Tales from the Nightside (10 page)

"I'll tell you something, Martin," Drummond said, taking him to one side, standing in front of the room's bay window, "when I sent the invitation to your editor, I half expected him to toss it out with the trash. But you're here, aren't you. Extraordinary." And he laughed. "Extraordinary how things work out, isn't it."

Martin nodded, sipped at the strong sherry, and wondered if he should tell the old man that his editor hadn't shown him the invitation at all. He had been at his desk in the office last Monday, trying to complete still another stale article on finance and survival. He hated the stuff, but it was what the Station demanded, and he'd overheard the editor laughing about something on the phone with his wife. He heard the word "seance," but not a single word more. And tonight, as he was driving around in search of the courage to leave, he had wondered what would happen if he'd just dropped in for a snoop. That they knew his name was no surprise—there were only two others on the Herald's staff, and each one of them had a by-line.

And how he knew it would be tonight was something only his subconscious could tell him. Subliminal hearing was the obvious source.

No. He'd say nothing about it. The Drummonds and the others were being far too kind, and it was already difficult enough to keep his guilt from choking him.

"They think, of course," Drummond was saying, with Child nodding, "that we do nothing more than sit around waiting for some manifestation to appear to us. A long-lost relative, a wife, an aunt, something like that. Ridiculous, in point of fact. We do no such thing. There are no glass bowls to peer into, no tea leaves to read, no pretty little cards to set up in curious designs. No, nothing like that at all."

"Right," Child said, poking a boney finger toward Martin's chest. His voice was brittle, a long dead leaf refusing to fall from a long dead limb. "We see all the movies, you know. We know what the... what the...

"Theatrics," Drummond supplied quietly.

"Right. Theatrics." He laughed suddenly, quickly. "Houdini would love us. No charlatans here, m'boy. You can count on that."

Martin tried not to look sheepish, felt the room grow perceptively warmer as if the five of them had somehow become five hundred and were sucking out all the air. He was taller than all of them and kept his head down as though listening intently, his face an encyclopedia of nuance from which they could draw their inferences without effort. His gaze moved from face to face. Hands spotted with old decades swooped and postured in front of him. His glass was refilled.

But when, he wanted to ask them, was this stance going to begin?

He had almost found the courage to ask—not at all sure why he Hadn't the courage in the first place—when he realized they were probably waiting for midnight. The magical hour. The witching time. Ghosts, spirits, specters walking. He grinned and called himself four kinds of a fool, turned to the window, and the grin froze to a grimace.

The moonlight was still strong, the wind still pushing futilely at the panes.

There had been four cars in the drive when he'd pulled up; there were only four cars now, his still the last. In the shimmering cold reflection of the room behind him he could see the Drummonds, Child, and Longwood. Who had left? The man with the dustrag? It was hard to credit—the four cars he had seen were vintage and expensive; a man who spent his autumn evenings keeping them clean would hardly own one himself.

Longwood laughed at something Mrs. Drummond said and slapped a hand against the table. Martin turned quickly, inexplicably annoyed at the sound. It was too much, he thought, and set the wine glass down on the sill. The whole thing was ridiculous. He should have kept on going, north to Boston and whatever job he could find. He didn't need to humiliate himself by waiting around for spooks to knock on wood or toot rasping horns.

And that, he suddenly understood, was exactly what he was doing to himself. An act of self-abasement because the whole of his life until now had been littered with the kind of small gnawing failures he had always laughed at in others. His marriages, his abortive novels, his attempts at windmill-tilting in politics and finance. For a moment, just a moment, he supposed that he really wasn't all that great a failure, that he only tended to magnify his setbacks because his goals were so high.

But the moment passed, and he was angry again.

He looked across the large room, searching for Drummond, had a hand lifted to summon him for the parting when a narrow door set in the far corner opened, and a woman entered.

The others fell muttering into a respectful silence.

At last, Martin thought; the medium arrives.

She was a full head taller than he, her parted-in-the-center hair the black of a winter's crisp night—it settled in more waves than seemed possible onto her shoulders, spilled down her back and chest in shadowed cascades. She wore a simple Jong-sleeved white blouse that hovered close to grey, a matching skirt that reached just below the knee. Deep blue slippers on her feet. A blue satin scarf tied loosely around her throat.

Drummond seemed to be blushing as he approached her, taking her hand and bringing it to his lips.

It was almost, Martin thought, as if the man expected to be scolded.

Then Dorothy fluttered a gesture toward Martin. “Look who's here, Elizabeth! It's Mr. Worthy!"

Elizabeth circled the table with long assured strides, and smiled at him. "Mr. Worthy," she said, a slight nodding as she accepted his hand. "I hope my friends haven't been talking your ear off. They have a tendency to do that once in a while." Though the tone was light, the rebuke was there, and he saw Child scowling as he headed for the sideboard. "But there's no harm done, is there. At least I hope not. I tell you what, Martin—may I call you Martin?— why don't we leave these people for a few minutes and you can ask all the questions you want. I'm sure they won't mind."

Martin didn't care if they minded or not. The eyes that locked to his as she settled her hand on his arm were deeply green, large, and blatant invitations to accept her confidence. He smiled weakly at the others and allowed himself to be led from the room, turning left in the foyer and down a narrow corridor that crouched beside the staircase. Here there was no light; here was the faint tang of must, luxuriant age, the type of acquiescence to age he imagined was instilled in the great houses of Europe.

Their footsteps were soft on the uncovered flooring.

Elizabeth's breathing the only sound he cared to hear.

He could feel her hand through his jacket, a pressure that wound him around a corner, through a smaller and darker room, to a pair of open French doors and onto a marble veranda.

The wind was gone, the moon less swollen, and the trees at the back of the sprawling tended yard had merged into a serrated silhouette pricked only by the stars.

"They really are dears," Elizabeth said, leaning lightly against him as they watched the night deepening. "But they really do tend to be overenthusiastic sometimes. In a way... well, I suppose it's something like fear. Nobody likes to think about the end, isn't that right? Some people exercise until they keel over, thinking they can become immortal if they take the right vitamins. Others, like Kenneth and Zachery, turn so hard to religion that their knees get scars, if you know what I mean/' She sniffed, as though testing the air, then put her left hand to her cheek and laughed quietly. "Listen to me, Martin. Honestly, you'd think I had some kind of degree from Harvard or something."

She looked down at him, smiling, and he felt himself leaning closer. A kiss, he thought. Good God, just one lousy kiss.

"But you want to know about the stance, don't you."

No, he tried to tell her with his eyes; I don't give a damn about stances. Just tell me how much you've taken from these people, and how much of it you'll let me share.

The thought didn't shock him. He had met women before who had auras of power and auras of lust—it was the magnetism of self- confidence he usually found easy to divert. But Elizabeth was different. He almost frowned in the attempt to find the words to suit the feeling, and all he could come up with was... the woman was different.

She turned to him suddenly and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me something," she said, "are you disappointed that I'm not dressed like a gypsy?" She laughed, dropped her hand, and looked up at the moon. "A lot of them are, you know. And in the beginning we thought it would be fun to give them what they wanted. You know what I mean—the unlighted room, the howling wind, large earrings and odd-looking jewelry... everything we could think of. The problem was, they still thought it was all a fake.

"And it isn't, Martin. Not a bit of it is fake. You can poke and snoop all you want, and you won't find a single secret passage, no electronics, no assistants hiding in cupboards."

She clapped her hands suddenly, and he started, realizing how he'd allowed himself to feel the mesmerizing pull of that soft and low voice. He felt silly. He felt she thought him silly. He wished again that he'd skipped over the impulse and left the Station as he'd planned.

"The stance," she said then. "I imagine you expected us to sit around the table and hold hands. Then I would fall into a trance and wait for my contact with the spirit world to get in touch. After that, a few questions about the stock market, the dear departed, s0trte startling revelations about your own life, Martin, that you were sure no one knew but you. Is that what you expected?"

In spite of the fear he would anger her, he nodded.

Instead, she smiled, leaned down and kissed his cheek.

"You're wrong," she said softly. "Oh, not about the table-sitting. That part's right. But everything else isn't, not at all what you were thinking. Can you guess, Martin?" She kissed him again. "Go ahead. Guess."

The tone; it was different. Gone was the soothing texture of silk, the underlying urging to suspend his belief and join in the fun. There was mockery now, a daring, a challenge. He stepped back a pace to see her more clearly, puzzled and unsure how he should respond.

"Oh, Martin," she said in exaggerated sorrow.

All right, he thought angrily, it's time to stop playing games.

He shuddered once, as though shaking off the stuporous effects of the sherry, the drive, the self-pity and weariness he'd allowed to infect and slow him. He allowed himself to think. Of the little man brushing the dust from the cars, of the four people at the table, of their knowing his name; of Elizabeth and the way she looked at him now, a stalking without moving, a wariness born of instinct and caution. He suspected she was trying to decide if she'd pushed him too far, that the so-called seance should have begun before he'd had the chance to question. Now it was too late. The directionless irritation he'd been nurturing all evening found focus, and nothing she or her cohorts could show him would blind him to the fakery he would expose and see in print.

"Oh, Martin." Her voice lower, and deeper.

He snapped his fingers to give himself sound, then brushed past Her and made his way quickly through the dark toward the front. It would be easy enough to check through the Station, to find out how many others had come up here to be bilked. It had to be quite a few, or a carefully chosen handful who had money to squander.

He reached the corridor and marched toward the front door.

Stopped at the parlor with a hand stroking his chin.

All five of them, of course, would be in on the sham. All five of them complete with utterly convincing tales of how Elizabeth and her powers had brought them release, or fulfillment, or a lasting peace of mind. It would be for money, most likely, though he imagined Arthur Drummond was trapped also by sex.

His hand moved to scratch at the back of his neck. Excitement made him lick at his lips, made him feel as if he were just about floating. He turned toward the parlor. He wondered how it would be if he called their bluff and accused them to their faces. The reactions would be interesting, and there wasn't a one of them he feared if violence erupted.

Then he frowned, was unsure.

The light in the room was dimmer. The Drummonds, Child, and Longwood were standing by the table, behind the chairs they were in when he'd first entered the house. He had to squint to see them clearly, and took a step closer when he saw what he thought was dust on the table.

Dust on the table... dust on the cars.

"Oh, Martin." Deeper, and growling.

Part of the trickery, he told himself quickly. The sherry had been mildly drugged, and Elizabeth had taken him away so they could spread dust on the table, on the carpet, on the walls. So they could change their clothes that in the room's twilight were more now like tatters not even dared to be called rags.

They all smiled, and Longwood beckoned, and the tips of his fingers were not flesh but yellowed bone.

The light brightened for a moment—they had no eyes—then faded to dark—they had no eyes—and he whirled around just as Elizabeth reached toward him—skin taut and tearing, lips smiling and shredding, blouse rustling and rotting. He threw himself backward, felt a knob punch at his hip. He grabbed it, turned it, and flung the door open. Leaped off the stoop and ran down the walk, not bothering to stop at the fourth car in the line, not bothering to scream at the black moth still dusting.

Later, he promised himself as he ran down the hill, he would find out how they did it. For now, however, he had to admit that what they had done was effective—they had lulled him, and frightened him, then driven him from the house because they knew he would expose them.

But it was a good idea, he thought as he neared the trees. It was obvious the stance had been over long before he'd arrived, and they wanted him to think it was he they had summoned, not the ghost of a friend, or an aunt, or a sorely missed spouse.

Because he was still alive, and they were... not quite dead.

Elizabeth had given him the clue if he'd been thinking—nobody likes to think about the end.

So somehow he was supposed to believe they would use him in some horrid way to keep themselves... not dying.