An Affair of Sorcerers

by George C. Chesbro

  “Thank you,” Krowl said with a thin smile. “Now, why don’t you tell me what it is you really want?”

  “I came to see you because I wanted to see what the tarot cards are all about, and you’ve shown me,” I said. “But it’s true that I had another reason for coming here. I need information.”

  Krowl rose stiffly from his chair. “I don’t give out information,” he said coldly. “I never discuss my clients. You owe me forty dollars.”

  I stood up, counted out the money from my wallet and placed it on the table. “I don’t want to talk about any of your clients; what I need to know involves one of mine. The sick child you saw in the cards; that could be her. She’s dying because something was done to her; I have to find out exactly what’s wrong with her.”

  Krowl’s gaze dropped to the layout on the table, and he stared at the cards for a long time. Finally his eyes flicked back to my face. “What are you talking about?” he asked tightly. His face was flushed to the point where it almost matched his eyes.

  “The girl’s father got himself involved in some bad witchcraft business,” I said, watching Krowl carefully. “I think his new friends killed him and did something to the girl. She’s in a coma. It will help if the doctors can find out what was done to her. I’m trying to find the people responsible. Garth said that you might be able to help me. I have to find a ceremonial magician who uses the witch name ‘Esobus.’ Have you ever heard the name?”

  Krowl quickly reached for his glasses and put them on. “What makes you think I’d know anything about this?”

  “I just told you: Garth told me you might know who Esobus is.”

  The albino started to put the cards in the layout back into the deck. Both his hands were trembling now, and he looked sick. Suddenly he pushed the cards away and walked quickly to a bookcase filled with occult icons and books. He leaned against it, arms outspread and forehead touching the leather-bound volumes, as though drawing strength from the symbols and words there. He spun around as I started across the room toward him.

  “Get out!” Krowl said firmly. His flesh had returned to its normal parchment color, and he’d stopped shaking. It was quite a transformation. “What right do you have to come to me under false pretenses and start asking questions?”

  “Hey, buddy; I’m just asking you to help a little girl who’s dying. Esobus works out of your bailiwick, not mine. I can see that you’re afraid; okay. I absolutely guarantee that no one will ever find out you gave me his real name.”

  “I don’t know anything.” He half-turned toward a louvered door behind him. “Jonathan! Come here!”

  “Bullshit,” I said quietly. “You sure as hell know something; you looked like you were about to toss your cookies when I mentioned the name. Come on, Krowl. Anything you tell me will be kept in the strictest confidence. Nothing is going to happen to you. Tell me Esobus’ real name.”

  A huge man, almost seven feet tall, appeared in the doorway, and Krowl motioned toward me. “Get him out of here,” he said to Jonathan. Then to me: “Don’t come back here again.”

  I waved an embarrassed, reluctant Jonathan off and headed for the door, where I paused with my hand on the knob, turned. “I don’t know what your problem is, Krowl,” I said softly, “but I want to make a prediction of my own. I’m betting that I can be an even bigger pain in the ass than Esobus. I’m making up a creep list, and it looks like you’re on it. If that girl dies because the doctors don’t have information you could have given me, I’m going to be back. You think on that, you son-of-a-bitch.” I took a card out of my pocket and handed it to the bemused Jonathan. “Here’s my number; you call me if you want to talk.”

  I made a point of slamming the door behind me.

  I walked to a phone booth at the end of the block and called Garth. I let the phone ring ten times and was about to give up when Regina finally answered.

  “Hi, Regina. It’s Mongo. Let me talk to Garth, please.”

  Garth came on the line a few seconds later. “Jesus, Mongo,” he growled. “You pick the most incredibly inopportune times to call.”

  “Think of me as your conscience.”

  He grunted. “How’s the little girl?”

  “The same.”

  “Did you get anything from John?”

  “A hard time. He doesn’t like me; I don’t like him.”

  “That’s too bad. He’s a great contact. If anyone knows who Esobus is, I’d have laid odds it would be John.”

  “And you’d win. Krowl knows something, all right; I thought he was going to pass out when I mentioned Esobus. The problem is that he threw me out. He’s afraid of something. If Krowl won’t tell me about Esobus, I’m going to start finding out about Krowl. How well do you know him personally?”

  “Not well enough to tell you anything useful. I met him through some of my other contacts.”

  “Okay. I want you to do something for me. Have you heard of Harley Davidson?”

  “The motorcycle or the singer?”

  “Ho-ho. I thought he was out on the Coast, but it turns out he’s one of Krowl’s clients. He may have digs here in the city. If so, some of the Special Details boys may know where to find him. Make a couple of calls for me in the morning, will you? Davidson used to be a student of mine, and he may be able to give me a better line on Krowl.”

  “Will do. Incidentally, a friend of yours has been very busy lately.”

  “Who?”

  “Daniel—or Crandall, or whatever the hell his name is. He’s been cutting a pretty wide swath through the underground here. You’ve got company; the word is that he’s looking for Esobus too. The difference is that those nice folks are afraid of him. I hear he’s scaring the shit out of people.”

  “Yeah? Well, good for him. Get back to me on Davidson as soon as you can, okay?”

  “Check. May I go now?”

  “You may go now. Listen; save some energy, will you?”

  Garth cursed good-naturedly and hung up. I dug another dime out of my pocket and called Madeline Jones. Madeline had also known Bobby Weiss before he’d become Harley Davidson. Weiss had enrolled in my class because he was interested in criminology; I was sure he’d taken astronomy because he’d lusted after Madeline.

  “Hello?” It was a stranger’s voice—hollow, thin and strained.

  “Uh … is Dr. Jones there?”

  “This is Dr. Jones speaking. Mongo?”

  “Yeah. Mad? God, you sound terrible.”

  “I … have a cold. And I’m very tired.”

  “Sorry to be calling so late.”

  “It’s all right. Is something … wrong?”

  “First of all, I just saw John Krowl. I’m sure he knows something about Esobus, but he won’t talk to me. I’m afraid our relationship got off to a rather rocky start.”

  “What … makes you think John knows anything about Esobus?”

  “Big reaction when I mentioned the name. Anyway, I was hoping you’d talk to him for me; assure him that I’m relatively straight and that anything he tells me will be in strict confidence. I know you think Esobus is a myth, but it looks like you’re wrong. Hearing the name definitely upset Krowl. I just don’t have the time to lean on him. Will you talk to him?”

  There was a long pause at the other end of the line, and I repeated Madeline’s name.

  “Yes, Mongo.” The stranger’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’ll talk to John, but I don’t think he’ll have anything to say to me.”

  “Well, I’ll appreciate your making the effort. And I may have another lead. Do you remember Bobby Weiss?”

  “Uh … vaguely.”

  I wondered; rumors around faculty circles had it that the student and the middle-aged woman had been lovers. “I think he may be in New York,” I said. “I was wondering if you’d heard anything from him.”

  Again there was a long silence; again I repeated her name.

  “I’m sorry, Mongo,” she managed to say at last. “I’m just so … exhausted I can
’t think. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  “Mad, have you seen a doctor?”

  “No. I just need … some rest. I haven’t heard from Bobby. I’m sorry I can’t help you there.”

  “It’s okay. Listen, sweetheart, you take care of yourself. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Mad answered dully. “I will. Thank you, Mongo. Goodbye.”

  When I hung up, I found that I was concerned about Madeline. I quickly reminded myself that I had enough other things to worry about, and that Madeline—to say the least—was a strong woman who could take care of herself.

  There was nothing more to be done that night. I went home, took a hot bath, then fell asleep as soon as I lay down on the bed.

  Nightmare time. I’d have expected something to do with werewolves and goblins, but it wasn’t like that at all. I was at the bottom of some desert valley in which the colors were all wrong; low, green plastic sky, gray cactus and sagebrush, purple sand and stone. I was surrounded by figures that looked like people, but weren’t. As if to confirm my suspicion, one of them pulled back his lips to reveal long snake-fangs. Slowly, in ballet-unison, all of the figures lifted their arms and wriggled their fingers: suddenly the air was filled with the deadly, rustling song of rattlesnakes. Then the figures began to change into snakes. A few, unable to complete the transition, exploded soundlessly. The rest completed their metamorphosis—almost; I was ringed by rattlesnakes with human faces.

  It was all too absurd to take seriously. I knew I was dreaming, and I decided to wait patiently until I woke up.

  My patience became a little strained when the snakes started to crawl toward me. Dream or not, the human faces on the scaled, limbless bodies repulsed me. I didn’t want to be bitten. I instinctively reached out for a rock; one of the snakes hurtled through the air and buried its fangs in my right thumb. It hurt far more than such dream-things should, and I was relieved to feel the heavy-lidded, swirling sensation of vertigo that was always my passport to consciousness. The screen inside my head went blank and I slowly became aware of my bed, my pillow, the sheet over me, the hum of the air conditioning.

  I was definitely awake, but my thumb still hurt. Something was wrong.

  Something was gnawing on my thumb.

  Tiny needles of fire and ice were vibrating in my flesh, grinding down to the bone. I sat bolt upright in bed and shrieked when I saw the dark, fluttering shape hanging from my thumb. I jumped out of bed and violently shook my hand, but the thing wouldn’t come off. Bony, cold wings flapped against my hand, and I knew with sudden, chilling certainty what it was—and what was wrong with it.

  Groaning aloud with revulsion and terror, I reached over with my left hand, wrapped my fingers around the bat and yanked it off my thumb. It took all my willpower to hang on to the writhing animal, but I knew I had to keep my head. My entire body was quaking, oozing sweat, but I managed to walk across the room, turn on the light and examine the bat. It had worked one cold, skin-covered wing free and was flapping it against me in a mindless, disease-powered frenzy. Its body kept churning, and I could feel its tiny, clawed feet scratching against my palm and wrist. The maw with its tiny needle teeth was covered with froth and blood. The flesh on my right thumb where it had been chewing was shredded; blood and flecks of saliva covered my hand.

  I gagged and tasted sour bile in the back of my throat. Desperately hoping that it was all a dream-within-a-dream, I screwed my eyes shut and waited to wake up. But I was awake. The tiny, muscular body squirmed; I could feel its soft, throbbing belly, wirelike veins, slimy feces lubricating my hand. In a few more seconds it would wriggle its way free.

  Fighting off a strong compulsion to vomit, I staggered back across the room and used my free hand to remove the pillowcase from my pillow. I dropped the bat into it, then beat the shape to death with a shoe. Groaning and whimpering like a maniac, I kept pounding the stained pillowcase long after the creature inside it was dead.

  I wrapped the package in plastic, washed off my hands with alcohol and bandaged my thumb as best I could. I tried to keep my mind off what I knew was inevitably before me as I dressed, picked up the plastic bag and went down to my car. I couldn’t stop shaking. With the bundle on the seat beside me, I careened through the night streets of Manhattan to the university Medical Center. I didn’t want to die that way, and I tried not to think of the deadly germs coursing through my system at that very moment, being carried by my bloodstream toward my brain.

  Chapter 11

  “It’s rabid,” Joshua Greene said. “I’m sure you suspected it.”

  I gripped the edge of the examining table on which I was sitting, winced as pain streaked through my freshly cleansed and bandaged right thumb. I was in my shorts, and felt cold. “Of course,” I said. “Healthy bats don’t normally make a habit of chewing on people’s fingers.”

  “You know what has to be done, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I know. How many shots am I going to need?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ll start off with one a day, vary the dosage and take blood samples as we go along. Maybe we can get away with six or seven. I’ll start you off, and your regular doctor can give you the rest.”

  “My doctor’s away for a month. I’d just as soon you took care of it, if you don’t mind. I’m beginning to feel at home here. How’s my little friend?”

  “The same,” he said stiffly. “My team of specialists is setting up a new battery of tests for this afternoon. Right now, let’s concentrate on you.”

  Greene asked me questions about my height and weight, then left the room for a few minutes. He returned with a hypodermic needle that looked at least nine inches long. He prepared the syringe and came toward me. I lay back on the examining table and stared at the ceiling.

  “Antirabies serum is injected directly into the abdominal wall, Dr. Frederickson—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know all about it. If you’re going to start sticking needles into my gut, you may as well start calling me Mongo.”

  “Very well. And if you’re going to continue an investigation on behalf of one of my patients, you may as well call me Joshua. Now that we’ve broken down the social barriers, let’s get back to the matter at hand.”

  He paused, narrowed his eyes and stared at me hard. “There is no cure for rabies once the symptoms have appeared,” he continued. “That can be anywhere from two to eight weeks, depending on how well the victim handles himself. No cure. I emphasize this because I suspect you could be a difficult patient.”

  I sighed, shook my head. “You’ve got to be kidding. Order a stool specimen, and I’ll meekly ask you what color you’d like.”

  “Good. You sound very cooperative. Since there’s no cure for rabies, we use the classic Pasteur treatment. I’ll be injecting a weakened rabies strain into you. Your system will then build up antibodies in time to defeat the main strain that the bat infected you with. The serum I’ll be giving you is prepared from duck embryos. We have some synthetics, but I still consider this the best.”

  “Lord love a duck.”

  “Please listen,” Greene said evenly, but with absolute authority. I listened. “The point is that you must rest in order to let your system build up the necessary antibodies. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. You’ve probably heard that the shots you’re going to get are painful. It’s true. Besides pain, you’ll probably experience nausea and extreme fatigue as a result of the injections. As I said, you should rest as much as possible if you want to get away with the minimum number of shots; but then, you’ll probably be happy to. Here comes Number One.”

  I put my hands behind my head, closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as Greene daubed on some local anesthetic, then slowly slid the tip of the needle into my abdominal wall. He worked slowly, expertly, negotiating the needle through the tough, striated muscles. When he had the needle properly inserted, he slowly pressed the plunger. My stomach felt as if it were being filled with hot metal. He f
inished, slowly removed the needle. When I started to get up, he put a hand firmly on my chest.

  “Take it easy for a few minutes,” he said. “You’ll be able to contain the nausea if you eat small amounts, fairly often. If your stomach hurts, take aspirin.”

  “What are the odds I could end up with rabies anyway?”

  Greene shrugged. “Very slim, since we’ve started the injections within hours of your being bitten. That’s assuming you do as I tell you. Where did you manage to find a rabid bat?”

  “In my bedroom,” I said, swallowing hard. My mouth tasted like something purple. “A more interesting question is how it got there, and I’ve been giving that some thought. It occurs to me that the bat might be a small memento from the same people who put Kathy into a coma.”

  Greene frowned. “Are you serious?”

  “I may be rabid, but I’m not paranoid. I live on the fourth floor of an apartment building. How many bats do you find flying around Manhattan?”

  “They’re here, and they’re quick. Did you leave your window open at any time during the past few nights?”

  It was true that I had—to air out the apartment after a particularly smoky party. Still, I wondered: I had a chain on my apartment door, but someone could have slipped the bolt lock, let the bat in, then closed the door again. It was a Wednesday morning, and in the past three days my name had undoubtedly been added to a few enemy lists. It was possible that a rabid bat had flown in through a window I’d left open over the weekend, but the potential relationship between being bitten by a bat and the occult business I’d been investigating was just too poetically neat to ignore.

  “Have you eaten anything since last night?” Greene asked.

  “Uh-uh. Seeing that little critter hanging off my thumb seems to have taken away my appetite.”

  Joshua Greene smiled. It made him look quite handsome. “You’re pretty peppy for a guy who’s just had his first antirabies shot. Would you like a lollipop or a cup of coffee?”

  “Actually, Joshua,” I said, sitting up, “I’d like some information?”