The Devils & Demons MEGAPACK ®: 25 Modern and Classic Tales

by Mack Reynolds

  “Now?” Incubus asked Watson.

  “Later,” he whispered back.

  “That ain’t funny, Watson,” Godlove assured him. As he led Incubus off, she looked back over her shoulder and winked.

  “Mr. Watson,” the jockey said, following him off the field, “you’re not really a ventriloquist, are you? That horse talks, doesn’t she?”

  Watson nodded.

  “You gonna let Godlove get away with her?” The boy’s voice rose to a shrill squeak.

  “I’ll claim her back in the next race.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t claim her back less’n you’ve entered another horse in the same race, and you don’t have another horse, do you, Mr. Watson?”

  Watsons jaw dropped. “I never thought of that! What’ll I do?”

  “You’ve got to get another horse, Mr. Watson. Do you have enough money?”

  “Well, the purse from this race is almost two thousand, and I made another thousand betting on Incubus. And, of course, Godlove gave me four thousand for her. But that won’t be enough to buy a decent horse and maintain him—expenses are terrific.”

  The jockey chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. “I know what you can do,” he said at length, “you can buy Prunella. She’s set at a price of five thousand dollars, but her owner’s pretty disgusted with her—she has good lines, but she finished last in twenty-seven starts—and I think you could have her for four thousand in cash.”

  * * * *

  Prunella, a meek-looking chestnut filly with big brown eyes and a vicious temper, was enthusiastically disposed of for four thousand and installed in Incubus’ vacant stall. Watson shed a silent tear to see Incubus’ second-best saddle hanging there on the wall.

  In the dead of night he slipped into Godlove’s stable. Incubus was awake, reading the Morning Telegraph. “Look at the picture they have of me,” she snapped. “Obviously taken by an enemy. Next time, Watson, remember—my right profile is the best.”

  “I’ll remember,” he promised and told her what had happened.

  “You’re sure this Prunella isn’t taking my place in your affections?” she demanded severely. “That all this isn’t a subterfuge?”

  “My God, no! She quits before she starts.”

  “All right,” Incubus said. “Now, I am reliably informed by the stable grapevine that Godlove’s entering me in a six-thousand-dollar claimer. You spent almost all your money on Prunella—how’re you going to claim me?”

  There was dead silence in the stable.

  “These men,” she sighed. “Without us females to think for them they’d be lost. The answer is simple. Prunella’s got to win that race. Then you’ll have the purse, plus whatever you can bet on her, and you’ll get good odds.”

  “Prunella win the race! She couldn’t beat a speedy snail.”

  “She’ll win the race.” Incubus grinned happily.

  * * * *

  The weather was clear and the track fast. Incubus was running at three to five—Prunella ninety-eight to one. Reuben Godlove appeared with his arm in a sling and a bandage on his forehead and glowered at Watson. “A fine trainer you are,” he snarled.

  “Let’s see how well you’ve done with her,” Watson suggested, smiling amiably.

  The starting gate opened and all the horses dashed out—all except Prunella, who sauntered forth and stood admiring the view. Incubus turned, ran back and nipped Prunella viciously in the forequarters. With a whinny of rage Prunella proceeded to chase Incubus, who was showing a fleet pair of heels along the track. But there were six horses between Prunella and her attacker.

  With a thrust of her powerful shoulders, Incubus sent Dernier Cri staggering into the geraniums that bordered the field. She thrust a hoof into the path of Kropotkin and sent him and his rider sprawling on the track. She murmured something into Epigram’s ear and that black colt turned light grey and refused to budge another step.

  There were now three horses between Incubus and Prunella. Polyhymnia suddenly started to run backward. Sir Bleoberis buried his head in the sand and pretended he didn’t notice the race was still going on. Cachucha—who had hitherto not been known as a jumper—hurdled the rail and dashed into the crowd of astonished players.

  Still Incubus ran lightly before Prunella, half a length ahead, kicking dust in her face and making irritating remarks, while the enraged filly laid her ears back and bared white teeth to snap at her rival. One length before the finish line Incubus suddenly stopped short, leaving momentum to carry Prunella over the line to victory!

  Prunella had won the race. Incubus was second but was disqualified for conduct unbecoming a horse and a lady. It was never determined who had run third.

  * * * *

  “Together again at last, Watson,” Incubus said during the joyful reunion in the paddock. “Ah, but it’s been a long, long time…

  “Two weeks,” commented the jockey, who had ridden Prunella.

  “Listen, pipsqueak,” Incubus told him irately. “I’ve spent the whole two weeks cooking up this speech and I don’t want a half-pint like you spoiling it. It’s been a long, long time, Watson…

  Prunella nickered.

  “None of your lip, either!” Incubus said. “Where would you have been if I hadn’t won your race for you? Oh, you can run if you want to, can you? Ha! Ha! Plater!”

  Prunella neighed angrily.

  “Okay, Watson’ll enter you in a claimer without me and we’ll see what you can do.” She turned toward her owner. “And now, Watson, I trust you have a hot tub prepared. I’m so-o-o-o tired…

  * * * *

  The racing secretary entered Incubus for an allowance with some misgivings. “But if she behaves again this time the way she did last, she’s out, Watson. Suspended—disqualified! Can’t have that sort of thing going on, you know,”

  “She’s actually the most tractable of horses, sir,” Watson assured him. “It’s merely that Mr. Godlove didn’t know how to handle her.”

  “Oh—ah,” the racing secretary said.

  “And I’d like to enter Prunella in the five-thousand-dollar claimer.” The racing secretary smiled. “Well, Mr. Watson, you don’t have to be afraid that anybody’ll claim her. Godlove has spread the word around. Now everybody’s afraid to claim a Watson horse.”

  * * * *

  Prunella won handily in her claimer, and Incubus breezed to victory in her allowance. “Bet on Watson horses,” the word went round the tracks. Incubus won a Class C, Class B and Class A handicap in swift progression. Prunella came in first in two seven-thousand-dollar claimers and second in a ten-thousand-dollar one.

  And then Incubus came in last in a stake race at Aqueduct.

  “What’s the matter with you, Incubus?” Watson demanded. “You can run ten times around the track before any of these nags could reach the quarter-mile pole.”

  Incubus lay on her back in the hay and chewed reflectively on a straw. “You know, Watson,” she said, “there are finer things in life than racing.”

  “What, for instance?”

  She simpered. “I’ve been talking to Pamplemousse—you know, Godlove’s horse—and he says it isn’t ethical what I’m doing, that I’m competing with horses way below my class, that it isn’t fair.”

  “But there aren’t any horses in your class.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “Sometimes superiority can have its disadvantages. That’s what Pamplemousse says—he says it isn’t fair for me to run at all. Says woman’s place is in the home. Do you think woman’s place is in the home, Watson?”

  Prunella neighed in the adjoining stall.

  “That’s a dirty lie!” Incubus shrieked, getting up. “I double dare you to say it once more.”

  Prunella kept silence.

  “You’re in love,
Incubus?” Watson asked gently.

  She bowed her head. “I didn’t know I could be—I thought I was too tough. But you’re never too tough. Oh, I know I’m a stake horse and he’s still only a claimer, but I love him just the same.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, Inky, I guess you have a right to. Only”—he gulped—“I’d entered you in the Belmont Futurity and it means…so much to me.”

  Incubus wiped away a tear with a wisp of hay. “All right, Watson, I’ll win the Futurity for you. After all, you have first claim on my loyalty. Who brought me out of obscurity? You! Who recognized my potentialities? You! Who made a horse out of me? You!”

  * * * *

  Incubus won the Belmont Futurity and was carried off the track on the shoulders of a cheering crowd. Retouched photographs of the big black horse hit not only the sport pages but the front page of every newspaper in the country.

  But the question of her racing again was shelved for the nonce. Shortly after the Futurity, Watson discovered that Incubus was pregnant.

  “Pamplemousse?” he asked.

  She nodded shyly.

  “But how could you do it? You two were in separate stalls.”

  Incubus snickered. “I have my methods, Watson.”

  “He’s a low cad,” said Watson. “I knew what I was doing. I went into it with my eyes open.”

  He wondered just how he was going to enter the foal in the stud book. Although it would be of impeccable ancestry, its escutcheon would be married by a bend sinister.

  * * * *

  Some months later, Incubus called Watson to her stall.

  “What is it, Inky?”

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Watson. I’ve got to go back.”

  “Back! Back where, Inky girl?”

  “Back where I came from. Oh, I might have known it was never to be, that you can’t wipe out the past. Still I’d hoped that somehow—some way… But the Big Bookie says no. I’ve got to go back where I came from—I don’t belong here. He says I was sent as a punishment, not as a reward.”

  She extended a hoof toward Watson’s hand. “I had my baby tonight, Watson. Take good care of her—she’s half equine, so she can stay here—and she’ll be the fastest thing on Earth when she grows up. Prunell’ll help you raise her and support the family.”

  Watson wiped his streaming eyes. “I’ll take care of your baby, Incubus,” he vowed. “I’ll call her Incubus Two and I’ll treat her as if she were my own daughter,”

  “I knew I could count on you, Watson. Well—this is goodbye.” Incubus slowly vanished.

  * * * *

  It was hard losing Incubus. He’d grown attached to her, looking on her not only as a horse but a friend. Still, at least he had the colt. In two years she would take up where her mother had left off, and again the Watson name would reverberate through the racetracks.

  He went inside the stall, looked down at Incubus’ daughter, who reposed on the hay looking up at him with big blue eyes. He gasped.

  He had forgotten. Incubus was not a real horse, she was merely a demon in the shape of a horse.

  Incubus Two was not in the shape of a horse.

  THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, by Mark Twain

  CHAPTER I

  It was in 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

  Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned a vast castle, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, a league to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right a precipice overlooked the river, and between it and the hills just spoken of lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade trees.

  The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of a prince, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.

  Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Christians; to revere the Virgin, the Church, and the saints above everything. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and, in fact, not allowed to. Knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. We had two priests. One of them, Father Adolf, was a very zealous and strenuous priest, much considered.

  There may have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf, but there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and awful respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He was the only Christian I have ever known of whom that could be truly said. People stood in deep dread of him on that account; for they thought that there must be something supernatural about him, else he could not be so bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf’s way was very different; he called him by every name he could lay his tongue to, and it made every one shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen.

  Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face more than once, and defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He never made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was speaking true there was proof in at least one instance, for on that occasion he quarreled with the enemy, and intrepidly threw his bottle at him; and there, upon the wall of his study, was the ruddy splotch where it struck and broke.

  But it was Father Peter, the other priest, that we all loved best and were sorriest for. Some people charged him with talking around in conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of character for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and truthful. He wasn’t charged with saying it in the pulpit, where all the congregation could hear and testify, but only outside, in talk; and it is easy for enemies to manufacture that. Father Peter had an enemy and a very powerful one, the astrologer who lived in a tumbled old tower up the valley, and put in his nights studying the stars. Every one knew he could foretell wars and famines, though that was not so hard, for there was always a war and generally a famine somewhere. But he could also read any man’s life through the stars in a big book he had, and find lost property, and every one in the village except Father Peter stood in awe of him. Even Father Adolf, who had defied the Devil, had a wholesome respect for the astrologer when he came through our village wearing his tall, pointed hat and his long, flowing robe with stars on it, carrying his big book, and a staff w
hich was known to have magic power. The bishop himself sometimes listened to the astrologer, it was said, for, besides studying the stars and prophesying, the astrologer made a great show of piety, which would impress the bishop, of course.

  But Father Peter took no stock in the astrologer. He denounced him openly as a charlatan—a fraud with no valuable knowledge of any kind, or powers beyond those of an ordinary and rather inferior human being, which naturally made the astrologer hate Father Peter and wish to ruin him. It was the astrologer, as we all believed, who originated the story about Father Peter’s shocking remark and carried it to the bishop. It was said that Father Peter had made the remark to his niece, Marget, though Marget denied it and implored the bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle from poverty and disgrace. But the bishop wouldn’t listen. He suspended Father Peter indefinitely, though he wouldn’t go so far as to excommunicate him on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father Peter had been out a couple of years, and our other priest, Father Adolf, had his flock.

  Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of the bishop’s frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the harp, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling—and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to get. And now, at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the money he was willing to put on the house, and gave notice that to-morrow he would foreclose.