Image of the Beast and Blown
Page 22
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 band, 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 chan-
delier 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 hus-
band. 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 sec-
tions of gate were pushed aside. When they were on the
other side, she pushed them together and spun the com-
bination dial on this side. Apparently, this action acti-
vated 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. Teethmarks 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 overpassion-
ate. 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! Vámanos!
Pronto!"
He began to inspect the walls. She spoke slowly be-
hind 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 under-
stood not a word, that he was able to ignore her. He car-
ried 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 pas-
sageway 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 unlock-
ing 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-wailed 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.
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 ac-
counts (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, ft
dimly showed walls with large, thick, black painted sym-
bols, 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 t
he 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 wink-
ing 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 loud-
ness 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 he knew, was
the sole exit from the cupola, except for the way by
which he had come. That door probably led to a hall-
way 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 to-
ward 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 automo-
bile 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 di-
rectly 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 upward past the neutral posi-
tion, 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 mo-
ment hiding under the many pillows and cushions in-
side the enclosure but decided that he would be found
if they moved Glam's body. There was nothing to do ex-
cept 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 go-
ing 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