The Warlock Wandering (27 page)

"'Damned' is right," Roderick snorted.

"And that'll be enough out of you!" Buzzabeez stabbed a finger at Roderick, and a half-dozen little red dots blossomed on his cheeks and forehead. He howled with pain, bowing away and covering his face with his hands, and Buzzabeez chuckled. "Phantom hornets—gets 'em every time. Don't worry, though; a little vinegar and some ice cubes will get you through it... Uh, uh, there!" He whirled to stab a finger at Auntie Dil, who'd been trying to sneak the shaker into the waste basket. "Now," said Buzzabeez,

"sprinkle it in!" He moved his finger slowly, and Auntie Dil's hand tracked with it, back to the juice glass, upending the shaker and sprinkling. Buzzabeez nodded, satisfied.

"That's a good old girl. Now then, you!" He pointed to Frank. "Take the tray back out to the ladies, right away!" Frank shuffled over, muttering and groaning, but he picked up the tray and turned toward the door.

"Better," Buzzabeez nodded. "Much better. All right, you just do as you're told from now on. And no more of this subversive individualism, do you hear? Because I'll be watching!" He waved a hand over himself and disappeared. For a moment, the kitchen was filled with the faint sound of distant buzzing; then that faded, too, and Frank went on out the door.

Roderick groaned and finished dabbing his face with little plasters. Then he turned to set the step stool against the doorframe again, and hobbled back up with his two boards and bucket.

"You forgot to refill it," Auntie Dil snapped. Roderick groaned again, and started back down.

Frank shuffled into the drawing room and set the tray on the little table between L'Age and Petty.

"That'll do," L'Age snapped. "You can go now." Grumbling, Frank went. ~"

Uncle Sucar leaned forward, smacking his lips.

"Patience, Uncle," L'Age said sternly, "you'll have your refreshment. But our young guest first."

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"But of course," Sucar breathed, "of course."

"What a beautiful service," Petty murmured. "Pewter, isn't it?"

"Why, thank you, my dear." L'Age added cream to Petty's cup. "Yes, it is pewter. Silver is so terribly flamboyant, really.... There." She handed Petty a fragile china cup and saucer. "Feel free to sip. You'll excuse me if I don't, though."

"She has to drink her tomato juice before it clots," Uncle Sucar explained.

"Oh, of course," Petty agreed, then frowned. "What?"

"Uh, Frank!" L'Age called quickly.

The butler shambled forward, grumbling again.

"My cigarette." L'Age flourished a 100 mm Russian at the end of an immense ebony holder.

Snarling, Frank fumbled out an archaic tinder box and struck flint against steel. The spark fell into a mound of lycopodium, and a gout of flame shot up, out-flaring magnesium. The light hit the silver salts in the tomato juice and developed a quick portrait—of a muscular form in an upstairs room, in a bed. Petty gazed on the face of Adonis, and gasped. "Um—if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just run upstairs to the power room." She set down her teacup and rose.

"Oh, but we've one down here," L'Age informed her.

"I'm sure the one upstairs is much nicer." Petty tripped away toward the wide, curving staircase beyond the drawing room archway.

"Quickly, Frank! Fetch!" L'Age cried.

Frank roared and whirled about, crashing heavy-footed after Petty. Very heavy-footed, and he had a doubtful look on his face. But Petty glanced back, gasped in horror, and fled.

L'Age, however, felt no compunction. She dashed past the slow-footed Frank and grabbed a lever just inside the hallway. As Petty hit the first step, L'Age hauled on the lever, and the first three stairs fell away as a hidden panel opened. Petty's scream faded away as she dropped into the cellar.

"Down!" L'Age commanded, glaring at Frank and pointing into the hole. Muttering protest, Frank sat down on the edge of the hole, one foot at a time.

"Faster, monstrosity! Faster!"

Frank grumbled something that sounded like, "Not right."

"Don't you dare preach to me!" L'Age screamed, and slammed a kick into his fundament. Frank bellowed as he dropped into the cellar.

He picked himself up just in time to see Petty pelting madly up the cellar stairs. Frank heaved 1) a sigh, and 2) himself (to his feet). He thudded over to the steps just as Petty reached the top. She pounded on the door, rattling the latch, screaming. Frank waited for her to take a breath, then rumbled, "Turn."

"What?" Petty looked down at her hand, saw it shaking the knob back and forth. "Oh! Yes! Thanks." She turned the knob and burst out into the foyer just as Frank pounded up to the halfway mark.

"Catch her, Frank! Catch her!" L'Age screamed, but Petty had rounded the turn and was vaulting over the hole in the staircase. "Can't anybody around here do something right?" L'Age howled, and yanked on another lever. With a rumble, the stairs started moving—downward, of course. Petty cried out in frustration and ran harder, but the escalator picked up speed, and she just barely managed to stay in place.

"Catch her, Frank! Catch her!" L'Age screamed. Frank plowed his way out of the cellar with a rumble of disgust and veered around the comer to the stairway. He leaped the open trapdoor—and hit the escalator. Even his huge, galumphing strides couldn't make headway, though admittedly, he wasn't trying very hard.

"Incompetents!" L'Age screamed. "All I get in this script are incompetents!" She glared up at the ornate brass-armed 272 Christopher Stasheff

chandelier that hung over the stairway, then tore open a black panel in the foyer wall. With a snarl, she threw a power key, then thrust her hands into two metallic gloves. Current began to hum through servomotors, and the brass arms of the chandelier curved downward into two huge hands. They swung down on their lengthening chain, groping toward Petty. Suddenly, they plunged and snatched. Petty leaped aside with a scream, and the giant hands closed on empty air. The shock gave Petty a boost, and she made it two more stairs. The giant hands groped after her. Out in the kitchen, the Scots terrier came bounding up to Roderick, yapping and growling. Roderick frowned down at it. "What's that? What did you say?... Logical incon-sistencies? What, for example?" The dog snarled and barked sharply.

"Yes..." Roderick nodded, lower lip thrusting out. "Now that you mention it, I had noticed that..."

, The dog yapped three times and growled.

"Frank couldn't expend all this energy without a recharge, that's true," Roderick agreed. "And it is rather odd that a couple of vampires wouldn't have drained Auntie Dil and myself when they commandeered our house..." Deviz yapped frantically, angrily.

'"Wake up?'" Roderick frowned, shaking his head. "What are you talking about? We are awake."

The terrier nearly went frantic.

"What do you mean, we're just dreaming?" Roderick shook his head again. "I don't understand."

"Nay, but / do!" Auntie Dil cried. She swept out the kitchen door with Deviz at her heels, yapping triumphantly. Auntie Dil sailed into the foyer, crying, "Frank! Frank!

Whoever thou truly art. Thou must waken! Dost'a hear me?

Then hearken! Frank, waken!"

"You meddling busybody! What do you think you're doing?" L'Age cried.

Frank only grunted and kept running.

"He's a very primitive android," Buzzabeez explained as

he appeared. "He can't take more than one order at a time. But you can! Now get back to the kitchen—that's your place!" He stabbed a finger at the swinging door.

"My place? Only for that I'm a woman? Nay! For I'll have thee know I'm a lady of power!" Auntie Dil drew back her hand, cupping invisible energy.

"Just my luck—an activist housekeeper," Buzzabeez snorted. "All right, go ahead. Try it!"

"Croak and hop!" Auntie Dil cried, throwing a whammy. Blue sparks coruscated around Buzzabeez. He stood against it, letting the sparks dissipate. Then he advanced on her, seeming to swell and grow taller, and infinitely more menacing.

"But... how? Wherefore?" Auntie Dil cried, as she backed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

"Why, because you're only..."

The swinging door swung.

"Yeowtch!" cried Buzzabeez, as it slammed into his face. He pushed through, rubbing his nose and glowering at Auntie Dil. "It's because you're only a witch, you old bat!"

"I resent that!" L'Age's voice cried on the other side of the door.

"Only a witch," Buzzabeez snarled again, "and I'm a devil. A full-fledged, high-powered, hundred-percent devil—

and much more evil than any mere witch..." He suddenly closed his eyes, pressing his hand to his forehead and swaying. "What am I saying? I can't be evil; I mustn't be! I mustn't give in to it... No, I must! If I don't enforce some disorder here, who will?" He lowered his hand, glaring at Gwen. "Where was I? ... Oh, yes." Buzzabeez grinned his most oily. "A devil's more evil than any witch—so I'm much more powerful. That's the hell of it." But Auntie Dil straightened, glaring in fury. "Nay! Evil's not the source of power—not of my sort of power, at all accounts! For I am no Auntie Diluvian, but Gwendylon Gallowglass, most powerful witch of Gramarye!" Roderick stiffened, staring. Then he squeezed his eyes 214 Christopher Stasheff

shut, and gave his head a quick shake.

"I am Gwen Gallowglass," the old fortune-teller cried,

"and I will not tolerate such deceptions and..."

"Be quiet, you fool!" Buzzabeez shrieked. "You'll ruin the whole selection!" And he stretched his hand backward to throw, as a fireball exploded into existence between his fingertips.

"Look out, Gwen!" the old hunchback cried, and he threw himself at her. His shoulder slammed into her a split second before the fireball hissed through the air where she'd been, and she tumbled head over heels into the dumbwaiter. \

Roderick hauled 1) himself to his feet, then 2) on the : dumbwaiter rope. The compartment lifted up out of sight. ;

"/'// take that rope!" Buzzabeez snarled, but the bell j chimed, and Roderick cried, "Second floor! Linens and |

bedroom furniture! All out!" |

"Out of the way!" Buzzabeez howled. "Let me at that |

dumbwaiter!"

Roderick slammed the panel shut and whirled around to face the devil, leaning back and folding his arms. "What dumbwaiter?"

"That dumbwaiter you're leaning against!" Roderick shook his head. "Never was such a thing. Just a figment of your imagination."

"What are you talking about?" Buzzabeez cried. "I saw it with my own eyes!"

"Yes, but can you really believe the evidence of your senses? That might have been a hallucination, you know."

"Ridiculous," the devil scoffed. "Claim that, and next you'll be saying the whole universe is maya, illusion."

"Well, isn't it?" Roderick demanded. "At least, if you're a good Hindu."

"But I'm not—I'm a good Catholic!" Buzzabeez went rigid, shocked at his own words. "What am I saying?"

"That you're a good Catholic," Roderick answered obligingly.

"Yes, yes! I'm a good Catholic.. .No! I mean, I'm a bad Catholic! No! I mean..."

"You mean, nothing exists," Roderick prompted.

"That's right! Nothing exists! None of you! You're all just figments of my imagination! This is all just a dream.

... NO! I can't be saying that!"

"See? Even your words don't exist!" Roderick jabbed a forefinger. "Come to that, even you don't exist!"

"What are you saying? Of course I exist!"

"Ah, but how do you know you exist?"

"Why, because I think! Cogito, ergo sum!" Buzzabeez clapped his hands over his mouth. "lyuch! Latin!"

"Bite your tongue!" Roderick reproved. "Wash your mouth out!"

"Yes! With brimstone! And hot coals! Even as the angel cleansed the lips of the prophet Isaiah with ... Oh, hell!

Hel-1-l-l-l-p!" And Buzzabeez fled screaming, and faded into thin air.

"Thick air, really." Roderick sniffed, and wrinkled his nose. "Phew! Now I know why religions use incense... Well! Back to work." And he limped merrily out into the foyer, where the escalator was still running, with Frank galumphing along after Petty, who was sprinting flat-out for all she was worth, and dodging the claws of the erstwhile chandelier, which still somehow hadn't managed to catch her.

Roderick limped over to the stairway, pulled open a panel underneath it, yanked off his wooden shoe, and shouted,

"Down with the bosses!" as he threw it into the gearbox. He slammed the door shut just as something inside cracked like a cannon shot, and the escalator jerked to a halt. Petty shot on up the stairway and catapulted into the room at the top. .,

Frank crashed down flat on his face.

Inside the bedroom, Petty slammed the door shut. There was a hasp with a broken safety pin hanging by a thread; 216 Christopher Stasheff THE WARLOCK WANDERING 217

she slapped it shut and jammed the pin through.

Outside, L'Age screamed, "After her, iceberg bait!" Frank scrambled to his feet and slogged on up the stairs, rumbling curses.

"Break down the door!" L'Age howled. "Get her out of there!"

Obediently, Frank hammered at the door with his fist. The safety pin held.

Petty whirled about and sagged back against the door, gasping for breath, chest heaving.

The light of the oil lamp glowed on Sucar's face. He knelt beside the cot, rubbing McChurch's hand and moaning, "Wake up, wake up! Oh, I know it's no use; I've been trying for years, but if I keep on, maybe someday you'll open your eyes. Wake up, McChurch! Surely your name will protect you. Though I admit, it didn't do you much good when I shoved you in front of me at that crazy little hunchback. Oh, I never dreamed he'd render you insensible!

I didn't mean it to happen, and I promise you, I've never tasted a drop. I never really wanted to be a vampire, anyway—but my mother would have her way! It's not really my natural role, you know; it's not my identity, it's not the real me! Not that I've anything against that kind of person, you understand—I just can't stand the sight of blood! At least, not the blood of people I like." He cocked his head.