    Igescu said, "Only three women live in this house. My secretary, my 
great-grandmother, and a house guest. None of them wear the clothing you 
describe."
    "The ghost seems to have been seen by quite a few people," Childe said. "You 
don't seem to be upset, however."
    Igescu shrugged and said, "Three of us, Holyani, Glam, and I, have seen 
Dolores many times, although always at a distance and fleetingly. She is no 
illusion or delusion. But she seems harmless, and I find it easier to put up 
with her than with many flesh and blood people."
    "I wish you had permitted me to bring a camera. This house is very colorful, 
and if I could have caught her on film...or have you tried that and found out 
she doesn't photograph?"
    "She didn't when I first moved in," Igescu said. "But I did shoot her and 
the developed films show her quite clearly. The furniture behind her showed 
dimly, but she's much more opaque than she used to be. Given time, and enough 
people to feed off..."
    He waved his hand as if that would complete the sentence. Childe wondered if 
Igescu were putting him on. He said, "Could I see that photo?"
    "Certainly," Igescu said., "But it won't prove anything, of course. There is 
very little that can't be faked."
    He spoke into an intercom disguised as a cigar humidor in a language Childe 
did not recognize. It certainly did not sound Latin, although, unacquainted with 
Rumanian, he had no way of identifying it. He doubted that Rumanian would have 
such back-of-the-throat sounds.
    He heard the click of billiard balls and turned to look down into the next 
room. Two youths were playing. They were both blond, of medium height, well 
built, and clothed in tight-fitting white sweaters, tight-fitting white jeans, 
and black sandals. They looked as if they could be brother and sister. Their 
eyebrows were high and arched and the eye sockets were deep. Their lips were 
peculiar. The upper lip was so thin it looked like the edge of a bloody knife; 
the lower lip was so swollen that it looked as if it had been cut and infected 
by the upper.
    Igescu called to them. They raised their heads with such a lupine air that 
Childe could not help thinking of the wolves he had glimpsed on the way up. They 
nodded at Childe when Igescu introduced them as Vasili Chornkin and Mrs. 
Krautschner but they did not smile or say anything. They seemed eager to get 
back to their game. Igescu did not explain what their status was but Childe 
thought that the girl must be the house guest he had mentioned.
    Glam appeared suddenly and noiselessly, as if he slid spaces around him 
instead of moving himself. He gave a manila envelope to Igescu. Childe glanced 
at Igescu as he removed the photo frame the envelope, then he looked up. Glam 
had gone as swiftly and silently as he had entered.
    The photo was taken from about forty feet during the daytime. Light flooding 
in from the large window showed everything in detail. There was Dolores del 
Osorojo just about to leave the hall through a doorway. The edge of the doorway 
and part of a chair nearby could be faintly made out through her. She was 
looking back at the camera with the same faint smile as in her painting.
    "I'll have to have it back," Igescu said.



     
CHAPTER 10
     
    "As you say, a photo proves nothing," Childe said. He looked at his 
wristwatch. A half hour left. He opened his mouth to ask about the car accident 
and the morgue incident but Magda Holyani entered.
    She was a tall, slim, small-breasted woman of about thirty with beautiful 
although disproportioned features and thick pale-yellow hair. She walked as if 
her bones were flexible or as if her flesh encased ten thousand delicate 
intricately articulated bones. The bones of her head seemed to be thin; her 
cheekbones were high, and her eyes were tilted. The mouth was too thin. There 
was something indefinably reptilian about her, or, to be more exact, snakish. 
This was not repulsive. After all, many snakes are beautiful.
    Her eyes were so light he thought at first they were colorless, but, closer, 
they became a very light gray. Her skin was very white, as if she shunned not 
only the sun but the day. It was, however, flawless. She had no makeup whatever. 
The lips would have looked pale if she had been standing next to a woman with 
rouged lips, but set against her own white skin they seemed dark and bright.
    She wore a tight-fitting black dress with a deep square-cut bodice and 
almost no back. Her stockings were black nylon, and the high-heeled shoes were 
black. She sat down after being introduced, revealing beautiful, but seemingly 
boneless, legs from the mid-thigh down. She took over the conversation from 
Igescu, who lit up an expensive cigar and seemed to become lost in gazing into 
the smoke.
    Childe tried to keep the conversation to a question-and-answer interview, 
but she replied briefly and unsatisfactorily and followed with a question each 
time about himself or his work. He felt that he was being interviewed.
    He was becoming desperate. This would be his only chance to find out 
anything, and he was not even getting a "feel" of rightness or wrongness about 
this place and its tenants. They were a little odd, but this meant nothing, 
especially in Southern California.
    He noticed that Glam was busying himself nearby with emptying the Baron's 
and Magda's ash trays, refilling the glasses, and at the same time managing to 
keep his eyes on the woman. Once, he touched her, and she snapped her head back 
and glared at him. Igescu was aware that Childe was taking this in, but he only 
smiled.
    Finally, Childe ignored her to ask Igescu directly if he would care to 
comment on the much-publicized "vampire" incident. After all, it was this that 
had brought him out here. And so far he had not learned much. The article would 
be spare, if indeed he had enough data to make an article.
    "Frankly, Mr. Wellston," Igescu said, "I permitted this interview because I 
wanted to kill people's curiosity about this once and for all. Essentially, I am 
a man who likes privacy; I am wealthy but I leave the conduct of my business to 
others and enjoy myself. You have seen my library. It is very extensive and 
expensive and contains many first editions. It covers a wide variety of 
subjects. I can say without bragging that I am an extremely well-read man in 
many languages. Ten shelves are filled with books on my hobby: precious stones. 
But you may also have observed several shelves filled with books on such 
subjects as witchcraft, vampirism, lycanthropy, and so on. I am somewhat 
interested in these, but not, Mr. Wellston, because I take a professional 
interest."
    He smiled over his cigar and said, "No, it is not because I am a vampire, 
Mr. Wellston, that I have read in these subjects. I took no interest in them 
until after the incident that caused you to come here. I thought that if I were 
to be accused of being a vampire, I had better find out just what a vampire was. 
I knew something about them, of course, because after all, I do come from an 
area in which the peasants believe more in vampires and the devil than they do 
in God. But my tutors never went much into folk-lore, and my contacts with the 
local non-nobility were not intimate.
    "I decided to give you this interview so that, once and for all, this 
nonsense about my vampirism could be quelled. And also, to divert attention from 
me toward the only truly supernatural feature of this house: Dolores del 
Osorojo. I have changed my mind about photographs for your article. I will have 
Magda send you a number. These will show some of the rooms in the house and 
various photos of the ghost. I will do this on the condition that you make it 
clear in your article that I am a man who likes privacy and a quiet life and 
that the vampire talk is nonsense. After getting that out of the way, you may 
stress the ghost as much as you like. But you must also make it clear that there 
will be no other interviews with anybody and that I do not like to be disturbed 
by curiosity-seekers, spiritualists, or journalists. Agreed?"
    "Certainly, Mr. Igescu. You have my word. And of course, as agreed, you will 
edit the article before it's published."
    Childe felt a little dizzy. He wished that he had not accepted the brandy. 
It had been four years since he had drunk anything, and he would not have broken 
his rule now, except that Igescu had praised the brandy as being so rare that he 
had been tempted to try it. And he had also not wanted to offend his host in any 
way if he could help it. He had, however, not had more than one tumbler. The 
stuff was either very potent or he was vulnerable after the long dry period.
    Igescu turned his head to look at the tall dark grandfather clock. "Your 
time is about up, Mr. Wellston."
    Childe wondered why the baron was so concerned with time, when, by his own 
admission, he seldom went any place or did anything particularly pressing. But 
he did not ask. The baron would have regarded such a question as too impertinent 
to answer with anything but cold silence.
    Igescu stood up. Childe rose also. Magda Holyani finished her drink and got 
up from the chair. Glam appeared in the doorway, but Igescu said, "Miss Holyani 
will drive Mr. Wellston to the gate, Glam. I need you for another duty."
    Glam opened his mouth as if he meant to object but shut it immediately. He 
said, "Very well, sir," and wheeled around and walked away.
    Igescu said, "If you'd like some more material for your article, Mr. 
Wellston, you might look up Michel Le Garrault in the UCLA library. I have 
copies of two of his works, first editions, by the way. The old Belgian had some 
very interesting and original theories about vampires, werewolves, and other 
so-called supernatural phenomena. His theory of psychic imprinting is 
fascinating. Have you read him? Can you read French?"
    "Never heard of him," Childe said, wondering if he would have fallen into a 
trap if he had professed familiarity. "I do read French."
    "There are many so-called authorities on the occult and supernatural who 
have not heard of Le Garrault or had no chance to read him. I recommend that you 
go to the rare book section of the UCLA library and ask for Les Murs ecroules. 
Translations of the original Latin were made in French and, curiously, in 
Bohemian, and these are very rare indeed. There are, as far as I know, only ten 
Latin copies in the world. The Vatican has one; a Swedish monastery has two; I, 
of course, have one; the Kaiser of Germany had one but it was lost or, probably, 
stolen after he died at Doorn; and the other five are in state libraries at 
Moscow, Paris, Washington, London, and Edinburgh."
    "I'll look him up," Childe said. "Thanks very much for the information."
    He turned to follow Igescu out and saw the woman in Spanish dress, high comb 
stuck in her black hair, just stepping into a doorway at the end of the hall. 
She turned her head and smiled and then was gone.
    Igescu said, calmly, "Did you see her, too?"
    "Yes, I did. But I couldn't see through her," Childe said.
    "I did," Magda Holyani said. Her voice shook a little. Childe looked at her. 
She seemed to be angry, not frightened.
    "As I said, she has been getting more and more opaque," Igescu said. "The 
solidifying is so subtle, that it's only noticeable if you compare what she was 
six months ago with what she now is. The process has been very slow but steady. 
When I first moved in here, she was almost invisible."
    Childe shook his head. Was he really discussing a ghost as if it existed? 
And why was Magda so upset? She had stopped and was staring at the doorway as if 
she were resisting the impulse to chase after the thing.
    "Many people, more people than care to admit, have seen ghostly 
phenomena--something weird and unexplainable, anyway--but neither the phenomenon 
doesn't repeat itself or else the people visited ignore it and it goes away. But 
Dolores, ah, there is another story! Dolores is ignored by me, except for an 
occasional picture-taking. Magda used to ignore her but now she seems to be 
getting on her nerves. Dolores is gaining substance from somewhere, perhaps from 
someone in this house."
    Certainly, the story of Dolores was gaining substance. If a photo of her was 
no evidence that she existed, neither was the fact that he had seen her. For 
some reason, Igescu might have planned this whole thing, and if he, Childe, were 
to run after Dolores and try to seize her, what would his hands close on? He had 
a feeling that he would grip solid flesh and that the young woman would turn out 
to have come into existence about twenty years ago, not one hundred and fifty.
    At the door, he shook hands with Igescu, thanked him, and promised to send 
him a carbon of the article for editing. He followed Magda to the car and turned 
once before getting in to look back. Igescu was gone, but a blind had been 
half-raised and Glam's bulldog face and batwing ears were plainly visible.
    He got into the front seat with Magda at her invitation. She said, "My job 
pays very well, you know. It has to. It's the only thing that would make it 
endurable. I almost never get a chance to go to town and the only ones I can 
talk to, ever, are my boss and a few servants and occasionally a guest."
    "Is it hard work?" Childe asked, wondering why she was telling him this. 
Perhaps she had to unburden herself to someone.
    "No. I take care of his few social obligations, make appointments, act as 
middle man between him and his business managers, do some typing on the book 
he's writing on jewels, and spend more time than I care to staying away from 
that monster, Glam."
    "He did nothing definite, but I got the idea that he's quite attached to 
you," Childe said.
    The beams swept across trees as the car went around a corner. The moon was 
up now, and he could see more distinctly. He could be wrong, but it seemed to 
him that they were not on the same road he had traveled on the way up.
    "I'm taking the longer, no less scenic, route," she said, as if she had read 
his mind. "I hope you don't mind. I feel that I just have to talk to somebody. 
You don't have to listen to me, of course, there's no reason why you should."
    "Pour it on me," he said. "I like to hear your voice."
    They passed through the gateway of the inner wall. She drove slowly, in 
first gear, as she talked, and once she put her hand on his leg. He did not 
move. She took her hand off after a minute when she had to stop the car. They 
had driven off the road onto a narrow stone-covered path which led through a 
break in the trees to a clearing. A small summerhouse, a round wooden structure 
on a high round cement base, stood there. Its open sides were partially covered 
with vines, so that its interior was dark. A flight of cement steps led up to 
the wide entrance.
    "I get very lonely," she said, "although the baron is charming and does talk 
a lot. But he's not interested in me in the way some employers are in their 
female employees."
    He did not have to ask her what she meant by that. She had put her hand on 
his leg again, seemingly as accidentally or unselfconsciously as before. He 
said, "Are there wolves out here, too? Or are they all inside the inner wall?"
    She was leaning closer now, and her perfume was so strong that it seemed to 
soak into his pores. He felt his penis swelling and he took her hand and moved 
it so that it was on his penis. She did not try to take her hand away.
    He reached over and ran a finger down along the curve of the left breast and 
down the cleavage into the breast. His hand went on down and slid between the 
cloth and breast and rubbed over the nipple. The nipple swelled, and she 
shuddered. He kissed her with many slidings of his tongue along hers and over 
her teeth. She fumbled along his zipper, found it, pulled it slowly down, and 
then probed through the opening of his jockey shorts. He unbuttoned the front of 
her dress and quickly verified what he had suspected. She wore nothing beneath 
the dress except for a narrow garter belt. The breasts were small but shapely. 
He bent over and took a nipple in his mouth and began sucking. She was breathing 
as hard as he.
    "Let's go in the summerhouse," she said softly. "There's a couch in there."
    "All right," he said. "But before we go any further, you should know I'm 
unprepared. I don't have any rubbers."
    He would not have been surprised if she said that she had some in her 
handbag. It wouldn't have been the first time that this had happened to him.
    But she said, "Never mind. I won't get pregnant."
    Shakily, he followed her out of the car, sliding past the wheel. She turned 
and slid the dress off her shoulders. The moonlight gleamed on the whitest flesh 
possible, on dark wet nipples, and dark triangle of pubic hairs under the garter 
belt. She kicked her shoes off and, clad only in belt and stockings, swayed 
towards the summerhouse.
    He followed her, but he was not so excited that he did not wonder about 
cameras and sound devices in the summerhouse. He knew that he was good-looking, 
but he was not, after all, a god who swept all women before him on a tide of 
desire. If Magda Holyani seduced him on such short acquaintance, she either was 
very hard-up or had a motive that he might not like if he knew. Or, possibly, 
both. She did not seem to be faking her passion.
    If, for some reason, she thought she could lead him so far, turn him on and 
then turn him off, she was going to be surprised. He had suffered a good part of 
yesterday with a painful ball-ache because of his unfinished love-making with 
Sybil, and he did not intend to suffer again.
    Inside the house, he looked around. There could be no cameras hidden here. 
If there were any, they'd have to be attached to the trees on the edge of the 
clearing, and he could not see how they would be able to film much, even if they 
were equipped with black-light devices. The vines and their supports would bar 
anything except patches of skin and an occasional glimpse of a head or limb. 
Besides, what did he have to lose? Blackmail could not be the object of such a 
game.
    Magda yanked off the blanket acting as a dust cover for the sofa. She turned 
then, the moonlight falling through the vines dappling her pale skin. Childe 
took her in his arms and kissed her again, ran his hands down her back--she had 
the muscle tone of a young puma--the inward fall of the waist and the outward 
fall of the hips. The garter belt annoyed him, so he sank to his knees and 
unfastened the stockings and pulled them down and then pulled down on the garter 
belt. She kicked them to one side and put her hands on the back of his head and 
pulled him towards her cunt. He allowed her to press his face against the hairs, 
and he ran his tongue out and inserted it just below the opening of the lips and 
tickled the clitoris with its tip. She moaned and clutched him tighter.
    But he stood up, sliding his tongue up from her cunt and along her belly and 
up to her nipple, which he began to suck again. He stepped backwards until she 
fell on the sofa, her legs sticking out, her heels resting on the floor. Then he 
got down on his knees again and licked her clitoris once more and then slid down 
and thrust his tongue again and again into her vagina. She began to twist her 
hips a little, but he reached up and pressed down on her belly to indicate that 
she should hold still.
    Her cunt tasted as sweet as Sybil's and the hairs seemed to be softer. He 
put one finger inside her cunt and another finger of the same hand up her anus 
and then, working the hand slowly in and out, rubbed his tongue back and forth 
over her clitoris and then later tongue-fucked her while his fingers increased 
the speed of their in-and-outs into her cunt and anus.
    She came with a scream and a sudden tightening of thighs about his head. The 
grip was so strong that he could not move his fingers.
    He could stand it no longer. He had had no emissions for two weeks because 
of involvement in a case which he had wound up just before Colben disappeared. 
He had been busy night and day and when he managed to snatch some sleep even his 
unconscious had been too tired to whip up a sexual dream. Then the frustration 
with Sybil had made him hypersensitive. In a minute, he was going to come, 
whether he was in Magda or the air.
    "I can't wait," he said. "It's been too long."
    He started to get down beside her and to help her scoot up on the sofa so 
she could lie full length. But she said, "You're ready to come?"
    "It's been too long. I'm full to bursting," he groaned.
    She pushed him down and ran her tongue along his belly and wet his pubic 
hairs with her saliva and tongue and then closed her lips upon the head of his 
cock. She slid it back and forth in her lips twice, and with a scream that 
matched hers of a moment ago, he burst in her mouth.
    He lay there, feeling as if a tide inside him were withdrawing to some 
far-off horizon. He did not say anything; he expected her to get up and spit out 
the stuff, as Sybil always did. Sybil also always immediately brushed her teeth 
and gargled with Listerine. Not that he blamed her, certainly. He could 
understand that, once the excitement was gone, the thick ropy stuff could become 
disgusting. He knew how it tasted. When he had been fourteen, he and his fifteen 
year old brother had gone through a period of about six months when they had 
sucked each other off. And then, by mutual and silent consent, they had quit and 
that had been the last of his homosexual experiences and, as far-as he knew, of 
his brother's. Certainly, his brother, who was such a cocksman that he must be a 
compulsive, hated fairies, and once, many years later, when Childe had referred 
to their experimentations, his brother had not known what he was talking about. 
He was either too ashamed of it now to admit it or else had actually buried it 
so deep that he did not remember.
    But Magda did not leave him. She audibly swallowed several times and then 
renewed her sucking. He sat up and bent over so he could cup her breasts in his 
hands while she was mouthing his glands. And then, just as his penis was at 
almost full erection, he thought of Colben and the iron teeth. This woman could 
be the actress in that movie.
    She looked up at him suddenly and said, "What's wrong?"
    "Listen," he said, "and don't get mad. Or laugh. But do you have false 
teeth?"
    She sat up and said, "What?" Her voice was thick with fluid.
    "Do you have false teeth?"
    "Why do you want to know?" Then she laughed and said, "You want me to take 
them out?"
    "If you have false teeth."
    "Do I look that old?"
    "I've known several nineteen-year-olds who had false choppers," he said.
    "Kiss me and I'll tell you," she said.
    "Certainly."
    He held her tightly while he probed her mouth with his tongue. He sniffed in 
the wild-beast odor of his own semen and tasted the thick-oil gluey-seeming 
product of his own body. Far from being unpleasant, it excited him. She had her 
hand on his cock, and, feeling it swell, immediately withdrew from his arms and 
went down on him again. Evidently, she did not intend for him to find out if she 
did have false teeth or perhaps she thought that his tongue would have 
determined that.
    Whatever her reasons, she would not tell him, unless he were to use force, 
he was sure of that. He leaned back and let her work on him. And after a while 
he rolled her over and she opened her legs and took his penis gently in her 
fingers and guided him in. He had no sooner sunk in to the hairs than she 
squeezed down on his cock with her muscles and continued to squeeze as if she 
had a hand inside her cunt. And then, once again, thinking of the film, he 
became soft. He remembered that bulge behind the G-string of the woman in the 
film.
    "For God's sake," she said. "What's the matter now?"
    "I thought I saw somebody in the shadows," he said, the only excuse he could 
grasp at the moment. "Glam?"
    "It had better not be," she said. "I'll kill him if it is. So will the 
baron."
    She stood up on the sofa and called, "Glam? Glam? If you're there, you 
asshole, you better start running and fast. Otherwise, it's the other end of the 
wolf for you."
    There was no answer. Childe said, "The other end of the wolf? What do you 
mean?"
    "I'll tell you later," she said. "He's not out there; if he is, he isn't 
going to bother us. Come on, please. I'm ready to explode."
    Instead of reaching for him, she got down off the sofa and crossed the 
summerhouse to a small cabinet on a stand in the shadows. She came back with a 
bottle with a squat body and a long narrow neck with a wide mouth. It was 
half-full. She drank some, swished some in her mouth, and still, holding it, 
pressed her lips against his and squirted the liquid into his mouth. It was hot 
and thick and slightly tart. He swallowed some and immediately felt his 
anxieties draining off.
    "What the hell is that?"
    "It's a liqueur made in Igescu's native province," she said. "It's supposed 
to have an aphrodisiac effect. I understand that there isn't any true 
aphrodisiac, but this stuff does one thing. It burns away the inhibitions. Not 
that I thought I'd ever have to use it on you."
    "I won't need any more of it," he said. His penis was rising as if it were a 
balloon being filled for a transatlantic voyage. A beam of moonlight fell on it, 
and Magda, seeing it, squealed with delight.
    "Oh, you beauty! You great big beauty!"
    She lay down and raised her legs and he entered again and then, for a long 
long time, said nothing. It was a peculiarity of his that if he were blown at 
the beginning, he took a long time coming the second time. Magda seemed to have 
an almost unbroken series of orgasms during this time and when he finally came 
she clawed his back until the blood ran off. He did not mind at the time, but 
later he cursed her. It was a theory of his that women who clawed your back when 
they came were actually attempting to prove how passionate they were, but he was 
willing to admit that he could be wrong.
    They lay there for some time by each other, not saying a word. They were 
sheathed in sweat and would have been grateful for a breeze. But the air was as 
still as before.
    Finally, he said, "There's no use your playing with it. Not for some time. 
I'm shot out. I could stay and be all right within an hour, but I have to go 
pretty soon."
    He was thinking that he was supposed to have called Mustanoja by now.
    "I'm not unsatisfied, baby," she said, "but I could be whipped up into 
enthusiasm again and I'd like to be. You don't know how long it's been for me!"
    She reached for the bottle, which was on the floor by the sofa.
    "Let's have another drink and see what happens."
    He watched her to make sure that she drank again out of the bottle before he 
drank. He took a small swallow and then said, "What's this about Glam and the 
other end of the wolf?"
    She laughed and said, "That big ugly dumbshit! He wants me, but I can't 
stand him, and he'd probably try to rape me, he's such a moron, but he knows 
that if I didn't kill him, Igescu would! You must know about the wolves, since 
you mentioned them. I was walking in the woods one evening when I heard one of 
the wolves howling and snarling. It sounded as if it were in pain, or, at least, 
in trouble of some kind. I went up a hill and looked down in a hollow, and there 
was the female wolf, her head in four nooses, and the ends of the nooses tied to 
trees. She couldn't go back or forward, and there was Glam, all his clothes off 
except for his socks and shoes, holding the wolf by the tail and fucking her. I 
think he must have been hurting her, I don't know how big a female wolf's cunt 
is, but I don't think they're built to take an enormous cock like Glam's. I 
really think she was hurting. But Glam, that animal Glam, was fucking her."
    Childe was silent for a moment and then he said, "What about the male wolf? 
Wasn't Glam afraid of the male wolf?"
    She laughed and said, "Oh, that's another story," and she laughed for a long 
time.
    When she stopped, she raised the bottle and poured liquid on her nipples and 
then on her pubic hairs.
    "Lick it off, baby, and then we'll make love again."
    "It won't do any good," Childe said. But he rolled over and sucked on her 
nipples for a while and finger-fucked her until she came again and again and 
then he kissed her belly, traveling downward until his mouth was against the 
tight hairs of her cunt. He tongued off the liqueur and then jabbed his tongue 
as far as he could until his jaws and tongue hurt. When he stopped, he was 
rolled over by her strong hands and she gently nibbled at his penis until it 
rose like a trout to a fly. He mounted her from behind, and she told him to be 
quiet, he did not have to wear himself out. She contracted the muscles of her 
vagina as if it were a hand and this time he kept his erection. He seemed to be 
getting a little dizzy and a little fuzzy. He knew that he had made a mistake 
drinking that liquid; it couldn't be poison, because she wouldn't have drunk it 
also. But he wondered if it had a property of becoming narcotic if it were on 
epidermis. Could its interaction with the skin of her nipples and cunt have 
produced something dangerous only to him?
    Then the thought and the alarm were gone.
    He remembered vaguely an orgasm that seemed to go on forever, like the 
thousand-year orgasm promised the faithful of Islam in heaven when they are 
enfolded by a houri. There were blanks thereafter. He could remember, as if he 
were seeing himself in a fog, getting his car and driving off while the road 
wiggled like a snake and the trees bent over and made passes at him with their 
branches. Some of the trees seemed to have big knotty eyes and mouths like barky 
cunts. The eyes became nipples; sap oozed out of them. A tree gave him the 
finger with the end of a branch.
    "Up yours, too," he remembered yelling, and then he was on a broad road with 
many lights around him and horns blaring and then there was the same tree again 
and this time it beckoned at him and as he got closer he could see that its 
mouth was a barky cunt and that it was promising him something he had never had 
before.
    And so it was. Death.



     
CHAPTER 11
     
    He awoke in the emergency room of the Doctors Hospital in Beverly Hills. His 
only complaint was sluggishness. He was unconscious when he had been pulled out 
of the car by a good Samaritan. The Beverly Hills officer told him that his car 
had run into a tree off the side of the road, but the collision was so light 
that the only damage was a slightly bent-in bumper and a broken headlamp.
    The officer evidently suspected first, drunkenness, and second, drugs. 
Childe told him that he had been forced off the road and had been knocked out 
when the car hit the tree. That he had no visible injury on his head meant 
nothing.
    Fortunately, there were no witnesses to the crash. The man who had pulled 
him from the car had come around the curve just in time to see the impact. 
Another car was going the opposite direction; it was not driving eratically, as 
Childe had reported, but this meant nothing because the car could have 
straightened out. Childe gave Bruin and several others as references. Fifteen 
minutes later, he was discharged, although the doctors warned him that he should 
take it easy even if there was no evidence of concussion.
    His car was still on the roadside. The police had not had it towed in 
because the trucks were too busy, but the officer had removed the key from the 
ignition. Unfortunately, the officer had also forgotten to give it back to 
Childe, and Childe then had to walk to the Beverly Hills Police Department to 
retrieve it. The officer was on duty. A radio call resulted in the information 
that he was tied up and would not be able to drop by the department for at least 
an hour. Childe made sure that the key would be given to the officer in charge 
of the desk, and he walked home through the night. He cursed himself for having 
buried the extra key under the bush outside Igescu's.
    He had tried to get a taxi to take him home, but these were too busy. It 
seemed that everybody thought that the smog was over for good and was 
celebrating. Or perhaps everybody wanted to have some fun before the air became 
too poisoned again.
    There were three parties going on in his building. He put ear plugs in as 
soon as he had showered, and he went to bed. The plugs kept most of the noise 
out but did not bar his thoughts.
    He had been drugged and sent out with the hope that he would kill himself in 
a car accident. Why the drug had affected him and not Magda was an interesting 
question but one that did not have to be considered at this time. She could have 
taken an antidote or relied on someone else to take care of her after Childe was 
gone. Or it was possible--he remembered what he had thought during the 
time--that the liquid contained something which did not become a drug unless it 
contacted human epidermis?
    He sat up in bed then. Sergeant Mustanojal He should have been worrying 
about Childe's failure to call in. What had he done--if anything?
    He phoned the LAPD and got Mustanoja. Yeah, he had the note but Bruin didn't 
seem to think it was important and, anyway, what with being so busy-what a 
night!--he had forgotten it. That is, until this Beverly Hills officer called in 
about him and then Mustanoja had found out what happened and knew he was not at 
Igescu's so what was there to worry about, huh? How was Childe?
    Childe said he was home and OK. He hung up with some anger at Bruin for 
making light of his concern. However, he had to admit that there was no reason 
for Bruin to do otherwise. He would change his opinion after he found out what 
had happened last night. Perhaps, Bruin could arrange with the Beverly Hills 
Police Department...No, that wasn't going to work. The BHPD had far more 
immediate duties than investigating what was, objectively speaking, a very hazy 
lead. And there were certain things, important things, about the events that 
Childe was not going to tell them. He could skip the summerhouse activities and 
just say that he had been drugged with the brandy in the drawing room, but the 
officers were shrewd, they had heard so many false tales and part-true tales, so 
many omissions and hesitations, that they picked up untruths and distortions as 
easily as radar distinguished an eagle from an airliner.
    Besides, he had the feeling that Magda would not hesitate to claim that 
Childe had raped her and forced "perversions" upon her.
    He had gotten into bed again but now he climbed out swiftly once more. He 
felt ashamed and sick. That drug had overcome his normal fastidiousness and 
caution. He would never have gone down on a woman he just met. He always 
reserved this act--even if he were strongly tempted to do so--for women whom he 
knew well, liked or loved, and was reasonably sure were free of syphilis or 
gonorrhea.
    Although he had brushed his teeth, he went into the bathroom and brushed 
again and then gargled deeply ten times with a burning mouthwash. From the 
kitchen cabinet he took a bottle of bourbon, which he kept for guests, and drank 
it straight. It was a dumb act, because he doubted that the alcohol would kill 
any germs he had swallowed so many hours ago, but it, like many purely ritual 
acts, made him feel better and cleaner.
    He started for bed again and then stopped. He had been so upset that he had 
forgotten to check in with the exchange or turn on the recorder. He tried the 
exchange and hung up after the phone rang thirty times. Apparently, the exchange 
was not yet operating again or had lost its third-shift operator. The recorder 
yielded one call. It was from Sybil, at nine o'clock. She asked him to please 
call her as soon as he came in, no matter what time it was.
    It was now three-ten in the morning.
    Her phone rang uninterruptedly. The ring seemed to him like the tolling of a 
faraway bell. He envisioned her lying on the bed, one hand drooping over the 
edge of the bed, her mouth open, the eyes opened and glazed. On the little table 
by the bed was an empty bottle of phenobarbital.
    If she had tried to kill herself again, she would be dead by now. That is, 
if she had taken the same amount as the last time.
    He had sworn that if she tried again, she would have to go through with it, 
at least as far as he was concerned.
    Nevertheless, he dressed and was out on the street and walking within a 
minute. He arrived at her apartment panting, his eyes burning, his lungs doubly 
burned from exertion and smog. The poison was accumulating swiftly, so swiftly 
that by tomorrow evening it would be as thick as before--unless the winds came.
    Her apartment was silent. His heart was beating and his stomach clenching as 
he entered her bedroom and switched on the light. Her bed was not only empty, it 
had not been slept in. And her suitcases were gone.
    He went over the apartment carefully but could find nothing to indicate 
"foul play." Either she had gone on a trip or someone had taken the suitcases so 
that that impression would be given.
    If she had wanted him to know that she was leaving, why hadn't she left the 
message?
    Perhaps her call and her sudden departure were unrelated.
    There was the possibility that they were directly related but that she had 
told him only enough to get him over here so that he would worry about her. She 
could be angry enough to want to punish him. She had been mean enough to do 
similar things. But she had always quickly relented and tearfully and shamefully 
called him.
    He sat down in an easy chair, then got up again and went into the kitchen 
and opened the secret compartment in the wall of the cabinet rear, second shelf 
up. The little round candy cup and its contents of white-paper-wrapped marijuana 
sticks--fifteen in all--were still there.
    If she had left willingly, she would have disposed of this first.
    Unless she were very upset.
    He had not found her address book in any of the drawers when he had 
searched, but he looked again to make sure. The book was not there, and he 
doubted that any of the friends she had when they were married would know her 
whereabouts. She had been dropped by them or she had dropped them after the 
divorce. There was one, a life-long friend, whom she still wrote to now and 
then, but she had moved from California over a year ago.
    Perhaps her mother was ill, and Sybil had left in a hurry. But she wouldn't 
be in such a hurry that she wouldn't have left the message with the recorder.
    He did not remember her mother's number but he knew her address. He got the 
information from the operator and put a call through to the San Francisco 
address. The phone rang for a long time. Finally, he hung up and then thought of 
what he should have immediately checked. He was deeply upset to have overlooked 
that.
    He went into the basement garage. Her car was still there.
    By then he was considering the fantastic--or was it fantastic?--possibility 
that Igescu had taken her.
    Why would Igescu do this?
    If Igescu was responsible for Colben's death and Budler's disappearance, 
then he might have designs on the detective investigating the case. Childe had 
pretended to be Wellston, the magazine reporter, but he had been forced to give 
his own phone number. And Igescu may have checked out the so-called Wellston. 
Certainly, Igescu had the money to do this.
    What if Igescu knew that Wellston was really Childe? And, having found out 
that Childe had not gotten into the serious car accident he had hoped for, he 
had taken Sybil away. Perhaps Igescu planned to let Childe know that he had 
better drop the investigation...no, it would be more probable that Igescu wanted 
to force him to break into the estate, to trespass. For reasons of his own, of 
course.
    Childe shook his head. If Igescu were guilty, if he, say, had been guilty of 
other crimes, why was he suddenly letting the police know that these crimes had 
been committed?
    This question was not one to be answered immediately. The only thing as of 
this moment was whether or not Sybil had gone voluntarily and, if she had not, 
with whom had she gone?
    He had not checked the airports. He sat down and began dialing. The phones 
of every airline were busy, but he hung on until he got through to each and then 
went through more exasperating waits while the passenger lists were checked. At 
the end of two hours, he knew that she had not taken a plane out. She might have 
intended to, but the airlines had been overburdened ever since the smog had 
become serious. The waiting lists were staggeringly long, and the facilities at 
the ports, the restaurants and toilets, had long queues. Parking facilities no 
longer existed for newcomers. Too many people had simply left their cars and 
taken off with no intention of returning immediately. The authorities had 
imposed an emergency time limitation, but the process of towing away cars to 
make room for others was tedious, involved, and slow. The traffic jam-up around 
International Airport demanded more police officers than were available.
    He ate some cereal and milk and then, though it hurt him to think of all the 
money wasted, he flushed the marijuana down the toilet. If she continued to be 
missing and he had to notify the police, her apartment would be searched. On the 
other hand, if she were to return soon and find her supply gone, she would be in 
a rage. But surely she would understand why he had had to get rid of the stuff.
    Dawn had arrived by then. The sun was a twisted pale-yellow thing in a white 
sky. Visibility was limited to a hundred feet. The eye-burning and the 
nostril-scorching and the lung-searing were back.
    He decided to call Bruin and to tell him about Sybil. Bruin would, of 
course, think that he was being unduly concerned and would think, even if he 
didn't say so, that she had simply left for an extended shacking-up with some 
man. Or, possibly, Bruin being the cynic he was, she was shacking up with some 
woman.
    Bruin called him as he stood before the phone.
    "We got a package in the late mail yesterday afternoon but it wasn't opened 
until a little while ago. You better get down here, Childe. Can you make it in 
half an hour?"
    "What's it about? Budler?" And then, "Never mind. But how did you know I was 
here?"
    "I tried your place and you didn't answer, so I thought I'd try your 
ex-wife's. I knew you was still friendly with her."
    "Yeah," Childe said, realizing that it was too early to report her missing. 
"I'll be down in time. See you. Unh-unh! Maybe I can't! I have to get my car 
first and that may take some time."
    He told Bruin what had happened but censored the summerhouse activities. 
Bruin was silent for a long time and then said, "You realize, Childe, that we're 
all doing a juggling act now, keeping three balls or more in the air at the same 
time? I'd investigate Igescu even if you don't have anything provable, because 
they sure sound like a fishy lot, but I doubt we could get into that place 
without a court order and we don't have any evidence to get an order. You know 
that. So it's up to you. Those wolf hairs in Budler's car and now this 
film--well, I ain't going to tell you about it, you got to see it to believe 
it--but if you can't get down here on time...listen, I could have a squad car 
pick you up. I would if this was ordinary times, but there's none available. 
Tell you what, if I'm out, you can get the film run off again, I'll leave word 
it's OK. Anyway, it might be shown again for the Commissioner. He's up to his 
ass in work, but he's taking a special interest in this case, and no wonder."
    Childe drank some orange juice, shaved (Sybil kept a man's razor and shaving 
cream for him and--he suspected--for other men) and then walked to the Beverly 
Hills Police Department. He got his key from the desk sergeant and asked if it 
were possible to get a ride with a squad car out to his car. He was told it was 
not. He tried to get a taxi, could not, and decided to hitchhike out. After 
fifteen minutes, he gave up. There were not many autos on Santa Monica Boulevard 
and Rexford, and the few that did go by ignored him. He did not blame them. 
Picking up hitchhikers at any time was potentially dangerous, but in this eery 
white-lighted smog anybody would have looked sinister. Moreover, the radio, TV, 
and newspapers were advising caution because of the number of crimes in the 
streets.
    His eyes teary and the interior of his nostrils and throat feeling as if he 
were sniffing in fumes from boiling metal, he stood upon the corner. He could 
see the house across the street and make out the city hall and the public 
library across the street from it as dim bulks, motionless icebergs in a fog. 
Far down, or seemingly far down, Rexford Avenue, a pair of headlights appeared 
and then swung out of sight.
    Presently a black-and-white squad car passed him. When it was almost out of 
sight up Rexford, it stopped and then backed up until it was by him. The officer 
on the right, without getting out of the car, asked him what he was doing there. 
Childe told him. Fortunately, the officer had heard about him. He invited Childe 
to get in and ride with them. They had no definite goal at that moment; they 
were cruising around the area (the wealthy residential district, of course) but 
there was nothing to stop them from going that far out. Childe had to understand 
that if they got a call, they might have to dump him out on the spot, and he 
would be stranded again. Childe said that he would take a chance.
    It took fifteen minutes to get to his car. Only an emergency would have 
forced them to speed through this thick milky stuff. He thanked them and then 
started the car without any trouble, backed up, and swung toward town. Forty 
minutes later, he was parked in the LAPD visitors lot.



     
CHAPTER 12
     
    Budler was in the same room in which Colben had been killed. The first 
scenes had shown Budler being conditioned, going through fear and impotence at 
first and then confidence and active eager participation. In the beginning, he 
had been strapped to the same table but later the table was gone and a bed took 
its place.
    Budler was a little man with narrow shoulders and skinny hips and legs, but 
he had a tremendous penis. He was pale-skinned and had light blue eyes and 
straw-colored hair. His pubic hairs were a light-brown. His penis, however, was 
dark, as if blood always filled it. He had an unusual capacity for sustaining 
erections after orgasms and an unusual supply of seminal fluid.
    (Both victims had been men with hyper sex drives, or, at least, men whose 
lives seemed to be dominated by sex. Both were promiscuous, both had made a 
number of girls pregnant, been arrested or suspected of statutory rape, and were 
known as loudmouths about their conquests. Both were what his wife described as 
"creeps." There was something nasty about them. Childe thought that the victims 
had possibly been selected with poetic justice in mind.)
    The woman with the garish makeup, and the 
creature?--machine?--organ?--concealed behind her G-string, was an actor; she 
specialized in sucking cock and she took out her teeth several times but she did 
not use the iron teeth. Every time he saw her remove the false teeth, Childe 
tensed and felt sick but he was spared the mutilation.
    There were other actors, also. One was an enormously fat woman with 
beautiful white skin. Her face never appeared. There was another woman, whose 
figure was superb, whose face was always hidden, usually by a mask. Both of 
these used their mouths and cunts, and once Budler buggered the fat woman.
    There were also two men, their faces masked. Childe studied their bodies 
carefully, but he could not say that either was Igescu or Glam or the youth who 
had been playing billiards. One of the men had a build similar to Igescu's and 
another was a very big and muscular man. But he could not identify them as 
anyone he had seen at Igescu's.
    Budler must have had a latent homosexual tendency which was developed, 
possibly under the influence of drugs, during the conditioning. One of the men 
blew him several times, and twice Budler buggered the big man. The third man 
appeared in one scene only, and this time it was in what Childe thought would be 
the grand finale. He braced himself for something terrible to happen to Budler, 
but aside from being exhausted, Budler seemed to suffer no ill effects. Budler 
and the three men and three women formed many configurations with, usually, 
Budler as the focus of the group.
    The Commissioner, sitting by Childe, said at this point, "This is quite an 
organization. Besides the six there, there must be two, at least, handling the 
cameras."
    The last scene (Childe knew it was the last because the Commissioner told 
him just as it flashed on) showed Budler screwing one of the well-built women 
dog-fashion. The cameras came in at every angle except that which would show the 
woman's face. There were a number of shots which must have been taken through a 
long flexible optical fiber device, because there were close-ups of a seemingly 
gargantuan penis driving in under a cavernous anus into an elephantine slit. The 
lubricating fluid flowed like spillage over a too-full dam.
    And then the camera seemed to inch forward along the penis, now quiescent, 
and into the slit. Light blazed up, and the viewers seemed to be surrounded by 
thousands of tons of flesh. They were looking down at the penis, a whale that 
had crashed into an underseas cave. Then they were looking up at the ceiling of 
wet pale red flesh.
    Suddenly, the light went out and they were back again, looking at Budler and 
the woman from the side. The two were on the bed, she face-down and her arms to 
one side and her buttocks raised by a pillow under her stomach. He was 
straddling her, one knee between the legs, and rocking back and forth.
    Suddenly, so suddenly that Childe gasped and thought his heart would stop, 
the woman became a female wolf. Budler was still astride her and pumping slowly 
away when the transformation took place. (A trick of photography, of course. A 
trick involving drugs, surely, because Budler acted as if the woman had 
metamorphosed.) He stopped, raised his hands, and then sat up, his penis 
withdrawing and beginning to droop. He looked shocked.
    Snarling, the wolf turned and slashed.
    It happened so quickly that Childe did not understand immediately that the 
powerful jaws had taken the penis off close to the root.
    Blood spurted out of the stump and over the wolf and the bed.
    Screaming, Budler fell backward. The wolf bolted the organ down and then 
began biting at the man's testicles. Budler quit screaming. His skin turned 
blue-gray, and the camera left the wounds where the genitals had been and 
traveled up to show his dying face.
    There was the tinny piano music again, Dvorak's Humoresque. The Dracula 
burst through the curtains with the same dramatic gesture of the cape thrown 
aside to reveal his face. The camera traveled down then and verified what Childe 
thought he had seen when the man entered but had riot been certain about. The 
Dracula's penis, a very long and thin organ, was sticking out of the fly. The 
Dracula cackled and bounded forward and leaped upon the bed and grabbed the wolf 
by the hairs of its flanks and sank his penis into it from behind.
    The wolf yowled, its mouth open, a piece of testicle falling out. Then, as 
the Dracula rammed it, driving her forward and inching along on his knees, the 
wolf began tearing at the flesh between the legs of Budler.
    Fadeout. TO BE CONTINUED: in blazing white letters across the screen. End of 
film.
    Childe became sick again. Afterward, he talked with the Commissioner, who 
was also pale and shaking. But he was not shaky in his refusal to take any 
action about Igescu. He explained (which Childe knew) that the evidence was too 
slight, in fact, it was nonexistent. The "vampire" angle, the wolves on the 
estate, the (supposed) drugging of him by Igescu's secretary, the wolf hairs 
found in Budler's car, the wolf in the film, all these certainly would make 
investigation of Igescu legitimate. But Igescu was a very rich and powerful man 
with no known criminal records or any suspicions by the authorities of criminal 
connections. If the police were to do anything, and he did not see how they 
could, the Beverly Hills Police would have to handle the investigation.
    The essence of his remarks was what Childe had expected. He would have to 
get more conclusive evidence, and he would have to do it without any help from 
the police.
    Childe drove back through a darkening air. The weird white light was slowly 
turning green-gray. He stopped at a service station to fill his tank and also to 
replace the broken headlamp. The attendant, after stamping the form for his 
credit card, said, "You may be my last customer. I'm taking off just as soon as 
I get the paperwork out of the way. Getting out of town, friend. This place has 
had it!"
    "I may follow you," Childe said. "But I got some unfinished business to 
attend to first."
    "Yeah? This town's gonna be a ghost town; it's already on the way."
    Childe drove into Beverly Hills to shop. He had a difficult time finding a 
parking space. If it was going to be a ghost town, it did not seem that it would 
be so soon. Perhaps most of the people were getting supplies for the second 
exodus or were stocking up before the stores were again closed. Whatever the 
reason, it was two and a half hours before he got all he wanted, and it took a 
half-hour to drive the mile and a half to his apartment. The streets were again 
jammed with cars. Which, of course, only speeded up the poisoning of air.
    Childe had intended to drive out to Igescu's at once, but he knew that he 
might as well wait until the traffic thinned out. He spent an hour reviewing 
what he meant to do and then tried to call Sybil, but the lines were busy again. 
He walked to her apartment. He was goggled and snouted with a gas mask he had 
purchased at a store which had just gotten a shipment in. So many others were 
similarly masked, the street looked like a scene on Mars.
    Sybil was not home. Her car was still in the garage. The note he had left in 
her apartment was in the exact position in which he had placed it. He tried to 
get a long-distance call to her mother put through but had enough trouble 
getting the operator, who told him he would have to wait for a long time. She 
had been ordered to put through only emergency calls. He told her it was an 
emergency, his wife had disappeared and he wanted to find out if she had gone to 
San Francisco. The operator said that he would still have to wait, no telling 
how long.
    He hung up. He walked back to his apartment and re-checked the automatic 
recorder with the same negative results. For a while he watched the news, most 
of which was a repetition or very slight up-dating of accounts of the smog and 
the emigration. It was too depressing, and he could not get interested in the 
only non-news program, Shirley Temple in Little Miss Marker. He tried to read, 
but his mind kept jumping back and forth from Budler to his wife.
    It was maddening not to be able to act. He almost decided to buck the 
traffic, because he might, as well be doing something and, moreover, once off 
the main roads, he might be able to travel speedily. He looked out at the 
street, packed with cars going one way, horns blaring, drivers cursing out their 
windows or sitting stoic, tight-lipped, hands gripping the wheels. He would not 
be able to get his car out of the driveway.
    At seven, the traffic suddenly became normal, as if a plug had been pulled 
some place and the extra vehicles gulped down it. He went into the basement, 
drove the car out, and got into the street without any trouble. A few cars drove 
down the wrong side, but these quickly pulled over into the right lane. He got 
to Igescu's before dusk; he had had to stop to change a flat tire. The roads 
were littered with many objects, and one of these, a nail, had driven into his 
left rear tire. Also, he was stopped by the police. They were looking for a 
service station robber driving a car of his make and color. He satisfied them 
that he was not a criminal, not the one they were looking for, anyway, and 
continued on. The fact that they could concern themselves- with a mere holdup at 
this time showed that the traffic had eased up considerably, in this area, at 
least.
    At the end of the road outside Igescu's, he turned the car around and backed 
it into the bushes. He got out and, after removing the gas mask, raised the 
trunk and took out the bundle he had prepared. It took him some time to carry 
the cumbersome load through the thick woods and up the hill to the wall. Here he 
unfolded the aluminum ladder, locked the joints, and, with the pack on his back, 
climbed up until his head was above the wire. He did not intend to find out if 
the wire was electrified. To do so might set off an alarm. He pulled up the long 
rubberized flexibile tunnel, a child's plaything, by the rope tied around its 
end.
    He hoisted it until half its length was over the wire and then began the 
unavoidably clumsy and slow maneuver of crawling, not into it but over it. His 
weight pressed it down so that he had a double thickness between him and the 
sharp points of the wire. He was able to turn, straddling the wire, and pull the 
ladder slowly up after him with the rope, which he had taken from the tunnel and 
tied to the ladder. He was very careful not to touch the wire with the ladder.
    He lifted it up and turned it and deposited its end upon the ground on the 
inside of the wall. Once his feet were on the rungs, be lifted up the tunnel and 
dropped it on the ground and then climbed down. He repeated this procedure at 
the inner wall up to the point where he reached the top of the wall. Instead of 
climbing on over, he took two large steaks from his backpack and threw them as 
far as he could.. Both landed upon leaves near the foot of a large oak. Then he 
pulled the tunnel back and retreated down the ladder. He sat with his back 
against the wall and waited. If he did not succeed with this step within two 
hours, he would go on in, anyway.
    The darkness settled, but it did not seem to get any cooler. There was no 
air moving, no sound of bird or insect. The moon rose. A few minutes later, a 
howling jerked him to his feet. His scalp moved as if rubbed by a cold hand. The 
howling, distant at first, came closer. Soon there was a snuffling and then a 
growling and gobbling. Childe waited and checked his Smith & Wesson Terrier .32 
revolver again. After five minutes by his wristwatch, he climbed over the wall, 
pulling the tunnel and ladder after him as he had done at the first wall. He 
laid them on the ground behind a tree in case anybody should be patrolling the 
wall. Gun in hand, he set out to look for the wolves. The bones of the steaks 
had been cracked and partially swallowed; the rest was gone.
    He did not find the wolves. Or he was not sure that what he did find were 
the wolves.
    He stepped into a clearing and then sucked in his breath.
    Two bodies lay in the moonlight. They were unconscious, which state he had 
expected from the eating of drugged meat. But these were not the hairy, 
four-legged, long-muzzled bodies he had thought to see. These were the nude 
bodies of the young couple who had played billiards in the Igescu house. Vasili 
Chornkin and Mrs. Krautschner slept on the grass under the moon. The boy was on 
his face, his legs under him and his hands by his face. The girl was on her 
side, her legs drawn up and her arms folded beside her head. She had a beautiful 
body. It reminded him of one of the girls he had seen in the films and 
especially of the girl Budler had been fucking dog style.
    He had to sit down for a while. He felt shaky. He did not think that this 
was possible or impossible. It just was, and the 'was' threatened him. It 
threatened his belief in the order of the universe, which meant that it 
threatened him.
    After a while he was able to act. He used tape from his backpack to secure 
their hands behind them and their ankles together. Then he taped their mouths 
tightly and placed them on their sides, facing each other and as close together 
as possible and taped them together around the necks and the ankles. He was 
sweating by the time he had finished. He left them in the glade and hoped that 
they would be very happy together. (That he could think this showed him that he 
was recovering swiftly.) They should be happy if they knew that he had planned 
to cut the throats of the wolves.
    He headed toward where the house should be and within five minutes saw its 
bulk on top of the hill and some rectangles of light. Approaching it on the 
left, he stopped suddenly and almost fired his revolver, he was so upset by the 
abrupt appearance of the figure. It flitted from moonlight into shadow and back 
into shadow and was gone. It looked as if it were a woman wearing an 
ankle-length dress with a bare back.
    For the third time that night, he felt a chill. It must have been Dolores. 
Or a woman playing the ghost. And why should a fraud be out here when there was 
no need to play the fraud? They did not know that he was here. At least, he 
hoped not.
    It was possible that the baron wanted to shock another guest tonight and so 
was using this woman.
    The driveway had five cars besides the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. There were 
two Cadillacs, a Lincoln, a Cord, and a 1929 Duesenberg. Neither wing showed a 
light, but the central part was well-lit.
    Childe looked for Glam, did not see him, and went around the side. There was 
a vine-covered trellis which afforded easy access to the second story balcony. 
The window was closed but not locked. The room was dark and hot and musty. He 
groped along the wall until he found a door and slowly swung it out. It was a 
closet door in which hung dark musty clothes. He closed the door and felt along 
it until he discovered another door. This led to a hallway which was dimly lit 
by moonlight through a window. He used his pencil-thin flashlight now and then 
to guide himself. He passed by a stairway leading to the story below and the 
story above and pushed open a door to another hallway. This had no illumination 
at all; he fingered his way to the other end with his flashlight.
    Sometimes he stopped to put his ear against a doorway. He had thought he had 
heard the murmurs of voices behind them. Intent listening convinced him that 
nobody was there, that his imagination was tricking him.
    At the end of this hallway, twice as long as the first, he found a locked 
door. A series of keys left the lock unturned. He used his pick and, after 
several minutes work, during which the sweat ran down his eyes and his ribs and 
he had to stop several times because he thought he heard footsteps and, once, a 
breathing, he solved the puzzle of the tumblers.
    The door opened to a shaft of light and a puff of cold air.
    As he stepped through into the hallway, he caught a flash of something on 
his left at the far end. It had moved too swiftly for him to identify it, but he 
thought that it was the tail end of Dolores skirt. He ran down the hallway as 
quietly as he could with his sneakers on the marble tile floor (this was done in 
much-marbled and ornate-woodworked Victorian style even if it was in the Spanish 
part). At the corner, he halted and stuck his head around.
    The woman at the extreme end was facing him. By the light of a floor lamp 
near her, he could see that she was tall and black-haired and beautiful--the 
woman in the portrait above the mantel in the drawing room.
    She beckoned to him and turned and disappeared around the corner.
    He felt a little disoriented, not so much as if he were being disconnected 
from a part of himself inside himself but as if the walls around him were being 
subtly warped.
    Just as he rounded the corner, he saw her skirt going into a doorway. This 
led to a room halfway down the hall. The only light was that from the lamp on a 
stand in the hallway. He groped around until he felt the light switch. The 
response was the illumination of a small lamp at the other end on a stand by a 
huge bed with a canopy. He did not know much about furniture, but it looked like 
a bed from one of the Louis series, Louis Quatorze, perhaps. The rest of the 
expensive-looking furniture seemed to go with the bed. A large crystal 
chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling.
    The wall was white paneling, and one of the panels was just swinging shut.
    Childe thought it was swinging shut. He had blinked, and then the wall 
seemed solid.
    There was no other way for the woman to have gone. Do ghosts have to open 
doors, or panels, to go from one room to another?
    Perhaps they did, if they existed. However, he had seen nothing to indicate 
that Dolores--or whoever the woman was--must be a ghost.
    If she were a hoax set up by Baron Igescu for the benefit of others, and 
particularly for Childe, she was leading him on for a reason that he could only 
believe was sinister. The panel led to a passage between the walls, and Igescu 
must want him to go through a panel.
    The newspaper article had said that the original house had contained 
between-walls passages and underground passages, and several secret tunnels 
which led to exits in the woods. Don del Osorojo had built these because he 
feared attacks from bandits, wild Indians, revolting peasants, and, possibly, 
government troops. The Don, it seemed, was having trouble with tax-collectors; 
the government claimed that he was hiding gold and silver.
    When the first Baron Igescu, the present owner's uncle, had added the wings, 
he had also built secret passageways which connected to those in the central 
house. Not so secret, actually, since the workers had talked about them, but no 
drawings or blueprints of the house's construction existed, as far as anybody 
knew. And most of the workers would now be dead or so old they could not 
remember the layout, even if any of them could be found.
    The panel had been opened long enough for him to know that it was an 
entrance. Perhaps the baron wanted him to know it; perhaps Dolores, the ghost. 
In any event, he meant to go through it.
    Finding the actuator of the entrance was another matter. He pressed the wood 
around the panel, tried to move strips around it, knocked at various places on 
the panel (it sounded hollow), and examined the wood closely for holes. He found 
nothing out-of-the-way.
    Straightening up, he half-turned in an angry movement and then turned back 
again, as if he would catch something--or somebody--doing something behind his 
back. There was nothing behind him that had not been there before. But he did 
glimpse himself in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirror that constituted half of the 
wall across the room.



     
CHAPTER 13
     
    The mirror certainly was not reflecting as a mirror should. Nor was it 
reflecting grossly or exaggeratedly, like a funny-house mirror. The 
distortions--if they could be called distortions--were subtle. And as evasive as 
drops of mercury.
    There were slight shiftings of everything reflected, of the wall behind him, 
the painting on the wall to one side of him, the canopied bed, and himself. It 
was as if he were looking at an underwater room through a window, with himself 
deep in the water and the mirror a window, or porthole, to a room in a 
subaquatic palace. The objects in the room, and he seemed to be as much an 
object as the bed or a chair, swayed a little. As if currents of cold water 
succeeded by warmer water compressed or expanded the water and so changed the 
intensity and the refraction of lighting.
    There was more to the shifting than that, however. At one place, the room 
and everything in it, including himself, seemed almost--not quite-normal. As 
they should be or as it seemed that they should be. Seemed, he thought, because 
it struck him that things as they are were not necessarily things as they should 
be, that custom had made strangeness, or outrageousness (a peculiar word, what 
made him think of that?), comfortable.
    Then the "normality" disappeared as the objects twisted or swayed, he was 
not sure which they did, and the room, and he, became "evil."
    He did not look "weak" nor "petty" nor "sneaky" nor "selfish" nor 
"indifferent," all of which he felt himself to be at various times. He looked 
"evil." Malignant, destroying, utterly loveless.
    He walked slowly toward the mirror. His image, wavering, advanced. It 
smiled, and he suddenly realized that he was smiling. That smile was not utterly 
loveless; it was a smile of pure love. Love of hatred and of corruption and of 
all living things.
    He could almost smell the stink of hate and of death.
    Then he thought that the smile was not of love but of greed, unless greed 
was a form of love. It could be. The meanings of words were as shifting and 
elusive as the images in the mirror.
    He became sick; something was gnawing at his nerves in the pit of his 
stomach.
    It was a form of sea-sickness, he thought. See-sickness, rather.
    He turned away from the mirror, feeling as he did so a chill pass over his 
scalp and a vulnerability--a hollowness--between his shoulders, as if the man in 
the mirror would stick him in the back with a knife if he exposed his back to 
him.
    He hated the mirror and the room it mirrored. He had to get out of it. If he 
could not get the panel open in a few seconds, he would have to leave by the 
door.
    There was no use in repeating his first efforts. The key to the panel was 
not in its immediate neighborhood, so he would have to look elsewhere. Perhaps 
its actuator, a button, a stud, something, could be behind the large oil 
painting. This was of a man who looked much like the baron and was probably his 
uncle. Childe lifted it up and off its hooks and placed it upright on the floor, 
leaning against the wall. The space behind where it had been was smooth. No 
actuator mechanism here.
    He replaced the painting. It seemed twice as heavy, when he lifted it up as 
it had when he had taken it down. This room was draining him of his strength.
    He turned away from the painting and stopped. The panel had swung inward 
into the darkness behind the wall.
    Childe, keeping an eye on the panel, placed a hand on the lower corner of 
the portrait-frame and moved it slightly. The panel, however, had already 
started to close. Evidently the actuating mechanism opened it briefly and then 
closed it automatically.
    He waited until the panel shut and again moved the frame sideways. Nothing 
happened. But when he lifted the painting slightly, the panel again swung open.
    Childe did not hesitate. He ran to the panel, stepped through cautiously, 
making sure that there was firm footing in the darkness, and then got to one 
side to permit the panel to swing shut. He was in unrelieved black; the air was 
dead and odorous of decaying wood, plaster falling apart, and a trace of 
long-dead mice. There was also a teaser (was it there or not?) of perfume.
    The flashlight showed a dusty corridor about four feet wide and seven high. 
It did not end against the wall of the hallway, as he had expected. A well of 
blackness turned out to be a stairway under the hall. At its bottom was a small 
platform and another stairway leading up, he presumed, to another passageway on 
the other side of the hall.
    In the opposite direction, the passageway ran straight for about fifty feet 
and then disappeared around a corner. He walked slowly in that direction and 
examined the walls, ceiling, and floor carefully. When he had gone far enough to 
be past the baron's bedroom, he found a panel on hinges. It was too small and 
too far up the wall for passage. He unlocked its latch, turned his flashlight 
off, and swung it slowly out to avoid squeaking of hinges. They gave no sound. 
The panel had hidden a one-way mirror. He was looking into a bedroom. A 
titian-haired woman came through the door from the hall about seven seconds 
later. She walked past him, only five feet away, and disappeared into another 
doorway. She was wearing a print dress with large red flowers; her legs were 
bare and her feet were sandaled.
    The woman was so beautiful that he had felt sick in his solar plexus for a 
moment, a feeling he had experienced three times, when seeing for the first time 
women so beautiful that he was agonized because he would never have them.
    Childe thought that it would be better to continue his exploring, but he 
could not resist the feeling that he might see something significant if he 
stayed here. The woman had looked so determined, as if she had something 
important to do. He placed his ear against the glass and could hear, faintly, 
Richard Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra. It must be coming from the room into 
which she had gone.
    The bedroom was in rather somber taste for a beautiful young woman; the 
baron's room, if it had been the baron's room, would have been more appropriate 
for her. It was far cheerier, if you excepted the wall-mirror. The walls were of 
dark dull wooden paneling about six feet up from the floor; above them was a 
dull dark wallpaper with faint images: queer birds, twisted dragons, and the, 
recurring figures of what could be a nude Adam and Eve and an apple tree. There 
were no snakes.
    The carpet was thick and also dull and dark with images too faded to be 
identified. The bed was, like the baron's, canopied, but it was of a period he 
did not recognize, although this did not mean much, because he knew very little 
about furniture or furnishings. Its legs were wrought-iron in the form of 
dragon's claws. The bedspread and the canopy were a dark red. There was a mirror 
on the wall opposite. It was three-sided, like the mirrors used in the clothing 
departments of stores. It seemed to be nothing extraordinary; it reflected the 
window through which Childe was looking as another mirror above a large dull 
red-brown dresser.
    There was a chandelier of cut quartz with dull yellow sockets for candles. 
The light in the room, however, came from a number of table and floor lamps. The 
corners of the room were in shadow.
    Childe waited for a while and sweated. It was hot in the corridor, and the 
various odors, of wood; plaster, and long-dead mice, became stronger instead of 
dying on a dulling nose. The teaser of perfume was entirely gone. Finally, just 
as he decided that he should be moving on--and why was he standing here in the 
first place--the woman came through the door. She was naked; her titian-red hair 
hung loosely around her shoulders and down her back. She held a long-necked 
bottle to her lips as she walked toward the dresser. She paused before it and 
continued to drink until only about two inches of the liquid was left. Then she 
put the bottle on the dresser and leaned forward to look into the mirror.
    She had taken her makeup off. She peered into the mirror as if she were 
searching for defects. Childe stepped back, because it seemed impossible that 
she would not see him. Then he stepped forward again. If she knew that this was 
a one-way mirror, she did not care if another was on the other side. Or supposed 
that no hostile person would be there. Perhaps only the baron knew of this 
passageway.
    She seemed to find her inspection of her face satisfactory, and she might 
have found it very pleasing, to judge from her smile. She straightened up and 
looked at her body and also seemed pleased at this. Childe felt uncomfortable, 
as if he were doing something perverted by spying on her, but he also began to 
get excited.
    She wriggled a little, swayed her hips from side to side, and ran her hands 
up and down her ribs and hips and then cupped them over her breasts and rubbed 
the nipples with the ends of her thumbs. The nipples swelled. Childe's penis 
swelled, also.
    Keeping her left hand busy with her breast, she put her right hand on her 
pubes, and opened the top of the slit with one finger and began to rub her 
clitoris. She worked swiftly at, it, rubbing vigorously, and suddenly she threw 
her head back, her mouth open, ecstasy on her face.
    Childe felt both excited and repulsed. Part of the repulsion was because he 
was no voyeur; he felt that it was indecent to watch anyone under these 
circumstances. It was true that he did not have to stay, but he was here to 
investigate kidnapping and murder, and this certainly looked worth 
investigating.
    She continued to rub her clitoris and the hairy lips. And then--here Childe 
was startled and shaken but also knew that he had somehow expected it--a tiny 
thing, like a slender white tongue, spurted from the slit.
    It was not a tongue. It was more like a snake or an eel.
    It was as small in diameter as a garter snake but much longer. How long it 
was he could not determine yet, because its body kept sliding out and out. It 
kept coming, and its skin was smooth and hairless, as smooth as the woman's 
belly and as white, and the skin glistened with the fluid released from her 
cunt.
    It shot out in a downward arc, like a half-erect penis, and then it turned 
and flopped over against her belly and began to zigzag upwards. It continued to 
slide out from the slit as if yards of it were still coiled inside her womb, and 
it oozed up until its snaky length was coiled once around her left breast.
    Childe could see the details of the thing's head, which was the size of a 
golf ball. It turned twice to look directly at him. Into the mirror, rather.
    Its head was bald except for a fringe of oil-plastered black hair around the 
tiny ears. It had two thin but wet black eyebrows and a wet black 
Mephistophelean moustache and beard. The nose was relatively large and meat 
cleaver shaped. The eyes were dark, but they were so small and set so far back 
that they would have seemed dark to Childe even if they had been palest blue. 
The mouth was as much a slit as the vagina from which the creature had issued, 
but it briefly opened it and Childe could see two rows of little yellow teeth 
and a pink-red tongue.
    The face was tiny, but there was nothing feeble about its malignancy.
    The woman's lips moved. Childe could not hear her, but he thought that she 
was crooning.
    The snaky body resumed its climbing while more of its body slid out of the 
pink fissure and the dark-red bush. It rounded her breast and went up her 
shoulder and around her neck and came around the right side and extended a loop 
outwards and then in so that the Lilliputian head faced her. The woman turned a 
little then, thus permitting Childe a quarter-view of her profile.
    Her hands moved along the ophidian shaft as if she were feeling an 
unnaturally long penis--hers. Her slim fingers--beautiful fingers--traced the 
length and then, while one hand curled gently back of the head to support the 
body, the other slid back and forth behind the head as if she were masturbating 
the snake-penis.
    The thing quivered. Then the head moved forward, and its minute lips touched 
her lower lip. It bit down, or seemed to, because she jerked her head back a 
little as if stung. Her head moved forward again, however; and her mouth wide 
open. The head was engulfed in her mouth; she began to suck.
    Childe had been too shocked to do anything but react emotionally. Now he 
began to think. He wondered how the thing could breathe with its head in her 
mouth. Then it occurred to him that it would be even more difficult for it to 
breathe when it was coiled in her womb or whatever recess of her body it lived 
in. So, though it had a nose, it perhaps did not need it. Its oxygen could be 
supplied by the woman's circulatory system, which surely must be connected 
through some umbilical device to the other end of the thing.
    That head. It had belonged at one time to a full-grown man. Childe, with no 
rational reason, knew this. The head had belonged to the body of an adult male. 
Now, through some unbelievable science, the head had been reduced to the size of 
a golf ball, and it had been attached to this uterine snake, or the original 
human body had been altered, or...
    He shook his head. How could this be? Had he been drugged? That mirror and 
now this.
    The body bent, and the head withdrew from the woman's mouth. It swayed back 
and forth like a cobra to a flute, while the woman put her hands to her mouth 
and then removed a pair of false teeth. Her lips fell in; she was an old 
woman--from the neck up. But the thing thrust forward before she had put the 
teeth on the dresser, and the tiny head and part of the body disappeared into 
the toothless cavity. The body bent and unbent, slid back and forth between her 
lips.
    At first, the movements were slow. Then her body trembled, and her skin 
became paler, except around the mouth and the pubes, where the intense darkening 
spoke of the concentration of blood. She shook; her great eyes fluttered open; 
she stared as if she were half-stunned. The thrustings of the body became 
swifter, and more of the body appeared and disappeared. She staggered backwards 
until she fell back upon the bed with her legs hanging over the edge and one 
foot resting on the floor, the other lifted up.
    For perhaps ninety seconds, she jerked. Then, she was quiet. The snaky body 
lifted; the head came out of the lips and turned with the turning of the upper 
quarter of body. A thick whitish fluid was dribbling out of the open mouth.
    The shaft rose up and up until all but the last six inches were lifted from 
the woman's body. It teetered like a sunflower in a flood and then collapsed. 
The tiny mouth chewed on a nipple for a while. The woman's hands moved like 
sleeping birds half-roused by a noise, then they became quiet again.
    The mouth quit chewing. The body began a slow zigzag, retreat into the 
dark-red bush and the fissure, trailing the head behind it. Presently, the body 
was gone and the head was swallowed up, bulging open the labia as it sank out of 
sight.
    Childe thought, Werewolf? Vampire? Lamia? Vodyanoi? What? He had never read 
of anything like this woman and the thing in her womb. Where did they fit in 
with the theories of Le Garrault as expounded by Igescu?
    The woman rose from the bed and walked to the dresser. Looking into the 
mirror, she fitted the false teeth into her mouth and once more was the most 
beautiful woman in the world.
    But she was also the most horrifying woman he had ever seen. He was shaking 
as much as she had been in her orgasm, and he was sick.
    At that moment, the door that opened onto the hallway moved inward.
    Childe felt as cold as if he had been dipped into an opening in polar ice.
    The pale-skinned, scarlet-dipped, black-haired head of Dolores del Osorojo 
had appeared around the doorway.
    The woman, who must have seen Dolores in the mirror, grayed. Her mouth 
dropped open; saliva and the spermy fluid dribbled out. Her eyes became huge. 
Her hands flew up--like birds again--to cover her breasts. Then she screamed so 
loudly that Childe could hear her, and she whirled and ran towards the door. She 
had snatched up the bottle by the neck so swiftly that Childe was not aware of 
it until she was halfway across the room. She was terrified. No doubt about 
that. But she was also courageous. She was attacking the cause of her terror.
    Dolores smiled, and a white arm came around the door and pointed at the 
woman.
    The woman stopped, the bottle raised above her head, and she quivered.
    Then Childe saw that Dolores was not pointing at the woman. She was pointing 
past her. At him.
    At the mirror behind which he stood, rather. The woman whirled and looked at 
it and then, bewildered, looked around. Again, she whirled, and this time she 
shouted something in an unidentifiable language at the woman. The woman smiled 
once more, withdrew her arm, and then her head. The door closed.
    Shaking, the woman walked slowly to the door, slowly opened it, and slowly 
looked through the doorway into the hall. If she saw anything, she did not care 
to pursue it, because she closed the door. She emptied the bottle then and 
returned to the dresser, where she pulled up a chair and sat down on it and then 
put her head on her arms on the table. After a while, the pinkish glow returned 
to her skin. She sat up again. Her eyes were bright with tears, and her face 
seemed to have gotten about ten years older. She leaned close to the mirror to 
look at it, grimaced, got up, and went through the other door, which Childe 
presumed led to a bathroom or to a room which led to a bathroom.
    Her reaction to Dolores certainly was not the baron's, who had seemed blasé. 
The sight of the supposed ghost had terrified her.
    If Dolores were a hoax, one of which the woman would surely be aware, why 
should she react so?
    Childe had a more-than-uneasy feeling that Dolores del Osorojo was not a 
woman hired to play ghost.
    It was, however, possible that the woman was terrified for other reasons.
    He had no time to find out what. He used the flashlight in quick stabs to 
determine if there was an entrance to her room, but he could find none. He went 
on then and came across another panel which opened to another one-way mirror. 
This showed him a small living room done in Spanish colonial style. Except for 
the telephone on a table, it could have been a room in the house shortly after 
it was built. There was nobody in it.
    The corridor turned past the room. Along the wall was a hinged panel large 
enough to give entrance to the other side. There was also a peephole behind a 
small sliding panel. He put his eye to it but could see only a darkened room. At 
the periphery of his vision was a lightening of the darkness, as if light were 
leaking through a barely opened door or a keyhole. A voice was coming from 
somewhere far-off. It was in a strange language, and it seemed to be carrying on 
a monologue or a telephone conversation.
    Beyond this room the corridor became two, the legs of a Y. He went down each 
for a short distance and found that two entrance panels existed on opposite 
walls of one leg and an entrance panel and peephole on opposite walls of the 
other. If, at another time, he could locate a triangular-shaped room, he would 
know where these passageways were.
    He looked through the peephole but could see nothing.
    He went back the passageway and up the other leg to the panel and opened 
this. His hand, thrust through the opening, felt a heavy cloth. He slid through 
carefully so that he would not push the cloth. It could be a drapery heavy 
enough to keep light on the other side from shining through. If anybody were in 
that room, he must not see the drapery move.
    Squatting, his shoulder to the wall and squeezing his shoulders so that he 
would not disturb the cloth, he duck-walked until he had come to the juncture of 
two walls. Here the edges of the draperies met. He turned and pulled the edges 
apart and looked through with one eye.
    The room was dark. He rose and stepped through and turned his flashlight on. 
The beam swept across a movie camera on a dolly and then stopped on a Y-shaped 
table.
    He was in the room, or one much like it, in which Colben and Budler had 
spent their--presumably--last few hours.
    There was a bed in one corner, a number of movie cameras, some devices the 
use of which he did not know, and a large ashtray of some dark-green material. 
In the center of its roughly circular dish stood a long thin statue. It looked 
like a nude man in the process of turning into a wolf, or vice versa. The body 
up to the chest was human; from there on it was hairy and the arms had become 
legs and the face had wolf-like ears and was caught in metamorphosis. There were 
about thirty cigarette stubs in the dish. Some had lipstick marks. One had a 
streak of dried blood, or it looked like dried blood, around the filter.
    Childe turned on the lights and with his tiny Japanese camera took twenty 
shots. He had what he needed now, and he should get out. But he did not know 
whether or not Sybil was in this house.
    And there might be other, even more impressive, evidence to get the police 
here.
    He turned off the lights and crawled out of the panel into the passageway. 
He had a choice of routes then and decided to take the right leg of the Y. This 
led to another hall--the horizontal bar of a T. He turned right again and came 
to a stairway. The treads were of a glassy substance; it would have been easy to 
slip on them if he had not been wearing sneakers. He walked down six steps, and 
then his feet slid out from under him and he fell heavily on his back.
    He struck a smooth slab and shot downward as if on a chutey-chute which, in 
a sense, he was on. He put out his hands against the walls to brake himself but 
the walls, which had not seemed vitreous, were. The flashlight showed him a 
trapdoor opening at the bottom of the steps--these had straightened out to fall 
against each other and form a smooth surface--and then he slid through the dark 
opening. He struck heavily but was unhurt. The trapdoor closed above him. The 
flashlight showed him the padded ceiling, walls, and floor of a room seven feet 
high, six broad, ten wide. There were no apparent doors or windows.
    He smelled nothing nor heard anything, but gas must have been let into the 
room. He fell asleep before he knew what was happening.



     
CHAPTER 14
     
    He did not know how long he had been there. When he awoke, his flashlight, 
his wristwatch, his revolver, and his camera were missing. His head ached, and 
his mouth was as dry as if he were waking up after a three-day drunk. The gas 
must have had a very relaxing effect, because he had wet his shorts and pants. 
Or else he had wet them when the steps had dropped out from under him and he had 
begun his slide. He had needed to piss before the trap caught him.
    Five lights came on. Four were from floor lamps set in the corners, and one 
was from an iron wall-lamp shaped like a torch and set at forty-five degrees to 
the wall.
    He was not in the padded chamber. He was lying on a huge four-postered bed 
with scarlet sheets and bedspread and a scarlet black-edged canopy. The room was 
not one he had seen before. It was large; its black walls were hung with scarlet 
yellow-trimmed drapes and two sets of crossed rapiers. The floor was dark-glossy 
brown hardwood with a few crimson starfish-shaped thick-fibered rugs. There were 
some slender wrought-iron chairs with high skeletal backs and crimson cushions 
on the seats and a tall dresser of dense-grained brown wood.
    It was while looking around that he thought of the dread of iron and of the 
cross that vampires were supposed to have. There were iron objects all over the 
house, and, while he had seen no crucifixes, he had seen plenty of objects, such 
as these crossed rapiers, which made cruciforms. If Igescu was a vampire (Childe 
felt ridiculous even thinking this), he certainly did not object to contact with 
iron or sight of the cross.
    Perhaps (just perhaps), these creatures had acquired an immunity from these 
once-abhorred things during thousands of years. If they had ever dreaded iron 
and the cross, that is. What about the years before iron was used by man? Or the 
cross was used by man? What guards and wards did man have then against these 
creatures?
    Shakily, Childe got out of the bed and stood up. He had no time to search 
for a secret wall-exit, which he thought could exist here and which he might 
find before his captors returned. But the door at the far end swung open, and 
Glam entered, and the big room seemed much smaller. He stopped very close to 
Childe and looked down at him. For the first time, Childe saw that his eyes were 
light russet. The face was heavy and massive as a boulder, but those eyes seemed 
to glow as if they were rocks which had been subjected to radioactivity. Hairs 
hung from the cavernous nostrils like stalactites. His breath stank as if he had 
been eating rotten octopus.
    "The baron says you should come to dinner," he rumbled.
    "In these clothes?"
    Glam looked down at the wet patch on the front of Childe's pants. When he 
looked up, he smiled briefly, like a jack-o'lantern just before the candle died.
    "The baron says you can dress if you want to. There's clothes your size or 
near enough in the closet."
    The closet was almost big enough to be a small room. His eyebrows rose when 
he saw the variety of male and female clothing. Who were the owners and where 
were they? Were they dead? Did some of the clothes bear labels with the names of 
Colben and Budler, or had borne the labels, since the baron would not be stupid 
enough, surely, to leave such identification on.
    Perhaps he was stupid. Otherwise, why the sending of the films to the Los 
Angeles Police Department?
    But he did not really believe this about the baron.
    Childe, after washing his hands and face and genitals and thighs in the most 
luxurious bathroom he had ever been in, and after dressing in a tuxedo, followed 
Glam down several hallways and then downstairs. He did not recognize any of the 
corridors nor the dining room. He had expected to be in the dining room he had 
seen yesterday, but this was another. The house was truly enormous.
    The motif of this room was, in some respects, Early Grandiose 
Victorian-Italian, or so it seemed to him. The walls were gray black-streaked 
marble. A huge red marble fireplace and mantel were at one end, and above the 
mantel was a painting of a fierce old white-haired man with long moustachioes. 
He wore a wine-red coat with wide lapels and a white shirt with thick ruffles 
around the neck.
    The floor was of black marble with small mosaics at each of the eight 
corners. The furniture was massive and of a black dense-grained wood. A white 
damascene cloth covered the main table; it was set with massive silver dishes 
and goblets and tableware and tall thick silver candleholders which supported 
thick red candles. There were at least fifty candles, all lit. A large 
cut-quartz chandelier held a number of red candles, also, but these were unlit.
    Glam stopped to indicate a chair. Childe advanced slowly to it. The baron, 
at the head of the table, rose to greet him. His smile was broad but fleeting. 
He said, "Welcome, Mr. Childe, despite the circumstances. Please sit down there. 
Next to Mrs. Grasatchow."
    There were four men and six women at the table.
    The baron.
    Magda Holyani.
    Mrs. Grasatchow, who was almost the fattest woman he had ever seen.
    The baron's great-grandmother, who had to be at least a hundred.
    Vivienne Mabcrough, the titian-haired woman with the man-headed snake-thing 
in her womb.
    O'Riley O'Faithair, a handsome black-haired man of about thirty-five who 
spoke a charming Irish brogue. And now and then a few sentences in an unknown 
language to the baron and the Mabcrough woman.
    Mr. Bending Grass, who had a very broad and high-cheekboned face with a huge 
aquiline nose and huge, slightly slanted, very dark eyes. He could have been 
Sitting Bull's twin, but something he said to Mrs. Grasatchow indicated that he 
was Crow. He spoke of the mountain man, John, Johnston, "Liver Eating Johnston," 
as if he had been a contemporary.
    Fred Pao, a tall slender Chinese with features that could have been carved 
out of teak and a Fu Manchu moustache and goatee.
    Panchita Pocyotl, a short petite and beautiful Mexican Indian.
    Rebecca Ngima, a handsome lithe black African dressed in a long white native 
costume.
    They were all expensively and tastefully dressed and, though their speech 
was not free of foreign pronunciation, their English was fluent, "correct," and 
rich with literary, philosophical, historical, and musical allusions. There were 
also references to events and persons and places that puzzled Childe, who was 
well-read. They seemed to have been everywhere and, here he felt cold threading 
the needle of his nerves, to have lived in times long dead.
    Was this for his benefit? An addition to the hoax?
    What hoax?
    It was then that he got another shock, because the baron addressed him again 
as Mr. Childe. With a start, he remembered the first time. He had been too dull 
to have realized then what that meant.
    "How did you learn my name? I carried no identification with me."
    The baron smiled "You don't really expect me to tell you?"
    Childe shrugged and began eating. There were many different dishes on the 
sideboard; he had been given a wide choice but had decided on New York-cut steak 
and baked potato. Mrs. Grasatchow, who sat on his left, had a platter with an 
entire bonita fish and a huge bowl of salad. She drank before, during, and after 
the meal from a gallon decanter of bourbon. The decanter was full when she sat 
down and empty when the dishes were cleared off the table.
    Glam and two short, dark, and shapely women in maid uniforms served. The 
women did not act like servants, however, they frequently talked with the guests 
and the host and several times made remarks in the foreign tongue that caused 
the others to laugh. Glam spoke only when his duties required. He glanced at 
Magda far more than his duties required.
    The baroness, seated at the opposite end from her great-grandson, bent like 
a living question mark, or vulture, over her soup. This was the only food she 
was served, and she allowed it to get cold before she finally finished it. She 
said very little and only looked up twice, once to stare a long time at Childe. 
She looked as if she had only recently been brought out of an Egyptian pyramid 
and as if she would just as soon go back into the crypt. Her dinner gown, 
high-necked, ruffle-bosomed, diamond-sequined, red velvet, looked as if she had 
purchased it in 1890.
    Mrs. Grasatchow, although as fat as two sows put together, had a remarkably 
white, flawless, and creamy skin and enormous purplish eyes. When she had been 
younger and thinner, she must have been a beautiful woman. She talked now as if 
she thought she was still beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful and desirable 
woman in the world. She talked loudly and uninhibitedly about the men who had 
died--some of them literally--for her love. Halfway through the dinner, and 
two-thirds through the gallon of whiskey, her speech began to get slurred. 
Childe was awed. She had drunk enough to kill him, or most men, and she only had 
a little trouble with her speech.
    She had drunk far more than the Chinese, Pao, who had downed much wine 
during the evening, but not much relative to her. Yet nobody reprimanded her, 
but Igescu seemed concerned about Pao. He was speaking to him in a corner, and 
though Childe could not hear them, he saw Igescu's hand come down on Pao's 
wrist, and Igescu shook his head and then jerked the thumb of his other hand at 
Childe.
    Suddenly, Pao began to shake, and he ran out of the room. He was in a hurry 
to get out, but Childe did not think that he was about to vomit. He did not have 
the pale skin and desperate expression of one whose guts are ready to launch 
their contents.
    The dishes were cleared and cigars and brandy and wine were served. (My God! 
was Mrs. Grasatchow really going to smoke that ten-dollar cigar and pour down a 
huge snifter of brandy on top of that whiskey?)
    The baron spoke to Childe:
    "You realize, of course, that I could easily have had you killed for 
trespassing, for entering, for voyeurism, et cetera, but mostly for entering? 
Now, perhaps, you would like to tell me what you are up to?"
    Childe hesitated. The baron knew his name and must, therefore, know that he 
was a private investigator. And that he had been a partner of Colben. He must 
realize that, somehow, Childe had tracked him down, and he must be curious about 
what had led Childe here. He might be wondering if Childe had told anybody that 
he was coming out here.
    Childe decided to be frank. He also decided that he would tell the baron 
that the LAPD knew he was here and that if they did not hear from him at a 
certain time, they would come out here to find out why.
    Igescu listened with a smile that seemed amused. He said, "Of course! And 
what would they find if they did come out here, which they are not likely to 
do?"
    Perhaps they would find something Igescu did not suspect. They might find 
two naked people tied to each other. Igescu might have a difficult time 
explaining them, but they would not be a dangerous liability. Just puzzling to 
the police and inconvenient to Igescu.
    At that moment Vasili Chornkin and Mrs. Krautschner, fully clothed, entered. 
They stopped for a moment, stared at Childe, and then walked on in. The blonde 
stopped by Igescu to whisper in his ear; the man sat down and ordered something 
to eat. Igescu looked at Childe, frowned, and then smiled. He said something to 
Mrs. Krautschner. She laughed and sat down by Chornkin.
    Childe felt even more trapped. He could do nothing except, perhaps, make a 
break for it, but he doubted that he would get far. There was nothing for him to 
do except drift with the current of Igescu's wishes and hope that he would get a 
chance to escape.
    The baron, looking over the brandy snifter just below his nose, said, "Did 
you get a chance to read Le Garrault, Mr. Childe?"
    "No, I didn't. But I understand the UCLA library is closed because of the 
smog."
    The baron stood up. "Let's go into the library and talk where it's quieter."
    Mrs. Grasatchow heaved up from the chair, blowing like an alcoholic whale. 
She put an arm around Childe's shoulder; the flesh drooped like tangles of 
jungle vines. "I'll go with you, baby, you don't want to go without me."
    "You can stay here for the time being," Igescu said.
    Mrs. Grasatchow glared at the baron, but she dropped her arm from Childe and 
sat down.
    The library was a large dark room with leather-covered walls and massive 
dark-wood built-in shelves and at least five thousand books, some of them 
looking centuries old. The baron sat down in an overstuffed leather-covered 
chair with a wooden back carved in the form of a bat-winged Satan. Childe sat 
down in a similar chair, the back of which was a carved troll.
    "Le Garrault..." the baron said.
    "What's going on here?" Childe said. "Why the party?"
    "You aren't interested in Le Garrault?"
    "Sure, I'm interested. But I think there are things of much more interest 
just now. For instance, my survival."
    "That is up to you, of course. One's survival is always up to one's self. 
Other people only play the part that you permit. But then, that's another 
theory. For the present, let's pretend that you are my guest and may leave at 
any time you wish--which can be the true situation, for all you know. Believe 
me, I am not telling you about Le Garrault just to pass the time. Am I?"
    The baron continued to smile. Childe thought about Sybil and got angry. But 
he knew that it would do no good to ask the baron about her. If the baron had 
her, he would admit it only if it served some purpose of his.
    "The old Belgian scholar knew more about the occult and the supernatural and 
the so-called weird than any other man who ever lived. I don't mean that he knew 
more than anybody else. I mean that he knew more than any other man."
    The baron paused to draw in cigar smoke. Childe felt himself getting tense, 
although he was making an effort to relax.
    "Old Le Garrault found records which other scholars did not find or else saw 
in these records what other scholars missed. Or possibly he may have talked to 
some of the--what should I call them? unmen?--some of the unmen, the pseudo-men, 
and gotten his facts, which we shall theory, directly from them.
    "In any event, Le Garrault speculated that the so called vampires, 
werewolves, poltergeists, ghosts, and so on, might be living creatures from a 
parallel universe. Or a number of parallel universes. You know what a parallel 
universe is?"
    "It's a concept originated by some science-fiction author, I believe," 
Childe said. "I think that the theory is that a number, perhaps an infinite 
number, of universes may occupy the same space. They can do this because they 
are all polarized or at right angles to each other. Those terms are actually 
meaningless, but they do signify that some physical mechanism enables more than 
one cosmos to fill the same quote space unquote. The concept of parallel 
universes was used and is being used by science-fiction writers to depict worlds 
just like ours, or only slightly differing, or wildly different. Like an Earth 
where the South won the Civil War. That idea has been used at least three times, 
that I know of."
    "Very good," the baron said. "Except that your examples are not quite 
correct. None of the three stories you are thinking about postulated a parallel 
universe. Churchill's and Kantor's were what if stories, and Moore's was a time 
travel story. But you have the right idea. However, Le Garrault was the first to 
publish the theory of parallel universes, although the publication was so 
restricted and so obscure that very few people knew about it. And Le Garrault 
did not postulate a series of universes which diverged only slightly at one end 
of the series, that is, the end nearest to Earth's cosmos, and diverged more the 
further away you got from Earth's.
    "No, he speculated that these other universes were nothing at all like 
Earth's, that they had different physical 'laws,' that many of them would be 
completely incomprehensible to Earthmen who might broach the 'walls' between the 
universes."
    "Then he said that there might be 'gates' or 'breaks' in the 'walls' and 
that occasionally a dweller of one universe might go into another?"
    "He said more than that. He called his speculation a theory, but he believed 
that the theory was a fact. He believed that there were temporary breaks in the 
walls, accidental cracks, or openings which sometimes existed because of 
weaknesses or flaws.
    "He said that creatures--sentient and non-sentient--sometimes entered our 
universe through these breaks. But they have forms so alien that the human brain 
has no forms to fit them. And so the human brain gives them forms to explain 
them. He said that it is not just a matter of humans seeing the aliens as such 
and such. It is a matter of the aliens actually being molded into these forms 
because they cannot survive long in this universe unless they have forms that 
conform to the physical 'laws' of this universe. The forms may not conform one 
hundred percent, but they are close enough. And, in fact, an alien may have more 
than one form, because that is the way the human sees him. Hence, the werewolf, 
who had a human form and wolf form, and the vampire, who has a human form and a 
bat form."
    This man is really putting me on, Childe thought. Or else he is so insane 
that he actually believes this. But what is he leading up to, that he is one of 
the aliens?
    The baron said, "Some of the extra-universals came here accidentally, were 
caught in the flaws, and were unable to get back. Others were exiles or 
criminals, sent by the people of their world to this Botany Bay--this Earth."
    "Fascinating speculation," Childe said. "But why do these take certain forms 
and not others?"
    "Because, in their case, the myth, the legend, the superstition, call it 
what you will, gave birth to the reality. First, there were the beliefs and 
tales about the werebeast and the vampire and the ghost and the et cetera. These 
beliefs and tales existed long ago, long before history, long before 
civilization. In one form or another, these beliefs existed in the Old Stone 
Age."
    Childe shifted to relieve his discomfort. He felt cold again, as if a shadow 
had slid over him. That shadow was of a hulking half-brute figure, bulge-browed, 
ape-jawed. And behind it were other shadows of figures with long fangs and great 
claws and strange shapes.
    The baron continued, "There is, according to Le Garrault, a psychic 
imprinting. He did not use the word imprinting, but his description meant that. 
He said that the aliens are able to survive for a short while in their own form 
when they come to this universe. They are in a state of fluidity, of dying 
fluidity."
    "Fluidity?"
    "Their forms are trying to change to conform to the physical laws of this 
universe. A universe which is as incomprehensible to them as theirs would be to 
an Earthman. The effort sets up stresses and strains which would inevitably tear 
them apart, kill them. Unless they encounter a human being. And, if they are 
lucky enough to be from a universe which enables them to 
receive--telepathically, I suppose, although that term is too 
restricted--enables them to receive the impressions of the human mind, then the 
alien is able to make the adaptation. He is enabled because he comprehends the 
form in which he can survive in this world. Do you follow me?"
    "In a way. But not too well."
    "It's almost as difficult to explain this as it is for a mystic to explain 
his visions. You realize that my explanations no more fit the facts, the true 
processes, than the description of the atom as a sort of miniature solar system 
fitted the true processes."
    "I understand that, at least. You're using analogies."
    "Strained analogies. But the theory says that the alien, if he is lucky, 
encounters human beings who perceive him as something unnatural, which he is, in 
a sense, since he is not natural to the human universe. The humans do not 
absolutely reject him; it is the nature of humans to try to explain every 
phenomenon or, I should say, describe it, classify it, fit it into the order of 
natural things.
    "And so the alien is given his form, and a certain part of his nature, by 
the humans. There is a process of psychic imprinting, you understand. And so, 
willy-nilly, the alien becomes what the human believes him to be. But the alien 
still retains some of his otherworld characteristics, or I should say powers or 
abilities, and these he can use under certain circumstances. He can use them 
because they are part of the structure of this universe, even though most 
humans, that is, the educated, that is, the reconditioned, deny that such 
powers, or even such beings, can exist in this universe."
    "You were enjoying your filet mignon and your salad," Childe said. "I 
thought vampires lived only on blood?"
    "Who said I was a vampire?" the baron replied, smiling. "Or who said that 
vampires live on blood only? Or, who, saying that, knew what he was talking 
about?"
    "Ghosts," Childe said. "How does this theory explain ghosts?"
    "Le Garrault said that ghosts are the results of imperfect psychic 
imprinting. In their case, they assume, partially assume, the form of the human 
being first encountered or, sometimes, they result from the belief of a human 
being that they are the ghost of a departed. Thus, a man who believes in ghosts 
sees something he thinks is the ghost of his dead wife, and the alien becomes 
that ghost. But ghosts have a precarious off-and-on existence. They are never 
quite of this world. Le Garrault even said that it was possible that some aliens 
kept shuttling back and forth between this world and the native world and were 
actually ghosts in both worlds."
    "Do you really expect me to believe that?" Childe said.
    The baron puffed again and looked at the smoke as if it were a suddenly 
realized phantom. He said, "No. Because I don't believe the ghost theory myself. 
Not as Le Garrault expounded it."
    "What do you believe then?"
    "I really don't know," the baron said, shrugging. "Ghosts don't come from 
any universe I am familiar with. Their origin, their modus operandi, are 
mysterious. They exist. They can be dangerous."
    Childe laughed and said, "You mean that vampires and werewolves, or whatever 
the hell they are, fear spooks?"
    The baron shrugged again and said, "Some fear them." Childe wanted to ask 
more questions but decided not to do so. He did not want the baron to know that 
he had found the room with the cameras and the Y-shaped table. It was possible 
that the baron intended to let him go, because he could dispose of the 
incriminating evidence before Childe could get the police here. For this reason, 
Childe did not ask him why Colben and Budler had happened to be his victims. 
Besides, it seemed obvious that Budler had been picked up by one of this group 
as a victim of their "fun." Magda or Vivienne or Mrs. Krautschner, probably, had 
been the woman Colben had seen with Budler. And Colben, following Budler and the 
woman, had been detected and taken prisoner.
    The baron rose and said, "We might as well rejoin the others. From the 
sounds, I'd say the party is far from dead."
    Childe stood up and glanced at the open doorway, through which laughter and 
shrieks and hand-clapping spurted.
    He jumped, and his heart lurched. Dolores del Osorojo was walking by the 
doorway. She turned her head and smiled at him and then was gone.



     
CHAPTER 15
     
    If the baron had seen her, he gave no sign. He bowed slightly and gestured 
Childe to precede him. They went down the hall--no Dolores there--and were back 
in the dining room. O'Faithair was playing wildly on the grand piano. Childe did 
not recognize the music. The others were sitting at the table or on sofas or 
standing by the piano. Glam and the two women had cleared off the table and were 
carrying off the dishes from the sideboards. Mrs. Grasatchow was now drinking 
from a bottle of champagne. Magda Holyani was sitting on an iron skeletal chair, 
her formal floor length skirt pulled up around her waist to expose her perfect 
legs to the garter belt. Dark-red hair stuck out from under the garter belt. A 
half-smoked marijuana cigarette was on the ashtray on the table by her side.
    She was looking through an old-time stereoscope at a photograph. Childe 
pulled her skirt down because the sight of her pubic hairs bothered him, and he 
said, "That's a curious amusement for you. Or is the picture...?"
    She looked up, smiling, and said, "Here. Take a look yourself."
    He placed the stereopticon against his eyes and adjusted the slide holding 
the picture until the details became clear and in three-dimensions. The 
photograph was innocent enough. It showed three men on a sail boat with a 
mountain in the distant foreground. The photograph had been taken close enough 
so that the features of the men could be distinguished.
    "One of them looks like me," he said.
    "That's why I got this album out," she said. She paused, drew in deeply on 
the marijuana, held the smoke in her lungs for a long time, and then puffed out. 
"That's Byron. The others are Shelley and Leigh Hunt."
    "Oh, really," Childe said, still looking at the picture. "But I thought...I 
know it...the camera wasn't invented yet."
    "That's true," Magda said. "That's not a photograph."
    He did not get a chance to ask her to explain, because two enormous white 
arms went around him from behind and lifted him off his feet. Mrs. Grasatchow, 
shrieking with laughter, carried him to a sofa and dropped him on it. He started 
to get up. He was angry enough to hit her, and had his fist cocked, when she 
shoved him back down. She was not only very heavy; she had powerful muscles 
under the fat.
    "Stay there, I want to talk to you and also do other things!" she said.
    He shrugged. She sat down by him, and the sofa sank under her. She held his 
hand and leaned against him and continued the near-monologue she had been 
maintaining at the table. She told him of the men who had lusted after her and 
what she'd done to them. Childe was beginning to feel a little peculiar then. 
Things were not quite focused. He realized that he must be drugged.
    A moment later, he was sure of it. He had seen the baron walk to the doorway 
and looked away for a second. When he looked back, he saw that the baron was 
gone. A bat was flying off down the hallway.
    The change had taken place so quickly that it was as if several frames of 
film had been spliced in.
    Or was it a change? There was nothing to have kept the baron from slipping 
off around the corner and releasing a bat. Or it was possible that there was, 
objectively, no bat, that he was seeing it because he had been drugged and 
because of the suggestions that Igescu was a vampire.
    Childe decided to say nothing about it. Nobody else seemed to have noticed 
it. They were not in shape to have noticed anything except what they were 
concentrating upon. O'Faithair was still playing madly. Bending Grass and Mrs. 
Pocyotl were facing each other, writhing and shuffling in a parody of the latest 
dance. The redhead beauty, Vivienne Mabcrough, was sitting on another sofa with 
Rebecca Ngima, the beautiful Negress. Vivienne was drinking from a goblet in one 
hand while the other was slipped into the front of Ngima's dress. Ngima had her 
hand under Vivienne's dress. Pao, the Chinese, was on his back, his legs bent to 
support Magda, who was standing on his feet and getting ready to do a backward 
flip. She had taken off her shoes and dress and was clad only in her garter 
belt, stockings, and net bra. She steadied herself and then, as Pao shoved 
upwards, soared up and over and landed on her feet. Childe thought that her 
unshod feet would have broken with the impact, but she did not seem to be 
bothered. She laughed and ran forward and did a forward flip over Pao and landed 
in front of a sofa on which Igescu's great-grandmother sat. The old woman 
reached out a claw and ripped off Magda's bra. Magda laughed and pirouetted away 
across the floor.
    The baron had sauntered over to behind the baroness and had leaned over to 
whisper something to her. She smiled and cackled shrilly.
    And then Magda ended her crazy whirl on Childe's lap. His head was pressed 
forward against her breasts. They smelled of a heady perfume and sweat and 
something indefinable.
    Mrs. Grasatchow shoved Magda so vigorously that she fell off Childe's lap 
and onto the floor. She looked up dizzily for a moment, her legs widespread to 
reveal the red-haired slit.
    "He's mine!" Mrs. Grasatchow shrilled. "Mine! You snake-bitch!"
    Magda got to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes uncrossed. She opened her mouth 
and her tongue flickered in and out and she hissed.
    "Stay away!" Mrs. Grasatchow said in a deeper voice. Had she really grunted?
    Glam entered the room. He scowled at Magda. Evidently he did not like to see 
her in the almost-nude and making a play for Childe. But the baron froze him 
with a glare and motioned for him to leave the room.
    "Stay away, huh?" Magda said. "You have no authority over me, pig-woman, nor 
am I afraid of you!"
    "Pigs eat snakes," Mrs. Grasatchow replied. She grunted--yes, she grunted 
this time--and put one flesh-festooned arm over his shoulders and began to unzip 
his fly with the other hand.
    "You've eaten everything and everybody else, but you haven't, and you aren't 
going to, eat this snake," Magda said, spraying saliva.
    Childe looked around and said, "Where are the cameras?"
    "Everything's impromptu tonight," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "Oh, you look so 
much like George."
    Childe presumed that she meant George Gordon, Lord Byron, but he could not 
be sure and he did not care to play her game, anyway.
    He pushed her hand away just as she closed two fingers on his penis, which, 
to his chagrin, was swelling. He felt nothing but repulsion for the fat woman, 
yet a part of him was responding. Or was it seeing Magda and also sharing in the 
general atmosphere of excitement? The drug, which he was sure he had been given, 
was basically responsible, of course.
    Magda sat down on his lap again and put her arms around his neck. Mrs. 
Grasatchow, snarling, raised her hand as if to strike Magda, but she let it drop 
when the baroness called shrilly across the room. At that moment, a pair of 
large doors swung open. Childe, catching the movement at the corner of his eyes, 
turned his head. The baron was standing in the doorway. Behind him was the 
billiard room or a billiard room. It looked much like the first one he had seen. 
The blond youths, Chornkin and Krautschner, were playing.
    The baron advanced across the room and, when a few paces behind Childe, 
said, "The police don't know he's here."
    Childe erupted. He came off the sofa, tossing Magda away and then leaping 
over her and running toward the nearest door. He got to the hallway and was 
jerked violently off his feet, swung around, and pressed close to Glam. The 
great arms made him powerless to do anything except kick. And Glam must have 
been wearing heavy boots under his pants legs. Certainly he acted as if he did 
not feel the kicks. Perhaps he didn't. Childe may have had little strength.
    As if he were a small child, he was led into the room, Glam holding his 
hand. The baron said, "Good. Good for him and good for you. You restrained your 
impulse to kill him. Very commendable, Glam."
    "My reward?" Glam said.
    "You'll get it. A share. As for Magda, if she doesn't want you, and she says 
she doesn't, she can continue to tell you to go to hell. My authority has its 
limits. Besides, you aren't really one of us."
    "You're lucky I haven't killed you, Glam!" Magda said.
    "You have depraved taste, Glam," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "You'd fuck a snake 
if someone held its head, wouldn't you? I've offered you help..."
    "That's enough of that," Igescu said. "You two can play dice or a game of 
billiards for him. But the winner saves a piece for me, understood?"
    "Dice won't take so long," Magda said.
    The baron nodded at Glam, who clamped a hand on Childe's shoulder from 
behind and steered him out of the room. Magda called, "See you soon, lover!"
    Mrs. Grasatchow said, "In a pig's ass, you will!" and Magda laughed and 
said, "He'll be in a pig's ass if you win!"
    "Don't push me too far!" the fat woman shrilled.
    Then Childe was being steered down the hall to its end and around the corner 
and down two flights of stairs. The hall here was of large gray blocks of stone. 
The door before which they halted was of thick black wood with iron bosses 
forming the outline of an archaic and grinning face. Glam shifted his grip from 
the shoulder to the neck and squeezed. Childe thought the blood would be pushed 
out of the top of his head. He went to his knees and leaned his head against the 
wall while his senses, and the pain in his neck, returned. Glam unlocked the 
door, dragged Childe into the room by one hand, and dropped the hand when he 
came to the far wall. He completely undressed the feebly resisting Childe, 
lifted him up and snapped a metal collar shut around his neck. Glam picked up 
the clothes and went out, locking the door behind him.
    There was a single unshaded light in the center of the ceiling. The floor 
was covered with straw and a few blankets. The walls and ceilings were painted a 
light red.
    When his strength came back, Childe found that the metal collar was attached 
by a four-foot-long lightweight chain to an eyebolt sunk into the stone of the 
wall. He looked around but could see nothing to indicate that cameras or eyes 
were on him. The walls and ceiling seemed to be unbroken. However, it was 
possible that one or more of the stones was actually a one-way window.
    There was a rattle at the door. A key clicked in the lock. The door swung 
open. Magda entered. She wore nothing--unless you could count the key in her 
hand. She stood there smiling at him. Suddenly, she whirled. She said, "Who is 
that?" and he got a glimpse of her back, of the egg-shaped hips, as she went 
swiftly into the hall.
    There was a thump and a gasp. Then, silence.
    Childe had no idea of what was happening, but he supposed that Glam or 
Grasatchow had attacked Magda. He had not thought that they would dare, since 
the baron had made it plain exactly how far they might go.
    He waited. A sound as of a bare body being dragged along the stone floor 
came to him. Then, more silence. Then, a whispering. This sound was not that of 
a human voice but the friction of silk against silk.
    He jerked with fright.
    Dolores del Osorojo entered the doorway. With a swirl of skirts, she turned 
and closed the door. She faced him then and advanced slowly toward him, her 
white arms held out to him. She was not transparent or semiopaque. She was as 
solid as young flesh could be. Her black hair and white face and red lips and 
white swelling bust were solid. And sweet.
    Childe was too scared to respond to the arms around him and the breasts and 
lips pressed close to him. He was cold, although her breath was hot and the 
tongue she slid back and forth over his tongue was hot. Warm saliva leaked from 
her mouth over his chin and down his chest. She was panting.
    Childe tried to back away. The wall stopped him. She pressed against him, 
and he lacked the will, or the strength, to try to push her away. He was still 
trembling.
    The woman muttered something in Spanish. He did not understand the words, 
but her tone was intended to be soothing. She backed away and began to undress 
swiftly. The dress slid off, and the three petticoats, and then the knee length 
underwear and the long black stockings and corset. Dolores, in the nude, was a 
magnificent woman. The breasts were full and the nipples, almost as large as the 
ends of his thumbs, pointed upwards slightly. The pubic hair was thick and black 
and a line extended from it upward, like the smoke from a distant fire, to her 
navel. The fluid beginning to soak her hair and run down her leg showed how 
deeply impatient she was.
    Childe, seeing these, felt less afraid. She looked too much of the 
protoplasm, too little of the ectoplasm, for him to believe to the core of his 
mind that she was truly a ghost.
    He was far from being at ease, however. And when he tried his little Spanish 
to ask her if she could release him, he realized that she had no intention of 
letting him loose. Or else she was not able to do so.
    He repeated his request that she get the key from Magda. She shook her head, 
indicating that she would not do so or she did not understand him. Perhaps--he 
hoped--she meant to release him but only after she had gotten what she wanted 
What she wanted, for some reason or other, was Childe.
    Not that it was any mystery about what she wanted. The reason why he was her 
choice was the mystery. At present, he could do nothing to find out.
    She kissed him again and again and finally she began to play with his penis 
while she kissed him. He could not get an erection; the touch of her fingers 
turned his flesh cold as a dying man's, and he shrank from her. He was, 
literally, spooked.
    Finally, she quit kissing him. She backed away again and inspected him with 
stabs of her black eyes and then frowned. But she approached again, speaking in 
soothing but incomprehensible Spanish, and got down on her knees in the straw. 
She took his limp penis into her warm mouth. She began to suck slowly, while the 
tips of her fingers touched the insides of his thighs where the thigh and belly 
met. His flesh began to warm, and the penis, as if the blood, once frozen, had 
suddenly become fluid, began to fill out. The old familiar but never boring 
sensations began to come back. He put his hands on her hair and pulled the high 
comb out and let it flood loose around her shoulders. He moved his hips back and 
forth.
    Suddenly, she had unmouthed his penis and was kissing him again, running her 
tongue around his mouth. Then she took his penis and, rising to her toes, let 
herself down upon it. It slid up into her cunt; she moved back and forth a few 
times, and he came.
    There are orgasms and there are orgasms.
    This was so exquisite that he passed out, very briefly, during the 
ejaculations.
    It was as if she had sparked within the chamber of her cunt, as if a century 
and a half of chastity were loosed along the shaft of his cock. Or as if she had 
generated a current that shot lightning down his nerves. So intense was the 
sensation, he was not sure that he was not burned out--literally. Perhaps 
something electrical had been discharged.
    Childe was restricted to an upright position because of the chain. He told 
the woman, the ghost, or whatever she was, to get the key from Magda, but she 
paid him no attention except to look at him when he was talking. He could not 
understand why she did not get the key, since it was to her advantage to do so. 
And then it occurred to him that she was probably afraid that he would take off 
and leave her. And she did not want that, because she had too much to unloose. 
Or so it seemed to him.
    He was limited in his area of activity and angle of position, but Dolores 
was ingenious. After she had sucked his penis into a full rigidity again, 
drawing in on it with just the reverse action of blowing up a balloon but with 
the direct effect of blowing and had licked off and swallowed the spermatic 
fluid and cleaned off his penis in the process, she released it. She got down on 
her hands and knees and turned away from him and then stood up on her hands, her 
legs spread wide. She let herself fall frontward, toward him, and her feet 
struck the wall on each side of him. After working her way forward on her hands 
a little, she was in the position she wanted. He thought at first of refusing 
her, but after considering that she might leave him locked up if he did, he 
grabbed her hips. His penis went past and under the anus and into the slit and 
she rocked back and forth.
    Like Magda, she could squeeze upon his dong with the muscles of the vaginal 
sheath. He moved only a little, pulling her hips in to him with short savage 
jerks. Within a few seconds, she was shuddering and sobbing, apparently having 
one orgasm on the heels of the next. Her cries were in Spanish. He knew little 
of that, but he could catch, "Oh, holy fucking virgin mother Maria! Oh, father 
of the big cock! Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Shit! Oh, Christ, blessed Jesus, ah, sweet 
Jesus, he's fucking me! Fuck me, blessed flesh! Sweet flesh, fuck me!"
    At that time he did not think about her words; he was just reacting. But he 
would remember and wonder. If she were the daughter of old Don del Osorojo, the 
sheltered daughter of the weird old grandee, she had a surprising vocabulary. 
But then, during a century and a half of hanging around live people, she could 
be expected to pick up words she might not have heard before death. But why 
hadn't she learned English in that time?
    Now, he did not think of what she was saying. He was taking a long time 
coming, so long that he was able to turn her over, or around. Her arms were then 
braced below her, her feet against the wall, her cunt rammed against him, and 
she pushed back and forth while he reached down and rubbed her breasts and 
nipples with his hands. She had strong muscles; she could remain in that 
human-arch position, her head hanging down, and rock back and forth and 
occasionally stab her ass forward with no support of his hands under her hips.
    After what seemed a long time, he jetted. Dolores screamed with the 
crescendo of climaxes. Then she let her feet slide down the wall while he helped 
ease her weight with his hands on her buttocks and then clamped her legs between 
his arms and let her slide on down. On the floor, she lay on her back, panting 
and looking up while spermatic fluid fell drop by drop into her open mouth. Then 
she scooted a little to one side to let the drops fall on her breasts and rubbed 
the sticky stuff over them. The chlorox odor of the fluid and the odor of sweat 
were strong in the chamber.
    When her breathing became normal, Dolores rose and gave him a long tonguey 
spermaticky kiss. Her hand fondled his testicles.
    He turned his head away and said, "No more, Dolores. Or whoever or whatever 
you are."
    His legs trembled. Fucking in bed was demanding enough, but fucking standing 
up took twice as much out of him. And it seemed to him that Dolores had means 
for draining him of more than the normal quota of energy. For a few seconds, she 
had given him energy--he would swear that she had discharged a current down his 
penis--but then the orgasms had been so exquisite that they had opened gates to 
drain the reservoir.
    He had no objective reason for thinking so, but he felt that she had robbed 
him of a certain amount of vital energy and strengthened and solidified herself. 
Certainly, she had seemed flesh enough when he had felt her. But now, she seemed 
to have somehow become even more solid.
    Dolores, seeing him shake so, said something, smiled, and held her finger up 
as if to tell him to wait there. (What the hell else could he do?) And she left 
the room. In a few seconds, she was back with a bottle of red wine and a big 
chunk of filet mignon. (Did she have secret access to the kitchen?) He said no 
to the wine but eagerly ate the meat. Although he had finished supper only a 
half-hour ago, or so it seemed, he was very hungry.
    Dolores tilted the bottle to her lips and drank. Almost, he expected to see 
a dark column going down the throat and into the stomach, as if she were a 
transparent figure in a stomach-acid commercial. But he could see only the 
Adam's apple moving.
    If he was hungry, she was thirsty. She kept the bottle to her lips until it 
was half empty. She may have intended to fully empty it, but a noise came 
through the door, which she had left ajar. Dolores jerked and dropped the 
bottle. It fell on its side and spurted red wine on the straw.
    She bent down and scooped up all her clothes, rolled them into a bundle, 
which she placed under her right arm, and then kissed him swiftly, breathing 
wine and sperm. She ran to the wall on his right; her left hand pushed along the 
juncture of two gray blocks. With a groan and a squeak, a section of wall, 
consisting of blocks six high and four wide, swung inward on the left side. The 
interior was dark. Dolores turned and smiled and threw something that glittered. 
He lunged for it, but the chain jerked him back, cutting off his breath, and the 
object bounced off his fingertips and fell on the straw.
    It was the key to the lock on the metal collar.
    The darkness swallowed Dolores. The section, squeaking and groaning again, 
swung shut.
    A huge head with huge jowls, large purplish eyes, and a high-piled 
blue-black hairdo, came around the corner of the doorway. Mrs. Grasatchow.
    From behind her came excited voices. The fat woman's eyes widened. She 
pushed the door open and waddled across the straw to Childe. He slowly drew back 
the foot he had extended to try to move the key toward him.
    Mrs. Grasatchow sniffed loudly and then screamed, "Jism!" She grunted like a 
sow about to give birth. "Who's been here? Who? Tell me! Who?"
    "Didn't you see her?" Childe said. "She went down the hall!"
    "Who?"
    "Dolores del Osorojo!"
    Mrs. Grasatchow's, skin was naturally pale and made even whiter by her 
powder. But she managed to turn more white.
    The baron, a long cigar in one hand, entered the room. He said, "I thought 
it would be Dolores. Only she..."
    The fat woman whirled swiftly, as graceful as a rhinoceros, which is huge 
but can be very graceful in certain movements.
    "You said...you pooh-poohed Dolores! You said she couldn't be any danger to 
us!"
    The baron looked shrewdly at Childe before answering. He puffed on his cigar 
and said, "It didn't seem likely that she would ever get enough plasm long 
enough to harden it. But I was wrong."
    "What did she do to Magda?" Mrs. Grasatchow said.
    The baron shrugged. "We'll have to ask Magda that when she comes to. If she 
does."
    The doorway was filled with the body of Glam. He carried Magda, still naked, 
in his arms. Her head lolled, her long blonde hair hung down, her arms and legs 
were limp.
    Glam said, "What do I do with her?"
    "Take her upstairs to her room. Put her to bed. Tell Vivienne to look at 
her."
    Glam's expression flickered from stone-mask to something unreadable and back 
to stone-mask. The baron said, "She's defenseless now, true. But if I were you, 
I wouldn't try anything."
    Glam said nothing. He turned and carried the woman off. The two blond 
youths, Chornkin and Krautschner, looked in, each from a side of the doorway.
    "Did you see Dolores?" the baron said.
    They shook their heads. The baron glanced at the section of wall which had 
opened for Dolores. He opened his mouth as if he were going to tell the youths 
where she had gone and to send them after her. But he closed his lips.
    Childe thought that perhaps the baron preferred to keep certain secrets. 
Didn't he trust the two? Or did he think it would be futile to chase after her? 
In any event, he must think that Childe had seen the exit.
    "She has to be flesh enough to fuck," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "Look at the 
redness of his cock and the jism."
    "I can see," the baron said dryly. "Magda's key was gone. Childe, do you 
have it?"
    Childe shook his head. Igescu went to the two youths and they whispered for 
a moment. Then the youths turned their backs to each other and went off down the 
hall, bent over, searching. The baron came back in and said, "Take your eyes off 
his cock, and help me look for that key."
    "Here it is!" Mrs. Grasatchow said.
    She stooped, picked it up, and straightened, groaning. The baron took it and 
put it in his jacket pocket.
    Childe tightened his lips. He had no chance now, unless Dolores came back to 
help him. He doubted that she would. Although she bad thrown the key to him, she 
had not made sure he had had it, and she had had time to do so. The gesture had 
seemed to say that he could escape if he were agile enough and clever enough. 
Perhaps, she was resentful of her long, long frustrating imprisonment in 
incorporeality. She might have wanted him to suffer, too. After all, she had 
taken him, not because of affection or love but because she needed an object to 
relieve herself on.
    But she was partly on his side. That was his only hope, at present.
    The baron left the room, and, in a few seconds, the two youths entered. The 
boy had the key. He unlocked the collar, and he and the girl, each holding 
Childe by an arm, hustled him out of the room. They passed two doors and entered 
the third, which was already open. This was a room the size of the one he had 
just left, but its walls were oak-paneled, the ceiling was painted light blue, 
and the floor was covered with a thick Persian rug profuse with swastikas inside 
circles. There were a number of collars hanging from chains attached to bolts 
sunk into the wall, however. Childe was again held by a metal collar.
    This room must have no secret entrances.
    The baron looked at his wristwatch and said, "We have to do something about 
her. She wasn't dangerous until she got enfleshed. But everything has its 
disadvantage. Now she's dangerous, she's also vulnerable. We can do something 
about her, and we will. I'm going to call a conference."
    Mrs. Grasatchow pouted. She said, "Now Magda's out of the way, I'd 
thought..."
    "Half an hour. No more," Igescu said. "I'll send somebody down to escort 
you. You wouldn't want to be alone on the way up."
    The fat woman started. It was as if a tidal wave were racing through her 
flesh.
    "You mean I...I... have to worry? That I'm in danger?"
    She bellowed with laughter.
    "We all are," the baron said. "All of a sudden, our security is gone. This," 
he stabbed a thumb at Childe, "has something to do with it but I don't know 
what. He's a focus of some sort. Maybe Dolores has been waiting for someone like 
him all these years.
    "Half an hour," he said. "I mean it. And don't use him up. I still want a 
piece of him."
    The baron left, closing the door behind him. Mrs. Grasatchow started to take 
her clothes off. Childe's legs began to shake again.



     
CHAPTER 16
     
    He told her that she was wasting her time. He did not tell, her that, even 
if he had not been drained and weakened, he would have been unable to respond 
positively to her. The enormous hanging breasts, the tremendous belly, which 
curved out and overhung the genitals so far that they could not be seen in the 
shadows and folds, the hips, sackish with fat, the tree-trunk legs, repulsed 
him. He doubted that he could have gotten a hard-on even if he were in full 
strength and had not had an emission for a month.
    Mrs. Grasatchow said, "That spook-bitch sucked you dry, heh?" And then she 
laughed. She was close to him; the blast of alcohol made him feel like vomiting. 
There must be almost two gallons in that pony-sized gut.
    She had brought into the room a large bear-skin-purse and a bottle of wine 
and a bottle of Scotch. She poured the wine over his belly and genitals and then 
got on her knees and licked them off. He did not respond.
    She came up off her knees like a boulder tossed up by a volcanic explosion. 
Her hand struck him on the side of his jaw. He saw comets and fell back, 
half-unconscious, against the wall.
    "You little asshole!" she screamed. "You may look like George, but you sure 
aren't the man he was!"
    She waddled to her purse and took out a silvery cone about two inches long. 
"This will put some life into you! Once it's in you!"
    Grinning, she approached him. He shrank back against the wall and then 
leaped out at her, striking at her. Laughing, she caught his wrist and turned it 
until he cried out in agony and sank to his knees as far as the chain would 
allow. Choking; he tried to stand up again, but she forced him down until he was 
almost unconscious again.
    He regained his senses to find himself turned around, his face to the wall. 
Something--he knew it was the cone--was being shoved up his anus.
    "You've never had anything like this, little man!" she crooned. "Never! 
You'll not forget this night, as long as you live! Oh, little man, I wish I were 
you just now, so I could fuck me!"
    The cone burned at first and made him feel as if he had to shit. After about 
half a minute, it seemed to turn icy and to become heavy, as if it were a lead 
sinker just removed from a freezer. The coldness and heaviness spread out, up 
his intestines, coil after coil, like a snake racing ahead of the Ice Age but 
too slow, into his testicles, which became bells ringing with chilliness, into 
his solar plexus, and, at the other terminus, into his penis. Liquid nitrogen 
pumping into every tube of his body.
    He squirmed as the stuff fell down the shafts of his legs and flapped slowly 
spiraling up the shaft of his trunk. The powerful bands of the fat woman 
tightened, and she said, "Quiet, little lover. This won't hurt you, and you'll 
be a man such as you never were!"
    The icy weight lapped at the base of his brain. His neckbones and hindbrain 
felt crystallized. He could distinguish each vertebra and each cell of the 
cerebellum as a frozen entity. He could also feel the individual vessels of his 
penis slowly filling with half-frozen blood. By then, Mrs. Grasatchow had turned 
him around again and was down on her elephantine knees and sucking on his penis. 
She grunted as if she were a sow tearing into a corncob, but, as far as he could 
detect, he was being treated gently enough. Her jaws did not move, only her 
lips, shaped around the glands, moved. He could feel nothing. He might as well 
have had a hundred local shots of morphine over his body and one massive shot in 
his penis. But if his brain was receiving no tactile message, part of his body 
was. The penis, like an independent creature, a leech stuck in her mouth and 
drawing blood from her tongue, was gradually filling up.
    When she felt that it was as swollen and rigid as it could be, she stood up. 
She said, "You're not going any place, not now!" She unlocked the collar and put 
the key in her purse. He tried to run from her to the door, but his legs would 
not move.
    She lay down on the floor and spread her thighs open--it was like the Red 
Sea splitting to make passage for the horde of Moses--and she said, "Eat me!"
    Obediently, although his frozen brain tried to push out a message of 
resistance to his nerves, he got down and spread the slit open and prepared to 
tongue the clitoris first, as was his habit.
    She said, "No, idiot! The other way! Sixty-nine!"
    He crawled up onto her and swiveled around. She took in his penis until his 
hairs pressed against her lips. He could not feel this, but he looked through 
the space that existed briefly between their bodies and saw the hairs and the 
narrow band of the root. He flicked the tip of his tongue over the "little 
penis." A "little penis" this clitoris was. He had never seen such an enormous 
one. He did have some difficulty getting to it, however, because her belly was 
so huge. It was like having to curve over a hill, hanging upside down, to lick 
at a spring in a crevasse at the bottom of the hill.
    The worst of it was, he felt no sexual stimulation, only disgust. But he had 
to do exactly as she said, and his organs, outside of the brain, must be 
responding to some sensory input.
    At another order, he withdrew his penis from her mouth and turned around and 
inserted it into her vagina. He began pumping slowly but soon speeded up in 
response to her command. She began groaning and moaning, turning her head from 
side to side, crying out in a foreign language, rolling the great hips sideways 
and then thrusting and now and then lifting herself up from the waist and 
grabbing his buttocks and pulling and pushing him.
    He did not know how long they were in this position nor whether or not he 
had an orgasm. But the time came when she rolled him off her, the uncoupling 
wetly announcing itself, and got above him and eased herself down upon his penis 
and moved the great body as lightly and swiftly as a toy balloon on the end of a 
string. After what seemed to be a hundred orgasms, judging by her number of 
frenzies, she got off him and went to the corner after her bottle of whiskey. He 
seemed able to move a little of his own volition, so he turned to watch her. She 
sat on the rug, leaning against the wall, looking like an over-yeasted mass of 
dough.
    Childe became aware that he was gasping. He could hear his breath rattling 
in and out, but he could not feel the thudding of heart nor the moving of his 
ribs.
    Mrs. Grasatchow downed at least a fourth of the quart and then looked at her 
wristwatch.
    "Forty-five minutes," she said. "Igescu will be furious." 
    She heaved herself up and said, "Hmm! What's wrong? He said he'd send 
somebody after me."
    She opened the door and looked down the hallway. Childe tried to run toward 
her then, hoping to knock her down with his momentum and get away down the hall. 
He only managed, after a seemingly long time, to get to his feet. If he had 
exerted himself prodigiously, he did not know it. Reception from his muscles was 
still cut off.
    On seeing him move, the woman's eyebrows went up, and she said, "Do you feel 
that suppository burning now?"
    "No," he said. "It's still cold and heavy."
    "You'll feel it in a moment. You'll think a hot-air balloon is going up your 
ass!"
    A laughquake shook her. Afterward, she said, "That stuff has a very peculiar 
effect. You didn't feel anything while you were fucking me, but wait. I wish I 
could take advantage of you then, but you'll have to enjoy yourself with 
yourself."
    She looked at her wristwatch again. "Maybe I won't go. I think Igescu has 
forgotten me. Or he knows I'll be very angry indeed if I don't get all of you. 
Now, you just stand right there, little Georgey Porgey Pudding Pie. I'll fix you 
up again, and double the effect. I don't want you acting up on me."
    As if a bore tide had reversed and was running back to sea, the coldness and 
heaviness became warmth and lightness. The second effect started where the first 
had ended, in the brain and the tip of his glands. The warmth and lightness 
raced inward from all borders and met in the region of the cone, in his anus, 
where, for a second, it burned as if a meteorite had just ended its fiery curve 
there.
    He cried out with the pain.
    The fat woman said, "Oh, oh! It's happened!" and she charged, one hand open 
to grab him and another cone in the other hand. She seemed to grow as large as 
the wall. Her flesh shook like a loose robe in a stiff wind. Childe launched 
himself at her, his hands out to grab her ears, because he meant to tear them 
off. He would have to fight savagely to get past her to the door. Even when he 
had his full strength, he would have been outmuscled by her, not to mention 
outweighed.
    His hands caught her ears, and his face thrust into one breast as violently 
"as if he had been dropped from the ceiling onto her. She screamed, because he 
had bitten down on the excrescence suddenly appearing between his teeth. It was- 
her nipple, as he found out when he got up from the floor where she had thrown 
him. He spat out the piece of flesh--the nipple and some white skin around 
it--and rose shakily. She was still screaming and rolling back and forth and 
clutching her mutilated breast.
    Childe did not wait to completely recover from the impact of the floor. 
Fighting dizziness and a pain in his shoulder, he kicked her between her legs as 
she started to roll toward him. His big toe disappeared momentarily in her slit. 
She screamed again. A flailing arm knocked his leg out from under him. He fell 
crosswise on top of her belly. She clamped her arms down on his buttocks and 
then one hand slid down to grab his testicles. With a desperate jerk, he turned 
over to face her, still crosswise, seized a breast, and twisted.
    Her arms came up; she screamed again. Childe rolled away across her belly 
and down her legs. It was like rolling down a small hill. He got out of the way 
of her kicking legs and leaped up and came down with both bare feet on her face. 
Her head was driven back against the floor; her nose was smashed; blood burst; 
her eyes crossed.
    Again, he leaped and came down with both feet on her belly. He sank deep. 
Her wind whooshed out, as if somebody had opened a big door to a distillery with 
a strong cross-draft. He almost gagged. But he jumped a third time, once more on 
her face. Her nose became even flatter. Her eyes rolled up until only the whites 
showed. Her mouth was wide open, braced like a sail against the wind of her 
agony to get her breath back.
    And, at that moment, the cone reversed its effect. It was as if the entire 
coition with her had been recorded with a glass window between himself and his 
nerve endings. He could see but could not hear. Now, the glass was gone, and he 
could hear the rerun. With this difference.
    He was no longer frozen. He now felt everything exquisitely; he could feel 
his cock in her mouth and between her breasts and in her cunt, even though they 
were no longer there.
    During the fight, though he had not been aware of it, he had had an 
erection. Now, he jetted, and the delayed-reaction orgasm stormed his body. He 
fell to the floor and writhed helplessly, if ecstatically, in its lightnings. 
There was nothing else, for the moment, he could do.



     
CHAPTER 17
     
    When he could regain control, he got up and staggered toward the door. 
Although his penis no longer spouted, it remained as hard as before and did not 
have the delicious emptied-to-good-purpose feeling of an after-orgasm. It did 
feel pleasurable, increasingly pleasurable, as if he were again working up to 
coition. He could, however, ignore it for the present.
    Mrs. Grasatchow still lay on her back, arms and legs outflung, her mouth 
open, and her eyes open and showing white, as if hardboiled eggs had been 
stuffed into the sockets.
    He noticed a large turd spread out on the rug between him and Mrs. 
Grasatchow. So, he had been "scared shitless" sometime during the fight. He had 
not known when he spurted out the excrement; it did not matter. He was sure that 
he had expelled the turd and not she, although it was possible that she had when 
he had jumped on her face. It was, however, so far from her that he doubted it.
    Gingerly stepping by the turd, he walked to her purse, which was near the 
door. In it he found the key to the door. She had locked the door after looking 
down the hallway the last time. He unlocked it and, carrying her purse, went 
down the hall toward the room in which he had originally been imprisoned.
    First, though he hated the idea of any delay, he had to investigate the 
other rooms along the hall. There was always the chance of other prisoners 
there. Perhaps Sybil was in one. Six doors were closed. Three were unlocked and 
contained not much of interest. Three opened to the key from the fat woman's 
purse.
    The first two were small rooms with padded walls and floor. The third 
contained some furniture, modern Danish, with a color TV set, a well-stocked 
bar, a pool table, and cartons of cigarettes and cigars and boxes of marijuana 
sticks and bottles with pills of various sizes, shapes, and colors. It looked as 
if it might be a rest room or recreation room. The occupants could relax here 
between their working bouts in the other room. There was also a large bureau 
with a mirror, which he did not think was one-way. The top of it was crowded 
with cosmetics and held some wigs.
    He opened the drawers, hoping to find some clothes he could wear. Before he 
could examine one, he was overcome with another semi-epileptic orgasm and jetted 
over the clothes in the top drawer. There was a washroom which he used to clean 
his genitals, face and hands, and his mouth. He drank several glasses of water 
and returned to the bureau.
    There were some T-shirts and gym shorts. He found some that were near enough 
to his size and put them on. Then it occurred to him that he was going to have 
another ejaculation soon and would be very uncomfortable. It was either that or 
stick his cock out. He decided on the latter, although he felt ridiculous. And 
he looked ridiculous in the mirror. A knight with a stubby delicate lance. Some 
knight! Some detective! A private dick become public.
    There were some socks but no shoes. He put the socks on and continued his 
search. If only a weapon were here. No luck. Too much to hope for, of course. 
The two lower drawers were crammed with flat transparent plastic envelopes 
containing something unidentifiable. He opened one and shook out the contents. 
It fluttered out like a transparent flag to a length of about six feet. It had 
four extensions, a thick mass of hair on one end, and a circular patch of hair 
in the middle. Just beside the thick mass of hair was a small red valve like 
that on a child's plastic inflatable swimming pool. He blew it up and felt 
weakened by the exertion before he had completed the job.
    After seeing what he had, he was horrified, although he had suspected what 
the result would be.
    Somehow, Colben's skin had been stripped from his body and made into a 
balloon. The apertures: earholes, mouth, anus, and the mutilated penis, had been 
sewn over with flaps of skin. His eyes had been painted blue, and the mouth was 
painted with a facsimile of labial red. The pubic hairs were still attached, and 
these, together with the sewed fold between his legs, gave him a womanish 
appearance.
    Childe did not have time to deflate him. He pushed him sailing away, and 
frantically removed the contents of the other envelopes. One was the head of 
Budler. He presumed that the wolf in the film had eaten the rest of Budler or so 
mangled it that it could not be used for a balloon. His head went spinning over 
and over toward the corner, where Colben, turned upside down by the weight of 
his hair, and the valve on the back of his neck, stood on his head.
    There were a number of women, only four of whom had the right length or 
color of hair for Sybil. Despite this, he inflated all of them. When he had 
blown up the last one, he was panting as if he had run a half-mile through the 
smog. The effort was only partly responsible. He had been so certain that the 
last one would have Sybil's features.
    He sat down and sipped on another glass of water. There were thirty-eight 
skins at one end of the room. Most of them were upside down, but a few had 
fallen against the others and leaned one way or another. The light from a lamp 
in the corner shone through many of them so that they seemed a mob of drunken 
ghosts. The draft from the air-conditioning moved them back and forth a little 
as if they were phantoms of the drowned.
    Thirty-eight. Twenty-five males. Thirteen females. Of the males, fifteen 
were Caucasians, seven were Negroes, three were Mongolians or Indians. Of the 
females, nine were Caucasians and four were Negresses.
    All were adult. If any had been children, he would not have been able to 
endure it. He would have run screaming down the hall. He thought he was tough, 
but he would not have been able to stand the sight of the inflated skins of 
children.
    As it was, he was angry and sick. More angry than sick at the moment. What 
were they planning on doing with these...these corpse-balloons? Fill them with 
hydrogen and send them flying over Los Angeles?
    That was probably exactly what they would do. It would be on a par, no, 
would surpass, the effrontery of the films.
    He rose and took a bottle of vodka by the neck and went back to the doorway 
of the room in which he had left Mrs. Grasatchow. She was sitting up and 
vomiting. Blood was still trickling from her nostrils. On seeing Childe, she 
snarled and managed to lift herself to her feet. Blood and vomit smeared her 
immense belly.
    "You'll beg me to kill you!" she screamed.
    "Why will I?" he said. He stepped inside the room. "Before I kill you, I 
want you to tell me why you did that to all those people? And why did you strip 
off their skins?"
    "I'll rip your balls off!" she shouted. She charged him then; he braced 
himself, the bottle lifted high. But she stepped on the turd and her feet shot 
up and ahead of her and she fell heavily on her back. She lay there, groaning 
but seemingly knocked out. He hit her, once, on the side of her head with the 
bottle she had dropped and then locked the door to the room. The bottle in one 
hand and her purse on the other arm, and his penis sticking out--what a hero I 
make! he thought--he entered the room in which he had first been chained.
    But he came out of it at once and went into the recreation room. He needed 
evidence. The police wouldn't believe much of his story after he told it, but 
they would have to believe that a part of it was true when he showed them Colben 
and Budler. And another picked at random who might turn out to have been 
reported missing.
    The deflation was as ghastly as he had expected. The air hissed out, and 
Budler and the woman shrank like the witch on whom Dorothy had thrown water. But 
Colben--he always was slippery--got away and shot around the room, butting into 
several of the phantoms and knocking them heads over heels. He came to rest 
draped over the bar. Childe pulled him off the bar then as he had pulled him 
away several times when he was living. He rolled him up and stuffed him into the 
purse on top of Budler's head and the red-headed woman.
    The section of wall opened for him after a number of experiments of running 
his hand along the juncture of the blocks which Dolores had pressed. He stepped 
inside with a pencil-flashlight taken from the purse. The section swung shut 
behind him, and he began walking slowly. The passageway was warm and dusty and 
narrow. It led past several rooms, each of which had a one-way mirror but no 
entrance that he could detect. They were similar to those lining the other 
hallway. A stairway confronted him. He walked up this uneasily, although he did 
not think that it could be a trap, since he was so deep in the earth. But he 
could not be sure. At the top, he was in a passageway which offered him two 
routes. There were prints in the dust, a long pointed shoeprint which he 
presumed was the baron's and those of a dog's or a wolf's. The latest led to his 
right, so he decided to follow them. One way was as good as another; and 
something had to decide him.
    His flashlight showed him several squares in the walls. When he opened 
these, he saw through one-way mirrors into a number of rooms, one of which he 
thought he remembered. It was a Louis Quatorze bedroom, but it did not seem 
quite like the one he remembered. It did have an entrance through the paneling. 
He took it and after stepping softly around it and looking into the bathroom, 
knew this was not the same room. The queer disturbing mirror was missing. He 
started to open the door to look out into the next room or the hallway but 
thought better of it. He placed his ear against the wood and was glad that he 
had done so. The murmur of voices came through the wood.
    The keyhole let him hear more clearly but not clearly enough. After turning 
off all the lights in the room, he turned the knob carefully and eased the door 
open. The voices came from the end of the hall. He could see partway down it but 
not far enough to see the speakers. The voices were identifiable, except for 
two. These could be Chornkin's and Krautschner's, since they had not spoken when 
introduced or at the dinner table. They could also be those of newcomers.
    "...much energy from Magda, as I said before," Igescu was saying loudly. He 
seemed angered and, perhaps, a little frightened. "I think Dolores had gathered 
enough around her to take tangible and enduring shape, enough to render Magda 
powerless for a moment and suck her almost dry. She didn't kill Magda but she 
came damn close. And then Glam, that damn fool! he deserved what he got! But 
then what can you expect from his kind? Glam fucked her, although I'd warned him 
often enough what might happen. I think be thought he was safe. But the very act 
of fucking gave her energy enough; she came to and found Glam in her, how she 
hated him! And you saw Glam!"
    The strange male voice interrupted softly. Childe could not understand what 
he was saying. Igescu's reply was loud enough.
    "Yes, Magda got the energy but not enough! She's stuck in stasis, and she 
won't get out unless she kills another! Which will mean someone here, in this 
house!"
    The strange female voice spoke then; it was even softer than the male's. 
Igescu said, "Childe would do it! I had other plans for him, but I can give them 
up! We have to find Magda first and get her to Childe! Otherwise...!"
    "Dolores?" Mrs. Pocyotl said.
    Childe could almost see the baron's shrug. The baron said, "Who knows? She's 
X! A dangerous X! If she can do that to Magda, she can do that to any of us. But 
I doubt that she could attack more than one of us at a time and I think she'd 
have to surprise us, just as she must have surprised Magda! So, we'd better hang 
together, as...
    A shout interrupted him. Footsteps sounded. The group was going around the 
corner and down the stairs to the cause of commotion. More shouts. He swung the 
door wider and peeped down the hall. The only one there was Bending Grass, who 
leaned his stocky form against the wall and cocked his head to look down the 
stairway. Then somebody called his name and he disappeared.
    Childe ran down the hallway to the only door opened. This was by the head of 
the steps, and the group had been assembled outside it. He stuck his head in. 
The room was strange, looked more like a movie director's idea of a Turkish 
harem than anything else. There were rugs and drapes and cushions and ottomans 
and even a hookah and a dresser so low that Magda must have had to sit 
cross-legged while she looked in the mirror. There was a marble-lined bath sunk 
level with the floor. It was almost large enough to qualify as a small swimming 
pool. Beyond it was a low marble enclosure which presumably had served Magda as 
a bed, since it was piled with cushions and pillows and canopied with many silk 
veils.
    Glam's black soft-leather boots stuck out over the enclosure. Childe walked 
swiftly in, past the bath, which was full of cold water, and looked over the 
marble railing. Glam had died with his boots on. Also, his pants. He had 
stripped off his shirt and undershirt and pulled his pants down around his 
knees, but he had been too eager to bother taking all of his clothes off.
    There was blood on his pants and much blood on his body. Blood had spurted 
out from his ears, nostrils, eyes, mouth, anus, and penis. Something had 
violently squeezed him. The ribs were caved in; the arms were flattened; the hip 
bones had been pushed inward toward each other. Not only blood had been expelled 
from every aperture. The contents of the bowels and about six feet of the bowels 
themselves had been pressed out of his anus.
    Near the bed, a section of wall stood open. Whether Magda had taken this or 
Igescu had opened it to see if she had taken it, Childe could not know. But he 
could not linger long here; his route of escape was suddenly no longer a matter 
of choice. Voices announced the return of the others. He might have had time to 
slip back through the door and up the hallway, but he did not dare chance it. He 
went through the opening in the wall.
    Before he had taken a dozen steps, he was seized. He groaned with a 
despairing ecstasy and braced himself with both hands against the walls while he 
spouted and shook. Afterward, he cursed, but he could do nothing about his 
condition. He walked on. His penis still stuck straight out and slightly at an 
upward angle, like the bowsprit of a ship. The cone was working within him. God 
knew how long its effect lasted, how long it would take to melt entirely away.
    Almost, he decided to hide in the passageway near, the still open panel and 
eavesdrop. But every second he was in this house meant recapture and death, and 
he was frightened because of what had happened to Glam and of what the others 
had said about Magda. Frightened was not strong enough. He was close to panic. 
And this was strange, because the terror should have taken from him any sexual 
stimulation whatsoever. Under these circumstances, he should have been unable to 
retain an erection.
    But there it was, independent of his other feelings, as if a switch had been 
thrown to place his genitals on a separate circuit. The cone, whatever it was, 
must not only be the prime mover of his state, it must also be the prime feeder. 
It had to be furnishing the energy to keep manufacturing all this spermatic 
fluid at such an extraordinary rate of speed. Generally, when unusually 
stimulated, when first in love, or sometimes when the marijuana hit him just 
right, he could have three or four orgasms within several hours. But, usually, 
one or two in an hour, and he was done for four or five hours. He had sometimes 
twitted himself with being the most undersexed private eye in history, without, 
of course, really believing his self-deprecation. But now, he seemed to be a 
fountain with a never-ending reservoir. And, of course, he would be so in a 
situation where it was the last thing he wanted.
    Thus, when he thought he was far enough away from the paneling, he turned on 
the flashlight. And he saw the white figure of Dolores coming toward him. Her 
arms were open and she was smiling. Her eyes were half-lidded but bright, and 
two patches of wetness shone on her thighs. It seemed to be his misfortune to 
encounter over lubricating women. However, after a century and a half of 
enforced abstinence, she could not be blamed.
    She barred his way. She was solid flesh enough, no man knew that better than 
he, yet he hesitated to attack her. The fate of Magda was warning enough. 
Moreover, there was the chance that if he did what she wanted, he might work off 
the effect of the cone. It was just possible. And he thought that he probably 
had no choice, anyway. So he put down his purse, turned off the flashlight, and 
dropped his pants. She pulled him down on her and he put his penis in swiftly 
and began to thrust without preliminaries of any kind. He had hoped that he 
would come at once, but even though he now had her soft wet flesh around his 
penis, and though the pleasure was somewhat heightened, he was unable to 
disengage himself from the automatic effects of the cone.
    At length he came and then, when; he tried to pull himself away, he found 
himself unable to. Her arms looked feminine and soft enough and felt so, but she 
had the strength of a python in each.
    Thinking of pythons made him think of Magda, and he became even more 
alarmed. If she came upon them now, she would have him helpless...those 
coils...Glam...He shuddered even as he began to pump again. His skin had turned 
cold and his hairs felt as if they were bristling in the static of terror. His 
anus was a dot of ice, a bull's eye for Magda if she crawled up behind him and 
raised her head to unloose a hammer stroke.
    He groaned and muttered, "I must be out of my mind, I'm really believing 
that crap!" and then he groaned again, this time because he was coming once 
more.
    It was no use. Lying with Dolores was not canceling or even diminishing the 
effects of the cone. And he was certainly not stupid enough to bang away at her 
for the sheer pleasure of it while his life was in danger. Especially since he 
had had enough of this "pleasure" to last him for a long time.
    He tried to break loose. Her arms did not tighten, but they also did not 
relax. He was not going to get out until he had satisfied her or was unable to 
keep an erection, and she was not going to be satisfied for a long time and he 
did not know how long he would last, but he suspected that it would be for hours 
and hours.
    Remembering what he had done to Mrs. Grasatchow during the fight, he bit 
down upon Dolores' nipple. His bite did not take the nipple off, but it was 
painful enough to cause her to open her arms and to scream. He was out of her 
embrace and had jumped away to where she could not reach him, pulled up his 
pants, stooped to pick up the flashlight and purse, and was running down the 
passageway, before she had stopped screaming.
    The noise, of course, would be heard in Magda's room if the paneling were 
still open, and they would be investigating. His flashlight beam bounced up and 
down and then went off into darkness at a corner. He stopped and probed around. 
Apparently, he was at a dead end, but he did not believe it. Shouts behind him 
sent him into a frenzy of tapping and poking against the wall to activate 
whatever mechanism moved this section. He felt somebody brush his shoulder, 
somebody spoke in Spanish, and a white arm reached past him and touched a 
cornice. Another arm pushed in on another cornice. The blank wall became a blank 
darkness in which the thin beam was lost. A hand pushed him on through--he 
seemed to be paralyzed for a few seconds--and then he turned just in time to see 
the section swing back into place. Beyond, the beam from a large flashlight 
flicked into existence.
    A hand, still sticky from playing with his penis, slipped into his and the 
white figure led him down a passageway and up a flight of steps. The dust was 
thick here; he sneezed resoundingly several times. Igescu would have no trouble 
following them because of their newly made footprints. They had to get out of 
the secret ways, for a while, anyway.
    Dolores, whose footprints were as clear as his, seemed to realize that they 
betrayed them. She stopped before a wall, unfastened several latches and slid 
back the section. They stepped into a room with gray-and-white marble walls, red 
marble ceiling, black-and-red marble floor, and furniture of white or black 
marble. The chandelier was a mobile composed of thin curved pieces of colored 
marble with sockets for candles.
    Dolores led him across the room. She had dropped his hand and her right hand 
was pressed against her breast, which must hurt very much. Her face was 
expressionless, but the hot black eyes seemed to promise him revenge. If she had 
wanted it, she could have abandoned him in the passageway, he thought. Perhaps 
she wanted to take revenge personally.
    He caught a glimpse of them as they passed a tall mirror. They looked like 
two lovers who had been interrupted in bed and who were fleeing a jealous 
husband. She was naked, and his penis, still wet and tipped with a globule of 
spermatic fluid, was projecting from his fly. They looked comical enough; the 
purse added an incongruous, doubtful, touch.
    There was nothing comical about the pack behind them. He crowded on Dolores' 
heels and urged her to go faster. She said something and half-ran through the 
door and down a luxurious hall with thick carpeting. Near the end of the hall, 
by a curving stairway with marble steps and a carved mahogany handrail, she 
pushed open another door. There was a suite of four rooms done in opulent 
Edwardian style. The bedroom contained the entrance to the intramural 
passageway; a bookcase slid aside to reveal an iron gate of two sections secured 
by a combination lock. Dolores turned the dial swiftly as if she had much 
practice with it. The two sections of gate were pushed aside. When they were on 
the other side, she pushed them together and spun the combination dial on this 
side. Apparently, this action activated a mechanism, because the bookcase slid 
back into place. The light through the opening had shown him that they were not 
in a passageway but in a small room. Cool air moved past him. Dolores turned on 
a lamp. He saw several chairs, a bed, a TV set, a bar, a dresser with mirror, 
books, and cabinets. The cabinets held cans of food and delicacies; one cabinet 
was the door to a well-stocked refrigerator. A door off the room led to a 
bathroom and a closet full of clothes. Igescu could hide here for a long time if 
he wished.
    Dolores spoke in Spanish, slowly. He understood the simple sentence. "Here 
we are safe for a while."
    "About my biting you, Dolores," he said. "I had to. I must get out of here."
    She paid him no attention. She looked at her breast in the mirror and 
murmured something. Teeth marks and a red aureole ringed the nipple. She turned 
and shook her finger at him and then smiled, and he understood that she was 
gently reprimanding him for being over passionate. He must not bite her again. 
After which warning, she took his hand and pulled him toward the bed.
    He lunged away, tearing loose from her grip, and said, "Nothing doing! Show 
me the way out of here! Vamanos! Pronto!"
    He began "to inspect the walls. She spoke slowly behind him. Her words were 
clear and simple enough. If he would stay for a little, he would be shown the 
way out. But no more biting.
    "No more nothing," he said. He found the control, a piece of corner carving 
which could be moved on a pivot. The dresser moved out on one side. He went 
through while Dolores yelled at him from the room. She sounded so much like 
Sybil giving him hell, although he understood not a word, that he was able to 
ignore her. He carried a sharp-edged rapier, one of a set on the wall, in one 
hand and the flashlight in the other. The handle of the purse was over his left 
shoulder. The sword gave him confidence. He did not feel so helpless now. In 
fact, if he got a chance, he would leave the passageway and walk out the front 
door and if they got in his way, they would get the blade where it would do them 
the least good and him the most.
    The way out did not come easily, however. The passageway ran into a stairway 
which led steeply upward into the shadows. He backtracked to look for one-way 
windows or entrances to rooms but could find no unlocking controls. He returned 
to the stairway, which he walked up with as little weight on his feet as 
possible, He stuck the sword through his belt and held the flashlight in his 
teeth while he braced his arms against the walls. If the stairway straightened 
out, it would not drop him down a chutey-chute.
    The stairs held, and he was on a narrow landing. The door was easily opened 
by a conventional knob. He stepped cautiously out into a curving-walled room 
with a great window lit by the moon, a dim pale eye in the haze. Looking through 
the window, he saw the yard and trees and driveway at the front of the central 
portion. He was in the cupola on the left wing, just beside the original Spanish 
building. It contained three rooms, two of which were empty. The door to the 
third was part way open, and light streamed through it. He crouched by it and 
slowly extended his head, then had to withdraw it while he shook and spurted and 
clenched his teeth and clamped his lips to keep from groaning.



     
CHAPTER 18
     
    Afterward, he looked through the doorway again. The baron's 
great-grandmother was sitting on a high stool before a high table with a sloping 
top, such as old-time bookkeepers (Bob Cratchit) used when they wrote accounts 
(for Ebenezer Scrooge). He could not see what was on the table except that it 
was a large paper of some sort. Her jaws were moving, and now and then he could 
hear something but could not tell if the words were English or not. The only 
light was from a single lamp suspended from the ceiling directly overhead. It 
dimly showed walls with large, thick, black painted symbols, none of which he 
recognized; a long table with racks of bottles containing fluids; a globe of 
Earth with all sorts of curlicues painted in thin lines over it, sitting at the 
end of the table; a large birdcage on a stand in one corner with a raven, its 
head stuck under a wing; and a robe hanging on a hook on the wall.
    After a few minutes of muttering, the baroness got down off the stool. Her 
bones snapped and creaked, and he did not think she would make it to the robe, 
she shuffled so slowly and shakily. But she got the robe down and put it on with 
some difficulty and then proceeded with one foot dragging after the other toward 
the long table. She stooped, groaning, and straightened up with more creakings 
and with an enormous book in her arms which she had taken off a shelf beneath 
the table.
    It did not seem likely that she could get far with this additional burden, 
but she made it, huffing and creaking and even lifted the book above her head to 
slide it over the front of the tilted-top table. The book slid down until 
stopped by a strip of wood fixed horizontally halfway up the top. Another strip 
at the lower edge of the top kept the paper from falling off. He could see that 
it was a map of the Los Angeles area, just like the maps service stations give 
to their customers.
    His view of it was blocked by the baroness, who climbed back upon the stool, 
swaying so that he once started to go after her to catch her. She did not fall, 
and he settled back, asking himself what he cared if she fell. But conditioning 
took over at the oddest moments, and he had been taught to be kind and 
respectful to old ladies.
    The back of the robe was white with a number of large black symbols, some of 
which duplicated those on the wall. The old woman lifted her arms to flap the 
wide sleeves as if she were an ancient bird about to make a final flight. She 
began chanting loudly in a foreign tongue which sounded like that used at times 
by others in the household. Her arms waved; a large gold ring on a finger 
glinted dully at times, seeming like an eye winking at him.
    After a while she quit chanting and clambered down off the stool again. She 
tottered to the table and mixed up several of the fluids in the bottles in a 
glass and drank the contents. She belched loudly; he jumped at its loudness and 
unexpectedness. She got back on the stool and began to turn the pages of the 
huge book and, apparently, read a few phrases from each page.
    Childe guessed that he was looking upon a genuine magical ritual, genuine in 
that the witch believed in her magic. What its object was, he did not know. But 
he felt chilled when he suddenly thought that perhaps she was trying to locate 
or influence him by means of this ritual. Not that he believed she could. It was 
just that he did not like the idea. At another time and under different 
circumstances, he would have laughed. Too much had happened tonight, however, 
for him to make light of anything in this house.
    Nor did he have any reason to crouch here in the doorway as if waiting to be 
born. He had to get out, and the only way was past the baroness. There was a 
door beyond the table; that door, as far as be knew, was the sole exit from the 
cupola, except for the way by which he had come. That door probably led to a 
hallway which would lead to a stairway to the lower floors or to a window to the 
top of a porch.
    He doubted that he could get by her without being seen. He would have to 
knock her out or, if necessary, kill her. There was no reason why he should be 
gentle. She had to know what was going on here and probably had participated in 
her younger days or, for all he knew, still did.
    Sword in hand, he stood up and walked slowly toward her. Then he stopped. 
Above her, a very thin haze, greenish-gray, shapeless with some short curling 
tentacles, had appeared. It could be accounted for if she were smoking. She was 
not. And the haze grew thicker and spread out sideways and down but not upward.
    Childe tried to blink it away. The smoke flowed over her gray Psyche knot of 
hair and down her neck and over the shoulders of the robe. She was chanting even 
more loudly and turning the pages of the book more swiftly. She could not be 
looking up to read the book; her head was bent so far forward that she had to be 
staring at the map.
    Childe felt a little disoriented again. It was as if something were wrong 
with the world, however, not with him. Then he shook his head and decided to 
tiptoe by her if he could. She seemed so intent, she might not see him. If the 
smoke grew thicker, that is, if there indeed was smoke and he was not suffering 
another hallucination, he would be hidden from her.
    The smoke did expand and become denser. She was sitting in a ragged column 
of it. And she was suddenly coughing. Smoke blew out of the way of her breath 
and then coiled back in to fill the gap. He caught a whiff of a tendril and 
stepped back. It was acrid, burning, filled with the essence of a million 
automobile exhausts and smokestack products of chemical factories and 
refineries.
    By now, he was opposite her and could see that the cloud had spread downward 
and was beginning to cover the map.
    She looked up, as if she had suddenly detected his presence. She squalled 
and fell backward off the stool but whirled and landed on all fours and then was 
up and running toward the doorway through which he had just come. He was 
startled for a second at her swiftness and agility but recovered and went after 
her. She had slammed the door before he could stop her, and when he turned the 
knob and pulled on it, he found that the door was locked. To break it down was 
useless, since she would be long gone down the stairway and the passageway.
    No, there was Dolores. She might stop the old woman. Then, again, she might 
not. Her position in this situation was ambiguous. He suspected that she would 
do what was best for Dolores and that might not coincide with what would be good 
for him. It would be good sense to quit chasing after the baroness and try to 
get out before she could warn the others.
    The smog over the table was disappearing swiftly and was gone by the time he 
left the room. The door led directly into an elevator cage which must have been 
made about 1890. He hated the idea of being trapped in it but he had no other 
way out. He pressed the DOWN button. Nothing happened except that a small light 
glowed above the button and a lever near it. He pushed down on the lever, and 
the elevator began to sink. He pressed more on the lever, and the rate of 
descent was a little faster. When he pushed the lever upwards past the neutral 
position, the elevator stopped. He pressed the UP button and then pushed the 
lever upward, and the elevator began to ascend. Satisfied that he could operate 
it, he started it downward and stopped at the second story. If the alarm had 
been given, they would be waiting for him on the ground floor. They might also 
be waiting on every floor, but he had to take some chances.
    The door was just like the other doors, which was why he may not have known 
about the elevator. He turned the knob and pushed it and found himself near the 
door to Magda's bedroom. At the same time, increasingly loud voices and rapid 
footsteps came up the stairway. He didn't have time to run down the hall and try 
other doors. He slipped into the room again. Glam's body was still in the marble 
enclosure, the boots sticking over it. The wall-section was open. He considered 
for a moment hiding under the many pillows and cushions inside the enclosure but 
decided that he would be found if they moved Glam's body. There was nothing to 
do except enter again the passage behind the wall.
    He hid behind the inner wall and waited. The first one to step through was 
going to get a sword in his guts. The sword trembled in his grip, partly from 
weariness and partly from nervousness. He had had no experience in swordplay, no 
fencing lessons, no conditioned reflexes built up, and so he suddenly realized 
that he was not as dangerous as he would have liked to be. To handle a sword 
expertly, a man had to know where to thrust and where not to thrust. An 
ill-placed stab could hit a bone and glance off and leave the intended victim 
only lightly wounded and able to run off or attack, if he were tough and 
experienced. Even a hard musculature could turn an inept thrust.
    He swore. He had been so intent on what he was going to do with the sword 
that he had not noticed that his penis was working up to another orgasm. 
Stormed, he dropped the sword with a clatter but did not care about the noise 
for a few seconds. He jetted, the chlorox odor rising strong in the dusty hot 
passageway. Then he picked up the sword and waited, but he was even more uneasy. 
Those people out there might have nostrils more sensitive than human beings--he 
admitted by now that they were not human, as he knew human--and they might 
easily detect the jism. Should he move on? If so, where? To the same circuit?
    He had been running long enough. It was time to fight fire with fire.
    Fire.
    He looked through the opening. The door of the room was still shut. Loud 
voices came through it. A savage squeal which chased cold over him. It sounded 
like an enraged hog. More shouts. Another squeal. The voices seemed to drift 
away, down the hall. He crept out and inspected the room and found what he 
wanted. There were books in the shelves, the pages of which he tore out. He 
crumpled up a Los Angeles Times and piled crumpled book-pages over them and 
ripped open several pillows and sprinkled their contents on the pile. The 
cigarette lighter in the purse touched off the papers, which soon blazed up and 
began feeding on the wall-drapes under which the fire had been built.
    He opened the door to the hall to open the way for a draft--if it should 
exist. Taking the classified ad sections of the Times and a number of books, he 
went into the passageway. Having found a one-way mirror, he broke it with the 
hilt of his sword to make another draft or a reinforcement of the first. He 
started a fire in the passageway, which was made of old and dry wood and should 
soon be blazing like the underbrush in the hills at the end of a long dry 
season. He then entered the room with the broken mirror and built a fire under a 
huge canopied bed.
    Why hadn't he done this before? Because he had been too harried to have time 
to think, that was why. No more. He was fighting back.
    If he could find a room with windows to the outside, he would go through it, 
even if it meant a drop from the second story. He'd let them worry about the 
fire while he got over the walls to his car and then to the police.
    He heard voices outside the door to the room and went back into the 
passageway. He ran down it, using his flashlight, although the fire was 
providing an adequate twilight for him. A corner took him away from it, however. 
He stopped and sent the beam down one corridor to check ahead of him. Nothing 
there. He started to turn to probe the corridor on the other side of the 
intersection, and he froze. Something had growled at the far end.
    Faint clicks sounded. Claws or nails on the naked boards of the floor?
    A howl made him jump.
    It was a wolf.
    Suddenly, the clicking, which had been leisurely, became rapid. The wolf 
howled again. He turned his flashlight on the corner of the passageway at the 
far end just in time to see a big gray shape come around it, eyes glowing in the 
beam. Then the shape, snarling, was bounding toward him.
    And behind it came another.
    Childe thrust almost blindly at the hurtling shape. His sword traveled in 
the general direction of the beast as it sprang, but its speed and ferocious 
voice disconcerted him. Despite this, the blade struck it squarely somewhere. A 
shock ran along his arm, and, although he had leaned forward in what he hoped 
was a reasonable imitation of a fencer's lunge, he was thrown backward. He 
landed on his rump but scrambled to his feet, yelling as he did so. The 
flashlight, which had fallen, was pointing down along the floor at the second 
wolf. This was several yards away and crouching as it advanced slowly toward 
Childe.
    It was smaller, the bitch of the pair, and presumably had slowed down to 
find out what was going on before it attacked.
    Childe did not want to expose his side to the bitch, but he did not want to 
meet her charge without a weapon. He grabbed the hilt of the rapier, put his 
foot on the body, and pulled savagely. The carcass was palely illuminated in the 
side-wash of the flashlight. The sword shone dully, and darkness stained the fur 
around the beast's neck. The rapier had gone in three-quarters of its length, 
through the neck and out past the bottom rear of the skull.
    The rapier pulled out reluctantly but swiftly. The shewolf snarled and 
bounded forward, her nails clicking briefly. Childe had a few inches of blade to 
withdraw yet and would have been taken on the side. Her jaws would probably have 
clamped on his shoulder or head, and that would have been the end of him. A 
wolf's jaws were strong enough to sever a man's wrist with one snap.
    The bitch, however, slipped on something and skidded on one shoulder into 
the rump of the dead wolf. Childe leaped backward, taking the sword with him and 
then as quickly lunged and ran her through the shoulder as she bounded to her 
feet. She snarled again and her jaws clashed at him, but he pushed with all his 
weight against the hilt and drove her back so that she fell over the dead wolf. 
He continued to push, digging his heels into the wood. The blade sank deeper and 
presently the tip ground against the floor. Before that, the bitch was silent 
and still.
    Shaking, breathing raspingly as if his lungs needed oil, he pulled the 
rapier out and wiped it on the she-wolf's fur. He picked up the flashlight and 
ran its beam over the wolves to make sure they were dead. Their outlines were 
becoming indistinct. He felt dizzy and had to shut his eyes and lean against the 
wall. But he had seen what the bitch had slipped on. A smear of his semen.
    Voices drifted around the corner from which the wolves had come. He ran down 
the passageway, hoping that they would become too occupied with fighting the 
fires to chase him. The corridor ran into another at right angles to it, and he 
took the left turn. His beam, dancing ahead of him, picked out a section of wall 
and a locking mechanism. He went through it, his sword ready, but he was unable 
to restrain his wheezing. Any occupant of the room, unless he were deaf, would 
be warned.
    The room was broad and high-ceilinged, so high that it must have displaced 
two rooms above it and may have gone almost to the roof. The walls were paneled 
in dark oak, and huge rough-hewn oak beams ran just below the heavily shadowed 
ceiling. The floor was dark polished oak. Here and there was a wolf or bear 
skin. The bed was a framework with eight thick rough-hewn oaken logs, low 
footboard and headboard, and planks laid across the framework.
    Lying on the planks was a huge oak log squared off at the corners. It had 
been gouged out on its top with axe and chisel. The gouge was wide and deep 
enough to hold a tall man. It did hold a man. The baron, covered with a bearskin 
to his neck, lay on his back in the hollow. There was dirt beneath him and dirt 
humped under his head for a pillow.
    His face was turned straight upward. His nose looked huge and long. His 
lower lip had slipped a little to reveal the long white teeth. His face was as 
greenish-gray as if he had just died. This may have been because of the peculiar 
greenish light flickering from four fat green candles, two at each corner of the 
log-coffin.
    Childe pulled the bearskin back. The baron was naked. He put his hand on the 
baron's chest and then on his wrist pulse. There was no detectable heartbeat, 
and the chest did not move. An eyelid, peeled back, showed only white.
    Childe left the baron and pulled two drapes back. Two enormous French 
windows were grayly bared. It was daytime, but the light was very dark, as if 
night had left an indelible stain. The sky was dark gray with streamers of 
green-gray dangling here and there.
    Childe looked in the darkness under the planks supporting the log-coffin. He 
found a roughly-worked oaken lid. He felt cold. The silence, the sputtering 
green candles, the heavy dark wood everywhere, the ponderous beams, which seemed 
to drip shadows, the roughness, indeed, the archaicness, of the room, and the 
corpse-like sleeper, who was so expected and yet so unexpected--these fell like 
heavy shrouds, one over the other, upon him. His breath sawed in his throat.
    Was this room supposed to be a reproduction of a room in the ancestral 
castle in Transylvania? Why the ubiquitous primitively worked oak? And why this 
coffin when Igescu could afford the best?
    Some things here accorded with the superstitions (which, as far as he was 
concerned, were not superstitions). Other things be could not account for.
    He had a hunch that this room was built to conform to specifications far 
more ancient than medieval ones, that the oak and the log and the candles had 
been in use long before the Transylvanian mountains were so named, long before 
Rumania existed as a colony of the Romans, long before the mother city, Rome, 
existed, and probably long before the primitive Indo-European speakers began to 
spread out of the homeland of what would someday be called Austria and Hungary. 
A type of this room, and a type of this man who slept in the log, in one form or 
another, had existed in central Europe, and elsewhere, when men spoke languages 
now perished without a record and when they still used flint tools.
    Whatever the origin of his kind, however closely or distantly he resembled 
the creature of folklore, legend, and superstition, Igescu was forced to be as 
good as dead when daylight arrived. The rays of the sun contained some force 
responsible for diurnal suspended animation. Perhaps some other phenomenon 
connected with the impact of the sunlight caused this strange sleep. Or, 
perhaps, it was the other way around, with the absence of the moon? No, that 
wasn't logical because the moon was often present in the daytime. But then, 
maybe the moon's effect was greatly reduced by the other luminary.
    If Igescu had not been forced to do so, he would never have quit the search 
for Dolores and Childe. Why, then; had he not made sure that he would not be 
vulnerable? He knew that both Dolores and Childe were in the intramural 
passageways.
    Childe felt colder than before except for a hot spot between his shoulder 
blades, the focus of something hidden somewhere and staring at his back.
    He looked swiftly around the room, at the ceiling, where the shadows clung 
above the beams, under the oaken frame of the bed, although he had looked there 
once, and behind the few chairs. There was nothing.
    The bathroom was empty. So was the room beyond the thick rough oaken door on 
the west wall. Nothing living was there, but a massive mahogany coffin with gold 
trimming and gold-plated handles stood in one corner.
    Childe raised the lid, fully expecting to find a body. It was empty. Either 
it had housed a daylight sleeper at one time or it was to be used in some 
emergency by the baron. Childe pulled up the satin lining and found earth 
beneath it.
    He went back to the oaken room. Nothing had visibly changed. Yet the silence 
seemed to creak. It was as if intrusion of another had hauled in the slack of 
the atmosphere, had hauled it in too tightly. The shadows abruptly seemed 
darker; the green light of the candles was heavier and, in some way, even more 
sinister.
    He stood in the doorway, sword ready, motionless, repressing his breathing 
so he could listen better.
    Something had come into this room, either from the passageway entrance or 
through the door at the west wall. He doubted that it had used the passageway 
entrance, because any guard stationed there would have challenged him before he 
could get into the room.
    It had to have been in the other room, and it must have been watching him 
through some aperture which Childe could not see. It had not moved against him 
immediately because he had not tried to harm the baron.
    Perhaps the feeling was only too-strained nerves. He could see nothing, 
nothing at all to alarm him.
    But the baron would not have left himself unguarded.



     
CHAPTER 19
     
    Childe took one step forward. There was still no sound except that which his 
mental ear heard. It was a crackling, as if the intrusion of a new mass had bent 
a magnetic field. The lines of force had been pushed out.
    The rapier held point up, he advanced toward the enormous log on the bed. 
The noiseless crackling became louder. He stooped and looked under the frame. 
There was nothing there.
    Something heavy struck him on his back and drove him face down. He screamed 
and rolled over. Fire tore at his back and his hips and the back of his thighs, 
but he was up and away, while something snarled and spat behind him. He rounded 
the bed and whirled, the sword still in his hand although he had no memory of 
consciously clinging to it or of even thinking of it. But if his spirit had 
unclenched for a moment, his fist had not.
    The thing was a beauty and terror of white and black rosetted fur, and taut 
yellow-green eyes which seemed to reflect the ghastly light of the candles, and 
thin black lips, and sharp yellow teeth. It was small for a leopard but large 
enough to scare him even after most of the fright of the unexpected and unknown 
had left him. It had hidden in the cavity of the log, crouching flattened on top 
of Igescu until Childe had come close to it.
    Now it crouched again and snarled, eyes spurting ferocity, claws unsheathed.
    Now it launched itself over the bed and the coffin. Childe, leaning over the 
baron's body, thrust outward. The cat was spitted on the blade, which drove 
through the neck. A paw flashed before his eyes, but the tips of the claws were 
not quite close enough. Childe went over backward, and the rapier was torn from 
his hand. When he got up, he saw that the leopard, a female, was kicking its 
last. It lay on its right side, mouth open, the life in its eyes flying away bit 
by bit, like a flock of bright birds leaving a branch one by one as they started 
south to avoid the coming of winter.
    Childe was panting and shaking, and his heart was threatening to butt 
through his ribs. He pulled the sword out, shoving with his foot against the 
body, and then climbed upon the oaken frame. He raised the sword before him by 
the hilt with both hands. Its point was downward, parallel with his body. He 
held it as if he were a monk holding a cross up to ward off evil, which, in a 
way, he was. He brought the blade down savagely with all his weight and drove it 
through the skin and heart and, judging from the resistance and muted cracking 
sound, some bones.
    The body moved with the impact, and the head turned a little to one side. 
That was all. There was no sighing or rattling of breath. No blood spurted from 
around the wound or even seeped out.
    The instrument of execution was steel, not wood, but the hilt formed a 
cross. He hoped that the symbol was more important than the material. Perhaps 
neither meant anything. It might be false lore which said that a vampire, to be 
truly killed, must be pierced through the heart with a stake or that the undead 
feared the cross with an unholy dread and were deprived of force in its 
presence.
    Also, he remembered from his reading of Dracula, many years ago, something 
about the head having to be removed.
    He felt that probably there were many things said about this creature that 
were not true and also there were many things unknown. Whether the lore was 
superstition or not, he had done his best, was going to do his best to ensure 
that it died a permanent death.
    As for the leopard, it might be just that--a leopard. He suspected that it 
was Ngima or Mrs. Pocyotl because it was so small. It did not seem likely that 
Pocyotl, who was Mexican, some of whose ancestors undoubtedly spoke one form or 
another of Nahuatl, would be a wereleopard. A werejaguar, yes. No, it must be, 
if not a genuine leopard, Ngima or the Chinaman Pao.
    Whatever it was, it showed no sign of changing after death. Perhaps it 
really was not a metamorph but a pet trained to guard Igescu.
    What am I thinking of? he thought. Of course, it is. There are no such 
creatures as werewolves and wereleopard's and vampires. Maybe there are 
vampires, psychological vampires, psychotics who think they are vampires. But an 
actual metamorphosis! What kind of mechanism would be involved, what mechanism 
could effect a change like that? Bones become fluid, change shape even in the 
cellular structure, and harden again? Well, maybe the bones are not our kind of 
bones. But what about the energy involved? And even if the body could shift 
shape, the brain surely couldn't! The brain would have to retain its human size 
and shape.
    He looked at the leopard and he remembered the wolves. Their heads were 
wolf-sized, their brains were small.
    He should forget this nonsense. He had been drugged; the rest was 
suggestion.
    Not until then did he become aware that the leopard, when it had been 
fastened to him for such a short time, had done more than he had thought. It had 
torn off his shirt and pants and belt, and his hand, feeling his back and hips 
and legs, was wet with blood. He hurt, and he was alarmed, but a closer 
examination convinced him that the leopard had done more harm to his clothes 
than to him. The wounds were superficial or seemed so.
    He went into the next room, which was a small study, and picked up an armful 
of newspapers and magazines. Returning to the huge room, he wadded up the papers 
and-ripped out pages and stacked a pile on each side of the baron's neck. After 
dripping some lighter fluid on the two piles and over the baron's hair and 
chest, he touched off the fluid.
    Childe then opened the large windows and built another fire below the 
central plank. A third pile below the left side of the framework blazed up. In a 
few minutes, he added a wooden chair to that fire. After a while, the oak of the 
frame and the plank were blazing, and the log was blackening and smoking. The 
stench of burned hair and flesh rose from the baron.
    More paper and lighter fluid got the drapes over the windows to burning. 
Then he struggled with the body of the leopard until he dropped it on the fire. 
Its head burned fiercely with lighter fluid; its black nose lost its wet 
shininess and wrinkled with heat.
    Opening the entrance to the passageway made a stronger draft. The smoke in 
the room streamed out through the hole to meet the smoke in the passageway. The 
entrance did not seem big enough to handle all the smoke, which soon filled the 
room. He began to cough and, suddenly, as if the coughs had triggered him, he 
had a long shuddering orgasm the roots of which seemed to be wrapped around his 
spine and to be pulling his spine down his back and out through his penis.
    Just as the last spurt came, a shriek tore from the smoke in the center of 
the room. He spun around but could see nothing. One of the two had not been dead 
and still was not dead because the shrieks were continuing with full strength.
    And then, before he could turn again to face the new sound, a grunting and 
squealing shot from the wall-entrance. There was a rapid clicking, much louder 
than the wolves' claws, a tremble of the boards under his feet, and he was 
knocked upward to one side. Half-stunned, his left leg hurting, he sat up. He 
began coughing. The squealing became louder and the boards shook under him. He 
rolled away under cover of the smoke while the thing that had hit him charged 
around, hunting for him.
    Crawling on his hands and knees along the wall, his head bent near the, 
floor to keep from breathing the smoke, he headed for the French windows. The 
swine noises had now given way to a deep coughing. After a dozen racks that 
seemed strong enough to suck in all the smoke in the room during the in-breaths, 
the hooves clattered again. Childe rounded the corner and slid along the wall 
until he came to the next corner. His hand, groping upward into the smoke, felt 
the lower edges of the French windows. The open ones were about ten feet away, 
as he remembered them.
    The hooves abruptly stopped. The squealing was even more ferocious, less 
questing and more challenging. Hooves hit the floorboards again. Punctuating the 
two sounds was a loud hissing.
    A battle was taking place somewhere in the smoke. Several times, the walls 
shook as heavy bodies hit them, and the floor seldom ceased to tremble. Blows--a 
great hand hammering into a thick solid body--added codas to the crackling of 
the fires.
    Childe could not have waited to see what was going on even if he had wished. 
The smoke would kill him sooner, the fire would kill him later, but not so much 
later, if he did not get out. There was no time to crawl on around until he got 
to the west door. The windows were the only way out. He climbed out after 
unfastening and pushing out the lower edge of the screen, let himself down until 
he clung by his hands, and then dropped. He struck a bush, broke it, felt as if 
he had broken himself, too, rolled off it, and then stood up. His left leg hurt 
even more, but he could see no blood.
    And then he jetted again--at least, his penis had not been hurt in the 
fall--and was helpless while two bodies hurtled through the window he had just 
left. The screen, torn off, struck near him. Magda Holyani and Mrs. Grasatchow 
crushed more bushes and rolled off them onto the ground near the driveway.
    Immediately after, several people ran out of the house onto the porch.
    Both the women were bleeding from many wounds and blackened with smoke. 
Magda had ended her roll at his feet in time to receive a few drops of sperm on 
her forehead. This, he could not help thinking even in his pain, was an 
appropriate extreme unction for her. The fat woman had struck as heavily as a 
sack of wet flour and now lay unconscious, a gray bone sticking out of the flesh 
of one leg and blood running from her ears and nostrils.
    Bending Grass, Mrs. Pocyotl, and O'Faithair were on the porch. That left 
Chornkin, Krautschner, Ngima, Pao, Vivienne, the two maids, the baroness, and 
Dolores unaccounted for. He thought he knew what had happened to the first 
three. Two were dead of rapier thrusts in a passageway and one was burning with 
Igescu.
    The clothes of the three on the porch were ripped, their hair was 
disarrayed, and they were bleeding from wounds. They must have tangled with 
Magda or Mrs. Grasatchow or Dolores or any combination thereof. But they were 
not disabled, and they were now looking for him, their mouths moving, their 
hands pointing at him now and then.
    Childe limped, but swiftly, to the Rolls-Royce parked twenty feet away on 
the driveway. Behind came a shout and shoes slapping against the porch steps. 
The Rolls was unlocked, and the key was in the ignition lock. He drove away 
while Bending Grass and O'Faithair beat on the windows with their fists and 
howled like wolves at him. Then they had dropped off and were racing toward 
another car, a red Jaguar.
    Childe stopped the Rolls, reversed, and pressed the accelerator to the 
floor. Going backward, the Rolls bounced O'Faithair off the right rear fender 
and then crashed to a halt. Bending Grass had whirled just before it pinned him 
against the Jaguar. His dark broad face stared into the rear window for a few 
seconds. Then it was gone.
    Childe drove forward until he could see the Indian's body, red and mashed 
from the thighs down, face downward on the pavement. The outlines of his body 
looked fuzzy; he seemed to be swelling.
    Childe had no time to keep looking. He stopped the Rolls again, backed it up 
over O'Faithair, who was just beginning to sit up, went forward over him again, 
turned around, and drove the wheels back and forth three times each over the 
bodies of Holyani, Grasatchow, Bending Grass, and O'Faithair. Mrs. Pocyotl, who 
had been screaming at him and shaking her little fist, ran back into the house 
when he drove toward the porch.
    Flames and smoke were pouring out of a dozen windows on all three stories of 
the left wing and out of one window of the central house. Unchecked, the first 
would destroy the entire building in an hour or two. And there was nobody to 
check it.
    He drove away. Coming around the curve just before entering the road through 
the woods, he saw part of the yard to one side of the house. The red-headed 
Vivienne, her naked body white in the ghastly half-dark daylight, Mrs. Pocyotl 
with her shoes off, and the two maids were running for the woods. Behind them 
came the nude Dolores, her long dark hair flying. She looked grim and 
determined. The others looked determined also, but their determination was 
inspired by fright.
    Childe did not know what she would do if she caught them, but he was sure 
that they knew and were not standing to fight for good reasons. He also 
suspected that Pao and the baroness had not come out of the house because of 
what Dolores had done to them, although it was possible that Magda or Mrs. 
Grasatchow bad killed them. He could not be sure, of course, but he suspected 
that the two had been in metamorphosis as pig and snake and that they had been 
unmanageable.
    The three women disappeared in the trees.
    He struck himself on his forehead. Was he really believing all this 
metamorphosis nonsense?
    He looked back. From this slight rise, he could see Bending Grass and Mrs. 
Grasatchow. The clothes seemed to have split off the Indian, and he looked black 
and bulky, like a bear. The fat woman was also dark and there was something 
nonhuman about the corpse.
    At that moment, from behind the house, the biggest black fox he had ever 
seen raced out and tore off toward the woods into which the three women had 
disappeared. It barked three times and then turned its head and seemed to grin 
at him.
    The chill that had transfixed him when he first saw Dolores went through him 
again. He remembered something now, something he had read long ago. The 
shape-shifting fox-people of China. They lost control of their ability to change 
form if they drank too much wine. And, that first evening, the baron had been 
trying to restrain Pao's wine consumption. Why? Because he had not wanted Childe 
to witness the metamorphosis? Or for some other reason? For some other reason, 
probably, since the baron could not have been worried about Childe escaping to 
tell what be had seen.
    He shrugged and drove on. He had had too much of this and wanted only to get 
away. He was beginning to believe that a 150-pound man could become fluid, twist 
bone and flesh into a nonhuman mold, and, somewhere along the transformation, 
shed 125 pounds, just tuck them away some place to be withdrawn later when 
needed. Or, if not cached, the discarded mass trailed along, like an invisible 
jet exhaust, an attached plume of energy ready for reconversion.
    The gate of the inner wall was before him. He opened this and drove through, 
and soon was stopped by the outer wall. Here he left the Rolls on the driveway, 
after wiping off his prints with a rag from the glove compartment, and walked 
through the big gate to his own car, parked under the trees at the end of the 
road.
    He found the key he had hidden--how long ago? it seemed days--and drove 
away. He was naked, bloody, bruised, and hurting, and he still had an erection 
that was automatically working up to yet another--oh, God!--orgasm, but he did 
not care. He would get into his apartment and the rest of the world, smog, 
monsters, and all, could go to hell, which they were doing, anyway.
    A half-mile down the road, a big black Lincoln shot by him toward the Igescu 
estate. It held three men and three women, all of whom were handsome or 
beautiful and well dressed. Their faces were, however, grim, and he knew that 
their destination was Igescu's and that they were speeding because they were 
late for whatever sinister conference they had been scheduled to attend. Or 
because someone in the house had called them for help. The car had California 
license plates. Perhaps they were from San Francisco.
    He smiled feebly. They would be unpleasantly surprised. Meanwhile he had 
better get out of here, because he did not know whether or not they had noted 
his license plate.
    Before he had gone a mile, the sky had become even darker, growled, 
thundered, lightninged. A strong wind tore the smog apart, and then the rains 
washed the air and the earth without letup for an hour and a half.
    He parked the car in the underground garage and took the elevator up to his 
floor. No one saw him, although he expected to be observed. He had no excuse for 
being naked with a hard-on, and it would be just like life, the great ironist, 
to have him arrested for in decent exposure and God knows what else after all he 
had been through he, the abused innocent. But no one saw him, and after locking 
the door and chaining it, he showered, dried himself, put on pajamas; ate a ham 
and cheese sandwich and drank half a quart of milk, and crawled into bed.
    Just before he fell asleep, a few seconds later, he put out his hand to feel 
for something. What did be want? Then he realized that it was Mrs. Grasatchow's 
purse, which contained the skins. Somewhere between the Baron's bedroom and this 
bedroom, he had lost the purse.



     
CHAPTER 20
     
    Childe slept, though often restlessly, for a day, a night, and most of the 
next day. He got up to empty bladder and bowels, to eat cereal or a sandwich and 
sometimes wake up at the end of a wet dream.
    His dreams were often terrors, but were sometimes quite pleasant 
copulations. Sometimes Mrs. Grasatchow or Vivienne or Dolores rode him, and he 
woke up jetting and groaning. Other times, he was riding Sybil or some woman he 
had known or some faceless woman. And there were at least two dreams in which he 
was mounting a female animal from the rear, once with a beautiful leopardess and 
once with a bitch wolf.
    When he was awake, he wondered about the dreams, because he knew that the 
Freudians insisted that all dreams, no matter how terrifying or horrible, were 
wishes.
    By the time he was slept out, his pajamas and sheets were a mess, but the 
effects of the cone were gone. He was very happy to have a flaccid penis: He 
showered and breakfasted, and then read the latest Los Angeles Times. Life was 
almost normal now; the papers were being delivered on schedule. Industries were 
running full-time. The migration back was still going on but was only a trickle 
now. The mortuaries were overloaded, and funerals were taking place far into the 
night. The police were swamped with missing persons reports. Otherwise, the city 
was functioning as usual. The smog was beginning to build up but would not 
become alarming while the present breeze continued.
    Childe read the front page and some articles. Then he used the phone to 
check on Sybil. She had not come home. A call to San Francisco was answered by 
Sybil's sister, Cherril. She said that their mother had died, and Sybil was 
supposed to have come for the funeral. She presumably left as soon as she had 
packed. She had been unable to get a plane out, and her car wouldn't start, so 
she had phoned back that she was coming up with a friend who also wanted to get 
out of town.
    Who was the friend? Cherril did not know. But she was frantic, and she had 
tried to get hold of Childe. When he had not answered after five tries, she had 
given up on him. The state police had reported that Sybil was not involved in 
any of the many accidents between Los Angeles and San Francisco during that 
time.
    Childe told Cherril not to worry, that many people were still missing. Sybil 
would show up safe and sound. He would not rest until he found her. And so on.
    When he hung up the phone, he felt empty. The next day, he was as hollow, 
and he had to admit that he knew no more than what Cherril had told him. The 
"friend" he suspected Sybil to have driven off with, Al Porthouse, denied having 
seen her for two weeks.
    Childe gave up, temporarily, and turned his attention elsewhere. The baron's 
house had been burned out, although the rains had kept it from being completely 
destroyed. There were no bodies in the ruins, in the yard, or in the woods. Mrs. 
Grasatchow's purse was not found.
    Childe remembered the automobile that had raced by him after he had driven 
away from the baron's. Whoever the six had been, they had cleaned up thoroughly.
    But what had happened to Dolores?
    He drove out to the estate and went over the wall again, the police having 
locked the main gate. His poking around uncovered nothing. The police did not 
know his story, of course. He knew better than to tell them anything except that 
he had visited the baron just once and that briefly. They had questioned him and 
then had said that they were puzzled by the disappearance of the baron, 
secretary, servants, and chauffeur, but so far no information had come in. For 
all they knew, the household had left for parts unknown, the house had burned by 
accident, and any day now they might hear from the baron.
    Late that afternoon, he returned to his apartment. He was shrouded in his 
thoughts, which were concerned with moving to some place where smog would not be 
a problem for years to come. It was some time before he realized that the phone 
must have rung at least a dozen, times. It had started while he was unlocking 
the door.
    The voice was a pleasant baritone.
    "Mr. Childe? You don't know me. We haven't met, fortunately for you, 
although I think we passed each other on the road outside the Baron Igescu's 
estate several days ago."
    Childe did not reply for a moment, then he said, "What do you want?"
    His voice was steady. He had thought it would crack, as if it were 
crystallized with the ice encasing him.
    "You have been very discreet, Mr. Childe, in not telling the police. Or, as 
far as we know, anybody. But we want to ensure your silence, Mr. Childe. We 
could easily do that by methods you well know by now. But it pleases us to have 
you know about us and yet be able to do nothing."
    Childe shouted, "What did you do with Sybil?"
    There was a silence. And then the voice, "Sybil? Who's she?"
    "My wife! My ex-wife, I mean! You know, damn you! What have you done with 
her, you filthy monster, unnatural...!"
    "Nothing, I assure you, Mr. Childe.
    "The voice was cool and mocking.
    "We rather admire you, Mr. Childe, because of what you accomplished. 
Congratulations. You managed to kill, permanently, a number of our friends who 
have survived for a very long time indeed, Mr. Childe. You could not have done 
it without the help of del Osorojo, of course, but that was something we did not 
foresee. The baron did not anticipate it, and for his carelessness, or 
ignorance, he paid, and, those with him. Some of them, anyway."
    This was his last chance to find out anything about them.
    He said, "Why the films? Why were they sent in to the police?"
    "The films are made for our private use, for our entertainment, Mister 
Childe. We send them to each other all over the world. Via private couriers, of 
course. The baron decided to break a precedent and to let the others in on some 
of them. Because we would enjoy the furor and the shaking up of the police. The 
shaking up--of all humans, in fact. The baron and his group were going to move 
out soon, anyway, so there was no chance of our being connected with the films.
    "The baron planned on mailing the films of earlier subjects, working 
backward chronologically, to the police. Most of the subjects had been listed as 
missing persons, you know, and the earliest had been dropped by the police 
because the cases were so old. You found their skins. And lost them.
    "You were lucky or smart. You used an unorthodox method of investigation and 
stumbled across the truth. The baron couldn't let you go then because you knew 
too much, so he decided you would become the latest subject. Now, the baron 
won't have to leave this area to get away from the smog..."
    "I saw the old woman, the baroness, trying to conjure up smog!" Childe said. 
"What..."
    "She was trying to get rid of it, you fool! This used to be a nice place to 
live in but you humans...!"
    Childe could feel the fury making the man inarticulate. However, when the 
voice returned, it was again cool and mocking.
    "I suggest you look in your bedroom. And remember to keep silent, Mister 
Childe. Otherwise..."
    The phone must have been moving down to the rest. But, before the click, he 
heard bells tolling and an organ playing the first bar of Gloomy Sunday. He 
could imagine the rest of the music and the Inner Sanctum rusty-hinge 
screeching.
    He stood for a while with the phone in his hand. Woolston Heepish? That call 
came from the house of Woolston Heepish?
    Nonsense! There must be another explanation. He did not even want to think 
about the implications, if...no, forget this.
    He put the phone down, and then remembered with a start what the man had 
advised. He slowly walked into the bedroom. The bedside lamp had been turned on 
during his absence.
    She was in bed, staring straight up. A sheet was draped over her to just 
below the naked breasts. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow.
    He came closer and murmured. "I didn't think they could harm you, Dolores."
    He pulled the sheet back, expecting to find the evidences of some horror 
committed upon her. She was unmarked. But her body tilted upward, the feet 
rising first, the stiff legs following, and then, as the body began to point 
straight upward, it rose toward the ceiling. The heavy hair, and the little red 
valve on the back of the neck, stopped it from floating up all the way.
    The makeup was very good. It had given her skin a solid fleshy appearance 
and kept him from seeing through it.
    Childe had to leave the room for a while and sit down.
    When he came back, he stuck a pin in her. She exploded with a bang as loud 
as a pistol's. He cut her up into strips with scissors and flushed her down the 
toilet, except for the head hair, which he put into the garbage.
    A century and a half of haunting, a brief fleshing, a few short and wild 
copulations, a few killings of ancient enemies, and here she was. Rather, there 
she went. One dark eye, long eyelashes, a thick black eyebrow whirled around and 
around and then were sucked down.
    At least, he had not found Sybil's skin in his bed.
    Where was she? He might never find out. He did not think those "people" 
knew. The "man" had sounded genuinely puzzled.
    It was not necessary to postulate those "people" to account for her 
disappearance. Human beings had enough monsters of their own.



     
CHAPTER 21
     
    It seemed that the rain would never stop.
    On the evening of the sixth day, in a city like the planet of Venus in a 
1932 science-fiction story, Herald Childe followed Vivienne Mabcrough.
    A few minutes before, he had stopped behind a big black Rolls-Royce, waiting 
for a light change at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Canon Drive 
in Beverly Hills. The Rolls was equipped with rear window wipers, and these 
enabled Childe to see Vivienne Mabcrough. She was in the back seat with a man 
and turned her head just as the light changed to green.
    For several seconds, while horns blared behind him, he had an impulse to let 
her go. If he trailed her, he might find himself the object of attention from 
her and her kind. That was something no sane man and very few insane would wish.
    Despite this, he moved the 1972 Pontiac across the street after the Rolls, 
cutting off a Jaguar which had swung illegally to his left to pass him. The 
Jaguar's horn blared, and the driver mouthed curses behind his glass and plastic 
enclosure. A spray of water covered Childe's car, and then the wipers removed 
it. He could see the Rolls turn west on Little Santa Monica, going through a 
yellow light. He stopped for the red and, seeing no police car in any 
direction--though he could not see far because of the gray curtains of water--he 
went left on the red light. He saw the taillights of the Rolls turn right and 
followed. The Rolls was stopped before the Moonlark Restaurant, and Vivienne and 
her escort were getting out. They only had to take one step to be under the 
canopy and a doorman assisted them. The Rolls drove off then, and Childe decided 
to follow it. The driver was a uniformed chauffeur and possibly he would take 
the car back to Vivienne's residence. Of course, the car could be her partner's, 
but that did not matter. Childe wanted to know where he lived, too.
    Although he was no longer a private detective, Childe had kept his recording 
equipment in the car. He described the car and the license plate number into the 
microphone while he tracked it back across Santa Monica and then north of Sunset 
Boulevard. The car swung onto Lexington, and in two blocks drove onto the 
circular driveway before a huge Georgian mansion. The chauffeur got out and went 
down the walk along the side of the house to the rear. Childe drove half a block 
and then got out and walked back. The rain and the dusky light made it 
impossible for him to see any house addresses from the street. He had to go up 
the driveway, hoping that no one would look out. The house was lit within, but 
he could see no sign of life.
    He returned to the car, which he entered on the right side because he did 
not wish to wet his shoes and legs. The dirty gray-brown water had filled the 
street from curb to curb and was running over onto the strips of grass between 
street and sidewalk.
    In the car, he recorded the address. But instead of driving off, he sat a 
long time and considered what he should do next.
    They had not bothered him since that night in Baron Igescu's house, so why 
should he bother them?
    They were murderers, torturers, abductors. He knew this with the certainty 
of personal experience. Yet he could not prove what he knew. And if he told 
exactly what had happened, he would be committed to a mental institution. 
Moreover, he could not blame the authorities for putting him away.
    There were times when he could not believe his own vivid memories. Even the 
most piercing, of when he had flushed the complete skin of Dolores del Osorojo, 
eyes and all, down the toilet, was beginning to seem unbelievable.
    The mind accepted certain forms and categories, and his experiences in that 
enormous old house in northern Beverly Hills were outside the accepted. And so 
it had been natural that his mind should be trying to bury these forms and 
categories. Shove them down, choke them off in the dusty dusky cellar of the 
unconscious.
    He could just go home to his place in Topanga Canyon and forget all about 
this, or try to.
    He groaned. He was hooked and couldn't fight loose.
    If he had not seen Vivienne, he might have continued to ignore his desires 
to take up the trail once more. But the sight of her had gotten him as eager as 
an old bloodhound that whiffs fox on the wind from the hills.
    He drove away and did not stop until he pulled into a Santa Monica service 
station. There was a public phone booth here, which he used to call the Los 
Angeles Police Department. His friend, Sergeant Furr, finally answered. Childe 
asked him to check out the license number of the Rolls. Furr said he would call 
him back within a few minutes. Three minutes later, the phone in the booth rang.
    "Hal? I got it for you. The Rolls belongs to a Mrs. 
Vivienne--V-I-V-I-E-N-N-E--Mabcrough. I don't know how you pronounce that last 
name. M-A-B-C-R-O-U-G-H. Mabcrow, Mabcruff?"
    "Mabcrow," Childe said.
    The address was that of the house where the Rolls was parked.
    Childe thanked Furr and hung up. Vivienne was confident that he would not 
bother her anymore. She had not changed her name. Evidently she believed that he 
had had such a scare thrown into him, he would under no circumstances come near 
her or her kind--whatever that was.
    He trudged through the rain and got into the car and drove slowly and 
carefully back to the house in which Vivienne Macbcrough lived. It was nightfall 
now, and the streets of Beverly Hills in the downtown district were little 
rivers, curb-to-curb and overflowing. Although this was a Thursday night, there 
were very few pedestrians out. The usual bumper-to-bumper traffic was missing. 
Not half a dozen cars were in sight within the distance of three blocks in any 
direction. Santa Monica Boulevard traffic was heavier, because it served as a 
main avenue for those on their way to Westwood or West Los Angeles or Santa 
Monica on one side of the street, and on their way to Los Angeles, or parts of 
Beverly Hills, on the other.
    The headlights looked like the eyes of diluvian monsters burning with a 
fever to get on the Ark. A car had stalled as it was halfway through making a 
left turn from Santa Monica onto Beverly Drive, and the monsters were blaring or 
hooting at it. Childe nudged his car through the intersection, taking two 
changes of light to do so because cars in the lanes at right angles insisted on 
coming through instead of waiting so that the intersection could be cleared.
    When he got through, he proceeded up Beverly Drive at about twenty miles an 
hour but slowed to fifteen after several blocks. The water was so high that he 
was afraid of drowning out his motor, and his brakes were getting wet. He kept 
applying a little pressure intermittently to the pedal in order to keep the 
brakes dry, but he did not think he was having much success. Four cars went by 
him, passing from behind or going the other way, and these traveled so fast they 
threw water all over his car. He wanted to stick his head out of the window and 
curse at them for their stupidity and general swinishness, but he did not care 
to be drenched by the next car.
    He parked half a block down from the Mabcrough residence. Hours passed. He 
was impatient at first, and then the habits of years of sitting and waiting 
while he was a private eye locked into his nervous system. He pissed a couple of 
times into a device much like airplane pilots use. He munched on some crackers 
and a stick of beef jerky and drank coffee from a canteen. Midnight came, and 
his patience was beginning to thin out against the grindstone of time.
    Then the chauffeur came out from behind the house, got into the Rolls, and 
drove off. Childe could see the dark figure, outlined by the lights from within 
the house. He wore a slicker and a shiny transparent covering over his cap. As 
the car went by, Childe hunkered down behind the wheel. He waited until it was a 
block away and then swung out to follow it without turning his lights on 
immediately. The rain had not ceased, and the streets were even deeper in water.
    The Rolls picked up Vivienne and her escort at the club and then went back 
towards the mansion. Childe had hoped it would; he did not feel like trailing 
her from one spot to another. The Rolls stopped before the big porch to let its 
passengers off, and they went into the house. The chauffeur drove the car away, 
presumably to the side entrance and into the garage behind the house.
    Childe had gotten out of the car by then and walked down along the side of 
the house. He saw the lights in the story above the garage come on. The 
chauffeur, he hoped, lived there.
    He went to the side door, which was surrounded by dense shrubbery and a wall 
behind him. The people next door could not see him, and anybody passing by on 
the street would not be likely to see him.
    The door opened after a few minutes of trying a number of keys. He shot his 
flashlight around, looking for evidences of a burglar alarm and could not find 
any. He went on slowly into the house, ready to run if a dog gave warning. There 
was no sound except for the chiming of a big grandfather clock on the second 
floor.
    A moment later, he was crouched outside the partly opened door of Vivienne's 
bedroom.



     
CHAPTER 22
     
    The room was very large. There was a single light on from the lamp on the 
floor. Its base was at least four feet high and was some red-shot quartz-like 
stone sculptured into two naked nymphs--or female satyrs--back to back. The 
shade looked like thin parchment or skin. Childe, seeing this, was chilled 
through as if a huge icicle had been shoved up his anus all the way to his 
hindbrain.
    There were paintings in red, blue, and purple on the lampshade, outlines of 
semihuman figures writhing in flames.
    The walls were covered with what looked like heavy quiltwork. This had three 
figures, repeated over and over. There was a satyr standing on a low stone on 
one hoof, the other slightly raised. His back was arched and his arms and head 
were raised while he blew a syrinx. A nymph was crouched before him sucking on 
his enormous purple penis. Behind her was a half-human, half-snake creature. Its 
lower part was that of a gargantuan python with white and purple markings, and 
the upper part was a woman's from the belly button up. She had full and 
well-shaped breasts with spearpoint scarlet nipples, a lovely three-cornered 
face and long silver hair. Her slender fingers were spreading the egg-shaped 
buttocks of the nymph, who was bent over, and a long forked tongue was issuing 
from the snake-woman's mouth and just about to enter the anus or the vagina of 
the nymph.
    Beyond the lamp was a tremendous twelve-postered bed with a crimson 
many-tasseled canopy. On it were Vivienne and the man, both naked.
    She was on her back and he was on top with her legs over his shoulders. He 
was just about to insert his cock.
    Childe watched. He expected either something strange coming from the man or 
something strange, but not unfamiliar, from the woman.
    "Put it in for me, baby," the man said. He was about thirty-five, dark and 
hairy and beginning to flesh out. And then the man screamed and soared backwards 
off the bed, propelled by his sudden movement and his push upwards with one arm 
and by a snapping movement of his body that could only have been induced by 
utmost terror.
    He went back and up, trying to stand up at the same time that he moved away 
from Vivienne. Her legs flew apart as if they were two white birds that had 
startled each other.
    The man fell off the bed and crashed onto the floor. By then, he had quit 
screaming, but he shook and moaned.
    Vivienne got onto her knees and crawled over to look over the edge of the 
bed at him. Something long and dark-headed between her legs slid back into the 
slit and disappeared.
    "What's the matter, Bill?" she said, looking down at him. "Did the cat get 
your cock?"
    He was sitting up by then, intently handling and eyeing his penis. He looked 
up at her with surprise.
    "My God! What happened? You ask what happened? I thought...I really did 
think...you got teeth in your cunt?"
    He stood up. The gray of his skin was beginning to redden out. He waved his 
prick at her.
    "Look at that! There are teeth marks there!"
    She took the limp organ, which looked like a giant but sick worm, and bent 
over to examine it.
    "How can you say those are teeth marks?" she said. "There are some tiny 
little indentations there, but nothing serious. There! Does that make Mommy's 
boy feel better?"
    She had kissed the big purple-red glands and then run her tongue along the 
shaft.
    He backed away, saying, "Keep your distance, woman!"
    "Are you out of your mind?" she said. She was sitting up on the edge of the 
bed with the magnificently full and conical breasts pointed at him, Her pubis 
was a large triangle of thick dark-red hair, almost the same shade as the long 
thick rich auburn hair on her head. The legs were extraordinarily long and very 
white.
    Bill continued to keep his distance. He said, "I tell you; something bit me. 
You got teeth in your cunt!"
    She lay back down on the bed with her legs stretched out so that the tips of 
her toes touched the floor. She said, "Put your finger in, darling, and find out 
what a fool you are."
    He eyed the reddish fleece and the slit, somewhat opened by the posture.
    He said, "I like my finger, too!"
    Vivienne sat up suddenly, her beautiful face twisted. "You asshole! I 
thought you were a normal healthy man! I didn't know you were psychotic! Teeth 
in my cunt, indeed! Get to hell out of here before I call the psycho ward!"
    Bill looked as if he felt foolish. He said, "Honest to God, I don't know how 
to explain it! Maybe I am going nuts! Or maybe I just had a sudden strain, maybe 
that was the burning sensation I felt! No, by God, it felt like tiny teeth! Or a 
bunch of needles!"
    Vivienne got down off the bed and reached out a hand to Bill.
    "Come here, baby. Sit down on the bed. Here!" She patted the edge of the 
bed.
    Bill must have decided that he was making a fool of himself. Moreover, the 
sight of the superbly shaped Vivienne, with her outrageously beautiful face, 
overcame his fears. His penis began to swell, but it did not rise. He seated 
himself on the bed, and Vivienne walked around the side and got a pillow. 
Returning, she threw it on the floor and got down on her knees on it.
    "I've got teeth in my mouth, baby, but I know how to use them," she said. 
She picked up the semi-flaccid organ and ran her tongue out to flick the slit on 
the end of the glands. He jumped a little but settled back to look down at her 
while she took half of the cock into her mouth. She began to work her head back 
and forth, slowly, and the organ disappeared entirely, then emerged slick and 
shining red as far as the head.
    Bill shook and moaned and kept his gaze fixed upon the penis diving in and 
out of those full red lips. He was evidently getting a heightened ecstasy out of 
watching his cock pistoning into her mouth.
    Herald Childe did not know whether he should stay there or not. He wanted to 
explore the house for anything he might be able to use for evidence against 
Vivienne and her partners. If he could find names and addresses, documents, 
recordings, films, anything that would tend to prove their criminal activities, 
he should do it now. Vivienne was occupied, and she was unlikely to notice any 
noise outside this bedroom.
    However, he was worried about the man. His behavior made it evident that he 
was not aware of Vivienne's peculiarities of physiology or her fatal actions. At 
least, Childe supposed that they were fatal for others. He had never seen her 
kill or even harm anyone, but he was certain that she was no different from her 
monstrous associates.
    Bill was an innocent in the sense that he was a victim. He had probably 
never done anything to offend or hurt Vivienne and her group. He was just a 
pickup, as Childe's partner had been a pickup.
    Childe shuddered at the memory of that film that had been shipped to the 
LAPD by the killers. It had shown his partner being sucked off, as Bill now was. 
The woman had removed her false teeth and inserted razor-edged iron teeth, and 
bitten off the end of his partner's cock.
    The blood was a crimson fountain that burst out frequently in his visions 
and his dreams.
    Childe decided that he would have to interfere. This meant that he could not 
prowl around the house now. He would have to make sure that the man was safe. He 
should do so now, but he could not. He wanted to find out what would happen. He 
would wait a while and then step in.
    Vivienne abruptly stood up, revealing Bill's red and pulsing beak sticking 
out at a 45-degree angle.
    She said, "Slide back onto the bed, baby, and lie down."
    Whatever reservations he had about her had diminished with the increase in 
blood pressure. He moved back and lay down with his head on the pillow while she 
climbed onto the bed. She mouthed the head of his penis for a minute and then 
said, "Bill?"
    He was flat on his back, his hands spread out, his face turned upwards. His 
eyes were open. He did not answer.
    "Bill?" she said again, a little louder.
    When he did not respond, she crawled down to him and looked into his face. 
She pinched his cheek and then raked it with her fingernails. Blood flowed from 
four rows on his flesh, but he did not move. His penis, however, reared up, 
thick, squat, red-purplish, glistening.
    Vivienne turned then, and Childe saw the smirk. Whatever she was planning, 
it was proceeding smoothly.
    It was then that he should walk into the room, but he was too fascinated to 
make his move as yet. Bill seemed to be paralyzed, though how it had happened, 
Childe could not guess. Not at first. Then he realized that that thing had 
bitten Bill's peter with poisonous teeth. The venom had frozen him, with the 
exception of his prick. The blood was still pumping into it.
    The woman straddled him with the intention of easing down on his cock and 
letting it slide up into the slit of her vagina. But she only allowed the head 
to enter and then she stopped descending. She crouched there for about thirty 
seconds, during which she shook as if she were having an orgasm.
    Immediately after, she withdrew, exposing the penis, which was still 
upright. But there were tiny rills of blood running down its side from several 
places between the head and the shaft.
    Vivienne turned around to straddle him facing away from him. She put her 
hand below her buttocks to grab the penis and to slide it in again. This time, 
however, she let her weight slowly down to guide the cock into her anus. And 
when its head was engulfed, she stopped.
    Childe anticipated what would happen next. He felt sick, and he knew he 
should halt the monstrous rape, but he also was gripped with the desire to 
witness what, as far as he knew, no man alive had seen. Emphasis on the alive.
    Vivienne waited, and then the lips of her slit bulged open. The thick meat 
of rich red hair was pushed aside, and a tiny head emerged. It was soaked with 
the lubricating fluids within her cunt, and it had the features of a man. Its 
hair was black; it had a tiny moustache and goatee; its eyes were two garnets 
under eyebrows no thicker than the leg of a black widow spider. The lips' were 
so thin as to be invisible; the nose was long and curved.
    The head moved forward as the body continued to slide out from the vagina. 
It raised upon the shaft of the body like a snake, and Childe heard it hiss but 
knew that that had to be his imagination. It glided on over the wrinkled sac of 
the testicles and underneath, apparently headed for the anus. Then it 
disappeared while the uncoiling body kept issuing from the slit. By then, its 
head must have gone deep into the man's bowels.
    Childe unfroze abruptly. He shook his head as if trying to clear away sleep. 
He was not sure that he had not fallen into a semihypnotic state while watching 
the bizarre scene.
    He stepped through the door just as Vivienne eased herself down on the 
penis, driving it all the way up her own anus. Her eyes were closed, and her 
face was ecstatic. He managed to get close to her while she was moving up and 
down on the shaft and moaning phrases in a foreign language. The only sounds 
were her voice, the striking of rain against the windows, and the squeak of the 
bed springs as she slid up and down on the cock like a monkey on a stick.
    Now that he was closer, he could see that the pale and slimy body of the 
thing was in the man's anus. It apparently had gone in as deeply as it could, or 
as it cared to, because the motion was stopped. Childe felt sick because he 
could imagine that golfball-sized head with its vicious eyes blind in the night 
of the bowels and its mouth chewing on whatever it was that it found delectable 
in there.



     
CHAPTER 23
     
    He reached out and touched the pink-red and swollen nipple on that superb 
breast.
    She reacted violently. Her eyes flew open, exposing the beautiful violet, 
and she rose up off the bed, leaving the throbbing penis sticking up and 
dragging the body of the thing out of the man's body. Both came loose with a 
slurping sound, and the tiny mouth of the thing chattered a high-pitched and 
angry stream of expletives. At least, they sounded like cursing to Childe, 
although he did not know the language. The words seemed to be Latin in origin, 
they were vaguely French or perhaps Catalan or something in between.
    On seeing Childe, the thing reared up on its body, which coiled behind the 
head as if it were a rattlesnake. Vivienne continued to move away from Childe, 
however, retreating to the opposite end of the bed. There she crouched, while 
the thing swung between her legs and then started to slide back into the vagina. 
The head was fixed on Childe while this withdrawal occurred. Its red-gleaming 
eyes were hateful and deadly. Then the head was gone into the slit; the labia 
closed; it was as if the thing had never existed. Certainly, the thing should 
not exist.
    Childe moved up along the bed and reached out and slapped the man in the 
face. The hand left a red imprint,, but that was the only reaction from him. He 
continued to stare upwards, and his chest rose and fell slowly. His dong was 
beginning to dwindle and sag.
    "That will do no good unless I give him the antidote," Vivienne said.
    Her color was beginning to return, and she was even smiling at him.
    "Then give it to him!"
    "Or you'll do what?"
    The tone was not hostile, just questioning.
    "I'll call the cops."
    "If you do," she said evenly, "you'll be the one hauled away. I'll charge 
you with breaking and entering, threatened rape, and assault, and battery on my 
friend here and maybe even attempted murder."
    Childe wondered why she would not charge him with actual rape, then it 
occurred to him that she would not want a physical examination.
    He said, "I'm not in too good a position, it's true. But I don't think you 
could stand much publicity."
    She climbed down off the bed, brushing against him with one soft hip, and 
walked to her dresser. She picked up a cigarette, lit it, and then offered him 
one. He shook his head.
    "Then it's a Mexican standoff?"
    "Not unless you give this man the antidote," he said. "I don't care what it 
costs me, I'll raise a howl that'll bring this place down around your ears."
    "Very well."
    She opened a drawer while he stood behind her to make sure that there was no 
weapon in it. She picked up a large sewing needle from a little depression in 
top of a block of dark-red wood and walked with it to the man. She inserted its 
tip into the jugular vein and then walked back to the dresser. By the time she 
had replaced the needle, Bill was beginning to move his legs and his head. A few 
minutes later, he groaned and then he sat up, his feet on the floor. He looked 
at the naked Vivienne and at Childe as if he was not sure what was happening.
    Childe said, "Were you conscious?"
    Bill nodded. He was concentrating on Vivienne with a peculiar expression.
    "I can't believe it!" he said. "What the hell were you doing with me? You 
pervert!"
    Childe did not understand for a moment. The accusation seemed so mild 
compared with what had happened. Then he saw that Bill had not witnessed the 
thing issuing from her vagina. He must have believed that she had stuck some 
object up his anus.
    "Your clothes are over there," she said, pointing at a chair on the other 
side of the bed. "Get dressed and get out."
    Bill stood up unsteadily and walked around the bed. While he dressed 
clumsily, he said, "I'll have the cops down here so fast your heads'll swim. 
Drugging me! Drugging me! What the hell for? What did you intend to do?"
    "I wouldn't call in the cops," Childe said. "You heard what she said she'd 
do. You'd end up with all sorts of charges flung at you, and, believe me, this 
woman has some powerful connections. Moreover, she is quite capable of murder."
    Bill, looking scared, dressed more swiftly.
    Vivienne looked at her wristwatch and said, "Herald and I have some things 
we're eager to discuss. Please hurry."
    "Yeah, I'll bet you two perverts do!" Bill said, glaring at both.
    "For Christ's sake!" Childe said. "I saved your life!"
    Childe watched Vivienne. She was leaning against the dresser with her weight 
on one leg, throwing a hip into relief. He hated her. She was so agonizingly 
beautiful, so desirable. And so coldly fatal, so monstrous, in all senses of 
that overused and misused word.
    Bill finally had his clothes on, except for his raincoat and rubbers. These, 
Childe supposed, would be in the closet in the vestibule downstairs just off the 
entrance.
    "So long, you queers!" Bill mumbled as he stumbled through the door. "I'll 
see you in jail, you can bet on that!"
    Vivienne laughed. Childe wondered if he should go with him. Now that he had 
followed her and was in this den of whatever it was that she and her colleagues 
were, he wondered if he had made a very wrong decision. It was true he had 
rescued a victim, but the victim was so stupid he did not realize what he had 
escaped. Certainly, he did not seem worth the trouble or the risk.
    Vivienne waited until the front door loudly slammed. Then she moved slowly 
towards him, rolling her hips.
    He backed away, saying, "Keep your distance, Vivienne. I have no desire for 
you; you couldn't possibly seduce me, if that's what you have in mind."
    She laughed again and sat down on the edge of the bed. "No, of course not! 
But why are you here? We left you alone, though we could have killed you easily 
enough at any time. And perhaps we should have, after what you did to us."
    "If you were human, you'd understand why."
    "Oh, you mean the monkey sense of curiosity? Let me remind you of how 
Malayans catch monkeys. They put food in a jar with a mouth large enough for the 
monkey to get his paw into but too small for him to withdraw the hand unless he 
lets loose of the food. Of course, he doesn't let loose, and so the trapper 
takes him easily."
    "Yes, I know that," he said. "Your analogy may be a fairly exact one. I'm 
here because I still think that your bunch had something to do with my wife's 
disappearance. I know you denied that, but I can't get it out of my mind that 
you did away with Sybil. You're certainly capable of doing that. You're capable 
of anything that's cruel and inhuman."
    "Inhuman?" she said, smiling.
    "All right. Point well taken," he said. "However, here we are, alone 
together in this house with no one except Bill knowing that I am here. And he 
not only does not know who I am, he isn't going to say anything about me. Not 
after he considers the possible repercussions, especially the fact that he might 
be suspected."
    "Suspected of what?" she said, her eyes widening. Before he could reply, she 
said, "I doubt that he'll say anything to anybody."
    "What do you mean?" he said, although he thought he knew what she was going 
to say.
    She looked at her watch and said, "He ought to be dying of a heart attack 
about now."
    She looked up at him and smiled again. "So pale! So shocked! What did you 
expect, you babe in the woods? Did you think I'd let him go so he could talk to 
the police? I could make him regret it, of course, with charges that would put 
him in jail, but I don't want any publicity whatsoever. Now, really, Herald 
Childe, how could you be so naive?"
    Childe broke loose from the casing of ice that had seemed to be around him. 
He leaped at her, his hands outstretched, and she tried to roll away from him on 
the bed to the other side, but he seized her ankle. He dragged her to him, 
although she slammed one heel into his shoulder. He leaned down between her legs 
and thrust three fingers into the wet vagina and probed. Something fiery touched 
one of his fingers, and he knew he had been bitten, but he plunged his hand in 
as far as he could.
    Vivienne screamed with the pain then, but he kept the hand in and, despite 
the agony of more bites on his other fingers, managed to seize that tiny head. 
It was slippery, and it resisted, but it came on out of her cunt, its mouth 
working, the minute teeth glittering in the light, its eyes looking like red 
jewels stuck into its bearded doll face.
    He pressed his left shoulder against her right leg to keep it from kicking 
him and braced his right shoulder against her other leg. She reached down and 
grabbed his hair and pulled, and the pain was so intense he almost let loose of 
the thing. But he clung to it and then threw himself backward as hard as he 
could. The snakelike body shot out from the slit while the tiny mouth screamed 
like a rabbit dying.
    As he fell on his back on the floor, he saw the tail slide out of the slit. 
It came loose much easier than he had thought it would. Perhaps he had been 
wrong in thinking that it was anchored to her in a plexus of flesh.
    But there were red and bloody roots hanging from the end of the tail, and 
Vivienne was down on the floor by him writhing and screaming.
    He jumped up and threw the thing away. Its slimy muscle-packed body and the 
grease-soaked head and unadulterated viciousness of the face and eyes were so 
loathsome he was afraid he was going to vomit.
    The body soared across the bed, hit the other edge, flopped, and then 
slithered off the edge to fall out of sight.
    Vivienne quit screaming, though her skin was gray and her eyes were great 
areas of white with violet islets. She said, "Now you've done it! I hope I can 
get back together again!"
    He said, "What?"
    He was having difficulty standing. The pain in his fingers was lessening, 
but that was because a numbness was shooting up his arm and down his side. The 
room was beginning to be blurred, and Vivienne's white body with the auburn 
triangle between the legs and torn fleshy roots hanging out of the slit was 
starting to spin and, at the same time, to recede.
    "You wouldn't understand, you stupid human!"
    He sank to his knees and then sat down, lowering himself with one arm that 
threatened to turn into rubber under him. Vivienne's pubis was directly under 
his eyes, so he saw what was happening despite the increasing fuzziness of 
vision.
    The skin was splitting along the hairline of the pubis. The split became a 
definite and deep cleavage as if invisible knives were cutting into her and the 
operators of the knives intended to scoop out the vagina and the womb in one 
section.
    Cracks were appearing across her waist, across her thighs, her knees, her 
calves, and her feet.
    He bent over to see more clearly. There were cracks on her wrists, her 
elbows, around her breasts, her neck. She looked like a china doll that had 
fallen onto a cement sidewalk.
    When he looked back at her cunt, it had walked out of the space it had 
occupied between her legs. It was staggering on its own legs, a score or more of 
needle-thin many-jointed members with a red-flesh color. Its back was the pubis, 
the rich auburn hair, the slit, and the mound of Venus. Its underside was the 
protective coating of the vaginal canal. The uterus came next on its many tiny 
legs, following the vagina as if it hoped to reconnect.
    Out from the cavity left by the exodus came other organs, some of which he 
recognized. That knot and fold of flesh certainly must be the fallopian tube and 
ovary, and that, what the hell was that?
    By then the cleavages around the base of the breasts had met, and the 
breasts reeled off the steep slope of the ribs and fell down, turning over. One 
landed on its legs and scuttled off, but the other breast lay on its back--its 
front, actually--and kicked its many red spider legs until it succeeded in 
getting on its feet--so-called.
    The belly had split across and down, as had the upper part of the trunk. The 
anus and the two cheeks of the buttocks crawled off. The legs of this creature 
were thicker but the weight of the flesh seemed to be almost too much. It moved 
slowly, whereas the hands, using the fingers as legs, ran across the room 
quickly and disappeared under the bed.
    The head was also walking towards the underside of the bed. It was lifted 
off the floor by legs about three inches high and perhaps a sixteenth of an inch 
thick. Four longer legs that had sprouted from behind her ears supported the 
head and kept it from falling to one side or another. Vivienne's eyes were open 
and blinking, so that she seemed to be as aware in this state as she was in the 
other. She did not, however, look at Childe.
    He felt sick, but he did not think be was going to vomit. If he was, he 
could not feel anything churning up. His insides were too numb for anything 
except a vague feeling of queasiness.
    He fell over on his side and could not get up again no matter how hard he 
struggled. Or tried to struggle, rather, because his efforts were all mental. 
His muscles, as far as he could tell, failed to respond with even a tremor.



     
CHAPTER 24
     
    When he saw the golfball-sized head of the thing poke out from beyond the 
end of the bed, Childe realized what he had done. By yanking so savagely on that 
thing, he had jerked it loose from some base in her body, probably in her 
uterus. This was what he had intended. But he could never have visualized that 
pulling the thing was like pulling the cord on one of those burro dolls--what 
were they called?--that were hung up in Mexican homes on Christmas. Pull the 
string, and they ripped open, and all the goodies spilled out.
    The thing had been her string, and when it was torn out, she fell apart, and 
all her goodies, separate entities, spilled out. And began a walk that only a 
Bosch could paint.
    Now the thing was gliding snakelike towards him, its forepart raised off the 
ground and the slimy, goateed, shark-toothed, scimitar-nosed, garnet-eyed head 
was pointed at him. Its mouth was writhing, and a piping was issuing from the 
invisible lips.
    Childe could do nothing but lie on his side, his eyes fixed on the 
approaching thing. He wondered what it had in mind for him. Its bite was 
poisonous, and while its poison had paralyzed Bill but left his sexual organs 
active, it might be fatal if he were bitten again. Moreover, Vivienne said an 
antidote had to be given, and she, as far as he knew, was the only one who could 
do that. But not while she was in this condition.
    A glob of coiled intestines crossed before him, cutting off his view of the 
snake-thing. Behind it came the spinal area, a flesh centipede. This reeled 
blindly into a foot, which was traveling upside down, its sole pointed towards 
the ceiling, while twenty legs bore it to wherever it was going. The spine and 
the foot fell over on their side and kicked their legs for a while before 
managing to get back up.
    The snake-thing crawled nearer. Childe watched it and speculated on whether 
or not its underside was equipped with many moving plates to enable it to 
progress so serpentinely. Did it have an ophidian skeleton?
    He was so numb that it did not occur to him to wonder how this whole process 
could come about. He just accepted it.
    Presently, the many-legged cunt, still followed by the many-legged uterus, 
walked towards him. The hairy-back animal bumped into his stomach, staggered 
back, half-turned, and bumped along his body. It stopped when it came into 
contact with his chin, slid along it and around to his mouth, where it stopped. 
He could not see it, but he had the feeling that it was leaning against his 
lips. Its hairs brushed his nose and made him want to sneeze. The odor from it 
was clean and faintly musky, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed 
it very much.
    The cunt remained by him, pressing on his mouth, as if it recognized 
something familiar in its blind and deaf world. The uterus was nestled against 
his neck, its wet skin on his skin.
    The snake-thing kept on coming towards him and then it disappeared around 
his head. He tried to throw his head back and to turn it, but he could not. 
Within a few seconds, he felt it crawling up over the back of his head. He 
wanted to scream, to make a superhuman effort that would enable him to burst out 
of his own skin and run out of the room. Then the thing was coiled up on his 
cheek, and the wet beard was tickling the lobe of his ear.
    The voice was tiny and tinny.
    The words were unintelligible. They were in that same language he had heard 
before, in between French and Spanish. Like an unnasalized, untruncated French. 
An archaic French, perhaps.
    The tiny tinny voice raged on. Its forked tongue flicked against the inner 
part of his ear.
    Suddenly, there was a silence. The body was still there, but it was 
motionless. The vagina-thing abruptly scuttled away with the uterus-thing nosing 
after it. Vivienne's head appeared from under the bed and stalked slowly towards 
him. Her tongue was sticking out from her lax lips, and her bright eyes stared 
at him.
    Her head stopped a few feet from his eyes. Her eyes looked up, evidently at 
the thing on his cheek. Her lips moved, but no voice issued. This was to be 
expected, since she had no lungs. The lungs were twin creatures lurching like 
sick dinosaurs along a drying swamp towards the far wall.
    Maybe, Childe thought, maybe the thing can lip-read. Maybe she's giving him 
instructions for starting the reassembly process.
    But what if there is no reassembly? What if this is final? What do I know 
about her or others of her kind? All were strange, but Vivienne was the 
strangest. She did not fit into any categories of vampire or werewolf or lamia 
or ghost. Maybe, when the cord is yanked, the lanyard pulled, she has had it. 
Surely, she--her parts that is--can't survive long in this condition. They have 
to eat and to excrete, they are as subject to natural laws as any other 
creatures, even if they seem to be unnatural.
    There is nothing unnatural in this universe. Anything that seems so just 
isn't explained yet. All things can be explained by natural laws. If you don't 
know certain laws, then you think a thing is unnatural.
    The snake-thing slid down over his eyes onto the floor. It crawled to 
Vivienne's head and coiled there while the upper part rose to a point a few 
inches before her eyes. It swayed back and forth like a cobra, and sometimes its 
head turned. Its mouth was working, and its face was twisted with rage. Only 
when its head was turned towards him could Childe hear the faint piping voice. 
It was still using the unknown tongue.
    Presently it communicated something or it tired of trying to communicate. It 
turned and crawled to a point just past his chin. He could not see what it was 
doing until a moment later. It crawled out past him, towing the uterus behind 
it. Its tail had been inserted into the interior and probably was being 
implanted again.
    When it was a little distance past his head, it stopped and turned again. It 
crawled back towards him, stopping with the uterus leaning up against his 
forehead. The vagina moved away, and he was able to see that the snake-thing was 
butting it with its head. Herding it.
    When it had the vagina maneuvered into the proper position, it slipped 
through from the rear of the vagina and emerged through the slit. The vagina 
moved backwards as if impelled by telepathy until it was reunited with the 
uterus-thing.
    Now what? Childe thought, and then he was able to worry about himself for 
the first time. Maybe the poison did wear off; maybe Vivienne had been lying 
about the necessity of the antidote. She must have wanted to give Bill an 
antidote to get him going more quickly. And at the same time she had 
administered the poison that would stop his heart. If she had not lied about 
that, of course.
    He tried to move but was as unable as before. However, his thinking and his 
vision were not as unfocused.
    Now he began to be impressed with the utter alienness of the life before 
him. That a living body could fall apart into discrete creatures which were 
mobile was unthinkable. But there they were. And how did they survive so long? 
The blood system, for instance, had been cut off, sealed into each creature, but 
the circulation, of course, had stopped. That was easy to see. There was the 
heart, its veins and arteries closed up, moving away from him towards the 
underside of the bed on thirty frail legs. Something about it reminded him of a 
headless chicken.
    But how did these things, live without the bringing in of oxygen and the 
carrying away of waste? They had to have some auxiliary source of energy and 
excretion. Had to Nave!
    And how did Vivienne manage to hide all these fissures and cleavages, all 
these legs and God knew what other biological mechanisms, in her body? She 
should have looked fat and lumpy, but she had not. She had a superb body and 
that face, that painfully beautiful face, now walking around on a score of 
skinny legs and four support legs from behind her ears!
    The snake-thing dragged itself in front of him, trailing the uterus, in 
chase of the anus and buttocks. Obviously it intended to unite with them. But 
what then? It was becoming unwieldy and could not corner too many other pieces 
and unite before it became too heavy and too awkward.
    The head had been busy while he watched the snake-thing. It had kicked and 
pushed shoulders and a neck until they were huddled together in a corner of the 
room. Then the head went off in pursuit of various entrail things while the 
snake-thing backed into the buttocks and anus and hooked up as a railroad engine 
would hook up several cars with another.
    At that moment, he felt the floor vibrate slightly under him. A second 
later, two large shoes were by his head. Then the shoes moved on out past him, 
and he saw the chauffeur. He was a big man with a skin as dark as a sunburned 
Sicilian's, but his features were Baltic. He had a broad face with high 
cheekbones and a high forehead and straight dark hair. The scene before him did 
not seem to bother him in the least.
    With swift but efficient movements, he began to reassemble Vivienne 
Mabcrough. The parts were placed together or one inserted into another, and 
presently she was stretched out on the floor in a unit. The fissures closed; the 
cracks disappeared; the cleavages filled out. When her skin was again unbroken, 
he hit her over the heart with his fist. She gasped for air, breathed for a 
while, and then sat up. She was a little unsteady but waved the hand of the 
chauffeur away.
    The head of the snake-thing came out of her slit and stared angrily at him.
    "Barton," she said, "put him on the bed and undress him."
    Wordlessly, Barton picked Childe up in his arms and laid him out on the bed. 
He proceeded to take off all of Childe's clothes and to hang them up neatly in 
the closet. The shoes and socks went under a chair. Childe could see this 
because he was able by then to turn his head. He could not, however, talk.
    "You can go now, Barton," Vivienne said.
    The big dark man looked emotionlessly at Childe. Then he said, "Very well, 
madame," and left.
    Childe wondered what his place was in Vivienne's group. If Barton was wholly 
of human origin, then he was one of the vilest collaborators in history. Or in 
unhistory, since history, or any human science or scientific discipline, refused 
to acknowledge the existence, or the possibility of existence, of these beings.
    Vivienne stood over him and bent down so that one breast hung above his 
mouth a few inches.
    She said, "You frustrated me, my beautiful Herald Childe, and I don't like 
to be frustrated. You took away my Bill, a stupid ass of a man but a great cock. 
So you will substitute for him, even though you are now forbidden."
    He wanted to ask her what she meant by "forbidden" but could not even open 
his mouth.
    Vivienne kissed him and thrust her tongue into his mouth and felt his tongue 
and teeth and gums while she played with his cock with one hand. Despite 
himself, he responded. His penis felt slightly titillated; it warmed up and 
swelled a little, if his sense of feel was any indication.
    Vivienne moved herself up then and put her nipple in his mouth, but he was 
unable to suck on it. If he had been able, he would have refused. She was the 
most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but she was by now far from the most 
desirable. He did not care for murdereresses at all, and he loathed her for that 
thing coiled in her womb. He hoped it was still there, but he doubted it. His 
anus was beginning to contract in dread of its coming.
    Even though he did not suck or tongue it, her nipple grew large and hard in 
his mouth. She withdrew it and put the other one between his lips, and it grew 
large. Then she began to kiss his nipples and to stroke his cheeks with her 
fingers. She slowly traced her tongue down his belly, working back and forth and 
across, drawing geometric designs with its tip.
    When she came to his pubic hairs, she ran her tongue along the edge of the 
hairline and then worked her tongue over the hairs until they were wet. His 
penis swelled some more. He did not want it to be affected in the least by her, 
but the paralyzing effect of the bite made him unable to resist. He loathed her 
and he wanted to scream at the thought of the snake-thing. But the loathing and 
the horror were numbed, far away. The pleasure of her tongue and lips was the 
immediate entity.
    When he felt her mouth closing around his testicles, he began to be flooded 
with a hot sensation. It arose from under his navel and spread outwards but 
chiefly towards the base of his penis. When it oozed into his penis, it filled 
it out so that it rose up straight and hard.
    After a while, she pushed the testicles out with her tongue and lowered her 
head over his cock. Her lips went softly and wetly around the head, and her 
tongue pressed against the slit in its end. He groaned deep within himself and 
could not repress a desire to move his hips upward to drive his prick deeper 
into her mouth. The desire was all that resulted; his hips remained motionless.
    Vivienne continued to suck on the glands and occasionally to move her head 
down so that the shaft went in all the way. The warmth at the base of his penis 
became a rod of fire which stretched from the tip of his spine to the tip of his 
cock. The heavy gray fluid was moving slowly, rubbing against excited nerves, 
towards the entrance to his shaft.
    Suddenly, Vivienne got up and turned around, presenting that lovely back and 
the egg-shaped buttocks. She squatted over him and reached down and tenderly 
took the head between her fingers. This she guided into her anus as she lowered 
herself down on it. The head stuck in the tight mouth for a minute and then 
abruptly slid in. It moved against a warm slick surface until the flesh of her 
ass was against his pubic hairs.
    She lowered and raised herself slowly several times, causing him to feel 
ecstatic. It would not take much of this to make him come. And he did not like 
buggering. Though he had done it several times to women who liked it, he had a 
distaste for it. Now his repulsion was on the edge of his mind. It bulked large 
enough for him to be aware of it, but it did not bother him.
    She stopped on an upward movement, leaving his cock half in.
    Knowing what was about to happen, he mentally gritted his teeth. The horror 
did not draw any blood from his engorged penis, however.
    Suddenly, something slipped down over his testicles. It slid over the sac 
and under, and something--the thing's bearded little head, of course--touched 
his anus. Then it entered and was pushing into his anus and then up his rectum. 
It felt hard and solid and unpleasant, as when a doctor stuck a finger up him 
for a prostate examination. But this disagreeable sensation did not last long. 
Something, perhaps its bite or the substance released by its bite, turned 
unpleasantness into a warm and relaxing feeling.
    A few seconds later, Vivienne began to move up and down on his cock, and he 
could feel the body of the snake-thing sliding back and forth in him. Its motion 
seemed to be independent of hers; it was moving much faster then her motions 
could account for.
    The warmth and relaxation within his rectum and his bowels gave way to an 
almost hot feeling and a tension. The tension was, however, near-ecstatic. His 
insides felt as ready for orgasm as his penis. Both exquisitenesses acted as 
sine waves out of phase with each other. But as Vivienne increased her slidings 
up and down his pole, and as the snake-thing continued at the same rapid pace, 
the waves slowly came into phase.
    There was a moment of glory: a flashing red light across his eyes, a spurt 
of metal rubbing against his pleasure nerves, a breaking through of a red-hot 
drill in the center of his brain, and he exploded. It was as if he had been 
turned inside out as he passed through some fifth-dimensional continuum. He was 
a glove of flesh removed from a hand, inverted, and exposed to radiations that 
would never have reached him otherwise, intensely delightful radiations.
    Vivienne sat on him for a while but rotated on his cock so that she could 
face him. The action pulled the snake-thing along, but it, apparently, was 
through. It slid out of his anus and then was facing him. Its shaft and head 
were smeared and it was still expelling a musky gray fluid from its mouth. When 
the flow had ceased, its forked tongue flickered out and began to clean its 
face. Within a few minutes, its face and beard looked as if it had showered.
    Though it did not look as vicious as before, it still looked dangerous.
    Childe was glad to see it withdraw, although he wished that it had not first 
moved up her body and kissed her on the lower lip with its thin mouth.
    Vivienne scooted up when the thing disappeared into her cunt, and his penis 
slipped out of her anus. She kissed him and said, "I love you."
    He could not reply, but he thought, "Love?"
    He wished he could vomit.
    At that moment, three men entered the room. One of them had a cane, from 
which he pulled a thin-bladed sword. He stuck the point of it against Vivienne's 
neck.
    She turned pale and said, "Why are you breaking the truce?"



     
CHAPTER 25
     
    Forrest J Ackerman, hiding in the bushes, was getting wetter. He was also 
becoming madder.
    Three days ago he had received through the mail a large flat box. This had 
come from England, and it contained an original painting by Brain Stoker. The 
painting depicted Count Dracula in the act of sucking blood from the throat of a 
young blonde. Many illustrations have done this; a number of reprints of 
Dracula, written by Bram Stoker, have shown Dracula going down on a sleeping 
young beauty, and innumerable advertisements and stills for various Dracula 
movies have shown this.
    But this was the only painting of Dracula done by the author himself. Until 
a few months ago, its existence had been unknown. Then a dozen oil paintings and 
a score of ink drawings had been found in a house in Dublin, once owned by a 
friend of Stoker's. The present owner had discovered the works in a boarded-up 
closet in the attic. He had not known what the paintings and drawings 
represented in money. He had sold them to an art dealer for several pounds and 
thought himself well ahead.
    But the dealer had brought in handwriting experts who verified that the 
signature on the illustrations was indeed Bram Stoker's. Forry Ackerman, reading 
of this, had sent a wire to the Dublin art dealer and offered to top any price 
submitted. The result was that he got his painting but had to go to the bank to 
get a loan. Since then, he had been waiting anxiously and could talk of little 
but the expected arrival.
    When he unwrapped it, he was not disappointed. Admittedly, Stoker was no St. 
John, Bok, Finlay, or even a Paul. But his work had a certain crude force that a 
number of people commented upon. It was a primitive, no doubt of that, but a 
powerful primitive. Forry was glad that it had some artistic merit, although he 
had no knowledge of what constituted "good art" and no desire to learn. He knew 
what he liked, and he liked this.
    Besides, even if it had been less powerful, even crude, he would not have 
cared. He had the only original painting of Dracula by the author of Dracula. No 
one else in the world could claim that.
    This was no longer true.
    That night he had come home to his house in the 800 block of Sherbourne 
Drive. It was raining then as now, and water was pouring down his driveway into 
the street. The street was flooded but the water had not yet risen to cover the 
sidewalk. It was after one o'clock, and he had just left a party at Wendy's to 
come here because he had to get out one of his comic magazines. As editor of 
Vampirella and some horror magazines, he had hard schedule dates to meet. He had 
to edit Vampirella tonight and get it out in the morning, air mail, special 
delivery, to his publisher in New York.
    He had unlocked the door and entered the front room. This was a rather large 
room decorated with large and small original paintings of science-fiction and 
fantasy magazine covers, paintings done on commission, stills from various 
horror and so-called science-fiction movies, photographs of Lon Chaney, Jr., as 
the Wolf Man, Boris Karloff as Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Each 
bore a signature and a dedication of best wishes and fondest regards to "Forry." 
There were also heads and masks of Frankenstein's monster, the Creature from the 
Black Lagoon, King Kong, and a number of other fictional monsters. The 
bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling at several places, and these were 
jammed with the works of science-fiction authors, Gothic novel writers, and some 
volumes on exotic sexual practices.
    Forry's house had to be seen to be visualized. It had once been his 
residence, but he had filled it with works evaluated at over a million dollars. 
He had moved into Wendy's apartment and now used the house as his business 
office and as his private museum. The day would come--perish the day!--when he 
would no longer be around to enjoy, to vibrate with joy, in the midst of his 
dream come true. Then it would become a public museum with the great Ray 
Bradbury as trustee, and people would come from all over the world to view his 
collection or to do research in the rare books and with the paintings and 
manuscripts and letters. He was thinking about having his ashes placed in a 
bronze bust of Karloff as Frankenstein's monster and the bust put on a pedestal 
in the middle of this room. Thus he would be here in physical fact, though not 
in spirit, since he refused to believe in any survival after death.
    California law, however, forbade any such deposit of one's ashes. The 
morticians' and cemetery owners' lobby had insured that, the legislature passed 
laws beneficial to their interests. Even a man's ashes had to be buried in a 
cemetery, no matter what his wishes. There was a provision that ashes could be 
scattered out over the sea; but only from an airplane at a suitable distance and 
height. The lobby ensured that the ashes of a number of deceased were stored 
until a mass, thus economical, flight could be made.
    Forry, thinking about this, suppressed his anger at the money-hungry and 
essentially soulless robbers of the bereaved. He wondered if he could not make 
some arrangements for an illegal placing of his ashes in the bust. Why not? He 
could get some of his friends to do it. They were a wild bunch--some of them 
were--and they would not be stopped by a little illegality.
    While he was standing there, taking off his raincoat, he looked around. 
There was the J. Allen St. John painting of Circe and the swine, Ulysses' 
buddies. And there, pride of his prides, and there...and there...!
    The Stoker was gone.
    It had been hung on a place opposite the door so that anybody entering could 
not miss seeing it. It had displaced two paintings. Forry had had a hard time 
finding space in this house where every inch of wall was accounted for.
    Now, a blank spot showed where it had been.
    Forry crossed the room and sat down. His heart beat only a little faster. He 
had a faulty pacemaker; it controlled the heart within a narrow range, and that 
explained why he had to take stairs slowly and could not run. Nor did excitement 
step up the heart. The emotions were there, however, and they made him quiver 
when he should have beat.
    He thought of calling the police, as he had done several times in the past. 
His collection had been the object of attentions of many a burglar, usually a 
science-fiction or horror addict who brushed aside any honesty he might have 
possessed in his lust to get his hands on books, paintings, stills, manuscripts, 
masks, photographs of the famous, and so forth. He had lost thousands of dollars 
from this thievery, which was bad enough. But the realization that some of the 
works were irreplaceable hurt him far worse. And the thought that anybody could 
do these evil things to him, who loved the world as he did not love God, hurt. 
Who loved people, rather, since he was no Nature lover.
    Putting aside his first inclination to call the police, he decided to check 
with the Dummocks. These were a young couple who had moved in shortly after the 
previous caretakers, the Wards, had moved out. Renzo and Huli Dummock were broke 
and houseless, as usual, so he had offered them his hospitality. All they had to 
do was keep the house clean and fairly well ordered and act as helpers sometimes 
when he gave a party. Also, they would be his burglar insurance, since he no 
longer lived in the house.
    He went upstairs after calling a number of times and getting no answer. The 
bedroom was the only room in the house which had space for residents. There was 
a bed and a dresser and a closet, all of which the Dummocks used. Their clothes 
were thrown on the bed, the floor, the dresser top, and on a pile of books in 
one corner. The bed had been unmade for days.
    The Dummocks were not there, and he doubted they could be anyplace else in 
the house. They had gone out for the night, as they quite often did. He did not 
know where they got their money to spend, since Huli was the only one working 
and she did that only between fits of apathy. Renzo wrote stories but had so far 
been able to sell only his hardcore pornography and not much of that. Forry 
thought they must be visiting somebody off whom they were undoubtedly sponging. 
This increased his anger, since he asked very little of them in return for room 
and board. Being here nights to watch for burglars had been their main job. And 
if he reproached them for falling down on this, they would sneer at him and 
accuse him of exploiting them.
    He searched through the house and then put on his raincoat and went out to 
the garage. The Stoker painting was not there.
    Five minutes later, he got a phone call. The voice was muffled and 
unrecognizable, although the caller had identified himself as Rupert Vlad, a 
friend and a committeeman in the Count Dracula Society. Since Forry took all his 
calls through the answering service, he could listen in and determine if he 
wished to answer any. This voice was unfamiliar, but the name got the caller 
through.
    "Forry, this isn't Vlad. Guess you know that?"
    "I know," said Forry softly. "Who is it?"
    "A FRIEND, Forry. You know me, but I'd just as soon not tell you who I 
really am. I belong to the Lord Ruthven League and the Count Dracula Society, 
too. I don't want to get anybody mad at me. But I'll tell you something. I heard 
about you getting that painting of Dracula by Stoker. I was going to come over 
and see it. But I attended a meeting of the Lord Ruthven League...and I saw it 
there."
    "You what?" Forry said shrilly. For once, he had lost his self-control
    "Yeah. I saw it on the wall of, uh, well..."
    There was a pause.
    Forry said, "For the sake of Hugo, man, don't keep me hanging in air! I have 
a right to know!"
    "Yeah, but I feel such a shit finking on this guy. He..."
    "He's a thief!" Forry said. "A terrible thief! You wouldn't be a fink. You'd 
be doing a public service! Not to mention servicing me!"
    Even in his excitement and indignation, he could not keep from punning.
    "Yeah, uh; well, I guess you're right. I'll tell you. You go right over to 
Woolston Heepish's house. You'll see what I'm talking about."
    "Woolston Heepish!" Forry said. He groaned and then added, "Oh, no!"
    "Uh, yeah! I guess he's been bugging you for years, right? I kinda feel 
sorry for you, Forry, having to put up with him, though I must say he does have 
a magnificent collection. I guess he should, since he got some of it from you."
    "I never gave him anything!"
    "No, but he took. So long, Forry."



     
CHAPTER 26
     
    Fifteen minutes later, Forty was outside the Heepish residence. This was two 
blocks over from Forry's own house, almost even with it. In the dark and the 
driving rain, it looked like an exact duplicate of the Ackermansion. It was a 
California pseudo-Spanish bungalow with a green-painted stucco exterior. The 
driveway was on the left as you approached the house, and when you stepped past 
the extension of the house, a wall, you saw the big tree that grew in the patio. 
It leaned at a forty-five degree angle across the house, and its branches lay 
like a great hand over part of the tiled roof. At the end of the driveway was 
the garage, and in front of the garage was a huge wooden cutout of a movie 
monster.
    You turned to the right and onto a small porch to face a wooden door 
plastered with various signs: NO SMOKING PERMITTED. WIPE YOUR FEET AND YOUR MIND 
BEFORE ENTERING. THE EYES OF HEEPISH ARE ON YOU (hinting at the closed-circuit 
TV with which Heepish scanned his visitors before admitting them). ESPERANTO AND 
VOLAPUK SPOKEN HERE. (This bugged Forry, who was a long-time and ardent 
Esperantist. Heepish not only imitated Ackerman with the Esperanto, but, in his 
efforts to go him one better, had learned Esperanto's closest rival, Volapuk.)
    Forry stood for some time before the door, his finger held out to press on 
the doorbell. The skies were still emptying their bins; the splash of water was 
all around. Water roared out of the gutter drains and covered the patio. The 
light above the door gave a ghastly green illumination. All that the scene 
needed was thunder and lightning, the door swinging open slowly and creakingly, 
and a tall pale-faced, red-lipped man with sharp features and black hair 
plastered close to his head, and a deep voice with a Hungarian accent saying, 
"Good evening!"
    There was no light from the interior of the house. Every window was 
curtained off or boarded up or barred by bookcases. Forry had not seen the 
interior of the house, but it had beep described to him. His own house was so 
furnished.
    Finally, he dropped his hand from the doorbell. He would scout around a 
little. After all, he would look like an ass if he barged in demanding to have 
his painting back, only to find that his informant had lied. It would not be the 
first time that he had been maliciously misinformed so he would get into an 
embarrassing situation.
    He walked around the side of the house and then to the back. There should be 
a room here which had once been an anteroom or pantry for the kitchen. In his 
own house, it was now piled with books and magazines; in fact, he kept his 
collection of Doc Savage magazines just off the kitchen door.
    The curtains over the windows were shut tight. He placed his ear against the 
window in the door but could hear nothing. After a while, he returned to the 
front. That there were two cars in the driveway and a number parked, in the 
street might indicate that Heepish had guests. Perhaps he should return to his 
house and phone Heepish.
    Then he decided that he would confront Heepish directly. He would not give 
him a chance to deny he had the painting or to hide it.
    Having made up his mind, he still could not bring himself to ring the 
doorbell. He went to the front of the house and stood in the bushes for a while 
while the rain pelted him and water dripped off the branches. The confrontation 
was going to be dreadful. Highly embarrassing. For both of them. Well, maybe not 
for Heepish. That man had more nerve than a barrel of brass monkeys.
    A car passing by threw its water-soaked beams on him for a minute. He 
blinked against the diffused illumination and then walked from under the shelter 
of the bush. Why wait any longer? Heepish was not going to come out and invite 
him in.
    He pressed the button, which was the nose of a gargoyle face painted on the 
door. A loud clanging as of bells came from within followed by several bars of 
organ music: Gloomy Sunday.
    There was a peephole in the large door, but Heepish no longer used this, 
according to Forry's informants. The pressing of the doorbell now activated a TV 
camera located behind a one-way window on the left of the porch.
    A voice from the Frankenstein mask nailed on the door said, "As I live and 
don't breathe! Forrest J (no period) Ackerman! Thrice welcome!"
    A moment later, the door swung open with a loud squeaking as of rusty 
hinges. This, of course, was a recording synchronized to the door.
    Woolston Heepish himself greeted Forry. He was six feet tall, portly, 
soft-looking, somewhat paunched, and had a prominent dewlap. His walrus 
moustache was bronzish, and his hair was dark red, straight, and slick. He wore 
square rimless spectacles behind which gray eyes blinked. He hunched forward as 
if he had spent most of his life reading books or working at a desk. Or standing 
under a rainy bush, Forry thought.
    "Come in!" he said in a soft voice. He extended a hand which Forry shook, 
although he wished he could ignore it, let it hang out in the air. But, after 
all; he did not know for sure that Heepisb was guilty.
    Then he stiffened, and he dropped Heepish's hand.
    Over Heepish's shoulder he saw the painting. It was hung at approximately 
the same place it had hung in his house. There was Dracula sinking those long 
canines into the neck of a blonde girl!
    He became so angry that the room swirled for a moment.
    Heepish took his arm and walked him towards the sofa, saying, "You look ill, 
Forry. Surely I don't have that effect on you?"
    There were five others in the room, and they gathered about the sofa where 
he sat. They looked handsome and beautiful and were dressed in expensive 
up-to-the-latest-minute clothes.
    "My painting!" Forry gasped. "The Stoker!"
    Heepish looked up at it and put the tips of his fingers together to make a 
church steeple. He smiled under the walrus moustache.
    "You like it! I'm so glad! A fabulous collector's item!"
    Forry choked and tried to stand up. One of the guests, a woman who looked as 
if she were Mexican, pushed him back down.
    "You look pale. What are you doing out on a night like this? You're soaked! 
Stay there. I'll get you a cup of coffee."
    "I don't want coffee," Forry said. He tried to stand up but felt too dizzy. 
"I just want my painting back."
    The woman returned with a cup of hot coffee, a package of sugar, and a 
pitcher of cream on a tray. She offered it to him, saying, "I am Mrs. Panchita 
Pocyotl."
    "Of course, how graceless of me!" Heepish said. "I apologize for not 
introducing you, my dear Forry. My only excuse is that I was worried about your 
health."
    The other woman was a tall slender blonde with large breasts, a Diana 
Rumbow. The three men were Fred Pao, a Chinese, Rex Bilgren, a mulatto, and 
George Bunyan, an Englishman.
    Forry, looking at them clearly for the first time, thought there was 
something sinister about them. He could not, however, define it. Maybe it was 
something about the eyes. Or maybe it was because he was so outraged about the 
painting he thought that anybody who had anything to do with Heepish was 
sinister.
    Mrs. Pocyotl bent over to give him the coffee and exposed large 
light-chocolate colored breasts with big red nipples. She wore no brassiere 
under the thin formal gown with the deep cleavage.
    Under other circumstances, he would have been delighted.
    Then Diana Rumbow; the blonde, dropped a book she was holding and bent over 
to pick it up. Despite his upset condition, he responded with a slight popping 
of the eyes and a stirring around his groin. Her breasts were just as 
unbrassiered as Panchita's. They were pale white, and the nipples were as large 
as his thumb tips and so red they must have been rouged. When she stood up, he 
could see how darkly they stood out under the filmy gown she wore.
    He was also beginning to see that the bendings over were not accidents. They 
were trying to take his mind off his painting.
    Pocyotl sat down by him and placed her thigh against his. Diana Rumbow sat 
down on the other side and leaned her superb breast against the side of his arm. 
If he looked to either side, he saw swelling mounds and deep cleavages.
    "My painting!" he croaked.
    Heepish ignored the words. He drew up a chair and sat down facing Forry and 
said, "Well! This is a great honor you have done me, Mr. Ackerman. Or may I call 
you Forry?"
    "My painting, my Stoker!" Forry croaked again.
    "Now that you've finally decided to let bygones be bygones, and, I presume, 
decided that your hostility towards me was unwarranted, we must talk and talk! 
We must talk the night out. After all, what with the rain and all, what else is 
there to do but to talk? We have so much in common, so much, as so many people, 
kind and unkind, have pointed out. I think that we will learn to know each other 
quite well. Who knows, we might even decide someday that the Count Dracula 
Society; and the Lord Ruthven League can band together, become the Greater 
Vampire Coven, or something like that, even if witches and not vampires have 
covens? Heh?"
    "My painting," Forry said.
    Heepish continued to talk to him, while the others chattered among 
themselves. Occasionally, one of the women leaned over against him. He became 
aware of their perfume, exotic odors that he did not remember ever having 
smelled before. They stimulated him even in his anger. And those breasts! And 
Pocyotl's flashing, dark eyes and Rumbow's brilliant blue eyes!
    He shook his head. What kind of witchcraft were they practicing on him? He 
had entered with the determination of finding the painting, taking it down from 
the wall or wherever it was, and marching out the front door with it. Now that 
he considered that, he would have to find something to protect it from the rain 
until he could get it into his car, which was across the street. His coat would 
do it. Never mind that he would get soaked. The painting was the important 
thing.
    But he could not get off the sofa. And Heepish would not pay the slightest 
attention to his remarks about the painting. Neither would the guests.
    He felt as if he were in a parallel universe which was in contact with that 
in Heepish's house but somewhat out of phase with it. He could communicate to a 
certain degree and then his words faded out. And, now that he looked around, 
this place seemed a trifle fuzzy.
    Suddenly, he wondered if his coffee had been drugged.
    It seemed so ridiculous that he tried to dismiss the thought. But if Heepish 
could steal his painting and hang it up where so many people would see it, 
knowing that word would quickly get to the man from whom he had stolen it, and 
if he could blandly, even friendlily, sit with the man from whom he had taken 
his property and act as if nothing were wrong, then such a man would have no 
compunction about drugging him.
    But why would he want to drug him?
    Thoughts of cellars with dirt floors and a six foot long, six foot deep 
trench in the dirt moved like a funeral train across his mind. A furnace in the 
basement burned flesh and bones. An acid pit ate away his body. He was roasted 
in an oven and this crew had him for dinner. He was immured, standing up, while 
Heepish and his guests toasted him with Amontillado. He was put in a cage in the 
basement and rats, scores of them, big hungry rats, were released into the cage. 
Afterwards, his clean-picked skeleton was wired together and stood up in this 
room as a macabre item. His friends and acquaintances, members of the Count 
Dracula Society and the Lord Ruthven League, would visit here because Heepish 
would become king after the great Forry Ackerman disappeared so mysteriously. 
They would see the skeleton and wonder whose it was--since so many people play 
Hamlet to the unknown Yoricks--and might even pat his bony head. They might even 
speak of Forry Ackerman in the presence of the skeleton.
    Forry shook himself as a dog shakes himself emerging from water. He was 
getting a little psycho about this. All he had to do was assert his rights. If 
Heepish objected, he would call the police. But he did not think that even 
Heepish would have the guts to stand in his way. 
    He stood up so suddenly he became even dizzier. He said, "I'm taking my 
painting, Heepish! Don't get in my way!"
    He turned around and stood up on the cushion and lifted the painting off its 
hook. There was a silence behind him, and when he turned, he saw that all were 
standing up, facing him. They formed a semicircle through which he would have to 
go through to get to the door.
    They looked grave, and their eyes seemed to have become larger and almost 
luminous. It was his imagination that put a werewolfish gleam in them. Of 
course.
    Mrs. Pocyotl curled her lips back, and he saw that her canines were very 
long. How had he missed that feature when he first saw her? She had smiled, and 
it seemed to him that her teeth were very white and very even.
    He stepped down off the sofa and said, "I want my coat, Heepish."
    Heepish grinned. His teeth seemed to have become longer, too. His gray eyes 
were as cold and hard as a winter sky in New York City.
    "You may have your coat, Forry, since you don't want to be friendly."
    Forry understood the emphasis. Coat but not painting.
    He said, "I'll call the police."
    "You wouldn't want to do that," Diana Rumbow said.
    "Why not?" Forry said.
    He wished his heart could beat faster. It should be, but it wasn't, even 
under this strain. Instead, his muscles were jerking, and his eyes were blinking 
twice as fast as usual, as if they were trying to substitute for the lack of 
heartbeats.
    "Because," the blonde said, "I would accuse you of rape."
    "What?"
    The painting almost slipped from his hands.
    Diana Rumbow slipped out of her gown, revealing that she was wearing only a 
garter belt and nylon stockings. Her pubic hairs were long and very thick and a 
bright yellow. Her breasts, though large, did not sag.
    Mrs. Pocyotl said, "Maybe you'd like two for the price of one, Forry."
    She slipped out of her gown, revealing that she wore only stockings and a 
belt. Her pubic hairs were black as a crow's feathers, and her breasts were 
conical.
    Forry stepped back until the backs of his knees were in contact with the 
sofa. He said, "What is this?"
    "Well, if the police should be called, they would find this house deserted 
except for you and the two women. One woman would be unconscious, and the other 
would be screaming. Both women would have sperm in their cunts, you can bet on 
that. And bruises. And you would be naked and dazed, as if you had, shall we 
say, gone mad with lust?"
    Forry looked at them. All were grinning now, and they looked very evil. They 
also looked as if they meant to do whatever Heepish ordered.
    He was in a nightmare. What kind of evil beings were these? All this for a 
painting?
    He said, loudly, "Get out of the way! I'm coming through! This painting is 
mine! And you're not going to intimidate me! I don't care what you do, you're 
not getting to keep this! I might have given it to you, Heepish, if you'd become 
a good friend and wanted it badly enough! But not now! So out of the way!"
    Holding the painting as if it were a shield or a battering ram, he walked 
towards Heepish and the naked Rumbow.



     
CHAPTER 27
     
    Herald Childe drove slowly through the rain and, the high waters. His 
windshield wipers were not able to cope at this moment, so dense was the 
downpour. His headlights strove to pierce the sheets with little effect. Other 
cars, driven by more foolhardy Angelenos, passed him with great splashings.
    It took him more than two hours to get to his house in Topanga Canyon. He 
drove up the steep side street at ten miles an hour while water, several inches 
deep, poured down past him. As he turned to go into his driveway, he noticed the 
car beneath the oak tree by the road. Another car that had been abandoned here, 
he supposed. There had been seven automobiles left here within the past several 
weeks. All were of the same model and year. All had been by the oak tree when he 
awoke in the morning. Some had been left for a week before the cops finally came 
and towed them away. Some had been there a few days and then had disappeared 
during the early morning hours.
    He did not know why somebody was abandoning cars in front of his house or, 
if not outright abandoning them, was parking them for such a long time. His 
neighbors for two blocks on either side of the house and both sides of the 
street knew nothing about the cars.
    The cops said that the cars they'd towed away were stolen.
    So here was the seventh. Possibly the seventh. He must not jump to 
conclusions. It could belong to somebody visiting his neighbors. He would find 
out soon enough. Meanwhile, he needed to get to bed. To sleep. He had had more 
than enough of that other bedtime activity.
    The house was his property. He owed nothing on it except the yearly taxes. 
It was a five room bungalow, Spanish style, with a big backyard and a number of 
trees. His aunt had willed it to him, and when she had died last year, he had 
moved in. He had not seen his aunt since 1942, when he had been a child, nor had 
he exchanged more than three letters with her in the past ten years. But she had 
left all her property to him. There was enough money so that he had the house 
left after paying off the inheritance tax.
    Childe had been a private detective, but, after his experiences with Baron 
Igescu and the disappearance of his wife, he had quit. He wasn't a very good 
detective, he decided, and besides, he was sick of the business. He would go 
back to college, major in history, in which he had always been interested, get a 
master's and, possibly, a Ph.D. He would teach in a junior college at first and, 
later, in a university.
    It would have been more convenient for him to take an apartment in Westwood 
where he would be close to the UCLA campus. But his money was limited, and he 
liked the house and the comparative quiet, so he drove every day to school. To 
save gas and also to find a parking place easier on the crowded campus, he rode 
a motorcycle during the week.
    Just now the school was closed because of vacation.
    It was a lonely life. He was busy studying because he was carrying a full 
load, and he had to keep up the house and the yard, but he still needed someone 
to talk to and to take to bed. There were women who came up to his house from 
time to time: teachers his own age or a little older, some older students, and, 
occasionally, a younger chick who dug his looks. He resembled a rough-hewn Lord 
Byron. With a clubfoot mind, he always added mentally when someone commented on 
this. It was no secret to him that he was neurotic. But then who wasn't? If that 
was any consolation.
    He turned on the lights and checked the windows to make sure again that none 
were leaking. It was a compulsive action he went through before leaving and 
after coming back--at least three times each time. Then he looked out the back 
window. The yard was narrow but deep, and this was good. Behind it towered a 
cliff of dirt, which had, so far, not become a mud flow. Water poured off it and 
drowned his backyard, and the water was up over the bottom steps of the back 
porch stairs. He understood, from what his neighbors said, that the cliff had 
been closer to the house at one time. About ten years ago it had slid down and 
covered the backyard almost to the house. The aunt had spent much money having 
the dirt hauled away and a concrete and steel wire embankment built at the foot 
of the cliff. Then, two years ago, in the extraordinarily heavy rains, the cliff 
had collapsed again. It had, however, only buried the embankment and come about 
six feet into the yard. The aunt had done nothing about it, and, a year later, 
had died.
    The entire Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange County area was being inundated. 
The governor was thinking about having Southern California declared a disaster 
area. Houses had floated away, mud slides had buried other houses, a car had 
disappeared in a hole in Ventura Boulevard, a woman, waiting for a bus in 
downtown Los Angeles had been buried in a mud slide, houses were slipping in the 
Pacific Palisades and in the canyons everywhere.
    There was only one consolation about the deluge. No smog.
    Childe went into the kitchen and opened the pantry and took out a bottle of 
Jack Daniels. He seldom drank, preferring marijuana, but when he was downcast 
and upset, marijuana only made him more gloomy. He needed something to dull his 
mind and nerves, and Tennessee mash on the rocks would do it.
    He sipped the stuff, shaking and making a face as he did so. After a while, 
he could swallow it without repugnance. A little later, he could sip on it with 
pleasure. He began to feel numb and even a trifle happy. The memory of Vivienne 
was still with him, but it did not shake him so much now.
    The three men had entered and one had delicately placed the tip of his sword 
against Vivienne's neck. She had said something about his breaking the truce.
    What truce? He had never found out. But the man with the sword cane had 
accused her and her people--he called them Ogs--of first breaking the truce. The 
Ogs had captured Childe and abused him. This was definitely against the rules. 
He was not even to be aware of their existence or of that of the Tocs.
    Moreover, they had endangered Childe's life. He might have been killed 
because of their irresponsible behavior. In fact, the Tocs were not sure that 
the Ogs had not had it in mind to kill Childe.
    "You know as well as you know anything that we agreed on The Face of Barrukh 
and the Testicle of Drammukh that we would let The Child develop until he was 
ready!" the swordsman said.
    "The Child?" thought Herald. "Or did he mean The Childe?"
    Later, he thought, "Possibly the two are the same."
    Vivienne, still crouching on the bed, had said, "It was an accident that he 
came to our house--to Igescu's, I mean. He insisted on breaking in and spying on 
us, and the temptation to partake of his power was too much for us. In that, we 
were guilty. Then things got out of hand. We did not handle him correctly, I'll 
admit. We forgot that he would have to be watched very closely; he looks so 
human it's easy to do, you know. And he acts so stupidly at times, he made us a 
little contemptuous of him."
    "Of The Child?" the swordsman said. "I think you are the stupid ones. He is 
not an adult yet, you know, so you can't expect him to act like one. Anyway, I 
doubt the adulthood of any of you Ogs."
    Vivienne, looking then at Childe, said, "We've been talking in English!"
    She burst into a spew of a language which he had heard before even if it was 
unintelligible to him. It was the same language that his captors had used when 
he was a prisoner in Igescu's.
    Though he did not understand what followed, he was able to determine the 
name of the swordsman. It was Hindarf.
    Hindarf seemed inclined to run Vivienne through, but she talked him out of 
it. Finally, Hindarf pricked him with a needle, and presently he was able to 
function almost normally. He got dressed and allowed himself to be escorted out 
of the house. He was still too shaky to drive, so Hindarf drove while the two 
men followed in their car. Hindarf refused to answer Childe's questions. His 
only comment was that Childe should stay away from the Ogs. Apparently, he had 
believed Vivienne's story that Childe was the intruder in this case.
    A few blocks before they came to the turnoff to Topanga Canyon, Hindarf 
stopped the car. "I think you can drive from here on."
    He got out and held the door open for a moment while rain fell into the car 
and wet the driver's seat and the steering wheel.
    He stuck his face into the car and said, "Please don't go near that bunch 
again. They're deadly. You should know that. If it weren't..."
    He was silent for several seconds and then said, "Never mind. We'll be 
seeing you."
    He slammed the door shut. Childe scooted over into the driver's seat and 
watched Hindarf and the others drive away. Their car swung around and went down 
Topanga Canyon.
    As he sat in the front room and tried to watch TV while he swigged Jack 
Daniels, he thought of that evening. Almost nothing made sense. But he did 
believe that Igescu and Krautschner and Bending Grass and Pao and the others had 
not been vampires, werewolves, werebears, or what have you. They were very 
strange, bordering on the unnatural, or what humans thought of as unnatural. The 
theory advanced by Igescu, and presumably invented by the early 19th century 
Belgian, "explained" the existence of these creatures. But Childe was beginning 
to think that Igescu had led him astray. He did not know why he would lie to 
him, but there seemed to be many things he did not know about this business.
    If he had any sense, he would follow Hindarf's advice.
    That was the trouble. He had never shown too much common sense.
    Fools rush in, and so forth.
    After four shots of mash whiskey on an empty stomach, one also unaccustomed 
to liquor, he went to bed. He slept uneasily and had a number of dreams and 
nightmares.
    The persistent ringing of the telephone woke him. He came up out of a sleep 
that seemed drugged, and was, if alcohol was a drug. He knocked the phone off 
while groping for it. When he picked it up, an unfamiliar male voice said, "Is 
this McGivern's?"
    "What number did you want?" Childe said.
    The phone clicked. He looked at the luminous hands of his wristwatch. Three 
o'clock in the morning.
    He tried to go back to sleep but couldn't. At ten after three, he got up and 
went into the bathroom for a drink of water. He did not turn on the light. Going 
out of the bathroom, he decided to check on the condition of the street before 
he went back to bed. It was still raining heavily, and the street had been 
ankle-deep in water when he had driven up before the house.
    He pulled the curtain back and looked out. The car that had been parked 
under the oak tree was pulling away. The lights from the car behind it showed 
that a man was driving it. The car swung around and started slowly down the 
street towards Topanga Canyon. The lights of the other car shone on the pale 
face of Fred Pao, the Chinese he had seen at Igescu's. His lights threw the 
profiles of the three men in the other car into silhouette. One of them looked 
like Bending Grass, the Crow Indian, or Crow werebear, but that could not be. 
Bending Grass had died under the wheels of his car when Childe had escaped from 
the burning Igescu mansion.
    He turned and ran into the bedroom and slipped into a pair of pants and 
shoes without socks. He ran into the front room, put on a rainhat and raincoat 
and picked up his wallet and car keys from the dining room table. He got into 
the car and took off backwards, splashing water as if he were surf-riding as he 
backed onto the street. He drove faster than he should have and twice skidded 
and once the motor sputtered and he thought he had killed it.
    He caught up with them about a quarter of a mile up Topanga. The lead car 
was slowing down even more and looked as if it would swing into a private road 
that went up the steep hill. He had never been up it, but he knew that it led to 
a huge three-storied house that had been built when the road was a dirt trail. 
It stood on top of a hill and overlooked much of the area, including his own 
house.
    Abruptly, the lead car stopped. The car behind it also stopped. He had to go 
on by them; they would become suspicious if he also stopped. At the top of the 
hill he slowed down, found a driveway, turned in, and backed out. He came down 
the hill again in time to see the two cars heading back down Topanga Canyon.
    He wondered what had made them change their minds? Had they become 
suspicious of him? Perhaps they had seen his lights as he turned onto Topanga.
    Childe followed them into Los Angeles. The cars proceeded cautiously through 
the heavy rain and flooded streets until they reached San Vicente and La 
Cienega. When the light changed to green, the two cars suddenly roared into 
life. Shooting wings of water, their tires howling even on the wet pavement, 
they sped away. He accelerated after them. They swung left on reaching Sixth and 
skidded into the traffic island, bounced off, and continued back up San Vicente 
on the other side of the boulevard, then skidded right as they turned on Orange.
    The green light was with them and with Childe, who was about a block behind. 
His rear tires hit the curb of the island and one wheel went over and there was 
a crash. He supposed his right rear fender had struck the traffic light, but it 
did not seem to impair the operation of the car. He shot after the other two 
cars, though he wondered why he was risking his limb and life. But the fact that 
they were trying so desperately to get away, that they had deliberately led him 
astray from that road up to the house on top of the hill kept him going.
    Nevertheless, when the car turned west onto Wilshire Boulevard, he began to 
think strongly about giving up the chase. They had gone through a red light 
without stopping and by the time he reached the intersection, he saw their 
taillights a block away. They were still casting out great sheats of water.
    He continued after them, increasing his speed. He did not know what he would 
do if he caught up with them. Four against one? And at least one of them, and 
probably all four, was a being with some very strange and deadly powers. He 
remembered Hindarf's words.
    At Wilshire and San Vicente, the two cars went through a red light two 
seconds after it had changed. Two cars coming south on San Vicente met them. The 
lead car slammed broadside into Fred Pao's automobile, and the car behind the 
lead car smashed into its rear. The car following Pao rammed into his rear. A 
moment later, Childe's car, turning around and around on the wet pavement, 
slammed its rear into the car that had been following Pao's. The whole mass, 
five cars jammed into each other, swung around like a five-pointed star, around 
and around.



     
CHAPTER 28
     
    "Very well, Forry," Heepish said. "If you want it that badly..."
    He bowed and made a flourish. Forry felt his cheeks warming up. He said, "Do 
I want it? It's mine! I paid for it with my money! You stole it, like a common 
thief!"
    "No common thief would touch it," Heepish said.
    Forry, deciding that absolutely nothing was to be gained by standing there, 
plunged on ahead. The others opened a way for him, and Heepish even ran up and 
opened the door for him.
    "See you, Forry," he said.
    "Yeah. In jail, maybe!"
    As soon as he was in his own house, Forry placed the painting on the wall 
and then checked the doors to make sure they were locked. The Dummocks had not 
come home yet, so he decided to stay and sleep on the couch that night. Then he 
remembered that he was supposed to get the latest edition of Vampirella out. He 
had completely forgotten about it!
    He made himself some coffee and went into a rear room, where his "office" 
was. He worked away steadily until 2:30, when he heard a slight noise somewhere 
in the house. He rose and started out of the office when the lights went out. 
That was all he needed to put him hopelessly behind schedule!
    He fumbled around in the desk drawer for matches, which he did not think he 
would have, since he had never smoked. Finding none, he groped through to the 
kitchen. The pantry shelves were filled with books and magazines. He did not eat 
at the house but took all his meals out or ate at Wendy's. The icebox, except 
for some cream for coffee and a few goodies, was filled with microfilm.
    As he felt around in the porch room for a flashlight, the lights suddenly 
came back on. He continued until he found the flashlight. If the power failed 
again, he would work by its light.
    On the way back to the office, he looked into the front room. The Stoker 
painting was gone!
    There was no time to stand around and think. He put on his rainhat and 
raincoat and rubbers and walked as fast as his heart would let him out to the 
car. He got into the big green Cadillac and backed out into the lake which 
Sherbourne Drive had become. He went as fast as he dared and within two minutes 
was before Woolston Heepish's. Fred Pao, the painting in his arms, was just 
turning away from the car.
    Forry blasted his horn at him and flicked his brights on. The Chinese was 
startled and almost dropped the painting. Forry cried out in anguish and then 
lowered the window to shout at Pao.
    "I'll call the police!"
    Pao opened the rear door of the car and shoved the painting into it. He ran 
around to the other side, got in, and the motor roared. His Mercury took off 
with a screaching of tires and sped towards Olympic. Forry stared at him for 
several seconds and then, biting his lip, took off with a similar screeching of 
tires. At the same time, he honked furiously at the Chinese. The man was taking 
his beloved Dracula where he could hide it until the search was up. And then 
Woolston Heepish would receive it!
    But not if Forrest J Ackerman, the Gray Lensman of Los Angeles, had anything 
to do with it! Just as Buck Rogers trailed Killer Kane to his lair, so FJA would 
track down the thief!
    Pao's car swung west on Olympic. Forry started to go through the stop sign, 
too, but had to slam on his brakes as a car going west on Olympic, sheets of 
water flying from its sides, honked at him. His car skidded and slid sidewise 
out onto the main boulevard. The oncoming car swerved and skidded also, turned 
around once, and ended up still going westward. Forry straightened out the 
Cadillac and ran it as if it were a speedboat. Waves curling out on both sides, 
he passed the car he had almost hit and then continued building up speed until 
he saw Pao's taillights going right on Robertson. He went through a red light, 
causing two drivers to apply their brakes and honk their horns. He chased Pao up 
Robertson and down Charleville Boulevard. Despite its multiplicity of stop 
signs, neither stopped once. Then Pao turned up to Wilshire, went westward back 
to Robertson, up Robertson, through all intersections with stop signs and signal 
lights, red or green, and skidded right on Burton Way. He ran a red light going 
to San Vicente and so did Forry. In the distance, a police siren whooped, and 
Forry almost slowed down. But he decided that he could justify his speeding and, 
even if he couldn't, a fine would be worth it if the cops caught Pao with the 
stolen goods. He hoped the cops would show up in time. If they didn't, they 
might find one dead Chinese.
    Pao continued down San Vicente, ran another red light at Sixth, with Forry 
two car-lengths behind him. Despite their recklessness, neither was going over 
forty. The water was too solid; at higher speeds it struck the bottom of the car 
like a club.
    At Wilshire and San Vicente the light was green for them, but two cars raced 
through the red; and Pao hit the lead car broadside. Forry applied his brakes 
and slowed down the car somewhat, but it crashed into the rear of the Chinese's 
car. His head hit something, and he blacked out.



     
CHAPTER 29
     
    Childe was half-dazed. After the screaming of metal, the crashing and 
ripping and rending of metal, and the shatter and tinkle of glass, there was a 
moment of silence--except for the rain and a siren in the distance. Some of the 
cars still had operating headlights, and these cast a pale rain-streaked halo 
over the wreckage. Then a huge black fox leaped onto the top of his hood, paused 
to grin through the windshield at him, leaped down onto the street, and trotted 
off into the darkness behind Stats Restaurant.
    The police car, its siren dying, pulled up by the cars, and two officers got 
out. At the same time, a big dog--no, a wolf--passed by him, also on the way to 
the rear of the restaurant.
    An officer, looking into the cars, swore and called to his partner. "Hey, 
Jeff, look at this! Two piles of clothes in this one and another pile in this 
car and nobody around that could have worn them! What the hell is this?"
    The policeman had a genuine mess in more ways than one. No one seemed to be 
dead or even seriously hurt. Childe's car was bashed in in the front and side 
but was still operable. The car of a Mr. Ackerman had a smashed radiator and 
would have to be towed away. Pao's car was destroyed. The others were leaking 
badly from the radiators and could not be driven far.
    One policeman set out flares. The other still could not get over the 
abandoned clothing. He kept muttering, "I've seen some freak things, but this 
tops them all."
    Another patrol car arrived after ten minutes. The officers determined that 
no one needed to be hospitalized. They took down the necessary information, gave 
out some tickets, and then dismissed the participants. The case was far from 
over, but there had been so many accidents because of the rain and so many other 
duties to perform that the police had to streamline normal procedures. One did 
say that Mr. Pao and Mr. Batlang would be sought for leaving the scene of an 
accident. And if the clothes meant anything, they might be arrested for public 
nudity, indecent exposure and, probably, would be subjected to a psychiatric 
examination.
    One of the passengers in the car said that they must have been dazed He knew 
them well, they were responsible citizens, and they would never leave the scene 
of an accident unless they had been rendered half-conscious in a state of shock.
    "Maybe so," the policeman said. "But you have to admit it's rather peculiar 
that all three should take off their clothes--slide out of them the way it looks 
to me--and run away. We were right behind you, and we didn't even see them 
leave."
    "It was raining very heavily," the passenger said
    "Not that heavily."
    "What a night," the other policeman said.
    Childe tried to talk to the others in the accident, but only Forrest J (no 
period) Ackerman would reply. He seemed very concerned about a painting in the 
rear seat of Pao's car. He had removed it shortly after the police had arrived 
and put it in the back seat of his Cadillac. If the police observed this, they 
did not say anything. Now he wanted to get it back to his house.
    "I'll take you as soon as they let us go," Childe said. "Your house isn't 
far from here; it won't be any bother."
    He did not know what Ackerman's part in this was. He seemed to be an 
innocent victim, but then there was the transfer of the painting from Pao's car. 
How had Pao gotten hold of it? Also, there seemed to be two Paos. Were they 
twins?
    Forry Ackerman told him something of what had happened on the way to his 
house. Childe became excited, because he had met Woolston Heepish when he was 
investigating the disappearance of his partner, Colben.
    Childe decided that he would appear to go along with Ackerman's story. The 
man seemed to be sincere and genuinely upset and puzzled by what had happened. 
But it was possible that he was one of the Ogs, as Hindarf called them. It was 
also possible that he was one of the Tocs.
    When he drove up before Ackerman's house, he looked at it through the dark 
and the rain, and he said, "If I didn't know better, I would think Heepish lived 
here."
    "That man deliberately fixed his house to look like mine," Forry said. 
"That's why he's called 'the poorman's Forry Ackerman,' though I don't think 
he's so poor."
    They went inside and, while Ackerman hung the painting, Childe looked 
around. The layout of the house was the same, but the paintings and the other 
items were different. And this place was brighter and more inclined to 
science-fiction subjects than Heepish's.
    When Forry stepped down off the sofa with a satisfied smile, Childe said, 
"There's something wrong about this accident, other than the disappearance of 
Pao. I mean, I was chasing Pao in one car and the three men with him in the 
other. Yet you say you were chasing Pao, too."
    "That's right," Forry said. "It is puzzling. The whole evening has been 
puzzling and extremely upsetting. I have to get the latest issue of my comic 
book out to my publisher in New York, and I'm far behind. I'll have to work 
twice as fast to catch up."
    Childe interpreted this as meaning that he should leave at once. The man 
must really be dedicated to his work. How many could go back to their desk and 
work on a piece of fiction about vampires when they might have been associating 
with genuine vampires, not to mention genuine werefoxes and werewolves?
    "When you get your work done, and you're ready to talk,?" Childe said, 
"we'll get together. I have many questions, and I also have some information you 
might find interesting, though I don't know that you'll believe it."
    "I'm too tired to believe in anything but a good night's sleep, which I'm 
not going to get," Forry said. "I hate to be inhospitable, but..."
    Childe hesitated. Should he take up more of this man's time by warning him? 
He decided that it would be better not to. If he knew what danger he was really 
in, he would not be able to concentrate on his work. And knowing the danger 
would not help him in the least unless he believed in it and fled from this 
area. That did not seem likely. Childe would not have believed such a story if 
he had not experienced it.
    He gave Forry his phone number and address and said, "Call me when you're 
ready to talk this over. I have a lot to tell you. Maybe together we can get a 
more complete picture."
    Forry said he would do so. He conducted Childe to the door but before he let 
him through, he said, "I think I'll take that painting into my office with me. I 
wouldn't put it past Heepish to try again."
    Childe did not ask why he did not call the police. Obviously, if he did, he 
would be held up even more in getting out Vampirella.



     
CHAPTER 30
     
    Herald Childe did not get home until seven in the morning. The rain had 
stopped by four-thirty, but the canyons were roaring streams. He was stopped by 
the police, but when he explained that he lived off the main road, he was 
permitted to go on. Only residents could use this section of Topanga Canyon, and 
they were warned that it would be better if they stayed away. Childe pushed 
on--literally--and eventually got to his driveway. He saw three houses that had 
slipped their moorings and moved downhill anywhere from six to twenty feet. Two 
of the houses must have been deserted, but outside the third a family was moving 
some furniture and clothes into the back of a pickup truck. Childe thought 
momentarily about helping them and then decided that they could handle their own 
affairs. The pickup truck was certainly more equipped to move through the high 
water than his low-slung car, and if they wanted to break their backs moving 
their sofa, that was their foolish decision.
    Another car of the same year and model as the others was parked under the 
branches of the oak tree. The water flowing down the street was up past the hubs 
of the wheels. So strong was the force of the current, it sometimes lifted 
Childe's car a fraction of an inch. But at no time was more than one wheel off 
the ground.
    He parked the car in the driveway. The garage floor was flooded and, 
besides, he wanted the car to be available for a quick takeoff. He was not sure 
that the water pouring off the cliff and drowning his backyard would not lift 
the garage eventually. Or, if the cliff did collapse, it might move far enough 
to smash the garage, which was closer to the cliff than the house.
    He unlocked the door and locked it behind him. He started to cross the room 
when, in the pale daylight, a shapeless form rose from the sofa. He thought his 
heart would stop.
    The shapelessness fell off the figure. It was a blanket which had disguised 
it. For a moment, he could not grasp who was standing before him. Then he cried, 
"Sybil!"
    It was his ex-wife.
    She ran to him and threw her arms around him, put her face against his 
chest, and sobbed. He held her and whispered, over and over, "Sybil! Sybil! I 
thought you were dead! My God, where have you been?"
    After a while she quit crying and raised her face to kiss him. She was 
thirty-four now, her birthday had been six days ago, but she looked as if she 
had aged five years. There were large dark circles under her eyes and the lines 
from nose to mouth had gotten deeper. She also seemed thinner.
    He led her to the sofa and sat her down and then said, "Are you all right?"
    She started to cry again, but after a minute she looked up at him and said, 
"I am and I'm not."
    "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked.
    "Yes, you can get me a cup of coffee. And a joint, if you have one."
    He waved his hand as if to indicate a complete change of character. "I don't 
have any pot. I've gone back to drinking."
    She looked alarmed, and he said, hastily, "Only a shot very infrequently. 
I'm going to school again. UCLA. History major."
    Then, "How did you find this house? How did you get here? Is that your car 
out in front?"
    "I was brought up here by somebody--somebodies--and let into the house. I 
took off the blindfold and looked around. I found my photograph on your bedside 
table, so I knew where I was. I decided to wait for you, and I fell asleep."
    "Just a minute," he said. "This is going to be a long story, I can see that. 
I'll make some coffee and some sandwiches, too, in case we get hungry."
    He did not like to put off hearing what had happened, but he knew that she 
would not want to be interrupted after she got started. He did everything that 
had to be done very swiftly and brought in a tray with a big pot of coffee, 
food, and some rather dried-out cigarettes he found in the pantry. He no longer 
smoked, but he had gotten cigarettes for women he had brought into the house.
    Sybil said, "Oh, good!" and reached for the cigarettes. Then she withdrew 
her hand and said, wearily, "I haven't smoked for six months, and my lungs feel 
much better. I won't start up again."
    She had said this before and sounded as if she meant it. But this time her 
voice had a thread of steel in it. Something had happened to change her.
    "All right," he said. "You left for your mother's funeral in San Francisco. 
I called your sister, and she said you'd phoned her and told her you couldn't 
get a plane out and your car wouldn't start. You told her you were coming up 
with a friend, but you hung up without saying who the friend was. And that was 
the last I heard of you. Now, over a year later, you show up in my house."
    She took a deep breath and said, "I don't expect you to believe this, 
Herald."
    "I'll believe anything. With good reason."
    "I couldn't get hold of you, and, anyway, after that horrible quarrel, I 
didn't think you'd want to ever see me again. I had to get to San Francisco, but 
I didn't know how. Then I thought of a friend of mine, and I walked over to his 
apartment. He only lived a block from me."
    "He?"
    "Bob Guilder. You don't know him"
    "A lover?" he said, feeling a pinprick of jealousy. Thank God that emotion 
was dying out, in regard to her, anyway.
    "Yes," she said. "Earlier. We parted but not because we couldn't stand one 
another. We just didn't strike fire off each other, sexually. But we remained 
fairly good friends. Anyway, I got there just as he was packing to leave for 
Carmel. He couldn't stand the smog anymore, and even though the governor didn't 
want people leaving, he said he was going anyway. He was glad to drive me all 
the way into San Francisco, since he had some things to do there."
    They had driven out Ventura Boulevard because the San Diego Freeway was 
jammed, according to the radio. At a standstill. Ventura Boulevard was not much 
better, but ten miles an hour was an improvement over no miles.
    Just off the Tarzana ramp, the car overheated. Guilder managed to get it 
into Tarzana, but there was only one service station operating. The proprietors 
of the others were either staying home or were also attempting to get out of the 
deadly smog.
    "You won't believe this," she said, "but I stole a motorcycle. It was 
sitting by the curb, its key in the ignition. There was no one in sight, 
although the owner may have been only thirty feet away, the smog was that thick. 
I've ridden Hondas before, did you know that? Another friend of mine used to 
take me out on one for fun, and he taught me how to ride it."
    And other things, thought Childe without pain. The thought was automatic, 
but he was glad that it did not mean much now.
    There had been no use in her trying to reach 'Frisco on the Honda. The 
traffic was so thick and slow-moving that she did not see any chance of getting 
to her destination until the funeral was over, if then. She decided to return to 
her apartment. Eyes burning, sinuses on fire, lungs hurting, she rode the Honda 
home. That took two hours. The cars were filling both sides of the street, all 
going in the same direction, but there was enough room, if she took the sidewalk 
now and then to travel.
    She got to her apartment, and five minutes afterwards, someone knocked on 
her door. She thought it must be another tenant. Without a key, it was difficult 
to get into the building.
    But she did not recognize the two men, and before she could shut the door, 
they were on her. She felt a needle enter her arm, and she became unconscious. 
When she awoke, she was in a suite of three rooms, not including the bathroom. 
All were large and luxuriously furnished, and throughout her captivity she was 
given the best of food and liquor, cigarettes and marijuana, and anything she 
desired, except clothes. She had one beautiful robe and two flimsy negligees 
which were cleaned each week.
    When she first awoke, she was alone. She prowled around and found that there 
were no windows and the two doors were locked. There was a big color TV set and 
a radio, both of which worked. The telephone was not connected to the outside 
line. When she lifted it, she heard a man's voice answer, and she put the 
receiver down without saying anything. A few minutes later, a door swung open, 
and two men and a woman came in.
    She described them in detail. One of them could be one of the Paos; the 
woman had to be Vivienne Mabcrough. The second man did not sound like anyone he 
knew.
    Sybil became hysterical, and they injected her once more. When she woke up 
again, she controlled herself. She was told that she would not be harmed and 
that, eventually, she would be released. When she asked them what they wanted 
her for, she got no answers. Over the year's time, she concluded that her 
captors were planning on using her, somehow, as a weapon or lever against 
Childe.
    Childe, thinking of the sexual abuse he had suffered during his short 
imprisonment in the Igescu house, could not conceive that she was not molested 
in any way. He asked her if she had been raped.
    "Oh, many times!" she said, almost matter-of-factly.
    "Did they hurt you?" She did not seem to be affected by his question or any 
painful memories.
    "A little bit, at first," she said.
    "How do you feel now? I mean, were the experiences psychologically 
traumatic?"
    He was beginning to feel like a psychiatrist, or, perhaps, a prosecuting 
attorney. 
    "Come here, sit down by me," she said. She held out a slim and pale hand. He 
came to her and put his arm around her and kissed her. He expected her to burst 
into tears again, but she only sighed. After a while, she said, "I've always 
been very frank with you, right?"
    "Yes. But I don't know that a compulsion to honesty was the main factor," he 
said. "That may have been your rationalization, but I thought that your 
frankness was more to hurt me than anything else."
    "You might be right," she said. She sipped on some coffee and then said, 
"I'll tell you what happened to me, but it won't be to hurt you. I don't think 
so, anyway."



     
CHAPTER 31
     
    Sybil exercised, smoked more than was good for her, watched TV and listened 
to radio, read the magazines and books supplied whenever she asked for them, and 
generally tried to keep from going crazy. The uncertainty of her position was 
the largest element pushing her towards insanity. However, it was not as bad as 
being in solitary. The man who answered the phone would talk to her, and she got 
visitors at least five times a day. The woman who brought the meals would sit 
with her and talk when asked to do so, and a man called Plugger and a woman, 
called Panchita came quite often. Occasionally, the fantastically beautiful 
Vivienne Mabcrough would drop in.
    "They talked to me about many things, but they also asked many questions 
about you," Sybil said. "Mostly what I knew about your childhood, although they 
also wanted to know about your personal habits, what you read, your 
dreams--imagine that, your dreams!--and other things I might just happen to know 
because I was your wife."
    Sybil had seen nothing damaging to Herald in this. Besides, her drive to 
honesty almost forced her to give them complete answers. Or that was her 
rationalization.
    After a while, she began to suffer from sexual deprivation. Her nipples 
swelled whenever they touched cloth. Her cunt itched. She found herself sitting 
with her foot under her and rocking back and forth on the heel or rubbing up 
against the bed post or the back of a chair. She even kept a banana from her 
meal and masturbated with it.
    "If it's any consolation to you," she said, "I fantasized that you were my 
lover. Mostly, that is."
    He did not ask her who the others were. Actually, he did not care anymore. 
And that was strange, because he was feeling a genuine warmth and affection for 
her, perhaps even a love. He was happy to see her again and to be with her. 
Sybil may have changed but she had not changed completely. She still had to tell 
him everything.
    "You needn't be jealous of the other man," she said. "He doesn't exist. He's 
a fiction. Can you guess who?"
    "This isn't exactly the time for guessing games," he said. "But no, I don't 
know who you imagined at the other end of the banana."
    "Tarzan!" she said.
    "Tarzan? Oh, for cripe's sake! Well, why not? Bananas, big dongs, and all 
that. It only stands to reason that the superman of the jungle would be heavy 
hung."
    He was sarcastic, but he was also surprised. There were still things about 
her he did not know. Tarzan!
    There might have been a closed circuit TV monitoring her, she said. 
Otherwise, why would Plugger enter that evening and tell her she did not need to 
suffer anymore?
    Plugger was a tall, rangy man with a deep tan, black hair which came down in 
a widow's peak, somewhat pointed ears, and a very handsome face. He stood before 
her and stripped while she asked him what he thought he was doing, though she 
knew well enough.
    "He had a beautiful body with the smoothest skin, almost like glass. But his 
cock was big. Not enormous, just big and thick and it had the biggest knob at 
the end of it I've ever seen. I don't mean the glands. That was big enough, but 
he had a growth, I guess you could call it a wart, on the side of the head. I 
told him that really turned me off."
    "You sound as if you were pretty cool about the whole thing," he said.
    "Well, I was suffering. The banana was a long way off from being perfectly 
satisfactory. Or perfectly satisfying. And he was a hell of a good looking man, 
and he had talked with me enough so that I rather liked him, even if he was my 
warden. So I just told myself, you know, the cliche, if you have to be raped, 
lean back and enjoy it."
    "Really?" he said.
    "Well, not really. I was scared. But then he said he wouldn't force me. That 
helped relax me a lot."
    Plugger sat down by her and kissed her. She tried to turn her head away, but 
he turned it gently back. She protested that he was forcing her, and he replied 
that he only asked for one kiss. If she did not like it, he would not kiss her 
again.
    That seemed fair to her, really more than she had expected. After all, if he 
wanted to rape her, he could.
    She lifted her face to him at the same time that he put her hand on his cock 
and his tongue into her mouth.
    The shock that went down her throat and up her arm was almost as if she had 
touched an electric eel.
    "I mean, it was something like an electrical shock but much weaker. I had an 
orgasm in my throat and up my arm."
    Childe jumped up and said, "What?"
    "Yes, I know. It sounds crazy. But it was true. I came, I mean you know, 
when I come, I come with my whole body. But the ecstasy was denser, I mean, more 
intense, in my mouth and throat and in my hand and arm."
    He did not say anything more. His experiences with Igescu's crew had opened 
doors to an exotic enough world. Plugger was one that he had not experienced, 
and he supposed that there were many other outré beings in that group.
    Sybil had not resisted when Plugger took her robe and negligee off. She had 
allowed him to move her onto the bed, where he got between her legs and thrust 
his tongue into her cunt. It was like a spark in a cylinder full of vaporized 
gas. Orgasm after orgasm exploded in her, and then they began building up more 
slowly, building until she could endure the exquisiteness no more and felt that 
she would faint.
    While she lay panting and moaning with the aftermath, he climbed onto her 
and pressed her breasts around his dong. The same shock passed through them; the 
ecstasy was so intense she could see--but of course it was imagination--blue 
sparks sputtering from the tips of her nipples.
    "The funny thing was, his prick was soft," she said. "Even when he stuck it 
into my mouth, and transmitted that electrical come, it stayed soft."
    "He didn't come in your mouth?" he said. "I mean, spermatic fluid?"
    "There wasn't any jism, no. I mean, that shock, you might say, was a sort of 
electrical come."
    She had gone into a series of orgasms, one after the other, so fast that she 
could not count them.
    After this, he kissed her all over, and every inch of her skin felt a minor 
orgasm until he stuck his tongue up her anus. That almost lifted her off the 
bed, and she did faint after that orgasm.
    She was silent then, as if dwelling with great pleasure on the memory.
    Childe finally spoke. "Well, did he ever stick his prick in your cunt?"
    He had not meant to sound so harsh but, for the first time, he was jealous.
    "No. I tried to get it in even after he said it was no use. It kept doubling 
back and falling out. But I got orgasms through my hand while I was trying to do 
it. I said I was sorry I couldn't do something for him. He said it did not 
matter; he was more than satisfied. I guess that I wasn't far wrong when I said 
his come was electrical. He had a high-voltage jism, you might say."
    She had questioned him about this phenomenon, which became frightening when 
she recovered enough to think about it. He replied that he was built 
differently, and he got up, picked up his clothes, and walked out.
    He came every four days after that. She asked him why he did not visit her 
more often, and he said it took time for him to build up a charge. She took him 
literally, but she was beginning to get frightened again. What kind of weirdos 
were these? However, when he touched her, her fright went away.
    After about five visits from Plugger, two women, Panchita and Diana, came to 
her room. They talked for a while and left. Every few days, they would drop in. 
Then, one afternoon, Panchita asked her if she would like some pot. Sybil was 
very eager to get some, because it would help to pass the many dull moments. All 
three lit up.
    "But it wasn't real pot," she said. "It smelled something like pot, but it 
must have been something else. It really turned me on, but it also made me very 
suggestible. I think it had some hypnotic element in it."
    "Really?" Childe said. He anticipated what she was going to relate.
    "Yes. I got pretty high, and all three of us were laughing hysterically. I 
had completely forgotten that I was their prisoner and at their mercy. They 
seemed like very old friends and very lovable. In fact, uh, desirable."
    "They made love to you?"
    "Oh, yes. Panchita sat down by me and quite casually put her arm around my 
shoulder. The next I knew, she was cupping my breast with her other hand and 
then stroking my nipple. I felt a great deal of love--and lust--for Panchita. It 
seemed the most natural thing in the world. You know I don't swing that way, 
Herald. I have never had a homosexual experience in my life, not until then. In 
fact, the idea used to make me sick."
    Childe said nothing.
    She continued: "Diana, the tall blonde with perfectly enormous breasts, sat 
down on my other side. She started to kiss me while Panchita pulled up my 
negligee and began to suck on my nipple. I felt as if I was on fire. I tongued 
Diana's mouth while she tongued mine. And then I felt Panchita's mouth going 
down my belly. She kissed me all over there but stopped when she came to my 
cunt.
    "Diana lifted me up then and walked me over to the bed, where she took off 
my negligee. I got onto the bed and on my back and Diana and Panchita took their 
clothes off. They stood on each side of the bed and each took one of my hands 
and placed it against her cunt. They were dripping with lubricating fluid, 
sopping. I stuck a finger in each slit, and they moved their hips back and forth 
and jacked themselves off."
    "Is it necessary to go into such detail?" Childe said.
    "It's good therapy for me," she said. Her eyes were closed, and her head was 
leaning against the back of the sofa.
    The two women had climbed in beside her. Diana kissed and fondled her 
breasts while Sybil caressed Diana's left breast. Panchita again traveled down 
her belly with the tip of her tongue. After tracing a triangle around the pubic 
hairs with her tongue, Panchita got down between Sybil's legs. She spread them 
apart and then slid a pillow under her buttocks. The next Sybil knew, Panchita 
was running her tongue over her clitoris end sticking it up her cunt as far as 
she could. She kept at it until Sybil had an orgasm.
    "Then Panchita traded places with Diana, and Diana tongue-fucked me," she 
said. "Diana stimulated me better, I came about five times. Then Panchita got on 
top of me, and I licked her cunt and put my tongue up her slit and vibrated its 
tip against her clitoris. She came a number of times, after which Diana got on 
top of me. Diana came almost at once.
    "Then Panchita got down again and turned me on my side and licked my asshole 
while Diana licked my cunt again. When I had come a number of times, we made a 
triangle, mouth to pussy, you might say, fingers up twats, and, and, it was 
wonderful!"
    "You say that even in retrospect?"
    "I didn't that night after they left. I cried, and I felt so disgusted and 
so dirty. The drug had worn off by then, you understand. But Panchita and Diana 
kept visiting me, and after a while, I quit having guilt feelings. I got to 
liking it. Why not? What's so bad about making love to women? Does it hurt 
anyone?"
    "No," he said. "Did their lovemaking lessen the effect of Plugger's?"
    "Not at all. Actually, if you were to rate orgasms on a scale, I'd have to 
rate him as Super A-Plus and theirs as B-Minus."
    "Next you'll be telling me that Plugger and the two women got into bed with 
you at the same time," he said.
    She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.
    "How'd you know that?" she said. "Pour me another cup of coffee, will you 
honey?"
    He passed her the full cup and said, "Did Plugger touch off the two women, 
too?"
    "Oh, yes. Once Panchita and Diana and I got down in a daisy chain, and he 
rammed his tongue up Panchita's ass. He said she had the sweetest asshole, which 
made me a little jealous. Would you believe it, all three of us felt the shock 
in our cunts and our mouths? That, electricity or whatever it was passed through 
all of us."
    "I can understand your making love to the women the first time," he said. 
"You were under the influence of that drug you smoked. But you knew how it 
affected you, so why didn't you refuse to smoke it the next time they offered it 
to you?"
    "Like I said, I enjoyed it. Anyway, I didn't think about refusing it the 
second time. I don't know why."
    "Your mind shut down," he said. "You wanted to go to bed with them, so you 
just forgot how the stuff would affect you."
    "I'm not a compulsive Lesbian!" she cried. "I don't have any neurotic drive 
for women! I can take them or leave them!"
    "You just got out of prison, so how would you know?" he said. "However, that 
doesn't matter. Not now, anyway. How did they explain giving you a hypnotic drug 
when they said they wouldn't force you?"
    "They explained that they did not force me to smoke the pot, or what they 
called pot. And, later, they said I didn't have to smoke it now that I knew the 
effects."
    "You aren't hooked on the stuff?"
    "Absolutely not!"
    "Well, you may be right. Time will tell. I just don't understand their 
nonsadistic treatment. If you hadn't described certain people that I know so 
well, I would say that another group besides Igescu's had you."
    "What are you talking about? Another group?"
    "I'll tell you later about my adventures, if you can call them that."
    She continued with her story. He wondered if it was just that: a story. 
There was no doubt that she knew Panchita Pocyotl and Diana Rumbow and others 
and to do so she must have been held prisoner. But this sexual narrative? Had it 
really happened the way she said, or was she unconsciously concealing something 
more terrible? Has she suffered such traumatic, handling that she was repressing 
it and substituting a fantasy? It did not seem likely, because she did not act 
psychotic, but then a psychotic often acted normally.
    If the Ogs, as Hindarf called them, had treated her relatively 
considerately, then they had some sinister end in mind.
    There was one confirmation of her story, he thought. That was that Vivienne 
Mabcrough had left her alone.
    "And then, one afternoon, this fabulously beautiful woman, Vivienne, came to 
my room," she said.
    "Oh?"
    Vivienne and Sybil smoked the marijuana-like substance, with Sybil knowing 
well what was coming. The two made love, but the snake-thing remained within 
Vivienne's womb. Sybil was not aware of its existence, and Childe did not 
mention it.
    Vivienne came to Sybil many times after that, sometimes alone and sometimes 
with Panchita or Diana or Plugger or with all three. Then Fred Pao, or his twin, 
showed up. Both only wanted to be sucked off, but when Sybil refused unless she 
was given something in return, they brought Plugger in with them. While Sybil 
stood in the middle of the room, bent over, sucking on Pao's long slim dick, 
Plugger pressed his electric cock against her anus or held its tip against her 
cunt. Sometimes, he got down on his knees and spread the cheeks of her ass and 
rammed his tongue up it.
    "Every prisoner should have it so good," Childe said. He was thinking of 
what had happened to Colben and the others and of what might have happened to 
him. But, now that he considered it, Igescu's group may not have been planning 
on mutilation and death for him. They seemed to have been aware that he was 
something special, if he could believe what Hindarf and Vivienne had said in 
their short conversation in English.
    However, they had been trying to kill him after he had escaped and killed 
some of them. This could have been from self-defense only, not from a desire to 
murder for the pleasure of murder.
    Mysteriouser and mysteriouser, he thought, paraphrasing Alice.
    And Sybil had been a sort of Alice in Sexland. Certainly her adventures were 
as strange as Alice's.
    "You never found anything peculiar about Vivienne?" he said.
    "No. Should I have?"
    This seemed to confirm her story about her gentle treatment. If Vivienne had 
revealed the snake-thing, and the two had made love to Sybil, then she was being 
very considerate of Sybil.
    Despite all this enjoyment and the use of drugs, Sybil had many periods of 
depression, frustration, and a desire to get away. There were times when she 
felt as if she were a cow being fattened up for the slaughter. And even after 
she became quite at ease with her captors and talked fluently, she could not get 
them to answer one question about the reason for her imprisonment.
    And then, two days ago, all her visitors, except for a woman who brought her 
meals now and then, quit coming. The woman would not even say good morning to 
her, let alone answer questions. Sybil had watched TV and smoked pot and 
wondered what was going on. Her fears came to the surface, and she fantasized 
many dreadful things happening to her.
    Then, this very night, she was awakened by a hand shaking her. She sat up in 
bed, her heart throbbing painfully, to find three masked men by her bedside. One 
told her to get dressed. She did so, while they packed for her. They had brought 
her clothes in from someplace, presumably from a closet in the house. Then they 
blindfolded her and took her out of the house and drove her here. The drive, she 
estimated, had lasted about two hours.
    Childe did not say anything, but it seemed to him that she could have been 
located much closer than two hours drive to his house. If she were prisoner in 
that house near his, her rescuers might have driven around to make it seem that 
she had been a long way from him.
    On the other hand, she might have been held in, say, Vivienne's house in 
Beverly Hills.
    "Do you feel all right?" he said.
    "What? Oh, yes, I feel fine, except for being tired. And I am happy that I'm 
out of that, although it wasn't an altogether unpleasant experience. But very 
puzzling. What do you think made Plugger the way he was? I mean, how about that 
electricity of his? Do you think he had a surgically implanted battery of some 
sort? It sounds sort of science-fictiony, doesn't it?"
    He kissed her and said, "What about some nice normal sex?"
    "All right," she murmured. "It's late and I'm tired, but I would like to 
have a man who's really in love with me. You are in love with me, aren't you? 
Despite all our troubles?"
    "I must be," he said. "There have been times this past year when I was 
almost out of my mind wondering what could have happened to you."
    He stood up and said, "I'll get into my pajamas after I shower and shave."
    "I'm clean," she said. "I'll wait right here for you. You can carry me to 
bed. It'll be so nice."
    Ten minutes later, having sped through his preparations, he returned to the 
front room. She was sitting slumped on the sofa, fast asleep. He grinned wryly 
and kissed her on the forehead, moved her so that she was stretched out on the 
sofa, put the blanket over her, kissed her forehead again, and went into his 
bedroom. The rain had started again.



     
CHAPTER 32
     
    Forrest J Ackerman awoke with his head on the desk and the finally edited 
package of the latest issue of Vampirella beside him. He got up and shook his 
head. When he had finished his work this morning, he had intended to rush down 
to the post office on Robertson and mail it out. But he had somehow fallen 
asleep.
    The first thought was: The painting! Had he been drugged so that it could be 
stolen again?
    But it was leaning against the wall by the desk. He sighed with relief, part 
of which could be repressed anger at Woolston Heepish. Something really should 
be done about that fellow. He was not only a thief, he was dangerous. Anybody 
who would get two women to strip in order to seduce him out of the painting--and 
before witnesses--was not only dangerous, he was mad.
    Forry stumbled into the kitchen, washed his face in the sink, and then 
picked up the bulky envelope containing Vampirella. He was outside before he 
remembered that he did not have a car. One more count against Woolston Heepish!
    At that moment, like the Gray Lensman or Batman arriving to save the 
situation, the Dummocks drove up. Renzo crawled out of the car and, on all 
fours, progressed slowly towards the house. He was a youth of thirty-five, of 
medium height, black haired, ruddy faced, black moustached, paunched, and skinny 
legged. Huli, his wife, could walk, but just barely. She was a short woman with 
a magnificent bust, a hawk face, dark hair, and thick spectacles. She was 
thirty.
    Forry said, "I'd like to borrow your car. I have to run to the post office."
    "All yours," said Renzo, not looking up at him.
    "The keys," Forry said. "The keys."
    "You want Huli, you can have her. The cunt's all yours. Just keep me in 
cigarettes, food, booze, and typing paper, and she's all yours, Forry, old 
buddy. Ask her, she doesn't mind."
    "I want the keys to your car, not your wife!" Forry said loudly.
    Renzo continued to crawl towards the door. He turned his head and said, 
"Hull! Hurry up, help me up! Got the keys?"
    Huli stood swaying and blinking, looking like a giant drunken owl. "What 
keys? To the car or the house?"
    "Fuck it! Forry, can you open the door for me?"
    Forry looked into the car. As he had suspected, the keys were still in the 
ignition. He did not see how Renzo could have driven in his condition without 
smashing up, but the luck of drunkards and egoists had held out.
    He walked back and opened the door for the two. After Renzo had crawled in 
and Huli had fallen on her face crossing the threshold, he started to close the 
door. But be said, "Don't you dare puke on any of my stuff! You do, and out you 
go! Pronto!"
    "Why, Forry!" Huli said. "Have we ever puked on anything of yours?"
    "Just my Creature from the Black Lagoon bust," Forry said: "I forgave you, 
since it could be cleaned. But if you vomit on any of my books or paintings, or 
anything at all anymore, out you go!"
    "You must really be mad at us, Forry darling!" Huli said. "I've never seen 
you angry before. I thought you were a saint!"
    "If I puke, you can have Huli," Renzo said, looking up at Forry from his 
supine position in the middle of the floor. "Just so you don't toss our ass out 
of here. I'm writing the Great Cosmic Novel now, Forry. Not the Great American 
Novel. The Cosmic Novel. It makes Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Norman Mailer look 
sick. I'm really the greatest creator of them all, Forry, my Maecenas, patron of 
the arts, protector of the gifted and the genius. Your name will go down in 
history as Forrest J (No Period) Ackerman, the man who gave Renzo Dummock a roof 
over his head, a bed to sleep in, a desk to write on, food, booze, cigarettes, 
and typing paper. And got my typewriter out of hock for me, me, Renzo the 
Magnificent."
    The pity of it was that Renzo believed that he was the greatest. He had 
believed it since he was eighteen. The world owed him a living because the world 
was going to benefit. The world, as typified by Forry Ackerman, owed it to him.
    Dummock had said he would do anything, even suck cock if he had to, so he 
could pursue the call of Apollo. He would do anything except work. Work degraded 
him, tired him, took precious time from his writing. It was all right for Huli 
to work, she should support him while he wrote. Too bad Huli's apathy and 
occasional fits of hysteria kept her from holding a steady job. But it couldn't 
be helped, and if she would suck a few cocks now and then to keep a roof over 
their head and booze and cigarettes and typing paper at his elbow, what was the 
harm in that? Forry had turned down an offer by Huli to blow him. He said that 
he preferred that she keep the house clean and act as hostess now and then when 
he had a big party. Huli had said she would, but it was easier, and more fun, 
sucking cock. She kept her cunt reserved for Renzo, who got killingly jealous at 
the thought of another man sticking his prick into it. So far, she had done a 
miserable job as a housekeeper.
    Forry turned away from them, swearing that he would kick them out at the 
first chance, and knowing that he wouldn't. He got into the car, a beat-up 1960 
Ford with bald tires, and verified what he had suspected. The fuel indicator was 
on zero.
    Despite this, the motor started up and got him one block down Olympic before 
sputtering out. He walked to the nearest gas station and returned with a canful. 
Somehow, he never knew how it worked out, he always borrowed their car when it 
was out of gas.
    When he got back to the house, he found Alys Merrie sitting on the sofa in 
the front room. There was an odor of vomit in the house. Renzo had come through 
again.
    "Hello, Alys!" he said, his heart dropping like an elevator with snapped 
cables. "What brings you here? And how did you get in?"
    "You gave me a key long ago, remember?"
    "And I asked for it back, and you gave it to me," he said.
    "So I had a couple of duplicates made in the interim. Aren't you glad to see 
me, Forry? There was a time..."
    "Excuse me, I got to attend to something."
    He walked to the foot of the steps and looked up. Halfway to the landing was 
the nauseating pool. And Huli had not even bothered to clean it up!
    He had returned because he had some vital correspondence to clear up before 
he went to Wendy's to sleep. But Renzo's spoor and Alys Merrie were too much to 
put up with at this time. He would take off like Seaton after "Blackie" 
Duquesne.
    Alys Merrie thought differently. She was a blonde of medium height and good 
shape, about forty years old. She had been married, but, on meeting him at a 
world convention, had, as she put it, "gone ape over that divine Forry." Forry 
had been amused and flattered for a long time, but she had become a nuisance. He 
wasn't in love with her, and, while her adulation was pleasing, it got sticky 
after a while. Especially since her husband had threatened to sue him as 
corespondent.
    "The Dummocks are too busy to worry about that puke," she said. "I went 
upstairs to see what was going on, there was so much noise. Would you believe 
it? That fathead was sitting in the chair and Huli was blowing him! No big deal 
about that except he was taking notes! Taking notes! I wonder if he uses his pen 
for his prick!" 
    "Why don't you go back up and watch?" Forry said. "I have to go now, Alys. 
I've been up all night, my car is wrecked, I'm exhausted, I'm worried, and...in 
short, I've had it."
    "Yes, I know all about that."
    He looked at her with amazement. "You know all about it? Who could have told 
you?"
    "I've been in it from the beginning," she said. She took a cigarette from 
her purse, lit it, and looked coolly at him. She knew he allowed no smoking in 
the house--except in one bedroom upstairs--but she was doing this for a purpose. 
He decided to ignore the gesture.
    "You've been in what from the beginning?" he said. Despite his tiredness, he 
was becoming interested.
    "The whole business. Starting so many years ago that you would not believe 
it. Or, if you did, you'd be frightened. Which you're going to be, anyway, 
because you'll believe before I'm done."
    He sat down in the chair across the room and said, "How many years?"
    "About ten thousand or so Earth years," she said.
    He was silent for a while. Alys Merrie was a great little kidder when she 
wasn't mad at him or making love. She knew well how deeply immersed in 
science-fiction he was--sometimes he thought of himself as the leviathan in the 
great sea of sci-fi or as a sort of Flying Dutchman of the outer spaceways--and 
she sometimes poked fun at him about it. This did not seem a likely time for it, 
however. On the other hand, she just could not be serious.
    "Look around you," she said, waving her cigarette. "Look at all those wild 
paintings and photographs. Strange planets, alien forms of life, big-chested, 
elephant-trunked Martians; winged men; sentient machines; giant insects; 
synthetic humans; what have you. You've been reading books about weird beings 
and worlds, and you've collected a monument to science-fiction and fantasy and, 
incidentally, to yourself. A lifetime of love and labor is represented here.
    "You must believe in this exotic otherworld of yours. Otherwise, you would 
never have gone to such unique lengths to gather the artifacts of this 
otherworld about you."
    Something was different about Alys Merrie. She had never talked like this 
before. She had seemed incapable of talking so seriously or so fluently.
    "Ten thousand years," she said. "Would you believe that I'm ten thousand 
years old? No! What about twelve thousand?"
    "Twelve thousand?" he said. "Come on, Alys. I could believe in ten thousand, 
but twelve? Don't be ridiculous!" "I look a hard forty years old, don't I?" she 
said. "How about this, Forry?"
    It was like watching She or Lost Horizon, only it was in reverse. Instead of 
the beautiful young woman wrinkling into ghastly old age, it was a case of a 
woman unwrinkling, becoming a beautiful young girl. Helen Gahagan and Jane Wyatt 
should have had it so good.
    He wished his heart could beat faster. Then he wouldn't shake so much. So it 
was true. Everything he had read and dreamed about was true! Well, maybe not 
everything. But at least some of it was true.
    "Who and what are you?" he said. The room was beginning to seem a little 
fuzzy, and the illustrations by Paul, Finlay, St. John, Bok, and the rest of the 
wild crew had taken on three dimensions. He must be in a state of slight shock.
    "Do you like it?" Alys said.
    "Of course," Forry said. "But you didn't answer my question."
    "I am a, uh, let's say, a Toc," she said. "We are the enemies of the Ogs. 
You met some of them last night. Fred Pao, Diana Rumbow, Panchita Pocyotl. And 
Woolston Heepish."



     
CHAPTER 33
     
    "Heepish!" he almost screamed. "You mean Heepish isn't human?"
    "We're not only not human," she said. "We're extra-terrestrial. Extra-solar 
system. More. Extra-Galactic. The home of the Tocs is on the fourth planet 
circling a star in the Andromeda galaxy."
    He thought, I've always been a lucky man. I wanted only to work in 
science-fiction, and I was able to make my living out of it. I wanted to be the 
greatest collector of science-fiction and fantasy in the world, and I did that 
as naturally and as easily as a snail grows a shell. I need a job and a 
publisher wants to put out a series of horror-movie magazines for children, and 
who else is more capable or more willing to edit those? I have known the greats 
of this field, I have been their good friend, I have seen the first men land on 
the moon, and I hope to see the first men land on Mars before I die. I have been 
lucky.
    But now, this! I would have rejected this as a dream that only a lunatic 
could believe to be true, even if I have fantasized it many many times. The 
beings from outer space make contact with Earthlings through me!
    That was not exactly true, of course. If what she said was correct, the 
extees had been in contact with Earthlings for ten thousand years. But had they 
revealed themselves to any before? That was the important thing.
    "You're getting too excited, Forry," she said. "I know you have a thousand 
questions bubbling in your mind. But you'll get things straighter and quicker if 
you'll just listen quietly to my story. Okay? Good! Lean back and listen."
    There was a planet the size and shape of Earth rotating around a Sol-type 
sun on the edge of the Andromeda galaxy, which was 800,000 light years distant 
from Earth. The sky was a blaze of luminous gas and giant stars shining through 
the gas. The planet of the Tocs had no moon, hence was tideless.
    The fifth planet out had two small moons but no seas in which tides could 
occur. This was the dying world of the Ogs, an evil race.
    "Geeze!" Forry thought, and the extent of his excitement could be gauged by 
his use of the mild expletive. He abhorred the use, even in his mind, of the 
most dilute of expletives.
    "Geeze! This is just like Gernsback! Or Early Campbell!"
    The Tocs and the Ogs were not human beings. They were amphibious creatures 
who passed back and forth from a state of pure energy to that of matter. They 
formed configurations of bound energy in one condition and configurations of 
matter in the other. Their shape depended on that which they wished to 
imitate--or to create. But they did have limitations of size and shape. The 
smallest body that could be formed was about the size of a large fox or, if they 
took to the air, a large bat. When they existed as, the smaller animals, they 
carried the energy excess in an invisible form as a sort of exhaust trail. Or 
perhaps the analogy could be energy packed into an intangible and transparent 
suitcase.
    "What is your true shape?" Forry said.
    "You were not to talk," Alys said, flashing white teeth. She looked so 
beautiful and so young that he felt a pang of desire. Or was it an ache for his 
own lost youth?
    "We have no true shape, unless you would call the shape we use the most our 
true one. I suppose you could, since long utility of a particular shape results 
in a certain 'hardening' of that shape. It becomes more difficult to change it 
as time goes on. And it requires more energy to keep it in a nonhuman form. So, 
since most of us have been in the human shape for so long, you might say that 
that is our true shape."
    The Ogs and the Tocs had come into contact when space travel was invented. 
Neither used rockets or antigravitational machines. They traveled from one place 
in space to another by means of a very peculiar device. That is, it was peculiar 
from the human viewpoint.
    The device was made of a synthetic metal formed into the shape of a large 
goblet or chalice. That particular form was required because only that form 
could gather, or focus, the mental energies of a Mover. Perhaps a closer 
translation of the Toc word would be Captain. The Captain was the only person 
who could activate the device so that the Tocs could be teleported from one 
point in space to another.
    "Why would the Captain be the only one able to activate the device--this 
chalice?" Forry said.
    "That is the limitation of this device, let us call it the Grail," Alys 
said. "It has a certain superficial resemblance to the grail of your medieval 
myths, although the inner surface has a geometry that would be alien, even 
terrifying, to human eyes.
    "The Grail is matter, but it is activated only by a certain rare type of 
energy radiation. Of brainwave radiation, I suppose you would call it, but there 
is more to it than that. Anyway, the Grail, to act as a spaceship, or a 
teleporter, must be controlled by a Mover, or Captain. And there were only about 
a hundred Captains born for every million of us born."
    "Born?" Forry said, his eyebrows raising. "How can an energy configuration 
be born?"
    She waved her hand impatiently and said, "I am speaking by analogy only. If 
I have to explain every detail of an exceedingly complex culture, we'll be here 
for twenty years. Let me talk."
    The Ogs had discovered their Grails and found their Captains the same time 
as the Tocs. There was travel between the two planets almost at once and war a 
little later. The Ogs were evil and wanted to enslave the Tocs.
    Forry had some mental reservations about this. He would wait until he had 
heard the Ogs' side before he judged.
    The Tocs had repulsed the Ogs with heavy losses on both sides. Finally, 
there was peace. The Tocs and the Ogs then turned their attentions to other 
worlds. Since distance meant nothing to the Grail, since a hundred thousand 
light years could be traversed as swiftly as a mile, that is, instantaneously, 
the universe was open to both races.
    But with the billions on billions of habitable planets in the universe, and 
the limited number of Captains, only a few could be explored. Earth was one of 
them, and about a thousand Tocs had come here. Almost immediately, the Ogs had 
sent an expedition here also. The peace did not extend to planets outside their 
system, so the Ogs had no compunctions about attacking the Tocs.
    The Ogs and Tocs had waged a mutually disastrous war. They had destroyed 
each other's Grail and killed each other's Captains. And so they were marooned 
on Earth.
    "We lived among the humans but not of them," Alys said. "Our ability to take 
different forms gave rise to a number of superstitions about the supernatural 
origins of vampires, werewolves, fairies, and what have you. We Tocs were the 
basis of the good fairies, although we changed into animal shape, or other 
shapes, quite often. But we weren't hostile to human beings, that is, if they 
followed the proper ethics we weren't."
    Over the ten thousand years, the War, the occasional killing of human 
beings, and suicide cut the original number of about two thousand Tocs and Ogs 
down to about a hundred each. However, every Toc or Og whose material form was 
slain was not dead. He became an energy configuration again and could regain 
material form. But this process took a long time on Earth because the magnetic 
conditions here were not the same as in the mother system.
    "That accounts for ghosts?" Forry said.
    "Yes. Human beings don't have ghosts. When they die, they are forever dead. 
But a Toc or Og who has died in material form needs to attach himself to a 
locale where he has both the optimum magnetic conditions and human beings. He 
has to, shall we say, `feed' off the energy of human beings. And when he has 
gained enough form, in a phase which you humans call ectoplasm, he needs blood 
or sex to get a completely material body. The Tocs need sex and the Ogs need 
blood."
    She paused and then said, "One of us recently regained corporeal form by 
contact with Herald Childe. She literally fucked herself into flesh. Of course, 
she was able to do it far more swiftly with Childe than she would have with one 
who was completely a human being."



     
CHAPTER 34
     
    "What the hell does that mean?" said Forry, who almost never swore.
    "I mean that Childe is the only Captain in existence. But he doesn't know it 
as yet."
    "Why not?"
    "Because he was born half-human and raised by human parents. Because a 
Captain has a delicate psychic constitution and must be handled delicately until 
he has fully matured. Childe is a fully mature man in the physical sense, but he 
is a baby in regard to his psychic powers."
    "Just one minute," Forry said. "I don't want to digress, but if you beings 
can come back to material life after being killed, why haven't these Captains 
that were killed come back to life?"
    "Some did and were killed by one side or the other because their existence 
could not be kept secret. Others never made it because conditions weren't right. 
You see, if we had a Captain and a Grail, we could not only return to our home 
world. We could also bring all our departed comrades back into corporeality. The 
Toc or Og in his pure energy-complex phase is a rather mindless being. He has 
some intelligence, but the main reason he gets back to matter is that he has a 
drive to do so, an instinct. He wanders around until he happens to come across a 
locale with the proper setup for reconverting him. And reconversion takes a long 
long time generally."
    "Pardon the interruption," Forry said.
    If he had not seen that transformation from middle age to youth, he would 
have thought he was experiencing the world's biggest hoax. But he was convinced. 
He was actually talking, face to face, with an extraterrestrial. One that would 
have made the strangest creature of science-fiction, or even those in Weird 
Tales magazine, rather mundane.
    He thought, In a sense, she's telling me the story of the Martians and 
Venusians waging an underground war for control of Earth. Hugo, you should be 
here! Oh, boy, if I could just flip a switch and let the sci-fi fans and the 
Count Dracula Society in on this!
    And then he sobered. If this was true, and he believed it was, this was no 
mere fiction story or child's delight. It was a deadly war.
    "Childe?" he said.
    "Let's go back to 1788," she said. "To the birth of the male who would 
become George Gordon, Lord Byron, the famous, if not great, English poet. At the 
time he was born, of course, no one, including us, knew that he would become 
world-famous. Nor did we have any way of predicting whether he would become a 
Captain or just another human being. Or just another Toc."
    "I'm bursting with questions," he said, smiling. "But I refrain."
    "He was our first birth," she said. "On Toc, where conditions are optimum, 
births are very rare. That is, births from a copulation between, or among, our 
energy configuration phases do not happen often. But then that is 
counterbalanced by our lack of a death rate.
    "Here on Earth, we had never succeeded in producing an infant in the energy 
configuration. Then a Captain was reconverted into material form. One of us had 
the idea of preserving his genetic abilities in case he should get killed, which 
he was later on. The Captain happened to be living near the Byrons at that time, 
and he became the lover of Lady Byron with the purpose of impregnating her. 
There were a hundred of us, almost our full complement, gathered together nearby 
the night she conceived George. I suppose it is the only case, except one, where 
a hundred people copulated to produce one baby. We poured our mental energies 
into Lady Byron, and we succeeded. Coexisting with the fusion of sperm and ovum 
was the creation of an energy embryo. This embryo was attached, no, was fused 
with the body of the infant Byron. You might say that he was the only human 
being up to then who actually had a soul."
    "Pardon me, but how did that energy embryo develop? Did it become a separate 
entity or...?"
    "It fuses with the nervous system and becomes one with the corporeal entity. 
Not identical but similar. It survives after the death of the body.
    "However, this creation of an energy baby requires much outpouring of energy 
on our part. At the same time that we were concentrating our metal energies, we 
were fucking like mad corporeally. It was probably the biggest gang-bang in 
history, if you will pardon such language, Forry dear. I know you don't like to 
use dirty words or especially to hear them.
    "Unfortunately, though the baby grew up to have some remarkable talents, it 
did not develop the psychic abilities of a Captain. Not that that would have 
done much good, anyway, because we did not have a Grail. But we hoped to make 
the metal for one; we had been creating the metal, bit by bit, over thousands of 
years. On Toc we could have done it in a year, but here, where the minerals are 
scarce and the materials for building the potentializers are even more rare, we 
took an agonizingly long time getting what we needed. Then the Ogs made a raid 
and stole what metal we had.
    "They knew that Byron was to be our Captain. They moved in, became 
acquainted with him, and we could do little about it. Then they abandoned him 
when they found out that he lacked the Captaincy.
    "We were in despair for a while. But Byron still had the genetic 
potentiality for a Captain, and we decided to take advantage of that. If he 
couldn't be a Captain, perhaps his child could be."
    "Childe?" Forry said, ever alert for the chance to pun. She nodded and said, 
"Exactly. We got specimens of his sperm by a method I won't go into and froze 
it. Not with ice or liquid hydrogen but with an energy configuration. And we 
waited.
    "We waited while our enemies, the Ogs, obtained more metal, enough to make a 
Grail. Then we chose a woman with suitable genetic qualities, humanly speaking, 
because those have to be considered, too. You wouldn't want the Captain to be an 
inferior physical or mental specimen. And we deliberately settled on Mrs. Childe 
because of the name. And its association with Byron, too. After all, we use 
human languages and so we think something like humans. Only like, not exactly 
as."
    "Thus, the Herald Childe from the Childe Harold?"
    "If you said H-E-R-A L-D, yes. Herald. The Child that Heralds the rebirth of 
our Toc energy ghosts, their rematerialization. And our return to the Promised 
Land of our native planet. The dead shall rise and we shall cross the river Zion 
into the land of Beulah, if I can mix up a few quotations. You get the idea."
    "And what about Childe and the Grail?" Forry said.
    Alys Merrie opened her mouth to reply, but she shut it when someone beat at 
the door and shouted



     
CHAPTER 35
     
    At noon, the ringing of the doorbell awakened Childe. He staggered out into 
the front room, past Sybil, who was still sleeping, and threw open the door. A 
gust of rain wet him and covered the three men standing on his porch. He 
realized immediately that he should have been more cautious, but by then it was 
too late. The first man stepped inside, holding a spray can. Childe held his 
breath and ran towards his bedroom, where he kept a gun. He stopped when the man 
called, "Childe! Your wife!"
    The second man was by Sybil with a knife at her throat. The third, Fred Pao 
or his twin, held an air gun.
    The first man sprayed a gas over Sybil just as she opened her eyes and said, 
"Wha...?"
    She fell back asleep, and Pao said, "It won't hurt her. Now your turn, Mr. 
Childe."
    He could still run for the bedroom, he thought. But these men would cut 
Sybil's throat if they thought they had anything to gain by it. Of course, he 
might be able to kill all three of them with his gun, but what good would that 
do Sybil? On the other hand, if he surrendered, wouldn't he and Sybil be as good 
as dead?
    He did not know. That was the paralyzing factor. He did not know. And from 
what had passed between Vivienne and Hindarf he surmised that he was regarded as 
something special.
    "All right," he said. "I surrender."
    The man with the spray can approached him and shot the vapor in his face. He 
wanted to hold his breath, but it was foolish putting off the inevitable. After 
glancing at his wristwatch, he breathed in.
    It was thirty minutes later when he awoke. He was lying on a comfortable bed 
and looking up at a canopy. He turned his head and saw Sybil beside him. She was 
still unconscious. He got out of bed with some effort, noting that he had a 
slight headache and a brassy tongue and gums. His teeth felt enlarged.
    Their prison was a single bedroom and a bathroom. There was one door for 
entrance.
    Sybil woke up. She lay there for a while and then got out of bed. She went 
to him, and he put his arm around her and said, "I'm sorry about this. If I had 
made you leave, you wouldn't be in this mess."
    "That can't be helped," she said. "Do you think that we'll ever get out of 
this? I wish I knew what these people wanted."
    "We should find out sooner or later," he said. He released her and prowled 
around the room. There was a large mirror fixed in the wall above the dresser 
and another wall-high mirror on the opposite side of the room. He supposed that 
these were one-way windows.
    An hour passed. Sybil had quit trying to talk and had started to read, of 
all things, a mystery novel she found in a bookcase. He investigated again with 
the idea of using something to help them get out. He observed that the door was 
heavy steel and was set tightly against the wall. It swung outward.
    An hour and a half after awakening, the door was opened. Pao and two men 
entered: Sybil spoke to one. "Plugger!"
    Plugger was a tall, well-built, dark-skinned man. His hands were long and 
narrow with long tapering fingers. These were covered with small protuberances, 
a feature Sybil had not described.
    "Our enemies--and yours--were moving in fast," Pao said. "That is why we had 
to take you two away. I am sorry; we're all sorry. But it had to be done. 
Otherwise, you would have fallen into the hands of the Tocs."
    "Tocs?" Childe said.
    "Everything will be explained," Pao said. "Very quickly. Meanwhile, we 
require your presence elsewhere."
    "And Sybil?"
    "She will have to stay here. But she won't be harmed."
    Childe kissed Sybil and said, "I'll be back. I don't think they intend us 
any evil. Not now, anyway."
    He watched Plugger shut the door. There was a button in its middle; when 
this was pressed, an unlocking mechanism was activated. Childe reached out and 
pressed the button, and the door swung out swiftly.
    Pao said, "What are you doing?" and pressed the button to shut the door.
    "I just wanted to see how it worked," Childe said.
    They started down the hall, which was wide and luxuriously carpeted and 
furnished. He stopped after a few steps. He had been right. The mirror was a 
one-way device. He could see Sybil still standing in the middle of the room, her 
hands clenched by her side.
    He decided to see how valuable he was to them.
    "I'd like that mirror turned off," he said. "I don't like being spied on."
    Pao hesitated and then said, "Very well."
    He pressed a button on the side of the mirror and it darkened.
    "I'd like the other mirror turned off, too," Childe said.
    "I'll see it's done," Pao said. "Come along now."
    Childe followed him with the other two men behind him. At the end of the 
hall, they turned left into another hall and halfway down that turned right into 
a very large room. This looked like the salon of a millionaire's house as 
constructed for a movie set. There was a magnificent concert piano at the far 
end and very expensive furniture, perhaps genuine Louis XV pieces, around the 
room. A peculiar feature, however, was the glass or transparent metal cube set 
in the middle of the room. Inside this was a slender-legged dark-red wooden 
table on top of which was a silvery goblet. Or half a goblet. One side seemed to 
be complete, but the other was missing. It was as if a shears had cut through 
the cup part of the goblet at a forty-five degree angle,
    Pao led Childe to the transparent cube and motioned to a man to bring a 
chair. Childe looked around. There were six exits, some of them broad enough for 
three men to go through abreast. There were also about fifty men and women in 
the room, a large number of them between him and the exits. All were dressed in 
tails and gowns. Pao and his two men were the only ones in business clothes. He 
recognized Panchita Pocyotl and Vivienne Mabcrough. Vivienne wore a scarlet 
floor-length formal with a deep V almost to her navel. Her pale skin and auburn 
hair contrasted savagely with the flaming gown. She was holding a big ostrich 
fan. Seeing his eyes on her, she smiled.
    The crowd had been talking when he entered but the conversation softened as 
he was brought before the cube.
    Now Pao held up his hand, and the voices died away. A man brought a chair 
with three legs, a heavy wooden thing with a symbol carved into the back. The 
symbol was a delta with one end stuck into the open mouth of a rampant fish.
    "Please sit down," Pao said.
    Childe sat down in the chair and leaned against its back. He could feel the 
alto-relief of the carved symbol pressing into his back. At the same time, the 
dull silver of the goblet inside the cube became bright and shimmery. The 
brightness increased until it glowed as if it were about to melt.
    A murmur of what sounded to him like awe ran through the people.
    Pao smiled and said, "We would appreciate it if you would concentrate on the 
goblet, Herald Childe."
    "Concentrate how?" Childe said.
    "Just look at it. Examine it thoroughly. Let it fill your mind. You will 
know what I mean."
    Childe shrugged. Why not? The procedure and the goblet had aroused his 
curiosity, and their intentions did not seem sinister. Certainly, he was being 
treated far better than when he had been a prisoner in Igescu's.
    He sat in the chair and stared at the shining goblet. It had a broad base 
with small raised figures the outlines of which were fuzzy. After a while, as he 
studied them, they became clear. They were men and women, naked, and animals 
engaged in a sexual orgy. Set here and there among them were goblets like that 
at which he looked, except that these were complete. There was a curious scene 
in which a tiny woman was halfway into a large goblet while a creature that 
looked like the Werewolf of London, as played by Henry Hull, rammed a long dick 
into her asshole. At one side of the base, almost out of view, was a man 
emerging from a goblet. His legs were still within the cup, but his stiff dong 
was out and was being squeezed by the tentacle of a creature that seemed to be a 
six-legged octopus with human hermaphroditic organs. While it was jacking-off 
the man in the goblet, it was also fucking itself.
    Childe did not know what the scene represented, but it seemed to him that it 
had something to do with fecundity. Not with fecundity in the sense of begetting 
children but of...
    He almost grasped the sense of the figures and their play, but it danced 
away.
    The goblet stem was slender. A snake-like thing of silver coiled around it, 
its head flattening out to become the underpart of the cup. Its two eyes, 
distorted, were the only dark spots on the bright silver of the goblet.
    The outside of the cup, except for the serpent's head, was bare. But the 
inside bore some, raised geometrical figures that shifted as he looked at them. 
Sometimes he could pin them down for a half a second and the figures began to 
make sense, even if they were totally unfamiliar.
    The goblet shone even more brilliantly. The room became quieter, and then, 
suddenly, he could hear the breathing of everyone in the room, except for 
himself, and, far away, the impact of rain on the roof and the walls of the 
house and, even more distantly, the roar of the waters down the street outside.
    There was a hissing he could not at first identify. It was so weak, so 
remote. And then he knew. He did not have to turn his head to look, and it would 
have done no good if he had. The thing was hidden under Vivienne's dress. It had 
slid out and was dangling between her legs. Its little bearded mouth was open, 
the tongue flickering out, and it was hissing with rage or lust. Or, perhaps, 
some other emotion. Awe?
    The light from the goblet became more intense. Surprisingly, he could look 
at it without pain. Its whiteness seemed to drill into his eyes and flood his 
brain. The interior of his skull was white; his brain was a glowing jewel.
    There was a collective intake of breath, and the light went out. The 
darkness that followed was painful. He felt as if something very much beloved 
had died. His life was empty; he had no reason to live.
    He wept.



     
CHAPTER 36
     
    When he was finished sobbing--and he still did not know why he had felt so 
bereaved--he looked up. The people were not talking, but they were making some 
noise as they shifted around. Also, several were passing through the crowd and 
serving a liquid in small goblets. The people drank it with one swallow and then 
put their goblets back onto the large silver trays.
    Pao appeared from behind him with a tray on which stood a goblet filled with 
a dark liquid and several sandwiches. The bread was coarse and black.
    "Drink and then eat," Pao said.
    "And if I don't?"
    Pao looked stricken, but he shrugged his shoulders and said, "This is one 
thing that we can't compel you to do. But I swear by my mother planet that the 
food and drink will not harm you."
    Childe looked at the goblet again. It was not quite as dull as it had been a 
moment ago. It flickered when he looked at it. When he looked away, but could 
still see it out of the corner of his eye, it became dull once more.
    "When will I find out what all this means?" Childe said.
    "Perhaps during the ceremony. It is better that you...remember."
    "Remember?"
    Pao did not offer to explain. Childe smelled the liquid. Its odor was winey, 
but there was an unfamiliar under-odor (was there such a word?) to it. The under 
odor evoked a flashing image of infinite black space with stars here and there 
and then another image of a night sky with sheets of white fire and giant red, 
blue, yellow, garnet, emerald, and purple stars filling the sky. And there was a 
fleeting landscape of red rock with mushroom-shaped buildings of white and red 
stone, trees that looked inverted, with their branches on the ground and their 
roots feeding on the air, and a thin band with scarlet, pale green, and white 
threads, something like a Saturn's ring, arcing across the sky near the horizon.
    He drained the tiny goblet with one gulp and, feeling hungry immediately 
afterward, ate the, sandwiches. The meat tasted like beef with blue cheese.
    When the goblets had been passed around, and everybody was standing as if 
waiting for something to happen--which they were, Childe supposed--Pao raised 
his hands. He spoke in a loud voice: "The Childe must have power!"
    That was a funny way to refer to him, Childe thought. The Childe?
    The crowd answered in a loud chorus, "The Childe must have power!"
    Pao said, "There is but one way in which The Childe may gain this power!"
    The people echoed, "There is but one way in which The Childe may gain this 
power!"
    "And grow!"
    "And grow!"
    "And become a man!"
    "And become a man!"
    "And become our Captain!"
    "And become our Captain!"
    "And lead us to our long lost home!"
    "And lead us to our long lost home!"
    "And permit us to triumph over our enemies, the Tocs!"
    "And permit us to triumph over our enemies, the Tocs!"
    "Through the nothingness and the utter cold he will lead us!"
    There was more, none of which made any sense to Childe except for the 
reference to their enemies, the Tocs. These must be the people of whom he had so 
far met only three. The three who had rescued him from, Vivienne and reproached 
her for breaking the truce.
    The liquor was making him feel very heady by then. And the food had infused 
him with strength. He looked at the goblet, which glowed as if his gaze beamed 
radium at it.
    Pao finally finished his chanting. Immediately, the crowd became noisy. They 
started talking and laughing. And they were also stripping off their clothes. 
Panchita Pocyotl shed her gown, revealing that she wore nothing under it except 
long stockings held up by huge scarlet garters. Vivienne was not far behind her; 
she wore a garter belt and stockings. The snake-thing had withdrawn; her auburn 
bush looked very attractive.
    Pao, naked, his skinny dick dangling halfway down between his thighs, said, 
"Would you please undress, Captain?"
    Childe, feeling dizzy, rose. He said, "Captain?"
    "You will know what I mean--I hope," Pao said.
    Childe remembered with a pang of dread his treatment at the hands of the 
enormously fat Mrs. Grasatchow when he was a prisoner in Igescu's house.
    He said, "Am I to be abused?"
    "No one would think of that now," Pao said. "Vivienne made a very bad 
mistake, and if we did not need her so much, we might have killed her. But she 
was overcome by your power, and that is a reasonable excuse for her actions. 
Nevertheless, she will not be permitted to touch you tonight."
    Childe, looking at the naked and superbly shaped woman, felt his penis 
rising. The liquid seemed to have gone down warmly to the place behind his navel 
and there caught fire. The blaze spread out, up, and down, but mainly down. The 
base of his cock was rammed with a boiling and heavy liquid metal; it expanded 
upwards, filling out his cock, lifting it up, and making it throb.
    He said, "All right," and he undressed.
    Pao took his clothes and left the room. Childe, standing there, felt 
foolish, and so he sat down. The others seemed to know what was expected of 
them; they began embracing and caressing each other, standing up, or lying down 
on the floor, or on the sofas. They were not putting their whole hearts into 
their lovemaking, however; they were waiting for someone or something.
    Pao returned. He walked up to Childe, took his hand, and said, "Your 
blessing, Captain."
    He placed his long slim peter on Childe's upturned palm, and the dead worm 
came to life. It became red and swollen and rose up off the hand as if launched. 
Pao backed away and bowed and kissed Childe's hand where his peter had lain.
    "I thank you, Captain," he said.
    There was a scramble among the couples after that. They arranged themselves 
in a double line in an order of precedence which they seemed to know well. There 
was no quarreling or struggling to get ahead of one another.
    The first two in line were Panchita Pocyotl and a big blond man with 
Scandinavian features. They stood before Childe, between him and the goblet in 
the cube.
    The man said, "Your pardon, Captain," and took Childe's hand and closed the 
fingers around his half-erect dong. At the touch, the big-knobbed dong filled up 
like a blimp being engorged with gas. It lay hard and throbbing in Childe's 
hand, and a small drop of fluid oozed out of the slit in the glands. The man 
stepped back and Panchita got down on her knees and took Childe's penis in one 
hand and kissed it on the head and the shaft. Then she arose, looked once into 
his eyes with her large luminous dark-brown eyes, and withdrew with the man.
    Childe watched them. They walked to a sofa and lay down on it. Panchita 
spread her legs out and over his shoulders, and he inserted himself into the 
thick black glossy bush and began pumping. His red Swedish ass went faster and 
faster and then, suddenly, both groaned and writhed. After they had come, they 
lay quiescent and then, a few minutes later, he was fucking her dog fashion.
    This excited Childe, who wanted the next woman kissing his cock to continue. 
But she backed away, murmuring, "Thank you, Captain," and went away with her 
squat Indian partner and his thick stubby penis.
    The couples came quickly, the men laying their dongs in his hands and the 
women kissing or licking his cock. There were exceptions, however. Some of the 
men also got down and kissed or even sucked briefly on him, and some of the 
women took his hand and placed it on their cunts.
    Childe had been slightly repulsed by some of this at the beginning. But as 
more couples approached him, as more couples began fucking or sucking, he 
accepted it as something natural to him. He began thinking of it as his due, and 
then as something old and familiar. The flashes of the exotic and 
extraterrestrial landscapes occurred more frequently, each time coincident with 
the placing of a dong in his hand or the slide of lips over the head and shaft 
of his cock.
    The goblet had increased its illumination during this ceremony. As each 
couple passed, it shone a trifle more brightly. And the white glow in his skull 
was exceeded only by the hot whiteness in his penis. It was so strong a 
sensation, he was disappointed when he looked down and did not see glands and 
shaft radiating with a white light.
    Pao, he noticed, had no steady partner. He wandered around, and when he 
found a vacant cunt or empty mouth, he filled it. He did not seem to care 
whether or not the other was male or female. He came each time he rammed his 
partner with a few strokes, and then he would withdraw his dripping but still 
rigid dick and go on to the next person.
    The only one missing, he suddenly noticed, was Plugger. He had shown up 
early in the line and given Childe a slight shock when he closed Childe's hand 
around his warty cock. Childe had felt an increase in the ecstasy building up in 
him but that was all. He had the feeling that Plugger was withholding, that he 
had, somehow, turned down his bioclectricity to a minimum. And then Plugger, 
after briefly fucking his partner but leaving her passed out, had disappeared.
    Childe considered this for a second. He had an image of Plugger walking down 
the hall towards Sybil's room. Was the bastard going to her? And then he forgot 
about him when the next woman ran her tongue over the head of his penis.
    Although the line had been sedate enough, considering the actions of the 
couples, the people became wild once they had left him. They talked loudly, 
swore, smacked loudly when kissing or sucking each other off, and filled the 
room with the slap-slap of wet cocks driving against wet cunts or into wet 
assholes. They groaned and moaned or screamed with the ecstasy of orgasm 
oncoming or occurring. And the air was heavy and musky with the odors of 
sweating bodies, lubricating fluid, and sperm.
    The fantastically beautiful Vivienne, although denied touching him, was 
taking advantage of her liberty with her fellows. She was standing bent over, 
sucking on a big black's cock while Pao thrust his dick into her anus and the 
snake-thing looped under Pao's balls and slid back and forth into his anus. They 
all seemed to come at once, judging from their writhings and shakings. The 
black's cock dwindled to a half-erection and came out of the mouth of Vivienne, 
who swallowed the jism. Pao's dick withdrew and was at half-mast, dripping. The 
snake-thing left Pao's ass reluctantly with its mouth still vomiting spermatic 
fluid and coiling and uncoiling in the final spasms of orgasm.
    At that moment, the last woman in line quit tickling his glands with her 
tongue. Pao, his cock beginning to rise again but still expelling the gray 
fluid, walked across the room to him. Childe looked at him with a mute appeal. 
He was close to coming, and his peter was throbbing in the air. In one corner of 
his mind, he noted the goblet had begun to pulse. The whiteness flared and 
dimmed, flared and dimmed.
    Just before Pao reached him, he made the connection with full awareness. The 
goblet was emitting pulses of light in phase with the throbbings of his dong.
    Pao took Childe's hand and lifted it. His dick rose so high it almost touch 
his navel. Childe's own organ seemed to lurch, and its head touched his belly. 
The throbbings increased, the warm gray tide in his testicles and ducts rose 
more swiftly, and the glory in him threatened to shoot out.
    "Come on!" he said fiercely to Pao.
    Pao waved his hand, and Childe understood that he was to take his pick.
    Childe looked quickly around. He had a superb choice, because there were 
very few women in the room who were not extraordinarily beautiful.
    Childe said, "Vivienne!"
    Pao was startled and opened his mouth, apparently intending to protest. But 
he closed it and crooked a finger at Vivienne.
    Vivienne was startled, too. She pointed a finger at herself and mouthed, 
"Me?"
    Pao nodded and gestured for her to come a-running. She did so with the snake 
thing flopping between her legs, banging into her knees and protesting against 
the treatment. When Vivienne got to Childe, she dropped on her knees and said, 
"Forgive me, my Captain."
    Then she started to suck on the end of his cock. The ecstasy came in slow 
waves, and from the inside of his navel to his knees he became ice.
    He managed to gasp at Pao, "Jerk that thing out!" "What?" Pao said.
    "Pull that thing out of her cunt! Quick!"
    Pao got down behind Childe and reached through his legs and grabbed the 
snake-thing, which was trying to wrap itself around Childe's thigh. Apparently 
it intended to climb up and into Childe's asshole, although it was doubtful that 
it was long enough to reach its goal. But Pao grabbed it behind its head and 
gave a savage yank.
    Vivienne fell apart.
    Childe stood with her head between his hands and his penis in her mouth. The 
eyes stared up at him with a violet fire, and the lips and tongue kept on 
sucking and thrusting. The other parts of her body, having gotten onto their 
legs, began to scuttle around the room. The big black who had been sucked off by 
Vivienne picked up the many-legged cunt and stuck it on the end of his cock and 
began sliding it back and forth. The cunt's legs kicked as if it were having an 
orgasm.
    The goblet's pulses came faster and faster. Childe held the head by the ears 
and rammed his prick faster and faster between the lips. Its head drove down her 
throat, backed out until it almost left those beautiful lips, and then rammed in 
until the hairs around his cock were crushed against her lips.
    Faster and faster. Brighter and brighter. Pulse and ecstasy.
    The ice turned to fire. He spurted with a scream and a writhing that was so 
violent he almost dropped the head. His pubis was against her nose and his dong 
was far down her throat. He came and came, and the goblet glowed as if it were 
in the heart of the sun.
    Pao got down underneath the head and swallowed the jism that fell down her 
throat and out the open neck.
    The others scrambled to catch the drops that Pao had missed. They rolled him 
away, and stuck their heads under Vivienne's, and then they were pushed away. 
Those who could not get any directly ran their fingers over the lips or down the 
mouths of those who had been lucky and got the stuff second-hand. Some tasted it 
and then rubbed the residue over their cunts or pricks.
    Childe quit shaking and spurting. The goblet's light waned swiftly, and soon 
it had only a faint glow.
    He pulled Vivienne's head off his peter and threw it to Pao, saying, "Now 
you can put her together again. I had my revenge."
    He sat down and stared dully at the goblet. He felt very tired.
    The people crowded around and spoke in awed tones. At first, he did not 
understand what they were talking about. When he heard a woman say; "It did 
grow, just a little, but it grew?" he saw what they were marveling at.
    The incomplete side of the cup of the goblet had grown more of the metal.
    "You are indeed the Captain and The Childe," Pao said, holding Childe's limp 
cock in his hand. "But you are no longer a child."
    Childe understood what he was saying, although he did not know the details. 
During that last explosion of orgasm, he had seen many things on the screen of 
his mind. Somehow, this experience had tapped a racial memory. No, not racial. 
That was not the correct term. A genetic memory was closer to an exact 
definition.



     
CHAPTER 37
     
    Forry Ackerman jumped when the poundings, came on his door. He opened the 
door without checking on the identity of the visitor, a lack of precaution 
indicating his upset condition.
    A tall good-looking man with yellow hair and dark blue eyes stood there. Two 
other men were with him.
    He said, "I'm Hindarf. This is Bellow and this is Grunder. We're friends, 
old friends, of Alys Merrie. We'd like to come in."
    "No smoking," Forry said and then remembered that Alys was puffing on one 
cigarette after another.
    He let them in and closed the door. Two sat down without asking his 
permission; Hindarf stood in the middle of the room as if he intended to 
dominate it. And he did.
    "I'm here to carry out the rest of our plan," he said.
    "What plan?" Forry said.
    He looked around the room. It had always seemed the center of the universe, 
this room. It contained illustrations from all over the cosmos by men who had 
never left planet Earth in the flesh. Memos from Mars. To others, it appeared 
weird, but to him it was home.
    Now it was shifting from reality, slipping its moorings. The very intrusion 
of genuine alienness rendered this place alien. The aliens were the real people, 
and the products of imagination were fake. Contrary to what he had always 
maintained, reality was more real than fantasy.
    "You must be wondering why you've been chosen," Hindarf said. "Why should we 
ring in an Earthling in our battle against the Ogs? Why do we need you in our 
effort to recapture the Captain?"
    Forry bent his head and looked at them from under raised eyebrows. He 
drawled, "Yes. I had been wondering about that. Many are called but Fu are 
Chosen, as the Korean said."
    Hindarf did not smile, but he did not look puzzled either. He said, "There 
are some Earthlings who have what we call resonance. Through the chance of 
genetics, they are born with a psychic affinity, or a psychophysical complex, 
which generates what, for want of a better term, we call white noise. This 
vibration is quite in phase with those radiated by the Tocs. It makes the 
Earthling immediately sympathetic and empathic with the Tocs, and, conversely, 
it generates disturbance and confusion in the minds of the Ogs. But it exists, 
and its effect is to blank out the vibrations radiated by the Tocs. In other 
words, we Tocs and Ogs know when we're near each other. We sense it just as a 
lion downwind from an antelope smells it. But when one of the resonant 
white-noise generator Earthlings is around, the Ogs can't sense us."
    Forry put his fingertips together to form a church steeple. He said, "I've 
never been one to make everything black or white. There is much more gray in 
this universe than black or white."
    "Did you ever have a good word to say for the Nazis?" Hindarf said.
    "Well, they did get rockets launched and that led to the first men on the 
Moon."
    Alys Merrie guffawed and said, "Well, kiss my ass and call me Hitler!"
    "Woolston Heepish is a member of the Ogs," Hindarf said. "He has not only 
set himself up as a rival of yours, he has become a caricature of you, and he 
has stolen from you. Do you think he's more gray than black?"
    "Black as the devil's hindbrain," Forry said. "Why, just last night...!"
    Hindarf waved his hand impatiently and said, "I know. The question is, will 
you help us? It will be dangerous. But it will be less dangerous for us if you 
accompany us. We intend to rescue Childe. He is a prisoner of the Ogs. And the 
emanations from the house today indicate that he's participating in a 
grail-growing ceremony. He probably doesn't know what he's doing, but that makes 
no difference. He is doing what they want him to do."
    "Aren't there any other Earthlings you know who could go with you?" Forry 
said. He remembered some of his youthful fantasies in which he had been the 
focus of attention from the secret bands of Martians and Venusians operating in 
an underground struggle for control of Earth. Generally, in his fantasies, he 
had been on the side of the Martians. There was something sinister, damp, 
toadstooly, and creepycrawly about the Venusians. All that rain...Now that he 
thought about it, the deluge of the past seven days had turned Los Angeles into 
a Venus such as the sci-fi writers had projected back in the good old days of 
Science Wonder Stories and Astounding.
    "No," Hindarf said. "There are none available in this area, and none 
anywhere who can generate white noise to compare with yours."
    "This may seem irrelevant to you at this moment," Forry said, "but why does 
Heepish steal from me?"
    "Because he wants your stuff for the collection he intends to take to the 
planet of the Ogs. He's a greedy and short-sighted person, and that is why he's 
stolen a few things from you instead of waiting to take the whole collection 
just before he leaves."
    "What?" Forry said shrilly. "The whole collection?"
    "Oh, yes," Alys Merrie said, blowing smoke at him. "He has planned on 
emptying your house and your garage. He can do it in a few minutes, you know, if 
he can get a Captain to do it for him. The collection would be moved to a huge 
room in a barn behind the present headquarters of the Ogs. Then, when the 
Captain moves all the Ogs to their home planet, he will also take the 
collection. Which, by the way, will consist of many of Earth's art treasures in 
addition to artifacts and books and so forth, for the Og museums."
    "You can visit our planet, if you wish," Hindarf said. "And you might as 
well have Heepish's collection, too. It won't do him any good after he's dead."
    "Dead?"
    Hindarf nodded and said, "Of course. We plan to kill every Og."
    Forry did not like the idea of killing, even if Heepish did deserve it. But 
the thought of going to an alien planet, one so far away that it was not even in 
this galaxy! He alone, of all men, would voyage to another world! He had wanted 
to be the first man on the Moon and the first man on Mars when he was a child 
and then that dream had glimmered away. He wouldn't even be able to go to those 
places as a tourist. And now, he was offered a free ticket to a planet far more 
alien and weird than the Moon or Mars could ever be. Under a strange sun on an 
unimaginably exotic world!
    "I can come back any time I wish?" he said. "I wouldn't want to leave Los 
Angeles forever, you know. I have my collection and all my wonderful friends."
    "No trouble," Hindarf said.
    "I must warn you, if it involves anything strenuous, I'll be handicapped," 
Forry said. "My heart..."
    "Alys has told us all about that," Hindarf said.
    Forry's eyes widened. "Everything?"
    "Just the medical aspects," Hindarf said ambiguously.
    "All right then," Forry said. "I'll help you. But just as a white noise 
generator. You can't ask me to take part in any killing."
    The three men and Alys smiled.
    Forry smiled, too, but he was not sure that he was not making a pact with 
the devil. It seemed that the Ogs really were evil, but then the Tocs might not 
be so good, either. It could be one band of devils fighting another.



     
CHAPTER 38
     
    Childe awoke with a feeling of emptiness and of shame. He looked at Sybil, 
who was sleeping by his side, and then he stared upward for a long time. 
Something had happened to him last night, or he presumed it was last night, 
since he did not know what time it was. His wristwatch was gone.
    As if a key had been turned in him, unlocking a memory or releasing a 
programmed tape, he had gone through that ceremony without a false step or being 
told, really, what to do next.
    When he had evoked that pulsing light, he had felt an ecstasy that was 
superior, in some undefinable way, to that of sexual orgasm. It was difficult to 
untangle the sexual from the photonic, but a part of the glory had been from 
that goblet.
    That final incident, the one with Vivienne's unattached head, had seemed at 
the moment to be fully justified and exquisitely delightful. But this morning it 
looked ugly and perverted. He could not understand what had possessed him.
    The hell of it was, he thought, that the next time he was seated before that 
goblet, he was likely to do the same thing or something equally uninhibited. He 
did not fool himself about that.
    The worst thing about this was that he was cooperating with people--beings, 
rather--who were evil.
    But when he had been placed before that goblet, he had been unable to refuse 
to act. In a sense, the goblet had activated him more than he had activated it.
    What was supposed to be the final result of this ceremony and of others that 
would undoubtedly follow it?
    He decided that he would refuse to do anything more unless everything was 
fully explained.
    He thought of Sybil. Would she be tortured if he refused to carry out the 
Ogs' desires? Knowing what he did of them, he could not doubt that they would do 
whatever they thought was required. And so Sybil would be...He shuddered.
    Somebody knocked on the door. It was faint because the door was of such 
thick metal, but he was aware of it. His sense of hearing seemed to be sharper 
after last night's experiences. He rose, noting that he was naked and not 
caring, and went to the door. He rapped on it, and the door swung outward. 
Vivienne was standing there with Pao behind her.
    "You people are so technologically advanced, you could find some easier way 
to get my attention," he said.
    "You indicated you wanted privacy in your room," Vivienne said. "So we 
polarized the one-way windows and turned off the TV monitor and the intercom."
    "That's nice of you," he said, thinking that they were really trying to sell 
him on how extremely nice they were. "Show me where this intercom is, and I'll 
contact you when I want you. And be sure to keep the other devices off."
    "What the Captain wishes..." Pao murmured.
    "What I wish now, after a good breakfast, are answers to my questions."
    Pao said, "Of course," as if he was amazed that Childe could have any reason 
to think otherwise.
    "I'll see you in ten minutes," he said. "You'd better tell me where the 
breakfast room is. And leave the door unlocked."
    Pao looked embarrassed. He said, "I'm sorry indeed, my Captain, but you'll 
have to stay in here. It's for your own safety. There are evil people who want 
to hurt you. You cannot leave this room. Except for the Grailing, of course."
    "The Grailing?"
    "Growing that goblet. The Grail."
    "There is to be more of that?"
    "There is."
    "Very well then," Childe said. "I'm a prisoner."
    Pao bowed slightly and said, "A ward, Captain. For your own protection."
    Childe closed the door in their faces and woke up Sybil. She did not want to 
get out of bed, but he told her he wanted her to hear everything that would be 
said. He started towards the bathroom but stopped when he saw a hairy pointed 
head sticking out from under the bed. It looked vaguely like a sleeping black 
dog about the size of a Great Dane. He rapped it on its wet doggy nose, and it 
opened its eyes wide.
    "What the hell are you and what the hell are you doing under my bed?" he 
said.
    The eyes were a dark brown and looked familiar. But the animal that crawled 
out from under the bed was unfamiliar. Its front part resembled a giant water 
spaniel, and the back part was monkeylike. It stood up on its semi-human feet 
and staggered over to a chair and sat down. It leaned its shaggy floppy-eared 
head on its two paws. The monkey part was hairy but not so hairy it entirely 
concealed a pair of human testicles and a warty penis.
    "I was hungry," Childe said aloud. "But seeing you, whatever you are..."
    He felt repulsed but not scared. The thing did not look dangerous, not, at 
least, at the moment. Its weariness and its big wet gentle eyes added up to 
harmlessness.
    One thing its presence did for him. It reaffirmed the sense of alienness, of 
unhumanity, about these people.
    Sybil did not seem frightened; he would have expected her to be screaming 
with hysteria.
    He said, "Was this your bed partner last night, Sybil?"
    "Part of the time," she said.
    "There was more than one?"
    The only one missing from the ceremony, as far as he knew, was Plugger.
    "I don't think so," she said. "He seemed to have changed into this about a 
half hour before we quit."
    He did not have to ask her what they had quit doing.
    "He said he was almost emptied," Sybil said. "He had been to the three Toc 
prisoners before he came to me. I suppose he buggered them, I mean, he applied 
his limp prick to their anuses and shocked them with the only pleasant shock 
that I know of. Then he came to me."
    Childe did not feel that he was in a position to rebuke her. What good would 
it do, anyway? She took sex where she found it and enjoyed it. And all the time 
professing that he was her only true love. The truth was, sex was her only true 
love. Impersonal sex.
    The unbelievable element in this was not so much the metamorphosis of 
Plugger into this dog-monkey thing as it was her calm acceptance of the 
metamorphosis. She should have been in a deep state of psychic shock.
    "Why did Plugger feel it necessary to stimulate the prisoners?" he said.
    "He told me that everybody in the house had to be hooked into the Grailing 
and that only if the prisoners and I had sex with an Og could this be done."
    A voice spoke from a jade statuette on a table against the wall near the 
bed: "Captain, is there anything you want?"
    "Yes!" he said, facing the statuette. "Get this thing out of here! Plugger 
is making me sick!"
    A moment later, the door swung out, and the blond man who had been first in 
the line entered. Behind him came two women holding trays. The man took one of 
Plugger's paws and led him out while the women served the food. The coffee was 
excellent, and the bacon and eggs and toast and cantaloupe were delicious.
    While he ate, he looked steadily at Sybil. She chattered on as if unaware of 
his scrutiny. She had certainly acquired a set of stainless steel nerves during 
her long imprisonment.
    After breakfast, she went into the bathroom to fix herself up for the day, 
as she put it. Pao and Vivienne entered. The first thing she did was to get onto 
her knees before him, murmuring, "Your permission, Captain!" She kissed the head 
of his penis.
    He did not object. When in Rome, and so on. The custom certainly beat that 
of kissing the hand of royalty.
    Pao touched his penis with one finger, also murmuring, "Your permission, 
Captain."
    That was where the power and the glory were stored, Childe thought. No 
wonder that Igescu and Grasatchow and Dolores del Osorojo and Magda Holyani had 
been unable to resist using him sexually. The Ogs were supposed to have left him 
alone to develop into something, according to what he had garnered from the 
brief conversation between Vivienne and the leader of the three who had rescued 
him from her.
    He wondered if the two werewolves had intended to kill him, as he had 
thought when they attacked. Maybe they had only meant to herd him back to his 
prison. And when he had been jumped by that wereleopard while he was killing 
Igescu in his oak-log coffin, she may have just been trying to drive him away.
    It was obvious now that he was supposed to develop into a Captain. But there 
were a number of questions to which he required answers. For one thing, what 
about those abandoned cars in front of his house?
    Vivienne said, "Several years ago, we had about half of a grail in our 
possession. It was the result of several thousands of years collecting the 
materials needed to make the metal. Then the Tocs stole it. We pursued them and 
cornered the one with the grail after killing his two companions. He had run 
into a railroad yard to get away from us, and when he saw he could not escape, 
he threw the grail into a gondola full of junk. At that time, we did not know 
that. Later, we got the information from him."
    "I can imagine," said Childe, closing his eyes and shuddering.
    "By then, the grail and the junk had gone into a steel mill furnace. We had 
to do some very intense detective work, very expensive, too, and we found that 
that particular load had ended up as metal in a certain number of cars of a 
certain make and model. So..."
    "But you did not know which cars exactly?" Childe said. He was beginning to 
understand.
    "Luckily, they were cars which were transported to this area. We had 
narrowed the number to about three hundred. And so we started to steal them and 
leave them in front of your house. We were lucky, very lucky. Three of the cars 
contained traces of the metal in the grail. They activated when you went near 
them, but you couldn't see that because the paint hid the glow, which was 
extremely feeble, anyway.
    "We junked the cars and had them melted in a yard by a man whom we paid 
well. We strained out the grail metal, as it were, and used the tiny bits as a 
detector for those other cars that contained the metal. When one bit of grail is 
brought close to the other, both glow. We no longer had to leave cars in front 
of your house, because we knew exactly what group of cars contained the metal. 
We had to do some more bribing of authorities to get the owners' names, and it 
was impossible to steal all the cars.
    "But we got enough to act as a seed for the growth of more metal. It is a 
procedure that is terribly tiring for the Captain. And it exhausts those who 
take part in the ceremony. But it has to be done."
    Childe did not completely understand. He asked that Pao explain everything 
to him. This took an hour and a half with several questions still to be asked.
    Nor did he accept Pao's word that the Tocs were the evil ones and the Ogs 
the good. The Tocs could be evil, but if they were, they were certainly matched 
by the Ogs.
    However, what the Ogs wanted of him was not something that he had to refuse 
for the good of Earth. Far from it. If he took the Ogs to their home world, he 
would be doing his world a vast service. He would never be rewarded by humans 
for his heroism. In fact, if he were to bring his deeds to their attention, he 
would be put into an insane asylum.
    There were several disturbing things about being a Captain. One was that he 
could return to Earth and there arrange to transport the Tocs to their home 
planet, too. If the Ogs could scrap cars and make a grail, the Tocs could do the 
same. There were plenty of cars left for that purpose.
    The Ogs must have thought of this possibility. What did they intend doing 
about it? He hated to ask them, because he was afraid of both the truth and the 
lies. If they meant to kill him or hold him prisoner on their world, they would 
not, of course, tell him so. And if he asked them about its, they would know 
that he would have to be killed or imprisoned. Either way, he would lose. 
    "It will be glorious," Vivienne was saying. "When the Grail is complete, 
then you, my Captain, can materialize all the Ogs who are wandering the face of 
this planet as energy complexes."
    Childe was startled, and he had thought he was beyond being surprised 
anymore.
    "You mean that I am expected to give all your, uh, dead, new bodies?" he 
said.
    "You will enable them to give themselves their material bodies," she said.
    "It will be a resurrection day for us," Pao said. His slanting vulpine eyes 
glowed. The light from the lamp was reflected redly in them.
    "And just where will this resurrection, or rematerializing, or whatever you 
call it, take place?" Childe said.
    "They will, materialize in the barn behind this house," Vivienne said. 
"There is more than enough room, even with all the goods stacked there."
    "Approximately nine hundred of them," Pao said. "They won't be brought into 
matter all at once. You can control that, Captain. Ten or twenty or so at a 
time, and these will be conducted out of the place into this house or into rooms 
in the barn."
    Theologistics of resurrection day, he thought. And am I really a sort of 
god?
    "Will Lord Byron, my real father, be among them?" he said.
    Pao said, "Oh, no. You forget that..."
    He did not want to continue. No wonder. Byron would be among the Tocs, who 
would not be materialized. And Pao must be trying to guess what Childe was 
contemplating- How could he avoid the conclusion that the Tocs might be the good 
ones, if his own father was a Toc?
    "Byron was a very talented but a very evil man," Pao said slowly. "History 
does not reveal how evil, though there are hints. The world never knew the story 
behind the story, of course. If it had, it would have executed him. I am sorry 
to say that about your father, but it has to be said. Fortunately for you, we 
saved you from the Tocs."
    The implication was that they had also saved him from following the evil 
ways of his father.
    "I have a lot of thinking to do," Childe said, "so I'd like to be alone. 
What are your plans for me today, if any?"
    Pao spoke in an apologetic tone. "The Tocs will be gathering for an attack 
on this house. Time is more essential than ever because of this. We were hoping 
that you would be quite rested by evening and ready for another Grailing."
    "See me after dinner," he said.
    Pao bowed and Vivienne started to suck his cock again, but he stopped her.
    "I'll save my power."
    Pao looked pleased at this, but the woman frowned and bit her lip. She 
turned to go, but Childe said, "One moment, Vivienne. Last night. You know what 
happened? I mean, are you conscious when you, uh, come apart?"
    She said, "I must be dimly conscious. When I came to, all put together, I 
remembered vaguely what went on. It was like a poorly remembered dream."
    "Can you have an orgasm when you're disconnected?"
    "Not that I remember. If you were getting revenge, you got a pale shade of 
it, just as I probably got a pale shade of orgasm."
    Childe said, "I can understand even the weirdness of the others, since they 
are known in folklore and superstition. But I have never heard of your type. Was 
your kind ever known among humans?"
    Vivienne said, "If you're referring to my structure, to the thing in me, to 
my discreteness, as I call it, no. I am unique. And I am recent. I was 
rematerialized in 1562. I had died in 1431 A.D., by present reckoning. The thing 
in my womb died in 1440 A.D. He was my very good friend then in our public human 
life and in our private Og life."
    "That thing was human?"
    "Yes. You see, when we succeeded in rematerializing in 1562, we constructed 
ourself in our present arrangement. We can do that within certain limits, you 
know. We have to conform to biological laws, but if you have great knowledge you 
can do things with matter that you humans would think impossible.
    "We had talked about just such a symbiosis as this, where we could double 
the intensity of our sexual activities. So we materialized with this structure. 
Only we made a mistake. I did, rather. I had an idea that if I could be 
separated into various parts, and these parts could also have a sexual life, 
orgasm, that is, and the parts could communicate each other's orgasms...well it 
didn't work out that way."
    Childe wondered if he was being told the truth. It seemed too fantastic. 
Would anybody deliberately build herself like this? Wasn't it more likely that 
her enemies, the Tocs, had caught her as she and the thing were rematerializing 
and shaped her like this? He did not know why they would do it, but it was more 
probable that someone would do this to another for a sadistic joke than that 
anyone would purposefully do it to herself.
    "Both of us had very traumatic experiences in our fifteenth-century lives," 
she was saying. "He was hanged and burned at the same time, and I was burned at 
the stake."
    "You were a witch?" Childe said. "Then all the witches burned were not 
innocent?"
    "Oh, no! I wasn't innocent, but I was not a witch in the sense that my 
executioners thought. It was the English that burned me, you know."
    "No, I didn't know," he said. "Who were you? Anybody I might know?"
    "I think so." she said. "I was Joan of Arc. And the being in my womb was 
Gilles de Rais."



     
CHAPTER 39
     
    After the two Ogs had left, Childe lay down on the bed. Sybil had heard only 
the last five minutes, so he went over the entire conversation with her. She 
said, "I always thought Joan of Arc was unjustly burned by the English, that she 
had been proved innocent of the charge of witchcraft?"
    "She was condemned by the Church, but it was the Church that later removed 
the charge and then canonized her. I think that that happened because she was 
too big a hero to the French."
    "I don't understand," Sybil said. "What was Vivienne or Joan, or whatever 
she was, doing? Why would an Og try to save France from the English?"
    "Maybe for herself. Who knows what she intended to do after she had saved 
the nation for the French ruler? It's possible that she meant to take over from 
him or perhaps to control France through him. She may even have intended to 
drive the English out and then invade England and bring both nations under one 
ruler again. I didn't ask her what she and de Rais meant to do. But I'll have a 
chance later on. Just now, I'm too stunned."
    "Who was Gilles de Rais?"
    "He was a Grand Marshal of France, one of the best warriors and generals the 
French had. He was also savagely sadistic, a psychotic homosexual who abducted, 
tortured, mutilated, and sacrificed hundreds of little boys. Little girls, too, 
I think. A member of the royalty or the nobility could get away with a lot in 
those days, but he went too far. He was charged with witchcraft, ritual murder, 
and a number of other things, including sodomy, I think. He was executed and 
quite properly, too. Few people have ever been so bestial. He made Jack the 
Ripper look like a gentle old fuddy-duddy."
    Sybil shuddered but did not say anything. He got off the bed and undressed 
while she looked wide-eyed at him.
    "Take your clothes off," he said.
    "Because I want to make love to you. Is that surprising?"
    "Yes, it is, after last night," she said.
    She started to unbutton her blouse and then stopped.
    "Aren't you supposed to save yourself for tonight?"
    "Here, I'll help you undress," he said.
    He began to unbutton her.
    "Yes, I am. But what they want and what I want do not necessarily coincide. 
Besides, if I'm dry, what can they do about it?"
    "Oh, no! You shouldn't do that!"
    "Whose side are you on?"
    "Well, yours, of course! But I don't want them to get mad at you, Herald. Or 
at me."
    "You can always tell them I made you," he said, grinning. "In more sense 
than one."
    "I really shouldn't," she said, staring at his slightly swelled cock.
    "Go ahead. Touch it."
    "I'm not an Og," Sybil replied. "But if you say so."
    He stripped her blouse and unhooked her bra and took it off. She had full 
well-shaped breasts that had not yet begun to sag. He kissed the nipples and saw 
them swell and then he sucked on both, one after the other. She stood against 
him, her back slightly arched, and moaned. She reached down and tenderly fondled 
the shaft of his cock, which was expanding with his kissing and her caressing. 
He kissed her breasts all over and then backed her towards the bed, where he 
eased her down. He removed her skirt and her panties, and moved in between her 
legs. The thick black fleece of her cunt was beginning to run; she had always 
overlubricated. He licked along the slit, putting the tip of his tongue in 
between the lips and running it up and down. Then he pressed the tip against the 
clitoris, ran it back and forth, and inserted two fingers into her slit and 
moved them slowly back and forth and then more swiftly. She came finally with a 
fierce deep groan and pulled on the hairs of his head.
    After this, he came up from between her legs and slid on up by her. He 
pushed her head down towards his penis, which was sticking up straight and hard 
and swollen.
    The head, was purple, glistening, and the skin was stretched so tight it 
seemed about ready to burst. The blue veins stood out like unmined mineral under 
the reddish skin.
    Sybil sucked on his testicles a while, one after the other, while she ran a 
finger partway up his anus. He moaned with the delight of the mouth and tongue 
and the finger. Then she ran her tongue lightly along the shaft of his peter, 
wet his pubic hairs with her tongue, and took the big head into her lips. Her 
tongue trembled on the slit of the glands, and her lips moved noisily with their 
sucking. The edges of her teeth brushed against the tight tender skin.
    He blew into her mouth with a writhing of belly muscles and hips and a 
feeling of flying apart.
    Sybil continued to suck, having swallowed the fluid. She worked at him, 
occasionally stopping to murmur endearing words. His dong began to rise again, 
and when it was fully rigid, he told her to lie down. He got down on top of her 
and eased his prick into the slit until their pubic hairs were crushing each 
other. He lay there for some time, luxuriating in the warmth and the moisture 
and the tenderness. Her sphincter muscle squeezed on his cock, gently working 
it.
    "I'm no superman, you know, Sybil," he said. "Once or twice a night, and I'm 
done for, usually. But when I was at Igescu's that hog of a woman, Grasatchow, 
put a suppository up my rectum that acted as an aphrodisiac and an energy 
source. And last night they gave me a drink that had the same effect. Maybe some 
of that effect is still with me, which is why I could get a hard-on so quickly 
after coming. Or maybe it's just because I've been so long without you, and 
you're my aphrodisiac. Anyway, I love you, and I intend to fuck all day."
    "I love you, too," Sybil panted. "Do you want to move now, Herald?"
    He began to thrust, slowly at first and then more swiftly as he felt the 
tide in him increasing its forward swings. He came with a moan at the same time 
that she screamed with ecstasy. Tears rolled down her face onto the pillow.
    His speculation that the drug he had taken was still affecting him was 
probably true. He lost some rigidity after the shooting out of his sperm, but he 
kept his peter in her, and within a minute or two it was rigid and apparently 
ready to tap on new reserves.
    However, this time, the gray liquid in him would not rise so soon. He 
hammered her for what seemed like fifteen minutes and though the ecstasy built 
up, he could not come. Sybil was having one orgasm after another. Her eyes were 
open and her hands were flung out and she was rolling her head back and forth 
and groaning and weeping.
    Suddenly, she gave a scream and seemed to fall unconscious. He was not 
worried, since she had behaved like this frequently. When she had an especially 
exquisite orgasm, she would faint.
    But the white body beneath him became reddish. The smooth but wet-slippery 
skin was covered with hairs as red as an Irish setter's and as wet as if it had 
just climbed out of the water. The face became elongated and snouted, the long 
head hairs shrank to a bristle, the eyes shifted towards the side of the head, 
the small and delicate ears became large hairy pointed organs.
    The long-fingered well-manicured hands became paws with blunt hooked nails. 
The legs on his shoulders became hairy, and a big hard penis was against his 
body. It was spurting jism over his belly and down onto his own cock, which was 
buried to the hairs in the hairy anus of the creature.
    It was too late for him to stop. He had been just on the verge of 
ejaculating as the metamorphosis took place. Moreover, he had suspected that 
this thing was not Sybil. She had been too blasé about the change of shape of 
Plugger, too calm about what was happening, and too eager to fuck him. Sybil 
might have wanted to fuck him, but she would have been too afraid of emptying 
him and so making their captors angry. This thing should have been afraid of 
that, too, and probably had been, but it could not resist the temptation to get 
the power and the glory of the Captain's cock all to herself.
    That had been the thing's undoing. It had become overwhelmed and had lost 
control. Apparently, it still was not aware of this.
    He exploded inside the red-haired ass of the creature.
    The intensity of the orgasm was such that, afterwards, he felt almost 
forgiving. Almost but not quite.
    Panting, he lay for a while on top of the wet and hairy body.
    Then he got off the bed and seized its neck between his hands. It was as 
tall and almost as heavy as he, but it was terrified. Its brown eyes bulged out 
as its air was squeezed off, and its paws flailed.
    Childe turned, swinging it off its feet, and then dragged it by its ears to 
the door. He shouted until the door was opened and then he shoved the thing out 
with a kick just under its long bushy tail. The three who received it looked 
shocked.
    "That'll be the last trick you play on me!" he shouted. "Where is my wife? 
You had better produce Sybil, and quick, or you'll get nothing out of me 
anymore! No matter what you do!"
    The thing got off the floor, rubbing its spine with a paw, and whined. It 
said something, but the shape of the mouth was not appropriate for human speech.
    "Kill it!" Childe shouted. "Kill it and prove to me that you did! And then 
bring me Sybil, my wife, alive and well!"
    The door was swung inwards and locked. He raged around the room for a while. 
Finally, he burst into tears and wept for a long time. Then he got up and took a 
shower and dressed again. Pao and the big Swedish-type blond, O'Brien, entered.



     
CHAPTER 40
     
    At nine that evening, Forry Ackerman and four Tocs, including Alys Merrie, 
set out for their rendezvous. Forry had had to exercise his imagination to the 
rupture point to explain to Wendy why he wasn't going to the monthly soirée with 
her and to the host and hostess why he couldn't make it. He didn't think he 
satisfied anybody with his excuses, but certainly they were far more 
satisfactory than the truth.
    The rain had stopped for several hours after five o'clock, and some of the 
clouds overhead thinned out. Then darkness and lightning had moved back in and 
thunder had come. A half hour later, it began raining savagely.
    Every TV channel was filled with news of the damage done by the floods and 
the lives lost. The radio seemed to talk of little else between bursts of rock 
music. Over two thousand homes had had to be abandoned. At least that number 
were in danger of sliding down a hill or being floated away. Most of the canyons 
were closed even to those who lived in them. The rivulets and brooks roaring 
down from the hills had become small rivers and frightening tidewaters. The 
Basin and the San Fernando Valley were sometimes knee-deep in water. Business 
was at a standstill; most of the bus lines had quit running. The governor had 
finally declared the three counties a disaster area. Citizens were screaming 
about flood control, and an insurance man was gunned down by an enraged citizen 
who had lost his home under an avalanche of mud.
    The grocery stores were beginning to run short of supplies. There was water 
contamination and a backing up of the sewers. Despite the almost continuous 
rains, fires were numerous, and one fire truck, answering the twentieth call 
that day, dropped into a tremendous hole created by the torrents slamming down 
from the hills. No one was drowned, but the truck was lost.
    Just before he left, Forry received a call from Wendy. The party had been 
called off, even though most of the guests lived within a few miles of the house 
where the monthly party of science-fiction people and normals was being held. It 
should have been canceled days before, but the hostess was unusually stubborn.
    He sighed with relief. Telling the lies had burdened him down, and at the 
same time he resented the burden. Why should he worry about breaking an 
engagement for a party when the fate of the world depended on what he and the 
Tocs did tonight? Nevertheless, he did worry.
    Hindarf drove a pickup truck which was several times in water higher than 
the wheels. At Sunset and Beverly Drive, he pulled to the curb. A semi with a 
big van came along five minutes later and stopped with a hissing of air brakes. 
They got down out of the pickup and waded through water halfway up their thighs 
to the van. They had to hold on to each other to keep from being swept off their 
feet by the current. A piece of timber, which looked as if it had been a post 
for a billboard, swept by them. If it had struck a leg, it would have cracked 
the bone.
    There were twenty others in the van. The back doors were closed, and the 
truck pulled away. With its high body and its power, it should get through water 
which would drown out an automobile.
    On the way, Hindarf gave them instructions. Apparently, everybody except 
Forry had heard these before, but he was making sure that they understood them. 
The instructions took about fifteen minutes, and the putting on of the diving 
suits, flippers, tanks and goggles about ten. Forry objected that he had never 
been scuba diving but was told that he would be underwater for only a minute. 
The main reason they were wearing the suits was to keep from getting cold while 
they went through the water.
    The truck stopped on a steep slope. The doors were opened and a small ladder 
let down for Forry while the others leaped out onto the road. They were parked 
on Topanga Canyon just outside the entrance to the road that ran up to the house 
of the Ogs. The brown flood running off it joined the deep current coming down 
Topanga. Forry was glad that he wore flippers and a suit and that the tank gave 
him more weight to resist the current. But he did not think that he could carry 
it up the hill.
    "Sure you can," Hindarf said. "Put on the goggles and start breathing 
through the mouthpiece."
    "Now?" Forry said.
    "Now."
    Forry did so, and at the first breath he felt more energetic than at any 
time in his life since she had been a child. The air filled his whole body with 
a strength and a joie de vivre that made him want to sing. This was impossible, 
of course, with the piece in his mouth.
    Hindarf said, "We may have a hard fight ahead. The vaporized drug in the 
breathing system will charge our bodies. The effect is intense but short-lived."
    They walked up the road, their flippers slop-slopping. They looked like 
Venusians, Forry thought, what with the frog feet, the slick black skins of the 
suits, the humped air tanks, the goggles, and the big mouthpieces. Some even 
carried tridents or fishing spears. The rain fell heavily on them, and 
everything was dark and wet, as if they were under the clouds on the nightside 
of the second planet from the sun.
    Before they came to the turn of the road that would have placed them in view 
of those in the house, they started to climb the hillside. This was steep and 
muddy, and they could only get up by grabbing bushes and pulling themselves up. 
He appreciated the suit now, since it kept him from getting wet and muddy. The 
weight of the tank seemed negligible, so strong did he feel. His heart was 
chugging along at its accustomed pace, which meant that the extra demand for 
energy was being taken care of by the drug in the air system.
    After slipping and sliding and hanging on to the bushes, they crawled out 
onto the top of the hill. Another hill to their right hid them from view of 
those in the house, although Forry did not understand how they could be seen in 
the dark.
    Hindarf led them around the larger hill and up to a high brick wall. This 
was topped by a barbed wire fence about three feet high. Several Tocs unfolded a 
ladder, a stile, really, and put it over the wall and the wire fence. Hindarf 
cautioned everybody not to touch the wires, which were charged with high 
voltage. One by one, they crawled up the stile and over the wall and down to the 
other side.
    They were in an orchard which seemed to run several hundreds of yards north 
and south from where they stood and an indeterminate distance west. The stile 
was taken down, telescoped, and placed under some bushes. Hindarf led them 
through the trees until they came to another slope. This rose steeply to a low 
brick wall. There was a flight of steps made of some stone which glowed red and 
black in the light that Hindarf and others flashed on it.
    Forry had been upset by their careless use of this light, but Hindarf 
assured him that it was a form, of black light. Forry could see it simply 
because his goggles had a specially prepared glass. Hindarf doubted that the Ogs 
had anything which could detect this form of illumination.
    When they got to the top of the steps, they could see the black bulk of the 
house about fifty yards away. It was dark except for a slit of light. They went 
on and then were at the end of a long swimming pool. This was brimming over, 
flooding the cement walks, the patio, the yard, and running down the steps up 
which they had just climbed.
    Hindarf gave Forry his instructions again and then went down into the pool 
via the, steel ladder. The man assigned to watch Forry led him into the pool. 
For a moment, everything was black, and he had no idea which was up or down, 
north or south. Then a light flooded the area around him, and he could see his 
guide just ahead of him, holding the lamp. Hindarf's flippers were visible just 
ahead of the globe of illumination.
    They swam the 100-feet-long pool underwater as near the floor as they could 
get. Forry caught glimpses of strange figures painted on the cement floor. 
Griffins, werewolves metamorphosing from men to beasts, a legless dragon, a 
penis-beaked flipper-winged rooster, a devilfish with a shaven cunt for a mouth, 
a malignant-faced crab being ridden by a nude woman with fish heads for breasts, 
and something huge and shadowy and all the more sinister for being so amorphous.
    Then they were at the deep end of the pool, and Hindarf and his guide were 
removing a plate from the wall. It looked like any other section of the wall, 
but it was thin and wide and its removal exposed a large dark hole. Hindarf swam 
into it, the guide followed, and Forry, after a moment's hesitation, and knowing 
that the honor of Earth depended upon him, swam through the hole. The tunnel had 
been dug out of the earth, of course, but it was walled up with many small 
plates screwed together. He wondered how long the Tocs had been working on this. 
It must have taken them years, because their time would be limited to the early 
hours of morning before the sun came up.
    It was possible, however, that this tunnel had been built by the Ogs as an 
escape route. The Tocs, having discovered it, were taking advantage of it.
    He did not know how long they swam through the tunnel. It seemed like a long 
time. It led downward, or at least he got that impression. Then they were 
popping up in a chamber illuminated by a bright arc light hanging from a chain 
set into the cement ceiling. A ladder gave access to a platform at the end of 
which hung row on row of suits. Shelves held many goggles and air tanks.
    His second speculation was correct. This had been made by the Ogs for 
escape. But then, wouldn't they have set up guards or alarms?
    Hindarf explained that they could go no farther in that direction. The door 
in the end of the chamber was locked and triggered to alarms. So, they would go 
through another tunnel, which they had dug and walled themselves.
    They dived again and Forry plunged to the bottom of the tunnel. He saw 
Hindarf go through a hole which was so narrow, that, the air tank on his back 
scraped against the plates. The tunnel curved rapidly and took them at a course 
that he estimated would bring them about even with the ending of the Og tunnel 
but about forty feet westward.
    He came up in another chamber, much smaller than the first. There was a raft 
made of wood and inflatable pontoons. It was near the wall, which held a ladder 
that ran to the ceiling, twelve feet up.
    Hindarf pulled Forry onto the raft. A man handed Hindarf a paper in a sealed 
package. He opened it and took out the paper and spread it out. Under the lights 
they had brought, with the only sound the slight splashing of the men and heavy 
breathing, they studied the plates which constituted the ceiling of this 
chamber. The plates were being removed by two men standing on the ladder.
    There was a great boom from above them.
    The shock was sudden and savage. The platform rose into the air above the 
water and the men on it went with it. Dirt fell in on all sides, striking the 
men and sending up gouts of water and chunking into the raft, which was tilting 
to one side and then to the other.
    But the walls did not fall in, though the plates were bellied out or buckled 
and broken here and there. The booming noise had come and gone, like an overhead 
explosion. All was quiet except for the loud slap-slap of the seesawing water 
against the sides of the pit and the groaning of the platform moving up and 
down.
    Hindarf was the first to break the silence. He said, "That was either an 
earthquake or the house is starting to slide. In either case, we go ahead as 
planned. We'll be out of this place and into the house in a few seconds."
    The two men on the ladder had clung to it as it had threatened to topple 
over. Now they went to work and removed plates to make a wide opening above 
them.
    Forry wondered why they worked so slowly. He felt like clawing the plates 
out and anything else that stood between him and the open air. But he managed to 
subdue the panic. After all, as he had already told himself, he was upholding 
the honor of Earth.
    Hindarf climbed the ladder and began to chip away at the dirt with a small 
pick. Forry moved to one side to avoid the falling matter, which came down in 
big chunks. His guide, pointing at the diagram, said, "We are directly below the 
floor of the room where Childe should be held."
    "How did you get hold of the diagram?" Forry said.
    "From the city archives. The Ogs thought that they had removed all of the 
plans of the house, which was built long ago. But there was one plan which had 
been misfiled. We paid for a very expensive research, but it was worth it."
    "Why do you think Childe is in the room above?"
    "The Ogs have field important prisoners there before, both Toc and 
Earthling. We could be wrong, but even so we'll be inside the house."
    Hindarf quit scraping away the dirt and was listening through a device, one 
end of which was placed against the stone. Then he put the device in a pocket of 
his suit and began to work on the stone with a drill. Forry listened carefully 
but could hear no sound from it. His guide told him that it used supersonic 
waves.
    The removal of several blocks of stone took some time. Hindarf and another 
man stood side by side on the narrow ladder and eased the block down between 
them, and this was passed slowly between men standing together on the ladder.
    Then Hindarf listened again. He looked puzzled as he put the device away.
    "There's a strange swishing and splashing noise," he whispered.
    He took the large square of metal which a man handed him and screwed it to 
the underside of the floor. A wire led from one side of the metal square to a 
small black metal box held by a man on the raft.
    Everybody except Hindarf got off the ladder and stood to one side. Hindarf 
nodded to the man holding the box, who pressed a button on its top.
    The metal square and the section of floor within it fell down past Hindarf.
    A solid column of water roared through the opening. It knocked Hindarf off 
the ladder, struck the small platform, sprayed out over the raft, and swept 
those standing on the platform into the well or onto the raft.
    Forry Ackerman was one of those swept off.



     
CHAPTER 41
     
    Pao said, "Your wife died three months ago."
    "You killed her!" Childe raged. "You killed her! Did you torture her before 
you killed her?"
    "No," Pao said. "We did not want to hurt her, because we meant to bring her 
to you when you were ready for us. But she died."
    "How?"
    "It was an accident. Vivienne and Plugger and your wife were forming a 
triangle. Plugger was stimulating Vivienne with his tongue in her mouth, your 
wife was being stimulated with Plugger's cock in her mouth, and Vivienne and 
your wife had their cunts almost touching each other, face to face as it were. 
Gilles was up your wife's cunt or alternating between her cunt and her asshole, 
I believe."
    "I can believe that Sybil might engage in some daisy chains," Childe said. 
"But I can't believe that she'd let Vivienne even get near her. That snake-thing 
would horrify her."
    "When Plugger is charging you, you get excited enough to do a lot of things 
you wouldn't otherwise do," Pao said. "I have no reason to lie to you. The truth 
is that Gilles was driven out of his mind--he doesn't have much, anyway, just a 
piece of brain tissue in that little skull, he doesn't even know his own name 
and his talking is automatic and unintelligible even to him...Anyway, he went 
out of his head, too stimulated by Plugger, I suppose, and bit your wife's 
rectum. He tore out some blood vessels, and she bled to death. She kept moving 
and responding to Plugger's electric discharges even after she died, which was 
why neither Plugger nor Vivienne knew what was going on."
    Childe felt sick. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his head bent. Pao 
stood silently.
    After a few minutes, Childe looked up at Pao. The man's face was smooth and 
expressionless. His yellow skin, thin-lipped down-drooping mouth, thin curved 
nose, high cheekbones, slanting black eyes, and black hair with its widow's peak 
made him look like a smooth-shaven Fu Manchu. Yet the man--the Og, rather--must 
be very anxious behind that glossy sinister face. He could not use the usual 
methods to force cooperation from Childe. Even the worst of tortures could not 
extract the power for Grailing or star voyaging from a Captain. Under pain, the 
Captain was incapable of performing his duties.
    Childe thought of Vivienne, Plugger, Gilles de Rais, and the creature that 
had metamorphosed itself to look like Sybil. What was its name? Brueghel?
    O'Brien had left. Had he gone out to kill Breughel?
    Pao swallowed and said, "What can I do to make this up to you?"
    What he meant was, "What kind of revenge do you wish?" And he was thinking, 
must be thinking, that Childe would hold him responsible for Sybil's death.
    Childe said, "I only require that the snake-thing be killed."
    Pao looked relieved, but he said, "Vivienne will die, too!"
    Childe bit his lip. The revenge he was planning did not involve killing 
anybody except the snake-thing, and that thing could not be called an entity. 
Not a sentient entity, anyway. He wanted the thing killed, but he wanted 
Vivienne alive to appreciate what had happened to her and the other Ogs.
    "Bring Vivienne in," he said.
    Pao left and a few minutes later returned with Vivienne behind him. O'Brien 
and several others also entered.
    "I need a butcher's cleaver and bandages and ointment and morphine," Childe 
said.
    Vivienne turned pale. She alone seemed to grasp what he intended to do.
    "Oh, yes, and bring a wooden stool and a pair of long pliers," he said.
    Trembling, Vivienne sat down in a chair.
    "Stand up and take your clothes off," Childe said
    She rose and slowly removed her clothing.
    "Now you can sit down there," he said.
    O'Brien returned with the tools ordered.
    Childe said, "I saw the film where you bit off Colben's cock with your false 
iron teeth. So don't plead with me."
    "I am not pleading," she said. "However, it was not I who bit his cock off."
    "I won't argue. You are capable of doing it; you probably have done that, 
and far worse, to others."
    He wished that she would weep and beg. But she was very dignified and very 
brave. What else could you expect from the woman who had once been Joan of Arc?
    "Hold on to her," he said to the others.
    Pao and O'Brien pulled her legs apart. They were beautiful, perfect legs, 
with flawless white skin. The bush on the mound of Venus was thick and auburn. 
She probably had the most attractive pussy that he had ever seen. There was no 
hint of the horror that lived coiled inside it.
    Childe felt like ordering one of the men to take the next step, but if he 
had the guts to order this, then he felt obliged to have the guts to do it 
himself.
    Carefully, he inserted the pliers. Vivienne started and began quivering, but 
she did not cry out.
    He pushed the pliers in and felt around. His original intention to close the 
jaws of the pliers around the head now seemed foolish. He could not get them 
open enough, and that thing was too active. But he could drive it out, and he 
did.
    Its wet, black-haired and black-bearded head shot out past the pliers 
handles. Its tiny mouth was open, exposing the sharp teeth. Its forked tongue 
flickered at him.
    With his left hand, he caught it behind the head. He pulled it out slowly as 
it writhed and then placed the head and a part of the body on the stool.
    Pao sucked in his breath. Apparently, up to that moment, he had expected 
Childe to yank the thing out by its uterine roots and so disconnect the parts of 
Vivienne again.
    Childe said, "Hand me that cleaver."
    Vivienne watched him take the chopper. She did not blink.
    "Inject the proper amount of morphine in her," Childe said to O'Brien. "You 
do know how to do it, don't you?"
    "I do," O'Brien said. "So, you've recognized me. Did I ever treat you? No. 
Anyway, morphine will do no good. She is resistant to it."
    "I don't want to inflict physical pain on her," Childe said. "As little as 
possible, anyway. What kind of anesthetic do you have? I do want her to see 
this. She is not to be unconscious."
    "Never mind that!" Vivienne said. "Get it over with! I want to feel the 
parting in its fullest!"
    He did not ask her what she meant by that. He looked down at the 
snake-thing, which twisted and hissed. Then he raised the cleaver and brought it 
down hard across the flexible spine.
    Blood spurted out across the room. The head rolled off the stool and fell on 
the floor. Pao picked it up and put it beside the still bleeding trunk. The head 
moved its mouth several times, and its eyes glared up at Childe as if wishing 
him evil even after its death. Then the eyes glazed, and the lips ceased to 
work.
    Vivienne had turned gray. Her eyelids were open, but her eyes had rolled up 
to expose only the whites.
    O'Brien smeared an ointment over the amputation. The blood quit flowing 
entirely. Probably, that ointment was not known to Earth doctors nor used by 
O'Brien in his Beverly Hills practice.
    O'Brien bandaged up the body, and Vivienne was carried out on the chair. The 
snake body dangled down and scraped against the floor until one of the men 
coiled it up in her lap.
    Two women came in and began to clean up the mess. Pao said, "What shall we 
do with the head?"
    "Put it down the garbage disposal."
    Pao said, "Very well. Will you be ready for the ceremony tonight?"
    "I'll try," Childe said. "Of course, Breughel emptied me."
    "Breughel maintains that you asked him to go to bed with you," Pao said.
    "I would think that his duty would have been to find some excuse for putting 
me off. He knew that I should be full again for tonight."
    "That is true, but the temptation is very great. And you did ask for what 
you got. However, if you require it, Breughel will be killed."
    "Let him live," Childe said. "Now, if you don't mind, I would like privacy. 
Complete privacy. Turn off everything, except the intercom, of course. Don't 
bring me anything to eat until I ask for it. I want to meditate and possibly to 
sleep later on."
    "As you wish," Pao said.
    Childe sat on a chair for a while. He had considered doing what the Ogs 
wished, up to a point. He had intended to land them on some other planet. Maroon 
them. They would find themselves on a world which could support life but would 
offer them little except hardship. And he would go on.
    Pao had explained some of the results of the Grailing, and he knew that 
during the voyaging ceremony he would be able to scan through a part of the 
cosmos. He did not know how he could do this, but he had been assured by Pao 
that it was open to him. The implication was that he could go on to any world he 
was able to see during the ceremony. The idea scared him now, and he had been 
frank enough to tell Pao that. Pao had replied that he would not be scared 
during the ceremony because the power would make him courageous.
    But now, he had changed his mind. He wanted to escape. The chopping off of 
the snake-thing's bead had sickened him. He was becoming an Og by association 
with them. If he continued with them, he might end up as cold and cruel as they.
    An hour passed. Then, knowing that he did not have too much time to carry 
out the plan he had conceived, he arose. He went into the bathroom and turned on 
all the faucets. He used a nailfile to unscrew the grate over the shower drain, 
and he stuffed the drain with sheets. He put the plugs in the bathtub and 
washbasin drains. Then he looked around for weapons and tools. The Ogs had taken 
the pliers and the cleaver.
    The nearest thing to a weapon was the jade statuette, which he could use for 
a club. He could also use it to listen in on anything on the intercommunication 
system, since it operated without wires.
    He prowled around, looking for other useful items and could find none. He 
sat down on the bed and waited. It would take a long time for the water to fill 
the room as high as the canopy on top of the bed. He would be on top of it when 
that occurred, since he had determined that the canopy would support him.
    The hours passed. The water flowed out of the bathroom and spread over the 
bedroom floor. It rose agonizingly slowly. But the time came when he had to 
climb up on the canopy and wait there.
    The statuette in his hand spoke. "Captain, it is dinner time. Do you wish 
anything to eat?"
    "Not now!" he said. He gauged when the water would rise to the level of the 
canopy. "In about an hour. I'll take the same food as last night! Oh, by the 
way, when does the ceremony start?"
    There was a pause and then the voice said, "About nine, Captain. Or later if 
you prefer."
    "I think I'll sleep a little now," he said. "Be sure to wake me about ten 
minutes before you bring dinner in."
    When the waters lapped at the canopy, and wet his rear through the cloth, he 
swam out into the room. The door to the bathroom was almost under by then. He 
dived through the door and came up to the airpocket between the bathroom ceiling 
and the surface. Then he dived down again. The ceiling light was still on, so he 
could see somewhat in the clear water. He turned off all the faucets in one dive 
and then returned to the top. Another dive through the door, and he swam back to 
the canopy.
    As he pulled himself onto it, he felt a shock. The water slipped to one side 
of the room, as if the house had been tilted, and then it rushed back.
    For a moment the motion confused him. He was panicked. What the hell had 
happened?
    The voice said, "Captain! If you felt that lurch, do not be alarmed! It's 
not an earthquake! We think that the front of the hill gave way! We're 
inspecting the damage now! But do not be alarmed! The house is at least forty 
feet from the edge of the hill!"
    Everybody in this house was so engrossed in the Grailing that they had 
forgotten about the deluge and its possible effects. Other houses were slipping 
and sliding, tumbling down hills which caved out from under them. But these 
people had felt themselves insulated from the disaster. They had far more 
important matters to attend to.
    Now was his best chance. If a large number of them were out of the house, 
looking at the slide, he had a clearer road out than he had hoped for.
    He spoke into the statuette: "I'll take my dinner right now."
    "Sir," said the voice. "It isn't ready yet."
    "Well, send a man in. The slide broke a waterpipe in here. It's flooding my 
room."
    "Yes, sir."
    He waited. He had slipped the statuette between his belt and his stomach. He 
poised now, hoping that the pressure of the water would spring the door outwards 
even more swiftly than it normally traveled.
    The caving in of the hill front had undoubtedly been the main factor in 
making the house lurch. But the enormous weight of all the water in this room 
had helped. Now, if only things worked right.
    Suddenly, the door swung out. The water churned and frothed as it plunged 
through the narrow exit.
    Childe hesitated several seconds and then he dived. He was caught by the 
current and hurled through the doorway, brushing it as he went by and hurting 
his ribs and hips. He struck into the wall on the side of the corridor opposite 
the door and then was shot, turning over and over, helplessy down the hall. The 
house must have been tilted slightly forward, towards the road, when it had 
shifted in response to the cave-in. Most of the flood seemed to be charging in 
that direction.



     
CHAPTER 42
     
    The water fell through the hole in the floor as if it were a waterspout. It 
pounded the narrow platform, making it shudder and threaten to break up. It 
swirled the raft around so that several men, clinging to the side of the raft, 
were crushed between raft and wall.
    Forry, hanging on to another man on the raft, thought that this time the 
house had slipped forward after another cave-in. This time, it was not going to 
stop. It would go down the hill, and everybody in it would be buried under tons 
of mud. Especially those in this underground hole!
    The worst part of it was that they had removed their air tanks and so could 
not swim back through the tunnel.
    Or could they? It was difficult to think coherently while the water was 
roaring through that hole and the raft was spinning and he could not see much 
because of the splashing and spraying around him. But it had seemed to him that 
the swim through the tunnel was a very short one and that he would not have to 
swim under the surface of the swimming pool to its end. He could emerge at once.
    But the thought of going through the curving tube when its side might 
collapse at any second unnerved him. Bad as it was being shut in this hole here, 
he would stay.
    By then all the lights had been extinguished, and he was in total darkness.
    Suddenly, though the raft was still turning, the turbulence was much 
reduced. A light came on, and he could see another light. This was shining down 
through the hole in the floor. Water was still coming through but it was a 
trickle compared to the first discharge.
    Hindarf was shouting at them to be quiet. Miraculously, he was unhurt.
    Under his directions they erected the ladder again, and he climbed on up 
through it. His men followed him. Presently, a man pushed Forry and urged him to 
get going. Forry scrambled up the ladder swiftly but reluctantly. He poked his 
head through the floor and saw a bedroom that had been submerged only a few 
minutes before. The only exit was blocked with chairs, tables, and the bed, 
which had been swept against the doorway by the current.
    The Tocs worked furiously to clear the furniture away. Hindarf and another 
looked for Childe, but he was not in the room.
    "What happened?" Forry said to Hindarf.
    "I don't know. But I would guess that Childe or whoever was a prisoner in 
here flooded this place. When the door was opened, he went on out, riding the 
waters. He may have escaped."
    "Good!" said Forry. "Maybe we can leave then?"
    Hindarf looked down the hall at the wreckage. Several tables and vases and a 
crumpled carpet were piled at the corner where the hall turned. Part of the 
wall, where the water had first struck, was broken in. A man with a broken neck 
lay against the wall. He was identified as Glinch, an Og who had once terrorized 
medieval Germany as a werewolf. For the past twenty years, he had been working 
in the Internal Revenue Service, Los Angeles.
    Hindarf gave direct orders. Part of the Tocs were to go down that hall, 
looking for whatever they could find in the way of Childe, the Toc prisoners, 
and the Grail. He, Ackerman, and the rest of the party would go the other 
direction.
    As they split up, they were hurled off their feet by another shock. 
Somewhere in the house, a great splintering and crashing sounded.
    "We may not have much time left!" Hindarf said. "Quickly!"
    They broke in a door which was jammed because of the twisted walls. They 
found the three Tocs, naked, hungry, and scared, in that room. The next room 
contained Vivienne, whom everybody except Forry recognized. She was lying in 
bed, moaning with pain, a sheet over her. Hindarf pulled off the sheet, and 
Forry's eyes bulged. A three and a half foot long penis with an amputated head 
was lying between her legs, its other end stuck into her cunt.
    "So somebody killed Gilles de Rais at last?" Hindarf said.
    "Childe did it," Vivienne moaned.
    "Where is he?"
    She groaned and shook her head. Hindarf reached out and gave a savage yank 
on the thing between her legs.
    What happened next was something that Forry would never be able to forget.
    Hindarf picked up the many-legged cunt and smashed it against the wall. 
"Here's something for your collection," he said, handing the head with its 
kicking legs to Forry by the hair. Forry backed away and then ran out of the 
room.
    There were shouts and then shots and screams somewhere in the house. Hindarf 
pushed past him and ran down the hall. Forry followed the others and eventually 
entered an enormous room where about twelve Tocs were struggling with ten Ogs. 
In the middle of the battle was a glass cube with a dully glowing gray goblet on 
a pedestal.
    A Toc shoved the cube over with his foot, and the enclosure fell with a 
crash, taking the pedestal and the goblet with it. There was a desperate 
scramble, during which the floor suddenly tilted with a deafening crash and 
rending of timbers from nearby. The cube slid down to one end of the room while 
the combatants, knocked off their feet, chuted after it.
    Forry was knocked down and sent sliding on his face for perhaps ten feet. He 
suffered friction burns on his hands and knees, but he did not notice them at 
that moment. The goblet had tumbled out of the cube and come to rest a foot 
before his face.
    "Get it and run!" Hindarf yelled, and then an Og woman, whom he recognized 
as Panchita Pocyotl, leaped upon Hindarf from behind and bore him to the floor. 
    Forry would not have touched the goblet if he had thought about the effects 
of his act. But, excited and impelled by the Toc's order, he scrambled to his 
feet, scooping the goblet up. Even in his frenzied state, he noticed that it 
felt extraordinarily warm and that it seemed to pulse faintly. He also felt a 
resurgence of energy and an onslaught of courage.
    He ran, even though he was not supposed to run. He went out of the room and 
down the hall and then there was a terrible grinding noise, a groaning, a 
shrieking, and a rumble as of thunder. The floor dropped; he fell, though still 
holding the goblet.
    The room seemed to turn upside down. He struck the ceiling, which cracked 
open before he hit it. The lights had gone out then, but a flashlight from 
somewhere, maybe held by an Og who, had just entered the house, threw a beam on 
the goblet and the surrounding area.
    Half-stunned, Forry saw the goblet slide away from him. A dark figure 
hurtled into the area of the light and sprawled after the goblet. It was not 
clad in a diving suit and it was not Childe, so he presumed it was an Og.
    He kicked the Og as he rose with a triumphant cry, holding the goblet to his 
chest. The bare foot--he had long since shed his flippers--caught the Og under 
the cheek of his right buttock. At the same time, the house lurched again, and 
the Og, screaming, went flying forward. The goblet fell from his grip and rolled 
out through a doorway which was collapsing.
    Cold wet mud lifted Forry and carried him as if he were on a rubber raft 
through the doorway just before it closed in on itself. He shot out through 
another room as if he were a cake of soap slipping out of the wet hands of a 
bather. The goblet appeared before him riding upside down on a wave of mud. 
Forry reached out and grabbed it and held it to his chest even through his 
terror and his screaming.
    Then he was turned upside down. Mud covered him and filled his nostrils and 
mouth. He choked and fought against the wet heavy stuff killing him.
    Something struck the side of his head; and he fell into a darkness and 
silence blacker and quieter than the mud



     
CHAPTER 43
     
    Partly stunned when he hit the wall at the first turning of the corridor, 
Childe was hurled down the next hall, spun off lightly at the second turning, 
turned aside by a great curling wave, and shot down another hall. At its end it 
opened onto the front door and, on the side, to a large room. The waters split 
here, one torrent shooting through the doorway after having broken down the 
door, and the other torrent spilling into the room.
    The parting of the flood greatly diminished its force and its level. Childe 
scraped his knees and hands on the lintel as he went through the front door and 
was deposited at the foot of the steps at the bottom of the porch. Staggering 
because of the water that was falling on his back, he crawled away and then got 
to his feet. He took two steps and screamed as he fell outwards and down. The 
mud of a very steep bank took him, and he slid face down for some distance 
before plunging up to his shoulders into the sticky stuff. He fought his way out 
and then lay on his back, staring upwards.
    Light was streaming out through the open door and several other windows. He 
was lying on top of the cave-in. And if he did not get out of the way soon, he 
would be crushed by the entire weight of the mansion. It was groaning and 
swaying, and the slides of mud around him heralded a greater slide.
    Though he would have liked to stay there and rest, he turned over and 
slipped and slid to his feet and sludged away from the building looming above 
him as fast as he could go. Once he tripped over a solid object, which he would 
have thought a small boulder if it had not moaned. He got down on his knees and 
felt the roundness, which was the head of a woman buried up to her neck.
    "Who is it?" he said.
    "It's me," the woman said.
    "Who?"
    "Diana Rumbow. Who're you?" And then, "Help me!"
    Mud abruptly covered his legs to the ankles. He looked up but could not see 
much except that the house seemed to be tilting a little more. Suddenly, the 
lights went out, and a great grinding noise came from the house.
    He went on as swiftly as he could. It would take him a long time to dig her 
out, and the house was surely coming down, on them at any minute. Besides, he 
owed an Og nothing except death.
    When he had gotten to one side, far enough out of danger from the house, 
though not from the slippage of the hill beneath him, he turned. Just as he did, 
the great structure screamed and toppled down the steep slope. Though it was so 
dark, he could still see that it had turned over on its side, so swiftly had the 
earth beneath it fallen in.
    He wanted to make for the ruins as fast as he could, but he was too emptied 
and shaken. He sat down in the mud and wished that he could cry. After a while, 
he got up and sludged through the mud, sinking to his knees with every step. He 
went even more slowly than the effort accounted for, because he was never sure 
that he would not keep on sinking.
    The first body he found was Forry Ackerman's. It was lying on top of the 
mud, though sinking very slowly. He was on his back, his face covered with mud 
but his spectacles still on. A glow of headlights coming up the road below 
showed him palely to Childe.
    "Forry?" he said.
    The mud-covered lips parted to show mud-covered teeth.
    "Yeees?"
    "You're alive!" Childe said. And then, "How in bell did you get here? What's 
been going on?"
    "Help me up," Forry said.
    Childe hauled him up, but Forry got down on his knees and started groping 
around. The headlights of the car came up over the top of the road below them, 
and Childe could see much better. But he could see nothing that Forry might be 
groping for.
    "I had it! I had it!" Forry groaned.
    "What?"
    "The Grail! The Grail!"
    "You had it? How? Forry, tell me, what's going on?"
    Forry, feeling into the mud and uttering curses which were completely out of 
character for him, told him.
    Childe pulled him to his feet. "Listen, you'll never find it in this mess. 
We better go into the house, if we can get into that mess, and look for our 
friends. If they are our friends."
    Forry raised his head sharply. "What do you mean, if they are our friends?"
    "How much do you and I really know about the Tocs?" Childe said. "They've 
been nice to us, but then they have a reason to be so. Even the Ogs became 
better after they had a reason to get my cooperation. So..."
    "I have to find that Grail," Forry said. "I want to go to the planet of the 
Tocs. It'll be the only chance I'll ever have!"
    "All right, Forry," Childe said. "We'll get it somehow. I'd like to have it, 
too, so I could settle this thing once and for all! But we'd better see who we 
can save. After all, Toc or Og, human or not, they feel pain, and they're going 
to need help."
    The car had approached as closely as its driver dared. Four people got out 
and walked through the mud to them. It took a few minutes of questioning by both 
parties before it was established that the newcomers were Tocs. They had been 
summoned from the other side of the world and had just managed to get here.
    "I wouldn't worry about finding it, Captain," the leader, Tish, said. "You 
can concentrate on it, and it will glow. The glow will come up even through tons 
of mud."



     
CHAPTER 44
     
    The Tocs and the Ogs bad hired a hall.
    Over two-thirds of the big dance floor of the American Legion post had been 
marked off in squares. The remaining third was given over to the hundred or so 
surviving members of both groups. And to Childe, the Captain, the Grail and its 
pedestal. And to Forry Ackerman, who sat on one side to observe. He would 
participate in the ceremony but only as one caught in the sidewash of radiation. 
When the time came for the voyaging, he would move into the direct influence of 
the power and, if all went well, travel with the others to the stars.
    Childe sat in a chair before the Grail. Beyond him the Tocs and Ogs stood in 
ranks of twelve abreast. They were naked. Everybody in the hall was naked.
    They were here because Childe had ordered it. He had told them that if both 
groups did not declare, and keep, a truce, he would destroy the Grail and would 
refuse to act as their Captain. If they agreed to keep the peace and to 
participate together, he would transport both groups to their home planets.
    They did not take long in reaching an agreement.
    Childe was still dubious about his ability to move them across intergalactic 
spaces and pinpoint the exact world for each. But he hoped that it would work. 
It meant ridding the Earth of a number of monsters and potential monsters. He 
wished that he could also do this with others than the Tocs and the Ogs.
    Hindarf and Pao had died under some heavy timbers and several tons of mud. 
Tish had been elected master of ceremonies. It was he who had arranged that the 
authorities did not investigate the ruins. With the spending of much money, he 
had kept the police and others out of the area, and the Tocs and the Ogs who 
survived had secretly buried the dead.
    Now Tish called up the couples, one by one, to begin the ceremony. These 
were male and female with each couple composed of a Toc and an Og. There were 
about four females left over, and these were also to couple in the beginning.
    Male and female, they approached Childe and knelt before him. They touched 
his genitals and kissed his penis and then rose. He stared at the Grail while 
his cock became bigger with each kiss until it had reached its utmost rigidity. 
The Grail began to glow and to pulse. Its glow waxed and waned as the throbbings 
of his dong built up.
    One by one they knelt and kissed or sucked his cock. Then they returned to 
their stations to wait, hand in band, or hand on cock or cunt, for the last 
couple to return.
    The light from the Grail grew brighter and brighter until it could not be 
looked at directly by anybody but Childe. The light filled his eyes and his 
skull, but he could still see the Grail and the people beyond.
    Finally. Tish approached Childe and knelt and stroked his balls and cock and 
then kissed the glistening glands. Childe's body from behind his naval to his 
knees had turned to ice, and the peter was giving little jerks while the fluid 
moved more swiftly towards its exit. He beckoned to an exquisite Thai woman, a 
Toc, and she ran to him and bent over to take his cock into her mouth. 
Immediately, the man who had been her partner came up behind her, got down 
between her legs, and buried his face in her cunt. Another woman got down on all 
fours and began sucking his dong; a man went down on her; a woman crawled 
between his legs and sucked on his peter; a man thrust his tongue up her slit; a 
woman got under him and started to work on the head of his penis with her mouth; 
and so forth. The result was a daisy chain with the woman on the end lying on 
her back blowing a man and nobody on her cunt.
    Tish walked down the line of the grunting, moaning, smacking, writhing men 
and women. He straddled the last woman and let himself down, not too easily, 
into her slit.
    But even while he was pumping away, Tish called out in a strange language. 
He chanted, and Childe understood the words, though he was not able later to 
translate them.
    Childe sat still and let the woman mouth his glands and run her tongue over 
his prick while the ecstasy mounted and mounted and mounted. Suddenly, he gave a 
little scream and spurted. The Grail seemed to burn; it shot out a pulsing light 
that drove away every shadow in the hall. Tish continued to chant. Apparently, 
he had not come yet. And then, as Childe's peter gave its final jerk and spurt, 
Tish cried out.
    The air over the squares darkened. Little clouds formed. The air became very 
cold, chilling the hot and sweating bodies. There was a wind, as if the air was 
moving towards the clots of duskiness over each square. At first, the air moved 
gently, but within a minute it was whistling from every corner of the hall and 
rattling the windows. Dust from the floor rose up and whirled in small cyclones.
    The Grail continued to pulse dazzlingly, though Childe had ceased to 
ejaculate. It did not obliterate the shadows above the squares; it seemed to 
make them darker.
    The first one that Childe recognized was Igescu, the Toc whom he had killed 
in his oak-log coffin by thrusting a sword through his heart. Afterwards, the 
body had been burned to ashes in the fire of the great house.
    Childe had never expected to see that long lean face with the high forehead, 
thick eyebrows, high cheekbones, and large eyes, nor the very long and skinny 
dick.
    And there was Magda Holyani, the beautiful blonde weresnake.
    And there was Hindarf and beside him was Pao.
    They were all naked and all in their human form.
    And where was Dolores del Osorojo, the beautiful California-Spanish "ghost" 
who had literally fucked herself back into a materialization of flesh and blood 
and bone, only to be killed and skinned by the Ogs?
    He saw her in a square in the middle of the crowd. She was smiling at him, 
and her hips were rotating as if she were relishing the memory of their times 
together.
    The air warmed up, and the wind ceased.
    The hall was filled with many voices. The living and the recently dead were 
chattering, yelling, laughing.
    Tish waited for five minutes and then shouted for silence.
    It came slowly and reluctantly, because the Tocs and the Ogs were human in 
that they had to express their emotions.
    "Now for the voyaging!" Tish shouted.
    They all faced him expectantly. Childe noted, out of the corner of his eye, 
Forry sitting on his chair. His eyes were bulging out, and he was covered with 
sweat. Childe did not know whether this reaction was caused by the ceremony he 
had just seen or the thought of the trip.
    It was up to him whether or not he went along. If he decided to go, he just 
had to move from the side of the hall to the middle of the floor, and he would 
be taken along automatically.
    Tish had not liked the idea that Forry was not participating in the 
ceremony, but he admitted that his noninvolvement would reduce the effect of the 
Grail by only a negligible amount.
    Tish indicated that a woman should bring up a bowl with a dark liquid in it. 
She took a position by Childe after kissing his penis and the second ceremony 
began immediately. She sprinkled his genitals with a few drops of the dark 
liquid before each person kissed his peter. Tish stood on the other side and 
every third person dipped his finger into the bowl and passed it over Childe's 
lips. The stuff tasted like honey with a trace of rancid cottage cheese. When 
the bowl was empty, Tish signaled for it to be refilled, and the ceremony went 
on.
    The Grail kept on pulsing brightly. Its white light was beginning to affect 
Childe. He did not become blind or any less able to see what was going on around 
him. But he was receiving flashes of strange scenes. Usually these were seen as 
if he was standing on the surface of a planet, but several times he whizzed by a 
star burning redly, greenly, or amberly. He seemed to be no more than a hundred 
thousand miles from the great luminaries. Despite the brightness and nearness, 
he felt no heat, only a bone-crystallizing cold.
    Tish began to chant in the foreign language. Childe beckoned to Dolores, who 
ran gladly towards him, her big shapely breasts bouncing with the impact of her 
feet. She got down on her knees and buried her face in his crotch and wept. Then 
she took the end of his half-limp organ and began to suck on it. It rose as if 
she were blowing air into it, became hard and throbbing, and gave him that first 
warming under his belly button.
    The Grail pulsed faster, and the flickers of alien topographies and 
brilliantly colored stars increased in number and variety.
    Dolores sucked harder and moved her head back and forth. Igescu came up 
behind her then and lifted her up so that she was standing up but with her knees 
bent. He rammed his dick into her asshole and began pumping. Plugger got down on 
his knees behind Igescu's lean buttocks, spread them, and thrust his tongue up 
Igescu's asshole. His body rocked back and forth as he rode the vampire's ass 
with his face.
    Even through the woman and the man, Childe could feel the shock of Plugger's 
tongue. He hoped that the others would form the daisy chain quickly, because if 
they didn't they were going to get caught short. He was going to come soon. This 
would require starting the voyage ceremony over again, because the chain had to 
be complete, or nearly complete, when he came.
    The room started to rotate. The naked bodies of the men and women seemed to 
be skating on the edge of a spinning disc. They slid here and there, catching 
each other, going down, tonguing cocks and cunts, ramming cunts, mouths, and 
assholes.
    And there was Vivienne. And there was a tall man with a black beard and 
burning eyes. His face had much more distinct features, of course, but the 
resemblance was close enough for Childe to identify him as Gilles de Rais. He 
had materialized in his original body, and he was sticking his dong into the 
spread buttocks of a slim blond man who was sucking off Vivienne.
    Then Vivienne and de Rais and everybody receded on the edge of the whirling 
plate that had been the big ballroom. Lightning was flashing from the Grail, 
white strokes, scarlet flashes, emerald zigzags, yellow streaks, purple swords 
with jagged edges. The flashes spurted upwards from the Grail, bounced off the 
ceiling, spiraled down, caromed off the naked writhing bodies of the men and 
women, fell to the floor like colored and shattered stalactites.
    Childe felt the gray fluid in him thrusting upward. But when he looked down, 
he saw only the red lips of Dolores, like an unattached cunt, squeezing around 
his cock. He could see into his own body, and the gray fluid was red as mercury 
in a thermometer and rising as if the thermometer had been thrust into a 
furnace. The red thread sped upward and then leaped out between the disconnected 
red lips and spurted like scarlet gunpowder exploding.
    The Grail blew up soundlessly with a crimson-and-yellow cloud expanding 
outwards and pieces of whitely glowing metal flying through the cloud.



     
CHAPTER 45
     
    Until the last moment, Forry could not make up his mind. He had been 
repulsed at first by the orgy. Seeing such things in stag films was one thing, 
but seeing them in the flesh was very uncomfortable and even sickening. After a 
while, the aura of reeking sexuality, of uninhibited orgasms, of penises and 
vaginas and anuses and mouths, began to excite him. He even got jealous when he 
saw Alys Merrie sucking on the red-skinned cock of a big Amerindian, and he felt 
an impulse to get off the chair and dive into the welter, that raging sea, of 
hair and flesh.
    But he was, in the end (I always pun, even here, he thought), too inhibited.
    Nevertheless, the vibrations were getting to him, and he hoped the ceremony 
would not last too long. Otherwise, he might abandon his restraints and join in 
the fun.
    A few seconds later, he got his first view of what was taking place in the 
mind of Childe. He did not know that it was Childe's mind that was broadcasting, 
but he surmised that it was. There was no doubt that Childe and the Grail, 
hooked together in some psychosexoneural manner, formed the focus and the 
distributor of the strange power emanating throughout the hall.
    The glimpses of the alien worlds were like seeing the paintings of 
Bonestell, Paul, Sime, Finlay, St. John, Bok, Freas, Emshwiller, and other 
greats of science-fiction become three dimensional and then became alive. 
Painting turned into reality.
    The worlds were only slices; it was as if Childe was cutting the cosmic pie 
into slim pieces and hurling them at him.
    He jumped up from the chair and unsteadily made his way towards the 
complicated shifting structure of flesh. It was only a few feet from him but it 
seemed to have sped towards the horizon. Between him and the bodies writhing in 
the glory of the power from the Grail was a vast distance.
    He had to hurry. The Childe--Child?--was coming.
    If he did not get within that blaze, he would be left behind. He would be 
standing alone, naked and erect and weeping in the big American Legion hall. 
This was the only chance he would ever get. He, Forry Ackerman, the only human 
to get a ticket to intergalactic space, to alien and weirdly wonderful worlds in 
a foreign galaxy. His childhood dreams come true in a universe where he had no 
right to expect that any dreams would ever be reality. Where he had built a 
house to embody dreams with only half-reasonable facsimiles. Where the 
pseudo-worlds had seemed to be real in the shadow world of his home but real for 
split-seconds only. Where stars like giant jewels, and crimson landscapes, and 
trees with tentacles, and balloon-chested Martians with elephant trunks and six 
fingers, and huge-eyed feathered nymphs, and long-toothed red-lipped vampires 
dwelt in startling fixity forever.
    Now he could go voyaging.
    He ran towards the dwindling figures while the Grail sent up a mushroom 
cloud of red, green, yellow, purple, and white shoots. He ran towards them, and 
they shot away as if on skates.
    "Wait for me!" he cried. "I'm going, too!"
    The horizon, so distant, suddenly reversed its direction and charged him and 
was on him before he could stop running. Like a locomotive appearing out of a 
tunnel, it ran over him with flashing emerald, topaz, and ruby lights screaming 
at him, and swiftly rotating puffs of brilliant white and deep-space black 
cutting through him instead of iron wheels.
    Whatever the objective length of time, to him it seemed instantaneous. He 
was in the hall and then he was in a huge room with gray walls, floor, and 
ceiling. It had no furniture and no doors or windows. The only light was that 
escaping in waves from the Grail.
    Childe and the others were with him. They were all looking at each other 
dazedly. Some of them had not yet uncoupled.
    The Grail and its pedestal stood before Childe.
    Hindarf strode, to the wall and spoke one word. A large section of the wall 
became transparent, and they were looking out over the bleakest landscape that 
he had ever seen. There was only naked twisted rock. There was no vegetation or 
water. Yet the sky was as blue as Earth's, indicating that there was an 
atmosphere outside.
    Childe said, "Come here, Forry. Take my hand."
    "Why?" Forry said, but he obeyed.
    Hindarf activated another window on the opposite wall. This showed more 
windswept rock, but far away, near the horizon, was a spot of green and what 
looked like the tops of tall trees.
    "This isn't our world or the Ogs' either!" Hindarf shouted. He pointed into 
the sky and Forry could barely see the pale moon there. It looked as large as 
Earth's, but it was darkly mottled in the center and resembled the markings on 
the wings of a death's-head moth.
    Childe beckoned to Dolores del Osorojo, who smiled and came to him and stood 
on his left, holding his hand. Childe said something in Spanish to her, and she 
smiled and nodded.
    "That about uses up my knowledge of Spanish," Childe said. "But she prefers 
to stay with me. And I want her to be with me."
    "That is the moon of Gruthrath!" Hindarf shouted.
    He wheeled upon Childe. "Captain! You have brought us to the desert world of 
Gruthrath!"
    Childe said, "It's a desert, but it can support you and the Ogs quite 
comfortably, if you get out and dig, right?" Hindarf turned pale. Weakly, he 
said, "Yes, but surely you are not thinking of...?"
    "My ancestral memory or genetic memory or whatever you call it has been 
opened," Childe said. "I know that there is very little chance that either you 
Tocs or Ogs would let me go once I made the first landing on either planet. You 
have Captains greater than I who could neutralize my powers long enough for your 
people to physically capture me. You'd have to, because I am partly an Earthman, 
and you could never trust me. And whichever planet I got us to first, the home 
of the Toc or the Og, the people there would catch me. And they would take 
captive the enemy peoples, too.
    "That isn't true!" Hindarf and Igescu yelled.
    "I know," Childe said. "You two were taking a chance in a cosmic lottery, as 
it were. You did not know which planet I would pick out to land on first, and 
you couldn't even ask me, because I would not know which one until I was 
presented with a choice. Also, if you tried too hard to sway me, I might get 
suspicious. So you took a chance. And both of you lost."
    "You can't do this!"
    The Tocs and the Ogs rushed towards Childe.
    Forry almost let loose of Childe because it looked as if the three of them 
were going to be torn to bits.
    Childe gripped Forry's hand so hard that the bones cracked.
    He shouted, "Fuck you!" and they were off.
    There was a thin triangle of nothing wheeling by Forry, a gush of soundless 
purple flame around his feet, and the familiar walls of the American Legion were 
all around him and the familiar floor was under his feet.
    Forry did not say anything for a moment. Then, slowly, he spoke. "Where's 
the Grail?"
    "I left it behind. I can do that, you know, although it means that the Grail 
is now forever out of my reach. Unless another Captain brings one here."
    "That's all?" Forry said. "You mean the trip's over?"
    "You didn't get killed," Childe said.
    "I made a better trip when I saw the movie Barbarella," Forry said.
    Childe laughed and said, "You'd gripe if you were hung with a new rope."
    They got dressed and prepared to leave the hall. Childe said, "I wouldn't 
tell anybody about this, if I were you. And I think we'd better not see each 
other again." 
    Forry looked at Dolores. She was dressed in a white-peek-a-boo blouse and 
tight orange slacks that one of the Toc women had left behind.
    "What about her?"
    Childe squeezed the dark-haired woman and said, "I'll take care of her. She 
may have been one of them, but she was one of the good ones."
    "I hope so," Forry said. He stuck out his hand. "Well, good luck. Adiau, as 
we Esperantists say."
    "Don't take any wooden grails," Childe said.
    Forry watched him walk away with his arm around the slender waist of 
Dolores, his hand resting on the curve of her ass. How could the fellow so 
easily give up that power, that chance to go star-voyaging?
    But he felt good again when he came out into the familiar world of Los 
Angeles. The rains had stopped, the sky night was clear and full of stars, car 
horns were blaring, water was splashing onto the pedestrians as reckless drivers 
roared through pools, a radio was screeching rock, an ambulance siren was 
wailing somewhere.
    A half hour later, he entered his house. He stopped and gasped. The Stoker 
painting was missing again!
    Renzo Dummock came down the steps then, scratching his hairy chest and 
swollen paunch. He said, "Hi, Forry. Say, could you loan me a coupla bucks for 
ciggies and a beer? I'm really down in the dumps, I..."
    "That painting!" Forry said, pointing his finger at the blank space on the 
wall.
    Renzo stopped and gaped. Then he said, "Oh, yeah, I was going to tell you. 
That guy, what's his name, Woolston Heepish? He showed up about an hour ago and 
said you had told him he could have the Stoker. So I let him. Wasn't it all 
right?"
    Forry charged into his office and dialed Heepish's number. His heart chunked 
when he heard the smooth soft voice again.
    "Why didn't you go with the others?" Forry said.
    "Why, Forry! You're back! I thought sure you'd be gone forever! That's why I 
stayed behind. I like this life, and I couldn't pass up the chance to add your 
collection to mine!"
    Forry was silent for a moment and then he said, "Hold on! I thought you were 
buried in that landslide?"
    Heepish chuckled. "Not me! I slid out as nice as pie and took off. I had 
enough of Childe and the Tocs and the Ogs, even if the Ogs are my people."
    "I want my painting back!"
    "Would you consider trading it for a rare Bok?"
    Forry wondered if the fellow had slipped some LSD into his coffee. Perhaps 
everything that had happened was only a lysergic acid fantasy?
    Heepish's voice, fluttering like the wings of a bat in the night, said, 
"Maybe we could get together soon? Have a nice talk?"
    "You can keep the painting if you'll promise never to cross my path again!" 
Forry said.
    Heepish chuckled. "Could Dr. Jekyl get rid of Mr. Hyde?"