Krowl almost smiled. "You're tough, Frederickson. And you have personal power. I respect you."
"Fuck you, you creep son-of-a-bitch."
Krowl looked at me strangely, his pinkish eyes slightly out of focus. "Down through the centuries, dwarfs have always been considered receptacles of power," he said distantly. "They were kept as consorts, for good luck, in the Medieval courts. Maybe that's what we should do with you. We could chain you, keep you here in a cage. No one would ever know."
"Krowl," I whispered, "come Mental Health Week, I'm going to nominate you for Poster Child."
I was rather hoping he'd get mad; if he got mad, he might get sloppy. He disappointed me.
"Keeping you with us was just a thought," Krowl said with a shrug, his eyes coming back into focus on my face. "You're going to die."
I sighed. "Where's the rest of the coven?"
"They'll be here-except for Smathers and Kee, of course. It seems their power was not equal to yours."
"Will Esobus be here?"
"Yes."
"Spouting electronic bullshit from his own private cabin," I said, watching Krowl carefully, waiting for another chance at him. In order to get it, I'd just about have to put him to sleep; I couldn't generate much momentum from my seated position, and Krowl looked as though he were paying attention. "You don't even know who Esobus is, do you?"
Something like chagrin or embarrassment moved in the albino's eyes, but he didn't speak. I motioned toward the book of shadows left open on the cot. "Come on, Krowl," I continued. "Your coven-buddy Watson didn't know, and he indicated that he was pretty pissed off about it. The only reason he went along was because he'd been asked to by the man who'd recruited him. That was Smathers, a fellow weirdo and pervert Watson had known for years. In fact, you all joined by invitation, and the hosts for the party were Smathers and Esobus. Smathers vouched for Esobus, and one of the conditions for joining was that Esobus be allowed to maintain absolute secrecy about his identity." I slowly planted my hands on the floor at my sides. "I think you've all been witched-out, Krowl; Smathers was just jerking around the bunch of you."
Krowl's pale eyes glinted. He noticed my position and wiggled the gun. I put my hands back in my lap. "Esobus is the greatest ceremonial magician alive," he said intently. "He made it possible for all of us to join together. Tonight, we-or one of us-will be asked to share the secret of his identity."
"Smathers was the liaison between Esobus and the rest of the coven," I said. "But Smathers is dead, and you just told me there was no backup man. There won't be a new messenger boy until tonight. How will Esobus know about this meeting?"
"Tonight's meeting was scheduled beforehand," Krowl said softly. "You picked the best of all possible times to visit us."
I most fervently hoped Esobus would show up. It was Esobus who'd saved Kathy's life, Esobus who'd undoubtedly cut my bonds in Smathers' lab-and Esobus who was going to have to get me out of this one. Esobus was my last potential ace in the hole-a possible secret ally. It was a paper-thin chance, especially in view of the fact that he was going to have to pull this particular dwarf rabbit out of a hat in full view of the other coven members, but it was the only hope left on the shelf.
A movement to the left caught my eye. A robed figure had appeared and was standing just outside the entrance to the cubicle. The hood covered the man's face, and his hands and arms were folded inside the flowing sleeves of the robe. He nodded to Krowl, but didn't speak. Number Two had arrived, and we were obviously in a holding pattern. My stomach muscles knotted painfully, and for a moment I was afraid I was going to be sick.
Krowl acknowledged the other man's presence with a brief movement of his head, then turned his attention back to me. "It was all in the tarot cards," he said absently. "Except that you almost brought me bad luck."
"I remember something about disaster," I said tightly.
"For you, Frederickson; not for me."
"I'm not dead yet," I said, and was sorry I'd spoken. It was false bravado, to say the least, and it sounded desperate and silly.
"You will be soon."
"Christ, you're a bunch of sickies!" I said with a lot more feeling than I'd intended to show. I knew that I had to stay calm and look for my best chance; but I vividly remembered what Daniel's body had looked like. Krowl, with his gun, and the gathering, robed assemblage outside the cubicle did tend to make me nervous. A rational part of me kept insisting that dead was dead, and it didn't make any difference how you died. But I didn't want to be tortured, cut, burned; I didn't want a dead animal stuffed in my mouth, or to be howled over by men in crimson robes. Their "spell" was working as it was supposed to: I was very much afraid, and my fear had a paralyzing effect. They were working my head over before they began on my body. I didn't really have much hope that Esobus or anyone else was going to save me. At least, I hoped to die with some dignity, which meant I'd have to try to mask my fear for as long as possible.
Krowl gestured with the barrel of his gun toward Watson's book of shadows. "You've been doing a lot of digging, and now you've read a genuine book of shadows. Have you finally satisfied your curiosity?"
Something in his voice-or perhaps the question itself-struck me as odd, and for a moment curiosity displaced fear. It suddenly occurred to me that there was something Krowl wanted from me. I certainly hoped so; from where I was sitting, I didn't look like a man with too much bargaining power.
Three more hooded, red-robed figures had joined the first man outside. That left five more to go-assuming Garth hadn't picked up Sandor Peth.
"I know you're all full of shit," I said, trying to keep my voice steady as I fought my mounting fear with words. "Your supercoven is shit. Men who are supposed to be the best ceremonial magicians in the country are brought together into one coven, and what do we get? People raised from the dead? Darkness at noon? Lead turned to gold? Nope. We get a bunch of nasty little boys dressed in Halloween costumes ripping off gullible people. It would be mildly funny if not for the fact that you're murderers. You're still all absolutely ridiculous, you know, and killing me won't change that."
That struck a nerve. Krowl's eyes flashed angrily, and the muscles in his jaw clenched and fluttered. "You miss the point, Frederickson," he said, his voice rising a notch.
I snorted. "They've been selling the Brooklyn Bridge to idiots like the people you've conned ever since we bought Manhattan from the Indians."
"We're committed to the accumulation of power through the conscious pursuit of evil," Krowl said in the tone of a slightly wounded professor correcting a dense student. "I won't even try to explain states of consciousness, or the inner journeys of the mind that we're able to achieve together."
"Spare me. I can take you on a tour of Bellevue and show you other people with altered states of consciousness." I paused, waited for my heartbeat to slow down; the longer we bantered, the longer I'd stay alive, and I was talking too fast. "Besides," I continued in a more measured tone, "the way I see it, you do all the work, Krowl. You've got a talent. Maybe it's just supersensitivity; whatever it is, I accept the fact that you gain tremendous insight into people, with your cards, in the wink of an eye. You can see their hopes and their secret terrors. But you're the one with the talent, and I suspect you're the single piece of flypaper that holds this wormy outfit together."
"Your analogy aside, I'm flattered," Krowl said. He obviously was.
"Don't be," I snapped. "I haven't finished. You know what I think? This alleged 'supercoven' of yours, with the possible exceptions of Smathers and a leader who won't even tell you his real name, is, in fact, the B group; you're second-raters." I paused, then asked softly, "What did you and Michael McEnroe fight about?"
Krowl stared at me for a long time, then slowly blinked once. "What do you know about McEnroe?" he asked tensely.
"I know he is-or was-your mentor. Your entire operation, including the hand casts, is patterned after his. I know McEnroe's very heavy, and that he taught you everything you kno
w. My guess is that people like him and Daniel would have made up the A group; they were the first ones invited to form a coven. Smathers used the name of Esobus as bait to dangle in front of the real heavies. They may have laughed at him; more likely, they simply ignored him. So Smathers and Esobus had to widen the list. God, they really had to scrape the bottom of the cookie jar to come up with a madman like Sandor Peth. But they managed to bag you, Krowl. You certainly weren't Michael McEnroe, but you'd have to do. For the rest, Esobus and Smathers had to settle for more dumbies-like you-who'd be willing to accept a squawk box as a leader."
It was all speculation, a barrage of words fired in a wide scatter pattern, and I paused to try to gauge Krowl's reaction. I decided I must be pretty close to the target; the albino's mouth was slightly open, and his breathing had grown rapid and shallow.
"You're the conduit," I continued. "You're the key to this operation. People come to you for help and advice in your capacity as a palmist and tarot reader. With your talent, you can hit a moving vulnerability a mile away. Then you reel them in. Also, of course, there's the prestige the suckers feel from being in secret association with the great John Krowl-in a coven, no less; that's the clincher. You suck them in, then farm them out to other members of the coven-like advising Harley Davidson to leave Jake Stein at William Morris and sign Sandor Peth as his manager. Right up to the moment they die-or are milked dry-they continue to believe that they're members.
"I'm betting the rift between you and your teacher came when McEnroe found out what you were up to; he heard you'd been extended an invitation and were going to join. He also knew that, despite all your talent, you were evil and could be exploited. That's when he dumped on you." I paused, leaned slightly forward and smiled. "As far as I know, you only messed up with one man-but that was some screw-up."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Krowl said defensively.
"The hell I don't. Frank Marlowe had you turkeys in his sights from the beginning."
Krowl's eyes flashed. "The man you're referring to didn't survive long, did he?"
"You murdered him, but you didn't control him. You cast Bart Stone, big-shot Western writer, in the role of sucker, and all the time Frank Marlowe was playing Exorcist. He was planning to rip you off. I think that's funny as hell. Who knows? Before you killed him, Marlowe may even have found out who Esobus is."
Two more figures had joined the group outside. The cubicle was beginning to heat up, but I couldn't tell whether it was from the fire outside, or the fear inside me. Krowl motioned for me to get up.
"It's not going to do you any good to kill me," I said quickly, my voice too high-pitched. "I put my brother on to Peth. If I end up dead or missing, you're going to learn a new definition of the word, 'pressure.' "
"Peth is dead," Krowl said smugly. "In our world, the slightest mistake is paid for with death. Peth's mistake jeopardized us all, and he had to be eliminated. Now there's no proof of our existence; when you're dead, there'll be no one to lead the police to us." He smiled broadly, triumphantly. "In any case, we have many people, who think they're members, in a position to protect us."
He was probably right. The book of shadows I'd read was proof of a sort, and there were undoubtedly others lying around in the other cubicles; but no one was ever likely to find one, any more than they were likely to find my ashes.
"There is one thing you can tell us," Krowl continued. His voice seemed slightly off-key.
"Why should I tell you anything?"
"Because if you do, we'll spare the lives of the girl and her mother. I give you my word on that. We do have our own code of honor, and I offer you that."
"You can stick your word and your code of honor up your ass, Krowl."
"You were searching for what you thought was Frank Marlowe's book of shadows. I want to know if you found it; if you did, I want to know what you've done with it."
The question struck me with the force of a blow to the stomach. It confirmed that the coven hadn't taken Marlowe's book of shadows, and they were very much afraid of what it might contain. Marlowe's diary was the last threat to them.
"I never found it," I said quietly. "I could play games and tell you I did; but I didn't."
Krowl studied me for a long time, then nodded brusquely. "I believe you," he said at last.
"Good. It's the truth. So lay off the Marlowe woman and her daughter. There's no power for you in hurting them."
"I am ready."
The sound, shrill and distorted, filled the building.
"O pentacle of power, be thou fortress and defense for Esobus against all enemies, visible and invisible, in every magical work."
"It's time," Krowl said quietly, motioning with the gun for me to rise.
When I tried to stand, my condemned man's legs almost gave way under me. "I've got one more question," I said thickly, easing myself up by bracing my back against the wall. "You talk about a code of honor: What the hell did the little girl have to do with it? You killed Marlowe because you found out he was on to you and investigating your operation. Okay. But why poison the child? What kind of honor is that?"
Krowl hesitated, then said, "Debts must be paid; betrayals must be avenged."
"You did avenge Marlowe's betrayal when you killed him. Why take it out on his daughter too?" Krowl remained silent, staring. "Did someone else betray you, Krowl?"
Something dark moved across his eyes, but before I could chase it the voice came again, this time more forcefully.
"It's time!"
Krowl nodded toward the others waiting outside. As one, their right hands came out of their sleeves; each hand was holding a large, glittering blade. With a precision that would have made the Rockettes envious, the robed figures moved into the cubicle and surrounded me, the points of their daggers pinning me in the center of the circle they'd formed. Now Krowl put away the gun and took out his own knife.
Surrounded by sharp steel, I was herded into the huge outer chamber, close to the fire. Fueled by adrenaline, my legs were working all right, but there was no way I could duck away from or under the knives without being run through-which was what I suspected was going to happen anyway. At a word from Krowl or Esobus, eight blades would slice into me.
I glanced up at my last refuge of hope-the platform over my head. The mirror at the front of the elevated cubicle stared back at me like a baleful, pupilless eye reflecting the firelight.
As if to acknowledge my attention, Esobus began to chant.
"Black Bull of the north, Horned One, Dark Ruler of the mountains and all that lies beneath them. Prince of Evil, be here, we beseech thee, and guard this circle from all enemies!"
The group repeated the chant, then went into a series of other invocations in some archaic tongue that I couldn't understand. At one point I thought they might be sufficiently mesmerized to have lost track of the ceremony's piece de resistance; I tensed, ready to move. Suddenly, as if reading my mind, Krowl stuck me in the stomach with the point of his blade. The needle tip went through my shirt and into my flesh, drawing a dribble of blood that ran warm down my belly and into my groin. I stiffened and stayed that way. Krowl had nicked me without missing a word.
There was a long silence; then the mechanical voice intoned:
"Robert Frederickson."
"Present; but I'd like to be excused."
"I conjure thee; by night your eyes are blinded, by day your ears are stopped, by earth your mouth is sealed, by rock your limbs are bound!"
"Fuck you!" A little chant of my own. It was beginning to sound as though Esobus, my hoped-for secret ally, were reading my epitaph, and that we were nearing the end of this particular ceremony. But if Esobus was concerned that I was going to start shouting out accusations that he was a closet goody-goody, he gave no indication of it. His voice droned on without interruption.
"Twist and tangle, never to rise up again. Your eyes grow dimmer, your limbs grow numb. The angel of death now draws near. . Wait!. . There is an intruder among u
s!"
The last was definitely not part of the ceremony, and I grimaced as I felt the points of eight blades dig into me.
Suddenly I heard a familiar voice chanting, the words echoing through the chamber.
"O pentacle of might, be thou fortress and defense for Robert Frederickson against all enemies, seen and unseen, in every magical way!"
On the flickering outer edges of the firelight I could just make out the figure of Madeline Jones standing at the railing of the catwalk, above and to the far left. Her arms were stretched out to either side, and her eyes were closed in fierce concentration.
The sweat on my body turned ice cold, and I almost stumbled. My head spun, and for a moment I thought I had to be hallucinating. But I wasn't the only one in a state of shock: Krowl's mouth drooped open in astonishment.
"Damn you, Madeline Jones!" Krowl shouted. "This isn't your affair! Be gone from this place, or die! So mote it be! So mote it be!"
Madeline's voice came again, soft in contrast to Krowl's rasping shout, floating in the dry, heated air like a sonic feather.
"Four corners in this house for holy angels. Christ Jesus, be in our midst. God be in this place and keep us safe."
There was a short silence; then Madeline continued: "You know who I am, John Krowl. I am of the belief and the society. Robert Frederickson is under my protection. Let him go unharmed. So mote it be!"
Krowl had apparently tired of chants. The curious battle of sorcerers was over, and it was Technology Time: Krowl was reaching inside his robe for his gun.
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