“But you lost a hoe in it,” Thunstone reminded.
“Yes, sir,” Bracy nodded heavily. “And when it came to evening that day, we heard noises. Sort of a growling noise, over and over. I wanted to go out and check, but Prue wouldn’t let me. She was frightened, she prayed. And that’s the last time we’ve meddled in it, and how about a drink now?”
“In a moment.”
Thunstone studied the outer ring intently. It was of bald, hard earth, like baked pottery. Again he measured the distance across with his eyes. Rings of that dimension had been common in old witchcraft cases, he reflected; they were about the size to hold a coven of thirteen sorcerers standing together, perhaps dancing together. Circles were always mysterious things, whether they were old or new. He turned back to Bracy.
“I’ll be glad for that drink you mentioned,” he said.
They returned to the house and entered a small, pleasant front room. There were chairs and a table and a sofa draped in a handsome Indian blanket. A small fireplace was set in a corner. Prue Bracy was making highballs at the table. Thunstone accepted his glass. Ice clinked pleasantly in it. They sat down and drank.
“I explained to Mr. Thunstone how we were advised to leave that thing alone,” said Bracy.
“I’m not sure it should be left alone,” said Thunstone, sipping. “Let me tell you some things I found out earlier today, when I was at the courthouse.”
He referred to a sheaf of notes to read some of his conversation with the clerk Packard. He quoted what brief record the ancient county ledgers had of the execution, long ago, of Crett Marrowby. At that time in Colonial history, George II’s act of 1735 obtained, to repeal the death penalty for witchcraft; but for a mass of odd charges Marrowby had been put in jail for a year, with a public appearance in the pillory every three months. His execution had been simply for the murder of a minister of the local church, the Reverend Mr. Herbert Walford.
“And it was ordered that he be buried outside the churchyard,” Thunstone finished.
“Confession or not, they thought he was evil,” suggested Bill Bracy. “Is that all you have on the case?”
“So far, it is,” replied Thunstone. “Yet I hope for more. Mr. Packer spoke of an old resident named Ritson—”
“That one!” broke in Bill Bracy, not very politely. “He’s one of those crusty old characters that got weaned on a pickle. We met him when we first came here, tried to make friends, and he just turned the acid on us.”
“I’ll try to neutralize his acid,” said Thunstone, and he rose. “I’ll go now, but I have a cheeky favor to ask. I want to come back here tonight and stay.”
Prue blinked at him, very prettily. “Why,” she said, “we don’t have a spare room, but there’s this sofa if you don’t have a place to stay.”
“I’m checked into the Sullivan Motel in town, but right here is where I want to be tonight,” said Thunstone. “The sofa will do splendidly for me.” He went to the door. “Thank you both. Will you let me fetch us something for supper? I’ll shop around in town.”
He went to the soft-lighted grill room of the Sullivan Motel, for there, Packer had told him, old Mr. Ritson habitually sat and scowled into a drink. Sure enough, there at the bar sat a gray man, old and hunched, harshly gaunt where Thunstone was blocky. It must be Ritson. He was dressed in shabby black, like an undertaker’s assistant. His lead-pale hair bushed around his cars. His nose and chin were as sharp as daggers. Thunstone sat down on the stool next to him. From the bartender he ordered a double bourbon and water. Then he turned to the old man.
“I think you’re Mr. Ritson,” he said.
The other turned bitter, beady eyes upon him, clamped the thin mouth between sharp nose and sharp chin. “So you know who I am,” came the grumpiest of voices. “I know who you are, too—this Thurston fellow who’s come to poke into what ain’t none of his business, huh? And you want to ask me something.”
“Yes,” said Thunstone evenly. “I thought I’d ask you what you’d like to drink.”
“Eh?” The beady eyes quartered him, then gazed into an empty glass. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
The bartender brought the drinks. Ritson gulped at his. Thunstone lifted his own glass but did not sip.
“I’ve been told that you know past history here, Mr. Ritson,” he tried again. “About the case of a man named Marrowby, long ago hanged for murder and buried here.”
Skimpy gray brows drew above the unfriendly eyes. “Why in hell should I tell you a word of what I know?”
“If you don’t,” said Thunstone, “I’ll have to go to Mr. Packer, the clerk.”
“Packer?” Ritson squealed. “What does he know? Hell, Mister, he wasn’t even born here. He doesn’t know old-time town history, he just sort of mumbles about it.”
“But if you won’t talk to me, I must look for information wherever I can get it.”
“What information could Packer give you? Look here, my folks was here ever since the town was built, away back before the Revolution. Sure I know about the Marrowby thing. When I was a boy, my great-grandmother told me what she’d heard from her grandfather, who was young here at the time—better than two hundred and forty years back, I calculate.”
Ritson swigged down the rest of his drink.
“Bring this gentleman another, Thunstone told the bartender, putting down some money. “Now, Mr. Ritson, what did you hear from your great-grandmother?”
“It happened long lifetimes ago. They’d had Marrowby up for his magic doings—he could witch people’s dinners off their tables to his house, he’d made a girl leave her true love to come to him. All the law gave him for that was just a year in the jailhouse.”
“But he was hanged at last,” said Thunstone.
“That he was, higher than Haman,” Ritson nodded above his second drink. “The way it was told to me, he killed a preacher—can’t recollect the preacher’s name—who’d read him out of the church.”
“The preacher’s name was Walford,” supplied Thunstone.
“Whatever the name was, he died of a stab in the heart. And at Marrowby’s house, they found a wax dummy of the preacher, with a needle stuck in it.”
“Where was Marrowby’s house?” asked Thunstone.
“Why, out yonder where the Trumbull house is, where them young folks took over. Maybe the charge wouldn’t have stood, but Marrowby pleaded guilty in court. And they built a scaffold in the courthouse yard and strung him up.” Ritson drank. “I heard the whole tale. He stood up there and confessed to black magic, confessed to murder. He said he had to repent, or else he’d go to hell. He warned the folks who watched.”
“What was his confession?” Thunstone asked.
“Seemed like he warned all who were there, not to follow black magic. Said he must confess and repent. And he said a tiling I don’t know the meaning of.”
“Here,” said Thunstone, “I haven’t touched this drink.” He shoved the glass to Ritson’s hand. “What did he say?”
“It didn’t make sense. He warned them not to be familiar.”
“Familiar?” echoed Thunstone, interested.
“Said, ‘Let familiar alone.’ The like of that—strange words. Said, ‘Rouse him not.’ And swung off.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yes. They buried him outside the churchyard, and drove an ash stake into his heart to make sure he wouldn’t rise up. That’s the whole tale. But don’t you go writing it.”
“I won’t write it,” Thunstone promised him.
“Mind that you don’t. Now, I’ve told you what I heard, and I hope it’s enough.”
“I hope the same,” said Thunstone. “Will you excuse me? Good afternoon.”
“What’s good about it?” snorted Ritson, halfway through his third drink.
Thunstone went to his motel room and changed into tougher clothes, chino slacks and a tan shirt and a light brown jacket. He threw a flashlight into the jacket pocket. Around his neck he hung a tarnishe
d copper crucifix. He found a lunch stand and bought a plastic bucket of barbecued ribs, a container of slaw, and bottles of beer. Then he drove to the Bracy house.
The Bracys welcomed him in and enthused hungrily over the barbecue. “It just so happens that I’m baking cornbread,” said Prue. “That will go well with it.”
As the sun sank toward the trees, they ate with good appetite. Prue asked about Thunstone’s crucifix, and he told her he had inherited it from his mother. When they had finished eating, Prue carried the dishes to the kitchen and came back with blankets over her arm.
“Will these be all right for tonight?” she asked.
“They’ll be splendid, many a night I’ve lain on harder beds than your sofa. But before I do that, there’s business to be done outside, as soon as it gets dark.”
“I’ll come along,” volunteered Bill, but Thunstone shook his massive head.
“No, two of us out there will be a complication,” he said quietly. “This business will require careful handling, and some luck and playing by ear.”
“Whatever you say,” granted Bill, and Prue looked relieved.
“I won’t promise to win ahead of things,” went on Thunstone, “but I’ll be specially equipped. Look here.”
He grasped the shank of his cane in his left hand and turned the crook with his right. The cane parted at the silver ring, and he drew out a lean, pale-shining blade.
“That’s a beautiful thing,” breathed Prue. “It must be old.”
“As I understand, it was forged by Saint Dunston, something like a thousand years ago. See what these words say at the edge.”
Both Bracys leaned to study. Bill moved his bearded lips soundlessly.
“It looks like Latin,” he said. “I can’t make it out.”
“Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine,” Thunstone read out the inscription. “So perish all thine enemies, O Lord,” he translated. “It’s a silver blade, and Saint Dunstan was a silversmith, and faced and defeated Satan himself.”
Bill was impressed. “That must be the only thing of its kind in the world,” he ventured.
“No, there’s another.” Thunstone smiled under his mustache. “It belongs to a friend of mine, Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant. Once I defeated a vampire with this blade, and twice I’ve faced werewolves with it. As well as other things.”
“I don’t feel right, letting you go out while I stay here,” said Bill, almost pleadingly.
“Do me a favor and stay here with Prue,” Thunstone bade him. “Stay inside, even if you hear trouble out there.”
He got to his feet, the bared blade in his hand.
“It’s dark now,” he said. “Time for strange things to stir.”
“Stir?” Bill echoed him, his hand to his bearded chin. “Will that old sorcerer stir, the one they called Marrowby?”
“Not as I see it,” said Thunstone. “Not if they drove an ashen stake through him to keep him quiet in his grave. No, something else, as I judge. I expect to see you later, when things are quieter.”
He went to the front door and through it, and closed it behind him.
Night had crawled swiftly down around the house. Thunstone’s left hand rummaged out his flashlight and turned it on, while his right hand carried the silver blade low at his side. The light showed him the grass of the yard, the corner of the house. He went around to the open space at the back. He heard something, a noise like a half-strangled growl. It led him toward the circle, while the bright beam of the flash quested before him. He came to where the ring of hard brownness bordered the soft, damp greenness. Again the noise stole upward, the strangled snarl of it.
Thunstone stooped and directed the beam of the light, then thrust the mess with the keen point of his blade. Powerfully he stirred it around.
“All right,” he said, hoping his words would be understood. “All right. Come out and let’s settle things.”
The snarl rose to a ready shrillness, and he felt a clutch on his silver weapon. He drew it out, and thought the edge sliced something. Louder rose the voice, a true scream now, and something showed itself there in the swampiness.
A lump like a head rose into view, with two larger lumps like shoulders just below it. Thunstone made a long, smooth stride backwards, keeping his light trained on what was there. Two slablike paws caught the bald rim of the circle, and a great, shaggy shape humped itself up and out and stood erect before him.
It was taller even than Thunstone, broader even than he was. And it looked like nothing natural. In the dancing light of the torch, it seemed to be thatched over with dark, wet fronds and tussocks. Its head was draped with such stuff, through which gleamed to closely set eyes, pale as white-hot iron.
A mouth opened in the tangle and out came a grumbling shout, like the roar of a great beast.
It slouched heavily toward him, on two feet like shovels.
Thunstone slid warily to one side, keeping the beam of the light upon the creature, at the same time poising his blade.
“So here you’ve stayed,” he said to it. “Marrowby repented, forswore you. He’s dead, but you’re alive. You’re evil.”
It roared again. Its great, long forelimbs rose like derricks. Thunstone saw talons, pale and deadly.
“Well, come on,” said Thunstone, his voice quiet and steady. “Come on and see what you can do, and what I can do.”
It approached in a squattering charge. Thunstone sidestepped at the last instant and sped a slashing cut at the bulk as it floundered past. This time it screamed, so shrilly that his ears rang. It swung around toward him, and he turned the ray of his flash back upon it.
“Hurt you, did I?” said Thunstone. “That’s the beginning. Come again. Maybe I won’t dodge this time.”
It rushed at him with ungainly speed. He stood his ground. As it hurtled almost upon him, he lunged, a smooth fencer’s lunge.
His point went home where its chest should be. The blade went smoothly, sleekly in, with a whisper of sound. It penetrated to the very hilt, and liquid gushed upon Thunstone’s hand. He smelled an odor as of ancient decay.
A louder, more piercing scream than before. The weedy bulk almost forced him back. Then, abruptly, it fell away and down, and as it went he cleared his point with a strong, dragging pull. He stood over his adversary, shining his light to see it thrash and flounder on the ground.
“Did that do for you?” he asked it. “Perhaps not quite. Here, I’ll do this.”
He probed with the point where the neck would be, and lifted the blade and drove it down with all his strength, as he would swing an axe.
The head-lump went bounding away on the coarse grass, full a dozen feet. The body slumped flaccidly and lay still.
“Sic pereant inimici tui, Domine,” intoned Thunstone, like a priest saying a prayer for the dead. He stood tense and watched. No motion. He walked to where the head lay. It, too, was as silent as a weed-tufted rock.
A moment, and then he turned back and went to the house, finding his way with the flash beam. His feet felt tired and heavy as he mounted the steps. Pocketing his flashlight again, he opened the door.
Bill and Prue Bracy stood inside, arms around each other, eyes strained wide in terror.
“It’s all over,” Thunstone comforted them, and went to the sofa and sat down heavily. He fished out a handkerchief and wiped his silver blade. The liquid on it was thick and slimy, like blood, but it was green and not red.
“When old Mr. Ritson said that Marrowby had warned about something familiar, I felt pretty sure,” he said.
“F-familiar?” stammered Prue.
“A sorcerer makes his pact with the powers of evil,” said Thunstone, “and from the powers of evil he receives a familiar. Marrowby repented and died repenting, but his familiar stayed here, stayed hidden, without guidance, but wishing to do evil. I’ve put an end to that.”
“What was it?” wondered Bill Bracy.
“It’s hard to describe. When it’s light tomorrow morning, maybe you and I will
take spades and bury it. It’s not pretty, I promise you that. But its evil is finished. I know words to say over its grave to insure that.”
He smiled up at the blank-faced Prue.
“My dear, could we have a fire there on the hearth? I want to burn this filthy handkerchief.”
Still smiling, he slid the cleaned blade into the cane again.
SPARE THE CHILD by Thomas F. Monteleone
Thomas F. Monteleone is another of those writers who were drawn into the field through an early love for science fiction. His first effort was a juvenile science fiction novel written at summer camp; writer’s block developed by page 40, and his mother later inadvertently threw the manuscript away. Monteleone persevered, and his first published story appeared ten years ago in the March 1973 issue of Amazing, followed in 1975 by his first novel, Seeds of Change. This was the first in the unlamented Laser science fiction line from Harlequin, and the publisher used his novel as a promotional give-away. Subsequent science fiction novels (not for Laser) include The Time Connection and Time Swept City. In ten years Monteleone has had nine novels published as well as about forty short stories; in addition he has edited an anthology, The Arts and Beyond, and has had two of his plays produced. Two more novels are scheduled for 1983: Day of the Dragonstar (with David Bischoff) from Berkley and Night Train, a mainstream horror novel from Pocket Books.
Monteleone was born in Baltimore in 1946 and currently makes his home there with his wife, Linda, and son, Damon. Again, as has happened with other writers who began in science fiction, Monteleone has become disenchanted with the genre: “I don’t write any sf any more, preferring fantasy/horror because of the freedom to work more thoroughly with character development.” Monteleone’s last horror novel, Night Things, has recently been optioned for a film, while the following story has been optioned for a new cable television horror/suspense series called Darkside. Monteleone reports that he is working on “a new horror/suspense novel about Sicily, the Cosa Nostra, and the Devil.”
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