Demon Lover

by Fortune , Dion

  In these new regions of the opening subconscious she found a series of vignettes—clear but remote, like the memories of early childhood—of herself under different circumstances and conditions of existence, and these she recognised to be memories of previous lives. She knew that she had formed a tie with Lucas at some time during these lives, and that it was the influence of this tie which she still felt, and which made her feel that she could never achieve with any other human being the closeness of spiritual relationship which was possible with him. Evil though he was, he was nearer to her than anyone else.

  As she studied the dream-pictures, they grew clearer. Temple and grove and great resonant rituals built themselves up before her inner vision in elaborate fantasies, and with a sudden flash she realized that these were akin to the scenes she had witnessed when Lucas drove her across the spinning barrier of psychic force that guarded the forbidden degrees of his own Fraternity. These things, if not identical in form, were similar in force, and some connection existed between them.

  But these new chambers that had opened in her mind were not only stored with picture-images, but with a forgotten lore that, fragment by fragment as associations touched it, came back into memory ; the subconscious was becoming conscious, and in its depths were found stored the memories of past lives. Swiftly the revelation dawned upon the girl pacing the terrace in the pale early sunlight. In the bright dawn of human life, when the unseen world had been very close to mankind and the priest-kings still ruled their peoples, she had entered the mystery-schools that then flourished and had there learnt to work with one with whom, when once the bond was established, she had worked again and again until there came a life of crisis in which one was tempted and fell to the lust of power, while the other held firm to the faith. The physical vehicles, shattered by the rending forces that now tore them, soon released the souls they held bound in the flesh, and in due season these souls had again returned to the world of form in that Roman incarnation of which Lucas had told Veronica the story upon the road to Brighton ; Veronica, with her widened vision, was now able to read behind the incidents, and knew that the one had been able to enter the great new tide of spiritual life that had been poured out upon the world from the hills of Galilee, whereas the other had sought the old pagan mysteries, had turned from the future to the past, and reverted to a primitive type.

  Again, at Avignon, the story had been repeated, one soul had been drawn into the spiritual current of its age, and the other had turned to a pagan folklore. In the present life Veronica knew that they had come together again, but the end of the story was not yet written. A flash of intuition revealed to her that of these spiritual yoke-fellows, the one had dealt with the forces of the mind, and the other with the forces of the heart ; and that each, deprived of the other, was baffled. The one was a mind without conscience ; the other, feelings without understanding. Together they could touch the heights, but apart, the one was a knave and the other a fool. It was the contact with Lucas that had opened Veronica's intellect, and the contact with Veronica that had touched Lucas's conscience.

  Realization had come to Veronica and was dawning in Lucas, but they were in the thick of a toil of consequences that past lives had set swirling about them, and it might well be that realization had come too late for any solution to be found in the present incarnation. Veronica could not see her way through the maze, and she realized that Lucas, in the strange, morbid, life-in-death and death-in-life to which he had condemned himself, might well pass beyond the power of any aid, human or divine, and be drawn into the gulfs of Chaos, whence there is no return.

  Smoke rising from the kitchen chimney showed that breakfast was at last under way, and Veronica was turning towards the house when a footstep attracted her attention, and she saw, approaching through the dew-laden shrubberies, a figure voluminously garbed in an old-fashioned Inverness cape and laden with an antique Gladstone bag, and in another minute her old friend of the long white beard stood before her and grasped her hand in greeting.

  Amazed beyond words at this unexpected visitation, Veronica entirely forgot the duties of hospitality, and it was not until the old man had led her into the billiard room and divested himself of his wrappings that she enquired the reason for his journey.

  He shot a keen glance at her from under his heavy grey brows.

  “Did you not expect any one ?” he said.

  Veronica looked at him blankly for a moment, and then, remembering the promised visitor of her vision-dreams, hesitated, uncertain whether to speak or not, for, though she herself was fast becoming more certain of the reality of her experiences and had ceased to attribute them to imagination, it had never occurred to her that anyone else might share them, and she feared to expose herself to ridicule or suspicion should she reveal her knowledge. But the old man's eyes challenged hers, and she accepted the challenge.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I was expecting someone, but I was not quite certain—I did not know it would be you—it took me by surprise when I saw you.”

  The old eyes, strangely brilliant in that faded face, continued to study her acutely.

  “Who was it told you to expect someone ?” he asked blandly.

  Veronica returned his gaze squarely, she knew that she was being tested ; the old man's thoughts were perceptible to her, and she felt that hers were equally so to him ; concealment between them was both useless and needless. She answered his question in the spirit in which it was asked.

  “THEY told me,” was her reply.

  “Then you know THEM ?”

  She bowed her head. It was sufficient. They understood each other.

  The old woman appeared with a laden tray, and seeing a second person present, shuffled off to boil another egg. Nothing ever perturbed her or seemed to rouse her curiosity. Had she found the Cham of Tartary confabulating with Veronica, she would have boiled him an egg without question. Lucas had trained her well.

  The meal was occupied with the courtesies of the table and enquiries as to Veronica's health and other mundane matters. Both felt that there were things to be told that were too momentous to bear the interruptions necessitated by eating, but as soon as the old man was ensconced in one of the big leather arm-chairs, and his pipe was well alight, he looked across the fireplace to where Veronica occupied the other arm-chair, and remarked : “Things, I take it, have been happening ?”

  He invited confidences, and Veronica determined to burn her boats behind her and give them.

  “Dr. Latimer,” she said, “I am going to tell you the truth ; perhaps you will think I am mad, but it is the truth, whether you believe it or not.”

  “I expect I shall believe it,” the old man replied. “There are certain things which some of us know, though the world in general may be ignorant of them.”

  “After you left me,” Veronica began, “everything was quiet for a little while, and I began to think that I had made a mistake and that death was—what most people think it is, and that everything was finished ; but, on the other hand, I felt it wasn't, and that presently I should be wanted.”

  “You neither heard nor saw anything ?” questioned the old man.

  “Nothing. I simply had a kind of feeling, and though one part of me said it was all nonsense and I was making a fool of myself, it was the deep, inner part of me, my real self, that felt like that, and I stuck to it ; but it was so vague, and so faint, that I could not make out anything definite until one day I happened to put on an old coat that had belonged to Mr. Lucas, and that seemed to put me right back into his atmosphere again, and I knew that he wanted me to go down to his grave. I had never been, because I did not wish to think of him as dead, but when I got that feeling I obeyed it and went.”

  “Did you feel anything there ?” asked the old man.

  “Nothing,” replied Veronica. “It simply made me realize that Mr. Lucas was really and truly dead and that I had better think of other things. But on my way back through the wood there was something, I don't know quite w
hat it was. It was like a little cold wind that came from nowhere, and it simply made us shudder.”

  “Who was ‘ us ’ ?” enquired the old man, quickly.

  “It was Alec Butler and myself. He was the son of the doctor here ; you may remember him at the inquest.”

  “Was the son ?” the old man queried again. “Is someone dead ?”

  Veronica twisted her hands together nervously. “Yes,” she replied slowly. “Several people are dead. That is the thing I want to talk to you about.”

  The old man removed the pipe from his mouth, and the curl of smoke arising from it slowly died away. Veronica glanced furtively over her shoulder, as if in search of eavesdroppers, and then plunged into her story.

  “When I went to the graveyard,” she said, “I saw four children's graves, all newly made, and this is a tiny village, only one street.” She paused and looked sharply at the old man to see what he would make of this statement. He nodded.

  “I am not surprised,” he said.

  “There have been other children who have died since then : two others that I know of. I will tell you about them presently, but I want to tell you about Alec first. I got to know him when I went to the churchyard. He was very kind and showed me where the grave was. It would have been rather trying, all alone.”

  “Did they bury Justin in consecrated ground ?” asked the old man.

  “I think so,” said Veronica, “but not in the old part of the churchyard round the church, but in the new part, over against the river, and right up in the far corner of that.”

  “That accounts for a good deal,” said the old man. “A modern Anglican consecration is nothing approaching as powerful as one that was done before the Reformation. They would have spared themselves a good deal if they had allowed Justin to lie in the shadow of the church. Christian charity can rarely be dispensed with safely.”

  “Alec walked home with me through the wood. I was rather upset by the visit to the grave, and also I think that he was attracted towards me ; after that, he often came to see me, and in the end he asked me to marry him. I think that that was what did it.”

  “Did what ?”

  “Led to his death,” said Veronica, steadying her voice with an effort. “We had a dog here, and one night it had a queer kind of seizure and——” She hesitated. How could she possibly recount these wild imaginings ? “And it went mad and broke loose and killed Mr. Butler,” she tailed off lamely.

  “What was done with the dog ?” demanded her interlocutor.

  “They had it shot.”

  “And its body ?”

  “They thought it had hydrophobia, so they sent its body to the destructor at Ambridge.”

  “Good,” said the old man, with an air of satisfaction. “That is the only thing to do in a case like this. And after the dog was destroyed, did you have any more trouble ?”

  “Yes,” said Veronica, slowly. “We did. Mr. Lucas came here into this very room, and materialized over there where you are sitting.”

  “Did any one see him beside yourself ?”

  “Not on that occasion, but when they shot the dog a whole lot of people saw him, and the district is simply scared to death, and the old caretaker started drinking and has been drinking ever since.”

  “How did he perform the materialization ?”

  “He had got a certain amount of substance from the children he had killed, and he borrows the rest from me.”

  “Borrows ?”

  “Yes, he borrows enough to be able to materialize and talk to me, and then returns it and dematerialÌ2:es when he has finished.”

  “Has he done this often ?”

  “Four or five times.”

  “What effect does it have on you ?”

  Veronica hesitated. “It does not affect me much at the time,” she said at length. “In fact, each time he does it it affects me less, but I find that I am beginning to want to—to do the same sort of thing to other people. When I went down the lane the other day a little child ran out to me, and I picked it up and cuddled it ; it seemed to me as if I could feel the vitality radiating from it. The mother ran out and snatched it from me, and I was thankful, for I realized that I was doing just the same thing as Mr. Lucas had done. I wouldn't do it again, now I know what it means, but it is rather awful to feel that way, isn't it ?”

  The old man pulled at his extinguished pipe for some time before replying. Finally he spoke.

  “Would it be possible to open Lucas's grave without being observed, or should we be obliged to get a permit from the Home Office ?”

  “I should think it would be quite possible,” replied Veronica. “But I should not like anything to be done that could hurt Mr. Lucas.

  The old man looked at her keenly.

  “What is the position between you and Lucas ?” he asked.

  “There is an old bond,” answered the girl.

  “I thought as much. And what may be the nature of that bond ?”

  “We worked together in some of the old temples, and then, later, there was trouble and we drifted apart. But we needed each other. In fact, I think a great deal of the trouble came from our being apart. He acted as a brain to me, and I was a heart to him. Then in this life we met again, but things were in such a tangle that we can't get them straightened out. Mr. Lucas did all sorts of wrong things with me. He doesn't care what he does. And even now he isn't properly dead, and he daren't die completely, because if he did he would go to some awful place and probably be lost altogether, and the only way he can keep alive is by taking other people's vitality.”

  “Have you ever heard of vampires ?” said the old man.

  “Yes,” answered Veronica. “And—and I have also heard of were-wolves.”

  Silence fell between them.

  Finally the girl spoke. “Do you know what the Second Death means ?” she asked.

  “It means the disintegration of the personality, the unit of incarnation—and its absorbtion by the individuality—the unit of evolution. John Smith, shall we say, dies, and the ego, which we will call Johannes, absorbs the experiences of John Smith. The personality is as mortal as the body, it is only the spirit which is eternal. The first death is that of the physical form, and the second death that of the body of desire ensouled by the concrete mind. When that is gone, the abstract mind, ensouled by the divine spirit, abides in its own place, which is commonly called heaven, until the time comes for its reincarnation.”

  “Why is Mr. Lucas so afraid of the Second Death ?”

  “Because that is the day of reckoning whereon the personality has to answer for its doings. Lucas dreads the day of reckoning, and not without reason, either.”

  Veronica gazed dreamily out of the window for a while.

  “I suppose if anyone heard us,” she said at length, “they would think we were mad, and that our minds were wandering.”

  “Doubtless,” said her companion drily. “But how would they propose to stop the deaths ? They have an amazing infant mortality for so small a place : they cannot explain that away.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  L UCAS NEVER APPEARED DURING THE HOURS OF daylight, it was only as the darkness came on that he might be expected, so Veronica showed the old man over her little estate, and pointed out the different objects that were connected with the problem they had to solve. They had visited Lucas's bedroom, where the last blooms of the red rambler shed mildewed leaves upon the windowsill. As the old man gathered them thoughtfully into his hand, Veronica felt that he was surveying the scene with other senses than his five physical ones.

  They inspected the empty dog-kennel, beside which still lay the unbuckled collar attached to its chain, and then, from a discreet distance, they surveyed the cottages in the lane. Finally they followed the wood path that led to the churchyard and stood beside a mound of rough earth that was slowly subsiding under the autumn rains.

  For a long time the old man remained bareheaded beside the mound, musing upon who knows what ? Communing wi
th the soul of the dead man, or dreaming of what might have been had the son of his spirit been a worthy successor. Finally he knelt and laid upon the wet earth the handful of rain-beaten blooms that he had gathered from the rambler that encircled the dead man's bed-chamber. Veronica also knelt, and shaped the dull red flowers into the semblance of a cross. The old man did not seek to dissuade her, indeed, she seemed to have carried out a wish which he had not dared to express.

  “Perhaps, after all, he was entitled to it. Who are we to judge him ? To each man his own Master,” was his only comment.

  The evening saw them gathered in the familiar billiard room. The wood fire threw its uncertain light, and as soon as the old woman had removed the evening meal, Dr. Latimer extinguished the lamp.

  “In the ordinary way,” said the old man, “I should not allow you to go into trance without taking the proper precautions, but under the present circumstances we must leave the gates open and allow what will to come through, otherwise we might exclude something which was essential.”

  They had not long to wait. As the flames died down and the logs sank to a red glow, Veronica felt the draining of her substance which showed that her resources were being drawn upon, and once again the cowled figure began to form itself in the shadows. The mist-like exudation condensed itself into floating draperies in the folds whereof hands and features slowly appeared, with pools of illimitable blackness for the eyes.

  His attention being concentrated upon Veronica, it was not until fully materialized that Lucas perceived the presence of a third person. Instantly his form shot up to twice its normal height, and the draperies spread out into great bat-like wings as he hovered over the venerable white-bearded figure sitting motionless in the depths of the chair. So readily did the tenuous ectoplasm respond to the ensouling mind that great claws sprang out at the ends of the fingers as they stretched towards the throat of their intended victim. There they hovered for a moment, irresolute. But the clear brilliance of the blue eyes never wavered under their heavy white eyebrows, and the threatening, overhanging form slowly retreated, the spreading bat-wings were indrawn, till at last, in the exact semblance of an Egyptian mummy, Lucas stood upon the defensive.