Psychomech (41 page)

Terri went to Wyatt, her hands fluttering like trapped birds as she helped him to his feet. ‘Gareth, are you all right? What
was
that? Did I really see—?’

‘You saw,’ his voice was a painful croak. ‘We both saw.’

‘But what does it—?’

‘What does it mean? Didn’t I tell you he was being fed?’

Wyatt’s eyes were wild, his tone rising up the scale. ‘Well, so he is—but I was wrong to think someone else was feeding him. He’s doing it himself! He has powers, Terri, strange powers. And somehow—I don’t know how—but I’m sure Psychomech is helping him!’

‘What?’ Her response was incredulous, frightened. ‘The machine is helping him? But it was supposed to kill him!’

‘God damn!’ Wyatt slammed a shaky fist into the palm of his hand. ‘And it
would
have killed anyone else—four or five anyone else by now—but not your bloody husband. Not the indestructible Richard sodding Garrison esquire!’

‘Powers,’ she seized upon the word. ‘You mean psychic powers? Yes, I’m sure he has. And you think that the machine has somehow enhanced them?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, trembling, his aspect turning chalky as the anger drained out of him, was replaced with fear. ‘I mean, I knew he was different, but this—’

Scared almost witless, Terri was shaking like a leaf in a gale. ‘But if he’s able to feed himself like this, then—’

‘More than just that, Terri,’ Wyatt cut her off. ‘He can protect himself, too. Even fight back, yes.’ He nodded, gripped her shoulders and stared deep into her eyes. ‘Terri, what’s going on in that room up there? I have to see, have to know.’

He released her and headed for the door.

‘Gareth, wait!’

He turned back.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be OK.’

She followed close behind him up the stairs, and on the landing obeyed his instructions and made for the bedroom. Wyatt waited until he believed he heard the door of the bedroom close behind her, then turned towards the room of the machine…

The murmurs of hostile minds echoed on the fringe of Garrison/Schroeder’s awareness, coming to him across unknown gulfs from the Otherworld. They signalled danger, but nothing that couldn’t be handled. He put up minimal automatic defences, setting them in his multimind as an ordinary man sets an alarm clock; a trifling matter. Then he returned to a more immediate problem: namely that it seemed to be taking him an inordinately long time to cross the black lake. The black castle seemed no closer now than when he left the shore. Which, at the speed he was travelling, was plainly impossible.

Unless of course he did not actually wish to reach his objective. Unless this was simply a second barrier, erected in his own mind and just as impassable as the first. A self-imposed bonier, protecting him from that final confrontation.

The Schroeder part of him knew that in fact this was the essence of the problem, the answer to the paradox—that however much he willed the journey to its close, the Garrison part would hold back—and so, in a little while, the matter was taken out of Garrison’s hands completely as Schroeder boosted and accelerated their weird flight until the Machine and its passenger fairly rocketed across the blackly lapping lake. The Garrison facet, quiescent, made no protest until, reaching the rock whereon the castle loomed, he once more took ascendance, bringing the Machine to a halt and dismounting.

Then, entering the substructure through a lower portal in the rock itself, Garrison/Schroeder found corkscrew steps leading upwards and made to climb them. But—

He paused, his foot on the first step, trembling. For while the Schroeder part knew only a keen curiosity, the Garrison facet knew stark terror. Up there in the inky blackness, in the Black Room, lurked the Horror itself; and the weight of its presence, so close now, pressed like uncounted tons on his bones until they felt like jelly. Nor would he let the Schroeder part take ascendance, for despite his desperate need to know, still his fear of the unknown denied the other’s assistance. He was in the position of a man with a rotten tooth, wandering to and pro outside the surgery, mortally fearing the dentist’s chair.

Stalemate, unless…

What of Psychomech? Might he not draw upon the Machine’s vast powerhouse of energy for the strength he needed to suppress his own terror? He went back out from the portal in the black rock beneath the castle and laid his hands upon the dully recumbent Machine, willing it to be whole once more and assist him in his task. And in a moment or two, as he closed his eyes and directed his will more positively, so the Machine responded.

Lights began to glow within its massy frame, and warmth issued from it in gusts like the quickening breath of a giant. And slowly but surely its hum became audible as power flowed once more in its strange plastic veins and chromium belly and loins…

Terri had not gone into the bedroom. She simply could not bear to be alone at this moment, in the knowledge that Richard was still alive and that his mind was somehow mobile and possibly malignant
outside
his body. She stood for a moment undecided outside the bedroom door, her hand on the doorknob. Then, fear overcoming her, she turned and ran silently back the way she had come.

She came round the corner from the landing and found Wyatt still at the door. His back was towards her but she could see what he was doing: turning the key in the third and last padlock. .The other two locks lay on the carpeted floor where he had let them fall. He had not seen her, and knowing that his nerves were as badly frayed as her own, she made no sound but let him get on with what he was doing. The lock in his hand sprang free of its hasp and staple and he pushed at the door. It opened, maybe an inch, and—

The light in the room behind the door was a glaring, unbearable electric blue. It issued out through the one-inch gap as an almost solid panel, not diffusing but striking forth like some great flat tongue of hot metal freshly forged. Wyatt gaped, gave the door a second, almost automatic push, then angrily threw his shoulder against it. The door resisted, gave a fraction, then slammed shut and threw Wyatt across the corridor, his back flattening against the opposite wall. Though the blue light was now cut off, the door of the room still gave off a soft radiance. So did the lock in Wyatt’s hand.

He dropped it—but instead of falling to the floor the padlock shot across the corridor and locked itself through hasp and staple! Then, while Wyatt and Terri stood mesmerized, the key turned white hot, melted in the lock and effectively welded it solid. The white heat cooled to a dull red, the blue radiance died away, the fused padlock swung gratingly on its staple for a moment and became still…

Terri drew air and gave it out in a sob. ‘My God, my
God
’

Wyatt glanced at her, not really seeing her. He forced his eyes to focus, gulped, and croaked, ‘Terri, I—’

‘I have to get out of here,’ she cut him off, hysteria rising in her. ‘Have to get out…’ She spun on her heel, fled for the bedroom. Galvanized out of his state of shock, Wyatt followed her. She began throwing on her clothes, gibbering helplessly, unable to control the motions of her own limbs, her shuddering body.

Seeing her like that and realizing the danger if she was seen in this condition outside the house, he forced his own fears from his mind, grabbed and shook her. ‘Terri!’ he snapped, lifting his hand threateningly. ‘Terri, get a grip of yourself. I agree, you should get out of here, and right now—but not in that state. Calm yourself down, then go. I’ll finish… what has to be finished here.’

‘Oh, Gareth!’ She threw herself into his arms. ‘It’s all gone wrong, horribly wrong.’

‘I know it,’ he nodded over her shoulder, ‘but we’re not through yet. Listen, you finish dressing and tidy yourself up. Then go on home. I’ll give you a ring later—when it’s all over.’

‘Will it be over?’ she asked. ‘Will it ever be over?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he promised her. ‘One way or the other.’

A few minutes later she was ready to leave and he took her downstairs. She had parked her Capri discreetly at the back of the house beneath lilac trees whose laden branches gave it good cover. At the back door she drew him close, said: ‘Be careful, Gareth. I love you, you know?’

‘Yes, I know. And I’ll be careful.’

She opened the door, stepped out.

A low, hostile growl, rising rapidly to a snarl of hatred, sounded from the direction of the lilacs. Suzy, a black thunderbolt, her face a wrinkled black mask of hatred surrounding clashing ivory jaws, came bounding to the attack!

Terri saw, froze, was dragged back inside the house barely in time. Wyatt slammed the door on the dog and he and Terri stood in each other’s arms, trembling, listening to Suzy’s barking, then to her whining and frantic scratching at the door. Finally Terri freed herself and vacantly examined her torn skirt, the graze on her thigh where Suzy’s teeth had sought purchase and missed, however narrowly.

‘Damned dog!’ Wyatt whispered. ‘What’s she doing here? I thought she was kennelled. And why attack you like that?’

‘She was kennelled,’ Terri answered. ‘She must have escaped. And did you see her? She looks so—insane!’

‘Crazy, yes—like everything else that’s happening round here. Well, she can’t cover both doors at once. Come on, we’ll go to the front. Give me your car keys. If the black bitch follows us round to the front you can stay there—draw her attention—while I sneak back here, let myself out and bring your car round. OK?’

She dumbly nodded, stumbling after him through the house to the front door. In a matter of seconds Suzy had followed them, was out there pawing at the double-glazed doors, then snarling and throwing herself against the tough glass panels when she saw Terri and Wyatt where they huddled within.

‘OK,’ Wyatt said, but with a tremble in his voice. ‘Fine. You stay here and I’ll go and get your car. I’ll bring it right up to the door, so you can let me straight into the house. And don’t panic, she can’t get in. That’s good quality glass.’

‘Hurry,’ Terri whispered ‘Please hurry!’

‘I will, and if I can just get that black bastard under the wheels…’

While Terri stayed where she was, wringing her hands and cowering back from the door—but always letting the frenetic Suzy keep her in sight—Wyatt let himself out of the back door and into Terri’s car. He drove round to the front of the house, saw Suzy where she now loped across the gravel drive towards the gardens, and aimed the car at her, putting his foot down on the accelerator.

What happened next came almost too fast for Wyatt to comprehend. It came with a roar and a rush, in the shape of Garrison’s great silver Mercedes, leaping from behind a screen of tall shrubs where they bordered the garden. The Merc rammed Terri’s Capri sideways-on, driving it bodily into the front wall of the house. The front half of the Capri was compressed, its windscreen buckling and flying into a thousand shards which fortunately fragmented outwards and across the bonnet. Instinctively Wyatt switched off the stuttering engine as he smelled petrol, and when the Mercedes backed off he tried his driver’s door. It was buckled firmly shut.

Giving him no time to think, the Mercedes came at him again. As it picked up speed its bent bonnet began a loose flapping, like the inarticulate mouth of some great mechanical idiot. Wyatt somehow managed to scramble through the empty front window and was on all fours on the bonnet when the Merc struck. The impact tossed him clear—but not before he got a good look at the demon car’s driver. Or rather, not before he had seen that the Merc
had no driver at all!

Then Terri had the front door of the house open a crack and Wyatt was running on rubbery legs, Suzy hot on his heels, and in another moment the door was slamming shut behind him—slamming in Suzy’s snarling face—and Terri was in his arms, both of them sobbing hysterically.

‘The car,’ she finally found space for words. ‘That’s Richard’s car—but there’s no driver!’

‘I know.’

Terri took herself in hand and squeezed very hard. She stood away from Wyatt, brushed her hair back, looked squarely into his face. ‘It’s Richard, isn’t it ? He’s doing all this. He has us at his mercy. We’ve failed.’

‘It’s your husband,’ he nodded. ‘Him and Psychomech together. Krippner put something into that machine, something I didn’t know about—the little Nazi bastard!’

‘Krippner?’

‘Forget it. But you’re right about Richard, Terri. He’s controlling the dog and the car.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Well, at least I can do something about the dog—and that’ll be a start…’

She followed him through into his downstairs library. He took down a shotgun from wrought iron brackets above an antique fireplace. The stock was beautifully carved and polished. ‘I bought it for its looks,’ he told her, ‘but it’s deadly for all that. I haven’t had occasion to use it yet, so now is as good a time as any.’

From a desk drawer he took cartridges, just three of them, loading the weapon with two and placing the third cartridge in his dressing gown pocket. He went back to the front of the house with Terri close behind. Through the windows they could see the Mercedes parked away down the drive facing the house. Steam coiled in wisps from its gaping bonnet. Of Suzy there was no sign—until Wyatt opened the door.

Then she came, hurtling from behind a bush, a nightmare in black that rushed upon him like some irresistible doom. Except that he had the shotgun. As she leapt for his throat so he raised the weapon and pulled one of its twin triggers.

Suzy was brought to a halt in mid-leap, stopped dead by the force of the blast. Literally dead, her head almost disintegrating and slopping back over her shoulders in scarlet tatters. Her corpse fell at Wyatt’s feet. He stared at the mess for a moment, shuddering, then lifted his eyes apprehensively at the big Merc.

Then he gasped, drew back inside the house and bolted the door. And he never once took his eyes off the figure standing beside the car, the figure of Willy Koenig. Steady as a rock the squat, crewcut German stood there, staring, his body motionless but his face working and his fists clenching and un-clenching where they hung at his sides.

Terri, too, had seen Koenig. She too stared at him through the double-glazed doors. ‘Willy!’ she whispered. ‘He’s come back…’