“There should be thirteen steps,” I remarked. “That’d be a subtle touch. Thirteen steps to the gallows,” I explained to Jed, who was peering back at us with an inquiring scowl.
He cackled. “You’re taking stock in things that ain’t so. If you think we’re murderers, why don’t you leave?”
“The door’s locked.”
“You might ask me to unlock it.”
I didn’t answer that, for the mockery in his voice was unpleasant. Lem slobbered happily at our heels. We went along the hall to an end bedroom. It smelled musty. Branches tore at the barred window. A bat flung itself frantically against the pane.
In the room, we waited. I put the lamp on a dusty bedside table. Lem, Jed and Ruthie stood by the door. They looked like three green-eyed wolves watching us.
“Did you ever stop to think,” I asked, “that we might not be sheep? You haven’t even asked us where we come from or how we got here.”
Jed favored us with a one-toothed grin. “Guess you ain’t familiar with Henshawe County, Mister. We haven’t had no law here to speak of for a long time now. We been mighty careful—I don’t reckon the federal gov’ment pays us any mind. And Henshawe County can’t support a sheriff worth his salt. Don’t try to bluff us, ’cause it won’t work.”
I shrugged. “Do we look worried?”
There was grudging admiration in Jed’s tone. “You don’t scare easy. Well, I got my chores to do before—bedtime. See you later.”
HE VANISHED into the dark.
Ruthie jerked her hand. Lem licked his lips and vanished.
The woman’s smile was a frozen grimace. “I know what you’re thinking. What you’re afraid of,” she said. “And you’re right.”
Then she stepped back and slammed the door. We heard the lock click.
“Jed forgot to give me another bottle,” I observed. “I’ll be sober pretty soon. And thirsty. Very thirsty.” I heard my voice change a little. “It’s all right, darling. Come here.”
Rosamond’s lips were cold; I could feel her shiver.
“This room’s like an icebox,” she murmured. “I can’t get used to the cold, Charlie. I can’t get used to the cold!”
There was nothing I could do but put my arms around her as tightly as I could.
“Try remembering,” I said quietly. “It isn’t night. It isn’t storming. We’re not here. We’re bade in the park, and it’s afternoon. Remember, dear?”
She buried her face in my shoulder. “It’s hard to remember, somehow. It seems like forever since we saw daylight. This horrible house—oh, I wish we were dead, darling!”
I shook her a little. “Rosamond!” She gulped.
“Sorry, dear. Only—why did this have to happen to us?”
I shrugged. “Call it luck. We’re not the first in this spot, obviously. Keep your eyes closed and remember.”
“Do—do you think—they suspect?”
“How could they? They’re too busy playing their own little murderous game.”
I could feel the shudder of utter revulsion that went over her.
“We can’t change what’s coming,” I had to remind her. “We can’t change them—or us.”
Slow tears stole from under her lashes. And we clung together like children afraid of the dark. I couldn’t think of a wisecrack. It’s hard, sometimes.
The lamp flickered and went out. I didn’t have any matches. It didn’t much matter now, of course. Not now.
“Wish Lem had remembered the other bottle,” I murmured after awhile. “Whiskey helps. I’m glad we were allowed whiskey, anyhow.”
The storm was passing swiftly. Already moonlight drifted in wanly through the windows. I remembered Dracula, and the shapes that had materialized in the moon-rays. They made even the window-bars looks diaphanous.
But, I told myself, the Cartas weren’t vampires. They were just murderers. Mad, cold-blooded, remorseless. No, I reminded myself, if the Cartas had been vampires they wouldn’t have pretended to be. Real vampires don’t—look at Dracula!
I held on to Rosamond and shut my eyes. Somewhere a clock struck midnight.
And then—
WELL, it was about two o’clock when the key I had been expecting rattled in the lock. The door opened and Jed Carta stood on the threshold, shaking from head to foot, the lamp jerking in his hand. His voice cracked as he tried to speak.
He couldn’t. He just beckoned for us to follow him. We did, even though we knew what to expect. I could hear Rosamond whimpering very softly, “I wish we were dead, Oh, I wish we were dead!”
Jed took us into a bedroom across the hall. Ruthie Carta was lying on the floor. She was dead. There were two tiny red punctures in her skinny throat, and indented channels marked the courses of drained blood-vessels.
Through an open door I could see into the next room, and the gross, motionless body that lay there. It was Lem, and he, too, was a corpse.
Jed Carta almost screamed, “Something came and—” His face was a shaking, knotted mask of fear. “The Henshawe vampires!” he forced out, scarcely able to articulate.
“Dog eat dog,” I said. I glanced at Rosamond. She met my eyes with the shrinking revulsion I had come to know so well, and a shame-faced eagerness behind the revulsion. I knew it was time to wisecrack again—anything to get that look out of Rosamond’s eyes.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Jed,” I said, and moved nearer to him—nearer. “I know you don’t take any stock in such things, but, believe it or not, we’re the Henshawe vampires.”
THE CRYSTAL CIRCE
The weak ones fell back, the strong ones fought on—toward the crossroads of the past and the future where the crystal Circe waited to keep her dreadful tryst—“A man and a jewel—but the man will die!”
Prologue
THE stratoship from Cairo was late, and I was wondering whether the newsreel theatre or a couple of drinks would make time pass faster. It was early dusk. Through the immense, curved wall-window of the Manhattan Port Room I could see the landing field, with a silvery ship being rolled over the tarmac, and the skyscrapers of New York beyond.
Then I saw Arnsen.
It was Steve Arnsen, of course. No doubt about that. No other man had his great breadth of shoulders, his Herculean build. Ten years ago we had been classmates at Midwestern. I remembered rakehell, laughing, handsome Steve Arnsen very well, with his penchant for getting into trouble and out of it again, usually dragging Douglas O’Brien, his room-mate, along with him like the helpless tail of a kite. Poor Doug! He was the antithesis of Arnsen, a thoughtful, studious boy with the shadow of a dream lurking always in his dark eyes. An idealist was Douglas O’Brien, as his Celtic ancestors had been. Strong friendship had existed between the two men—the mental communion of laughter and a dream.
Arnsen was looking up into the darkening sky, a queer tensity in his posture. He turned abruptly, came to a table near me, and sat down. From his pocket he took a small box. It snapped open. His gaze probed into the unknown thing that was hidden by his cupped hands.
I picked up my drink and went to Arnsen’s table. All I could see was the back of his sleek, massive head. Then he looked up—
If ever I saw hell in a man’s face, I saw it in Arnsen’s then. There was a dreadful longing, and an equally horrible hopelessness, the expression one might see on the face of a damned soul looking up from the pit at the shining gates forever beyond his reach.
And Arnsen’s face had been—ravaged.
The searing mark of some experience lay there, branded into his furrowed cheeks, his tightened lips, into his eyes where a sickness dwelt. No—this was not Steve Arnsen, the boy I had known at Midwestern. Youth had left him, and hope as well.
“Vail!” he said, smiling crookedly. “Good Lord, of all people! Sit down and have a drink. What are you doing here?”
I sought for words as I dropped into a chair. Arnsen watched me for a moment, and then shrugged. “You might as well say it. I’ve changed. Yeah—I know that.
”
“What happened?” There was no need to fence.
His gaze went beyond me, to the dark sky above the landing field. “What happened? Why don’t you ask where Doug is? We always stuck together, didn’t we? Surprising to see me alone—”
HE LIT a cigarette and crushed it out with an impatient gesture. “You know, Vail, I’ve been hoping I’d run into you. This thing that’s been boiling inside of me—I haven’t been able to tell a soul. No one would have believed me. You may. The three of us kicked around together a lot, in the old days.”
“In trouble?” I asked. “Can I help?”
“You can listen,” he said. “I came back to Earth thinking I might be able to forget. It hasn’t worked. I’m waiting for the airliner to take me to Kansas Spaceport. I’m going to Callisto—Mars—somewhere. Earth isn’t the right place any more. But I’m glad we ran into each other, Vail. I want to talk. I want you to answer a question that’s been driving me almost insane.”
I signalled the waiter and got more drinks. Arnsen was silent till we were alone once more. Then he opened his cupped hands and showed me a small shagreen box. It clicked open. Nestling in blue velvet was a crystal, not large, but lovelier than any gem I had ever seen before.
Light drifted from it like the flow of slow water. The dim shining pulsed and waned. In the heart of the jewel was—I tore my eyes away, staring at Arnsen. “What is it? Where did you get the thing? Not on Earth!”
He was watching the jewel, sick hopelessness on his face. “No—not on Earth. It came from a little asteroid out there—somewhere.” He waved vaguely toward the sky. “It isn’t charted. I took no reckonings. So I can never go back. Not that I want to, now. Poor Doug!”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” I asked.
Arnsen looked at me strangely as he closed the box and slipped it back into his pocket. “Dead? I wonder. Wait till you know the story, Vail. About Doug’s lucky charm, and the dreams, and the Crystal Circe . . .”
The slow horror of remembrance crept across his face. Out there, in space, something had happened. I thought: It must have been frightful to leave such traces on Arnsen.
He read my thought. “Frightful? Perhaps. It was quite lovely, too. You remember the old days, when I thought of nothing but raising hell . . .”
After a long pause, I said, “Who was—the Crystal Circe?”
“I never knew her name. She told me, but my brain couldn’t understand it. She wasn’t human, of course. I called her Circe, after the enchantress who changed her lovers to swine.” Again he looked at the darkening sky. “Well—it began more than two years ago, in Maine. Doug and I were on a fishing trip when we ran into the meteorite. Little fishing we got done then! You know how Doug was—like a kid reading a fairy tale for the first time. And that meteorite—”
CHAPTER ONE
The Star-Gem
IT LAY in the crater it had dug for itself, a rounded arc visible about the brown earth. Already sumac and vines were mending the broken soil. Warm fall sunlight slanted down through the trees as Douglas O’Brien and Steve Arnsen plodded toward the distant gurgling of the stream, thoughts intent on catching the limit. No fingering tendril of menace thrust out to warn them.
“Mind your step,” Arnsen said, seeing the pit. He detoured around it and turned, realizing that O’Brien had not followed. “Come on, Doug. It’s getting late.”
O’Brien’s tanned young face was intent as he peered down into the hollow. “Wait a bit,” he said absently. “This looks—say! I’ll bet there’s a meteor down there!”
“So there’s a meteor. We’re not fishing for meteors, professor. They’re mostly iron, anyway. Gold, now, would be a different matter.”
O’Brien dropped lightly into the hole, scraping at the dirt with his fingers. “Wonder how long it’s been here? You run along, Steve. I’ll catch up with you.”
Arnsen sighed. O’Brien, with his vast enthusiasm for everything under the sun, was off again. There would be no stopping him now till he had satisfied his curiosity about the meteorite. Well, Arnsen had a new fly he was anxious to use, and it would soon be too late for good fishing. With a grunt he turned and pushed on toward the stream.
The fly proved excellent. In a surprisingly short time Arnsen had bagged the limit. There was no sign of O’Brien, and hunger made itself evident. Arnsen retraced his steps.
The younger man was sitting cross-legged beside the crater, holding something in his cupped hands and staring down at it. A swift glance showed Arnsen that the meteorite had been uncovered, and, apparently, cracked in two, each piece the size of a football. He stepped closer, to see what O’Brien held.
It was a gray crystal, egg-sized, filled with cloudy, frozen mists. It had been cut into a diamond-shaped, multifaced gem.
“Where’d you get that?” Arnsen asked.
O’Brien jumped, turning up a startled face. “Oh—hello, Steve. It was in the meteorite. Damnedest thing I ever saw.
I saw the meteorite had a line of fission all around it, so I smacked the thing with a rock. It fell apart, and this was in the middle. Impossible, isn’t it?”
“Let’s see.” Arnsen reached for the jewel. O’Brien showed an odd reluctance in giving it up, but finally dropped it into the other’s outstretched hand.
The gem was cold, and yet not unpleasantly so. A tingling raced up Arnsen’s arm to his shoulder. He felt an abrupt, tiny shock.
O’Brien snatched the jewel. Arnsen stared at him.
“I’m not going to eat it. What—”
The boy grinned. “It’s my luck piece, Steve. My lucky charm. I’m going to have it pierced.”
“Better take it to a jeweler first,” Arnsen suggested. “It may be valuable.”
“No—I’ll keep it.” He slipped the gem into his pocket. “Any luck?”
“The limit, and I’m starving. Let’s get back to camp.”
OVER their meal of fried trout, O’Brien fingered the find, staring into the cloudy depths of the gem as though he expected to find something there. Arnsen could sense a strange air of withdrawal about him. That night O’Brien fell asleep holding the jewel in his hand.
His sleep was troubled. O’Brien watched the boy, the vaguest hint of worry in his blue eyes. Once Doug lifted his hand and let it fall reluctantly. And once a flash of light seemed to lance out from the gem, brief and vivid as lightning. Imagination, perhaps . . .
The moon sank. O’Brien stirred and sat up. Arnsen felt the other’s eyes upon him. He said softly, “Doug?”
“Yes. I wondered if you were awake.”
“Anything wrong?”
“There’s a girl . . .” O’Brien said, and fell silent. After what seemed a long time, he went on: “Remember you said once that I’d never find a girl perfect enough to love?”
“I remember.”
“You were wrong. She’s like Deirdre of the Tuatha De, like Freya, like Ran of the northern seas. She has red hair, red as dying suns are red, and she’s a goddess like Deirdre, too. The Song of Solomon was made for her. ‘Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee . . . I sleep, but my heart waketh; it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh.’ Steve,” he said, and his voice, broke sharply. “It wasn’t a dream. I know it wasn’t. She exists, somewhere.” He stirred; Arnsen guessed that he was peering at the gray jewel.
There was nothing to say. The frosty brilliance of the stars gleamed through the laced branches above. A curious breath of the unearthly seemed to drop down from the vast abyss of the sky, chilling Arnsen’s heart.
In that moment he knew that his friend was ensorcelled.
Superstition—foolishness! He shook the thought away. But all the blood of his Northern ancestors rose up in him, the Vikings who had believed in Queen Ran of Ocean, in trolls and warlocks and the water-maidens who guard sunken gold.
“You’re dreaming,” he said stubbornly, more loudly than he thought. “It’s time we got back to the city. We’ve been here long enough.”
To hi
s surprise, O’Brien agreed. “I think so. I’ve an idea I want to work on.” And the boy shut up like a clam, relaxing almost instantly into peaceful slumber.
But Arnsen did not sleep for a long time. The stars seemed too close and, somehow, menacing. From the black void, eyes watched—not human eyes, for all their loveliness. They were pools of darkest night, and stars glimmered within them.
He wished that O’Brien had not found the meteorite.
CHAPTER TWO
Lure of the Crystal
THERE was a change in the boy after that. The dream in his eyes did not fade, but he worked now with an intensity of purpose that had never existed before. Previously, the two had held routine jobs in a huge commercial organization. Without warning O’Brien quit. Arnsen followed suit, feeling the necessity for staying close to the younger man. Yet in the days to come, he amounted to little more than excess baggage.
O’Brien had plans. He borrowed money, scraped together enough to equip a small laboratory, and there he worked long hours. Arnsen helped when he could, though that was not often. He seldom knew exactly what the boy was trying to accomplish.
Once O’Brien said a queer thing. They were in the laboratory, awaiting the result of an experiment, and Arnsen was pacing back and forth nervously.
“I wish I knew what was up, Doug,” he said almost with anger. “We’ve been at this for months now. What do you expect, anyway? You’ve had no more than an ordinary training in physics.”
“The jewel helps,” O’Brien said. He took the gem from its suede bag and stared into the cloudy depths. “I catch—thoughts from it.”
Arnsen stopped short, staring. His face changed.
“You kidding?” he demanded.
O’Brien flushed. “Okay, try it,” he said, thrusting the stone at Arnsen, who took it rather reluctantly. “Shut your eyes and let your mind go blank. That does it, sometimes.”
“I—all right.” Arnsen squeezed his eyes closed and thought of nothing. Instantly a sick, horrible feeling swept through him—a terrible yearning such as he had never known before. So might the Assassins feel, deprived of the magic drug that took them to Paradise. An Assassin exiled, cast into outer darkness.
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