Darker Masques

by J N Williamson

  “My dear.” Millicent clapped her hands and chortled heavily. “How sensitive of you! Why, you surprise me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Dr. Negruni saw her, too! Last night—before our meeting. I haven’t, unfortunately. But he had this rare ability—and now you. Remarkable!”

  “Ability?”

  Millicent’s face radiated delight. “To see who we once were. In our last incarnation, don’t you know?”

  “Please . . .?”

  “I was a high-caste Indian woman, a teacher, in the early nineteen hundreds, Dr. Negruni said. The form . . . the identity . . . in which we last materialized—it clings to us, follows us, influences us. We carry with us the ghosts of those we were. He was often able to perceive those apparitions of our past. Something to do with his discoveries in optics.”

  The cup slipped from Sheila’s hand, shattered on the floor.

  Dr. Negruni’s lenses.

  Merciful God, that’s me then . . . who I was, what I was. That abomination! That . . . thing.

  Millicent talked on but Sheila couldn’t hear for her throbbing pulse. It was like the crashing of heavy surf; then the waves formed words that were remote, blurred, insistent.

  Remember? The nights? Whitechapel? The fog? The empty streets? Remember what they called us? The police, the yellow press?

  It emerged, then—the recollection. As though a trapdoor had creaked open deep within Sheila. A dim memory, only fragments, sensations. But real.

  As true as any other memory—of last week, last year, childhood even.

  The bony faces of the prostitutes, petrified with terror . . . the dank midnight air. Echoes of boots on cobblestones mere yards away. The scalpel pulled from the surgeon’s satchel . . . The uncontrollable orgasmic roar with the first thrust! . . . The thrill!

  “My dear, what is it?”

  Remember? They called us “Jack.”

  Gagging, Sheila stumbled from the apartment.

  That evening she sat quietly before her vanity, wearing only a slip. Her mind was empty, drained. She looked steadily into the eyes of the other image in the mirror. She held a steak knife in her lap.

  He was also silent; motionless. He hovered, erect, over her, returning her gaze with a kind of detached insolence.

  Hours ticked by while they shared their wordless communion. A key rattled in the front door and Russell entered.

  He dropped his suitcase loudly. By the stamp of his feet she knew he was very drunk.

  When Sheila swung around to face him, her single thought was mild disgust. Now he’d had the effrontery to bring into her home one of those scummy tarts he patronized on his sales trips!

  The girl looked cheap—Sheila was sure anyone Russell favored would be—her cheeks heavily, ludicrously rouged. And dowdy, with boxy buttoned shoes that were more like boots. Archaic, too, with a shapeless dress that fell to her instep, hair twisted into a crude bun.

  She lingered in the doorway, partially hidden behind him, ill at ease, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. Russell ignored her, stepped toward Sheila.

  “How’s Miss Priss?” he demanded. His narrowed eyes roved over her, his voice dropped to a slurred, sarcastic whisper. “Damn if you don’t look half appealing for a change. To a guy that hasn’t gotten any—since last night, anyway!”

  Sheila stared past him. Her heart began a trip-hammer beat. She’d seen women who looked and dressed like that. But in photos, faded, stilted photos of a time long gone.

  That girl was Russell, she realized. Russell of the past—of a century ago!

  Instantly, the roaring filled Sheila’s ears, cascaded over her. She glanced in the mirror. Yes, he remembered this girl. He trembled, excited; one hand dipped into the black satchel.

  Remember her? Liz Stride. Recall what we did to her? Recall that throat, ripped open and bubbling.. .?

  Sheila got slowly to her feet.

  “Time we . . . consorted . . . again,” Russell sneered, reaching for her. He whipped the back of his hand across her face almost casually, his knuckles bruising Sheila’s jaw.

  She brought the steak knife up for him to see. It was as if swarms of angry hornets buzzed within her veins then. A lust sprang to life; a clamoring. An awful appetite to be fed, so long dormant. Sheila’s hand itched to lunge with the blade—to feel it slide in, penetrate flesh.

  Now! Just as before . . .

  Russell gaped, disbelieving. He threw up his arms to ward off the thrust.

  Sheila struck, then crouched, waiting to strike again.

  “Damn you!” Russell spat out, weaving from side to side, frightened and enraged. She had cut his shoulder and it was bleeding freely. Russell clutched his wound, reeled backward. “You bitch—this is what you always wanted!”

  “Yes!” she shouted, exulting. And remembered the question she had asked herself so often—the one they had each asked, so often: Why have I put up with this, year after year? Why?

  Now . . . she knew. Why they were irrevocably bound. Eternally linked.

  He bumped the chair, fell. He sprawled against the vanity, brushing aside jars, bottles, brushes. She stood over him and read in Russell’s face the cowering, gibbering horror she recalled so exquisitely well.

  The horror in the waxen faces of all those women. Those pathetic, anguished women. As they stared up at the sight of the poised, glinting scalpel.

  Now! Stab! Revel!

  She shot a sidelong look into the mirror. The caped man wasn’t there. No, he was in her now—squirming in spasms of rapture.

  She saw him reflected in her own eyes—glaring and merciless. And in her own face, hot with delicious anticipation.

  It was a face so hateful that she staggered backward at the sight of it. So repellent that she clapped a hand to her mouth, her entrails twisting repulsively.

  No, she thought, screaming it inside.

  She was Sheila—not him. Never again, dear God—dear God, let me be free of him. Let the damned debt be paid, forever!

  Sheila hurled the knife to the floor.

  Russell gave a sobbing sigh.

  And he pounced on the knife, crying aloud with triumph. Then he raised it, studied the blood-flecked blade.

  Through Dr. Negruni’s lenses, Sheila saw the gawky, dowdy woman—that rouged harlot—drift forward until her body melted into Russell’s.

  Did he know? she wondered almost indifferently. Did he recall that life, long ago . . . how it had ended? Did he understand why vengeance was his at last?

  Yes, she thought. His eyes were slits of searing, red-rimmed, wholly irrational hatred. But in their depths there lurked some wisp of . . . remembrance.

  It seemed to startle Russell, to bewilder him. He paused.

  You know why you must do this, she thought. You know.

  She nodded, granting permission.

  He plunged the knife home.

  Adobe James

  THE SPELLING BEE

  ALFRED Hitchcock said world-traveler Adobe James was a “modern master and one of the very best storytellers practising his craft today.” He has published over five hundred short yarns, yet / didn’t know his work! While I was editing a “how-to” book in ’86, asking professionals to cite the great short horror fiction, they kept mentioning James’s “The Road to Mictlantecutli.”

  While I was wondering who the devil Adobe James was, his agent sent along his first new short story since 1970! A reading reminded me that the sometimes seemingly diluted craft of marvelous, sheer storytelling is still being practiced. Then I had to correspond with “Adobe” himself, just to discover his true identity. He wasn’t shy.

  For fifteen years, Oxford scholar James Moss Cardwell has been (simultaneously) the founder of the California Fire Academy; college coordinator for a commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training; and an instructor of creative writing, journalism, and psychology! Known as “Jamie McArdwell” for his “more lyrical tales,” Adobc/Jim has appeared in the English Vanity Fair with
six stories, all produced on BBC radio and TV. He has lived in Palma de Mallorca, Monte Carlo, Paris, Zermatt, Carmel-by-the-Sea, and was headed back to Oxford “to complete a suspense novel,” Death in a Walled Garden, when we first corresponded.

  “Because of encouragement by the editor of M III,” Cardwell/James writes, “more original yams are in the works.” It may be that guy Williamson’s great achievement. Judge for yourself after reading this astonishing story, “The Spelling Bee.”

  THE SPELLING BEE

  Adobe James

  GABE AND I WERE PLAYING CHESS in the garden when Peter, who serves as in-house security, put in an appearance. “Company,” he said, looking troubled.

  We glanced in the direction of his gaze and saw the dust cloud of the twice-weekly Greyhound bus creeping down out of the hills like a silver beetle.

  The game was put on hold. I went into the shop to wait.

  At the far end of Oasis’s only street, which intersects the sunbleached asphalt highway, the bus stopped and disgorged a tall, rather debonair, older man. He stood, motionless, until the bus headed back out into the desert. Then he began walking toward us. With the sun low in the late-afternoon sky, he cast a shadow thirty feet long that glided smoothly in front of him like a black mamba coming after prey.

  Even though it had been a long time since we had last seen each other, when the bell tinkled and Trancredi walked into the shop, I knew instantly why he was there.

  He made small talk while sizing me up. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said. “Not one day older.”

  I refrained from commenting that the same could not be said for him; the poor devil looked as if he had gone through hell . . . a couple of times! Instead I replied, “Is that so surprising? After all, Trancredi, look around you. Oasis is peaceful. No stress. No competition.”

  He merely smiled.

  I waited. In a small town like Oasis, waiting was the one thing I did best. Next to spelling.

  “You were number one,” he said. He meant it. Because it was the truth, I accepted it without comment, even though his use of the past tense “were” was duly noted.

  His eyes never left me; if he was searching for weaknesses or uncertainty, there would be no overt signs of it. Finally he asked “You are prepared for a new challenge?”

  “Do I have any choice?”

  He snorted, then laughed. “Well, yes. Of course! The Committee simply names a new champion. You know the rules.”

  I knew the rules. Still, though, I hesitated. It had been years since I had last been in a real competition. I still kept my hand in with dilettantes, but without recent challenges from the professionals, I wasn’t all that sure of my immediate readiness.

  “How long,” I asked “do I have to prepare?”

  He shrugged. “A week.”

  “A fortnight,” I countered.

  Trancredi smiled. “Ten days.”

  I paused again. Stalling, really. Ten days was enough time. You either remembered the words, the phonetics, the nuances, prefixes, suffixes, and origins—or you didn’t. Finally I nodded my acceptance.

  “Who is the challenger?”

  “A girl. Fresh out of high school.” His eyes became hooded. “She can spell anything.” A slight smile, then his gaze met mine. “A natural. Like you. But better. And much younger, of course.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “The last time you bet against my spelling, Trancredi, it cost you dearly.”

  “I plan to win it all back with the girl. All of it . . . with interest! I’ve waited a long time. She will depose you.”

  “It’s possible.” Like tennis players, politicians, movie stars, and gunslingers, we worry about novices; they are always a threat . . . always disturbing the status quo, dethroning acknowledged champions. To paraphrase something once said about history: “Competition is nothing more than the sound of newcomers’ wooden clogs clumping up the front steps while silken slippers whisper down the back.”

  “So be it,” I said.

  “I shall notify The Committee that you have agreed to defend your title. Some of them”—he grinned nastily—“were sure you would resign.”

  “What? And not give you an opportunity to regain your very substantial losses?”

  Trancredi closed his eyes slowly, then smiled, and laughed. He was still barking out his amusement when the bell tinkled to denote his departure.

  You should know that the next ten days were not easy. I closed the shop; it was a necessity because so many new words had been added to our language during the last few years that I had to spend twenty-four hours a day reading and doing research.

  Most competitive exhibitions have their legions of fanatics whose only standard of speech is hyperbole. Spelling is no different. A flighty female reporter, one of my supporters, from a magazine devoted to spelling, began her article with the statement, “The eyes of the universe will be focused on Oasis next week . . .” A bit of an exaggeration, but tame compared with the publicity from Trancredi’s group.

  When the evening of the contest arrived, I was ready. I drove to the announced site in my convertible, top down, enjoying the balmy desert air as the sun sank beneath the ridge of hills and one by one the familiar stars started popping out.

  A large circus tent had been erected for the event, and a white banner bearing the words spelling championship flapped listlessly in the torchlight.

  Inside, The Committee—all twelve of them—was already in the Jury Box.

  A hush fell on the crowd as I walked down the dirt aisle and made my way up onto the fifty-five gallon oil drums and wooden planks which constituted a makeshift stage. There were two speaker stands about ten feet apart. A young, dark-eyed, dark-haired, slender girl—not much more than a child—dressed all in white, was stationed at one of the stands. I took my place behind the other and stared out at the audience. There must have been close to five hundred spectators here for the event, not including the thirty-five gamblers en route to Las Vegas this morning when their bus had lost its brakes coming down the grade and sideswiped a bridge before coming to a halt just outside the city limits. Mostly, the gamblers were unhappy about being stuck here but, in their parlance, this was the only game in town. Most of them, willing to bet on anything, had already wagered on the Spelling contest. On the girl. To win!

  I gazed around. Identified those who were my supporters . . . recognized others who would give anything to see my defeat . . . saw a large number of undecideds who, traditionally, chose sides fairly early in a competition. My glance came back to Trancredi with his entourage in the front rows. He appeared relaxed, perfectly composed, untouchable. And yet, there was a wariness about him. A lot was at stake. He almost looked as if he were having some second thoughts. Good! He could still withdraw the challenge and slink away like a jackal in the night. But he wouldn’t. Pride. His one weakness . . .

  I turned my attention finally to my challenger. The girl stared back at me, appraisingly, not yielding. A pretty little thing, she wore a loose-fitting peasant blouse, and the soft shimmering cloth clung to her unconfined breasts. Her nipples were erect from the material against her bare skin, from the excitement! Under her muslin-thin skirt, the almost imperceptible shadow of her pelt of Eve was a perfect triangle as the cloth sought out the body’s natural conformation. It was all too obvious she wore nothing beneath her garments. Trancredi had made his second mistake; the girl’s physical attractions would never distract me, although most of the gamblers loved what they thought they saw.

  The spelling contest began. The first word KHEPERA was for the challenger. She went through it effortlessly, and drew some polite applause from the audience—except for the gamblers, of course, all of whom now were looking as if they wanted to be elsewhere.

  “ANGRA MAINYU” the voice of the unseen moderator called out my word to me.

  I pronounced it, then spelled. Applause, a bit louder than that given to the girl.

  “AHRIMAN.” The challenger’s second word came out of the
darkness. She paused for dramatic effect, inhaled so her breasts were uplifted in promise again, all this intended to distract me, then spelled. Another top mark for her from The Committee. Trancredi led the applause.

  In quick succession then came SHAITAN, ARALU, BELILI, MICTLANTECUTLI, ABADDON, APOLLYON. The girl seemed at ease, growing in confidence as she spelled each of hers. With each success she won more supporters from the undecideds. Understandable, in a way. She had a flair; there was something sensual about the way she mouthed each word, then proceeded to spell.

  By the end of the first period, the temperature inside the tent had risen considerably because of the close-packed bodies. And it was then, during prolonged applause for the girl, that I noticed two things: one, the gamblers were creating an intolerable disturbance, something would have to be done about them; and, two, the challenger made her first mistake—not in spelling, but in using a feminine little gesture to push back a stray curl from her perspiration-streaked forehead. Vanity? Or simply not concentrating on the task at hand? Either could be fatal!

  Trancredi noticed her movement and he stood to motion angrily at her. Uncertain of his meaning, she frowned and bent forward to peer at him. Quite unexpectedly, I had been granted an opportunity. It was not the kind of opening that I care for particularly, but nonetheless I went for an early kill as the darkness regurgitated my next word, MALEBOLGE.

  You should know that in a major spelling contest like tonight’s, it is a relatively easy thing to create a spell which will bring about a simple manifestation of Angra Mainyu, Apollyon, Belili, Khepera, Mictlantecutli, Shaitan, or any of the other 2,603 forms of Satan, but it demands real power and concentration to spell forth the whole subregion of Malebolge—better known as the eighth circle of hell.

  “Malebolge,” I intoned, using powers older than time itself. “Tempera scelerisque . . .” and felt the nether regions slowly bending to my will. “Asmodeus semper . . .”

  And Malebolge began taking shape. We were above it, looking down into the inferno as the earth peeled back and the sulfurous flames roared skyward.