Devil May Care (29 page)

The room shook as a heavy body hit the floor. Ellie turned. Henry had fainted.

For some reason, his collapse shook Ellie out of her frozen horror. It was an effective trick--she still couldn't understand how it had been managed, or how the unknown had gotten into the house--but she knew it was only a trick, not a visitation from beyond.

And she knew what it wanted. The outstretched hand demanded it. It moved again, and the pages of the magazine Donald was clutching blew wildly in the draft.

It was a copy of Sports Illustrated, with a picture of Muhammad All on the cover. The bright, one might almost say secular, appearance of the publication contrasted painfully with Donald's set face.

Slowly, without speaking, he shook his head.

The doctor had his arms around Kate; he was not protecting her, he was restraining her. She tugged at his prisoning hands, and then burst out, "What are you all standing there for? Grab him before he gets away!"

"Oh, no," the doctor said, and Donald remarked coolly, "Not till I see what is in his other hand." "Oh," Kate said, relaxing so suddenly that the doctor lost his grip. She did not move, though; she stood DEVIL-MAY-CARE 239

quite still, her eyes fixed on the same object the others were staring at.

It had appeared as if by magic in the figure's right hand. To Ellie it looked like an unusually large gun, but then her eyesight was not at its best. It was pointed at Donald.

"Give it to him," Ellie gasped. "Give him the magazine."

The figure bowed its cowled head as if in agreement.

The unknown dared not speak; the muffling garment masked his face and body, but his voice would betray his identity. However, Ellie had a pretty good idea as to who he must be. Only one of their suspects was that tall--as tall as Ted, for whom the garment had presumably been designed. Roger Mcgrath was only five feet seven or eight. The "monk" had to be Alan Grant. Ellie was sorry. She rather liked Grant; at least she didn't dislike him as much as she did the others.

"Give it to him," she repeated, "please, Donald."

Donald shook his head.

There was no need for the unknown to speak. He could convey his wants just as effectively without words. The muzzle of the gun moved smoothly away from Donald toward his father.

Kate tried to step ih front of the doctor, who gave her a shove that sent her staggering.

"He doesn't care who he shoots," Gold shouted, too angry to care for grammar any more than for chivalry. "If you and Donald don't stop acting like a television melodrama, somebody is going to get hurt.

Donald, you do what I tell you. Give it to him."

The black shrouded head nodded emphatically.

Donald swore. He flung the magazine away from him. It struck the floor, its pages crumpled, the parchment, which had slipped out while the magazine was in midair, fluttered down more slowly, riding the air currents like a glider. The "monk," forgetting caution, stepped forward; and Ellie made

24O Elizabeth Peters a futile snatch at Donald, who was crouching stiffly as if to spring.

She needn't have bothered. The "monk" never reached his goal.

The lights in the room burned blue, and a cold wind howled around them, making the earlier breeze seem like a balmy breath of spring. The shadowy corner behind the screen was shadowy no longer. A ghostly conflagration burned there, giving off light, and cold instead of heat. Crimson flames boiled and billowed. A diabolical howling, like fiendish laughter, deafened the horrified watchers.

Amid the chaos Ellie was aware of Henry stirring.

He moaned and started to sit up. Finding himself facing another and far more appalling manifestation, he yelped and fainted again.

Deafened and sick, Ellie reached out. Her hands found Donald's, groping for hers. They stood with hands locked over Henry's prostrate body, unable to move forward, unwilling to retreat.

The lights had gone out except for the fiery glow that illumined the far end of the room. The black shape of the "monk" was silhouetted against it; he had turned and was standing quite still, but the very outlines of his body expressed unspeakable terror.

There were faces in the whirling cloud that glowed with infernal fire--faces several of the watchers knew. A woman's face, beautiful and terrible, her hair lifted like a living flame; the face of a whitebearded man whose teeth were bared in a devilish smile; and, foremost among the other shadowy shapes, that of a dark, sallow man whose wavering features betrayed a terrible resemblance to another face Ellie knew. The howling laughter seemed to shape itself into words--not spoken sounds, but concepts that moved directly from mind into mind.

"My son!" the great, empty voice boomed. "Welcome!

The old blood runs true!"

The "monk" recoiled as if he had been stung. He DEVIL-MAY-CARE 241

tried to retreat and tripped over his skirts. Two black shapes, like arms, but longer and horribly flexible, shot out of the fiery cloud toward him. He screamed hideously, and fell, writhing on the floor as the snaky tentacles squirmed toward him.

Something small and light darted forward and pounced. Ellie's eyes weren't working too well; at first she thought it was one of the cats, its size distorted by the strange light. Then it rose, shaking disheveled hair back from its face, and Ellie recognized her aunt. Kate was holding the parchment. She turned to the nearest table and began rummaging among the litter.

Under any other circumstances the search would have had its comic aspects. Papers, withered apples, cat toys, potted plants flew in all directions as Kate burrowed frantically. It took far less time than it should have for her to find what she was after. Ellie couldn't see what it was. A small flame sprang up, hardly discernible in the greater crimson light. Then with a sudden flare it fed and grew. Kate had set fire to the parchment.

It was old and dry, but it burned faster than it should have, almost as if it had been soaked in oil.

Kate dropped it, nursing scorched fingers; before it could drift to the floor it was gone.

With it went the crimson light and the faces. The voices rose in an ear-splitting shriek and died. The bulbs in the chandelier overhead sprang to life.

Kate was the first to speak.

"Well, that takes care of that. Goodness, what a mess. It will take me a week to clean up this room.

I only hope Roger hasn't had a heart attack. Two in one week, in my house, would really set tongues wagging."

"Roger?" Ellie repeated.

Donald tried to free his hands. Ellie hung on to them; it was the doctor who reached the recumbent body and turned it over. The place where the face

242 Elizabeth Peters should have been was still a featureless expanse of blackness, but now they could see it for what it was.

Dr. Gold lifted the black veil and exposed Mcgrath's face. It was as white as his bedraggled moustache, but after a moment the doctor announced, "He's fainted, that's all. We'd better call the Rescue Squad, though."

"I'll call." Kate stepped unconcernedly over Henry's body and picked up the telephone, which was one of the objects she had flung aside in her search for matches. It was buzzing angrily. As she dialed, she started giving orders.

"Get that costume off him, Frank, before anyone sees it. And hide the gun. And--hello, Jimmie? This is Kate. Would you please come on out right away?

No, I'm fine, thanks. How's your back? Oh, good ... Ten minutes? Thanks, Jimmie." She hung up the phone. "And do something with Henry. I will not have the place strewn with bodies, like the last scene of an Elizabethan tragedy. It creates the wrong impression."

"What do you want me to do with him?" Donald asked.

"Wake him up and get him out of here. Or get him out of here and then wake him up. The important word is '.' Here, Frank, I'll help you--"

But the doctor pocketed the gun before Kate could reach it.

"I just want to look at it," she protested.

"What good would that do? Roger probably borrowed it, the same way he did the horse. Any jackass can get hold of a gun these days, that's one of the things that's wrong with this country. Nothing personal, Kate--"

"Oh, yeah?" Kate replied.

"How did you know it was Roger?" Ellie asked.

She knelt down by Henry's recumbent form and prodded him. They would have to wake him up; she DEVIL-MAY-CARE 243

didn't want Donald to hurt himself trying to drag Henry's dead weight.

"Oh, I suspected it all along," Kate said airily-- and, Ellie suspected, untruthfully. "I knew for sure when that--uh--that character in the black whiskers called him '.' He was the spitting image of Roger under all that hair. I recognized the nose."

"Most amazing case of mass hypnotism I've ever seen," Dr. Gold muttered.

"Damn it, Frank, you can't squirm out of it that easily!" Kate glared at him. "Call yourself a man of science, and you won't even admit the evidence of your own eyes--"

The arrival of the ambulance ended a heated discussion on scientific methodology.

Ill

"I think Roger will have sense enough to keep his rnouth shut," the doctor said. "He knows how a story like that would affect his--"

"He'll keep his mouth shut!" Kate was indignant.

"Maybe he will, but I won't. I'm going to sue him for about a million dollars. Did you see the scorch mark on the floor? Six or eight square feet of tile all burned to a crisp. Not to mention invading my property and dragging all his dissolute damned relatives in uninvited--"

They were sitting in the kitchen, having agreed that restoratives for shocked nerves were in order.

Henry was clearly intent on drinking himself into a coma as quickly as possible. He had reached the stage of maudlin good fellowship and kept patting Kate on the head. She endured this stoically; Henry had had a greater shock than he deserved and he was behaving comparatively well--per 2*4 Elizabeth Peters

haps because he had managed to wipe from his memory the most unacceptable parts of the evening's adventures.

"Really shouldn't leave that footstool where it is," he told Kate, for perhaps the fifth time. "Hurt yourself one of these days. If I hadn't tripped on it when I was rushing at that fellow--" "I know, Henry," Kate said meekly. "I'm sorry.

Here, have another drink."

"No, but seriously," Dr. Gold said. "We must decide how much of this has to be made public. And we'd better agree on a story right now, before one of us gets carried away."

He looked meaningfully at Kate.

"Right on," Ellie agreed. "Kate, you know we can't tell the whole story. You may not care if the town thinks you're a psycho--most everybody does now-- but other people have reputations to consider."

"Such as rising young physicians with wives to support," Donald said, stiff as an Egyptian pharaoh in his chair. "Will you marry me one of these days, Ellie, when we get around to it?" "Uh-huh," said Ellie. "Now, look, Kate--"

"Somebody getting married?" Henry asked, blinking.

"Thass nice. Congrashulations." "Thanks, old chap," Donald said.

"Kate--"

As Ellie knew, appeals to Kate's better nature succeeded where threats and warnings failed.

"Oh, all right," she muttered. "I won't sue Roger.

Actually"--she brightened--"I've got enough on him to keep him out of politics for the rest of his life. I'll threaten to publish the parchment--"

"But it's burned," Ellie protested.

"Roger doesn't know that," Kate said.

"We'll never know what was on it," Donald said.

"I know, Kate, you had to burn it--I've got to hand it to you, I wouldn't have thought of doing it--but I

DEVIL-MAY-CARE 245

wish I could have seen those names. If they were names ... "

"They were," Kate said. "Just before the thing went up in flames, the names sprang out, fresh as the day they were written. Maybe heat was the catalyst.

Or maybe ... Six names. Guess what they were." Donald said nothing. Ellie knew now why it had been so important to him to learn the names of the signatories to that infernal contract.

"All of them?" the doctor asked steadily.

"Even--"

"No. Not Morrison. The sixth name was Beaseley."

"So Miss. Mary was right about the Beaseleys,'"

Ellie said. Donald slumped down in his chair with a sigh, and immediately sat up again, looking pained.

"Beaseley was only one of the names," Kate reminded her. "Miss. Mary's ancestor was no better-- worse, actually; he ought to have `@-71' known better. It wasn't a regular coven. That requires a membership of thirteen--twelve privates and a general, who represents the devil. This was just a little private club of bad guys--and girls--who got bored with respectability and played nasty games. I hate to think what went on in Mr. Lockwood's charitable institutions--the old peoples' home, the orphanage --"

"Don't," Ellie begged. Donald took her hand.

"They got what was coming to them," he said, with grim satisfaction. "I'm glad to learn that modern, wishy-washy theology is mistaken. There ought to be a hell for people like that."

"Mass hallucination," the doctor began.

"We'll ask the workmen who'll repair my floor if they see any marks of burning," Kate said. "Won't that be interesting? Secondary mass hallucination ... Frank, I'm not proposing or supporting the concept

246 Elizabeth Peters of a literal Hades, complete with fire and brimstone.

But suppose--just suppose people who actively and deliberately espouse evil pass on, after death, into a spiritual state that corresponds to our conception of purgatory. We could see it only in the images we know; the reality would be unimaginable to us. Any mental contact with souls like those would be automatically translated, by our limited brains, into sensory impressions we can understand. I don't know whether I believe in survival after death, but I do believe in evil. And I sure don't want to end up spending eternity with people like Roger Mcgrath, much less his grandfather. I hope they go someplace else. But," she added in a soothing voice, "if you want to think of it as mass hallucination, go right ahead. The terms are unimportant. The point is that some of the manifestations were not produced by a physical agent. That's what confused the issue so long. We were trying to attribute everything to a single villain." "That's right," Donald said interestedly. "Leaving aside the agent who was responsible for the first apparition --and may I say that he, or she, displayed admirable taste, selecting the best-looking and the best-behaved of all the old families ... "