Thief of Always (13 page)

      Harvey instantly put a scowl in its place. "I don't want to stay here," he said. "I just want to get what's mine and leave."

      Hood sighed. "So sad," he said. "So very sad. But if you will have what's yours, have death. Carnal" The beast raised its pitiful head.

      "Devour the boy!"

      Before the wretched beast could shift itself Harvey scrambled to his feet. In the race to the trapdoor he knew he had little chance of outrunning Carna; but was there perhaps another way of laying the beast low? If he was a Thief of Always, as Hood had said, perhaps it was time to prove it. Not with dust, nor with stolen conjurings, but with the power in his own bones.

      Carna took a threatening step toward him, but instead of retreating Harvey extended his hand in the creature's direction, as if to pat its decaying head. It hesitated, its expression mellowing into doubt.

      "Devour him..." the Vampire King growled.

      The beast lowered its head, in expectation of punishment from above. But it was Harvey who laid his hand upon it; a gentle touch that sent a shudder through its body. It raised its snout to press itself against Harvey's palm, and as it did so, let out a long, low moan.

      There was neither pain in the sound nor complaint. In fact it was almost a moan of gratitude, that for once it not be met with blows or with howls of horror. It turned its eyes up to Harvey's face, and a shudder of pleasure passed through its body. It seemed to know that the motion would prove fatal, because the instant after, it retreated from its comforter and as it did so its shudders multiplied, and its body suddenly flew into a thousand pieces.

      Its teeth, which had seemed so fearsome moments before, rolled away into the darkness; its massive skull shattered; its spine collapsed. In a matter of seconds it was no more than a heap of bone shards, so dry and so aged even the most desperate dog would have passed them by.

      Harvey glanced up at the face in the roof. Hood's expression was one of utter perplexity. His mouth was agape, his eyes staring from their pits.

      Harvey didn't wait for him to break his silence. He simply turned his back on Carna's remains and hurried toward the trapdoor, half expecting the creature in the roof to slam it shut. There was no response from Hood, however, until Harvey was lowering himself down onto the chair on the landing. Only then, as Harvey took one last look up at the attic, did Hood speak.

      "Oh my little thief..." he murmured. "What shall me do with you now?"

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      XXI

Tricks and Temptations

      You've done well," said the smiling face awaiting him at the top of the stairs.

      "I wondered where you'd gone to," Harvey said to Rictus.

      "Always ready to serve," came the unctuous reply.

      "Really?" said Harvey, stepping down off the chair and approaching the creature.

      "Of course," said Rictus. "Always."

      Now that he was closer to the man, Harvey saw the cracks in his veneer. He was plastering on a smile, and smothering his words in butter and honey, but it was the sour smell of fear that oozed from his sickly skin.

      "You're afraid of me, aren't you?" Harvey said.

      "No, no," Rictus insisted, "I'm respectful, that's all. Mr. Hood thinks you're a bright boy. He's instructed me to offer whatever you want to make you stay." He spread his arms. "The sky's the limit."

      "You know what I want."

      "Anything but the years, thief. You can't have those. You won't even need them if you stay and become Mr. Hood's apprentice. You'll live forever, just like him." He dabbed at the sweat beads on his upper lip with a yellowed handkerchief. "Think about it," he said. "You might be able to kill the likes of Carna...or me...but you'll never hurt Hood. He's too old; too wise; too dead."

      "If I stayed..." Harvey said.

      Rictus's grin spread. "Yes?" he purred.

      "Would the children in the lake go free?"

      "Why bother about them?"

      "Because one of them was my friend," Harvey reminded him.

      "You're thinking of little Lulu, aren't you?" Rictus said. "Well, let me tell you, she's very happy down there. They all are."

      "No they're not!" Harvey raged. "The lake's foul and you know it." He took a step toward Rictus, who retreated as if in fear of his life, which perhaps he was. "How would you like it?" Harvey said, stabbing his finger in Rictus's direction. "Living in the cold and the dark?"

      "You're right," said Rictus, raising his hands in surrender. "Whatever you say."

      "I say set them free now!" Harvey replied. "And if you won't, then I will!"

      He pushed Rictus aside and started down the stairs two at a time. He didn't have a clue what he was going to do when he got down to the lake, fish were fish, after all, even if they'd once been children; if he tried to take them out of the lake they'd surely drown in the air-but he was determined to somehow save them from Hood.

      Rictus came after him down the flight, chattering like a clockwork salesman.

      "What do you want?" he said. "Just imagine it and it's yours! How about your own motorcycle?" As he spoke something gleamed on the landing below, and the sleekest motorcycle human eyes had ever seen rolled into view. "It's yours, m'boy!" Rictus said.

      "No thanks," Harvey said.

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      "I don't blame you!" Rictus said, kicking the motorcycle over as he sailed past it. "How about books? Do you like books?"

      Before Harvey could reply the wall in front of him lifted like a great brick curtain, revealing shelf upon shelf of leather-bound volumes.

      "The masterpieces of the world!" Rictus said. "From Aristotle to Zola! No?"

      "No!" said Harvey, hurrying on.

      "There's got to be something you want," Rictus said.

      They were heading toward the final flight of stairs now, and Rictus knew he didn't have very long before his prey was out in the open air.

      "You like dogs?" Rictus said, as a litter of yapping pups scampered up the stairs. "Pick one! Hell, have 'em all!"

      Harvey was tempted, but he stepped over them and on.

      "Something more exotic, maybe?" Rictus said, as a flock of brilliantly feathered parrots descended from the ceiling. Harvey waved them away.

      "Too noisy, huh?" said Rictus. "You want something quiet and powerful. Tigers! That's what you want! Tigers!"

      No sooner said than they padded into view in the hallway below; two white tigers, with eyes like polished gold.

      "Nowhere to keep 'em!" Harvey said.

      "That's practical!" Rictus conceded. "I like a practical kid."

      As the tigers bounded off, the telephone on the table beside the kitchen door began to ring. Rictus was down the flight in two springs, and at the table in another two.

      "Listen to this!" he said. "It's the President. He wants to give you a medal!"

      "No he doesn't," Harvey said, tiring of this rigamarole now. He was at the bottom of the stairs and crossing to the front door.

      "You're right," said Rictus, ear to the phone again. "He wants to give you an oil field, in Alaska!" Harvey kept walking. "No, no, I got that wrong! He wants to give you Alaska!"

      "Too cold."

      "He says: How about Florida?"

      "Too hot."

      "Boy! You're a difficult guy to please, Harvey Swick!"

      Harvey ignored him, and turned the handle of the front door. Rictus slammed down the phone and raced toward him.

      "Wait up!" he hollered, "wait up! I'm not done yet."

      "You've got nothing I want," Harvey said, hauling open the front door. "They're all fakes."

      "What if they are?" said Rictus, suddenly hushed. "So's the sun out there. You can still enjoy it. And let me tell you, it takes a lot of magic to conjure up all these shams and hoaxes. Mr. Hood's really sweating to find you something you like."

      Ignoring him, Harvey stepped out onto the porch. Mrs. Griffin was standing on the lawn, with Stew-Cat in her arms, squinting up at the House. She smiled when she saw Harvey emerge.

      "I heard such noises," she said. "What's been going on in there?"

      "I'll tell you later," said Harvey. "Where's Wendell?"

      "He wandered off," she said.

      Harvey cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled: "Wendell! Wendell!"

      His voice came back to him from the face of the House. But there was no reply from Wendell.

      "It's a warm afternoon," said Rictus, idling on the porch. "Maybe he went...swimming."

      "Oh no," Harvey murmured. "No. Not Wendell. Please, not Wendell..."

      Rictus shrugged. "He was a goofy little kid, anyhow," he said. "He'll probably look better as a fish!"

      "No!" Harvey yelled up at the House. "This isn't fair! You can't do this! You can't!"

      Tears started to cloud his eyes. He wiped them away with his fists. They were both useless, fists and tears. He couldn't soften Hood's heart with weeping, and he couldn't bring down the House with blows. He had no weapon against the enemy but his wits, and his wits were about at an end.

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      XXII

Appetite

      Oh, to be a vampire again, Harvey thought. To have claws and fangs and a hunger for blood upon him, like the hunger he'd had that distant Halloween; the hunger he'd turned from in disgust. He wouldn't turn from it now. Oh no. He'd let it swell the beast in him, so he could fly in Hood's face with his hatred razor-sharp.

      But he wasn't a beast, he was a boy. It was the Vampire King who had the power, not him.

      And then, as he stared up at the House, he remembered something that Rictus had told him at the door: "It takes a lot of magic to conjure up these shams and hoaxes," he'd said. "Mr. Hood's really sweating to find you something you like"

      Maybe I don't need fangs to suck him dry, Harvey thought; maybe all I need is wishes.

      "I want to talk to Hood," he told Rictus.

      "Why?"

      "Well...maybe there are some things I'd like. Only I want to tell him about them personally."

      "He's listening," Rictus said, glancing back toward the House.

      Harvey scanned the windows, and the eaves, and the porch, but there was no sign of any presence. "I don't see him," he said.

      "Yes you do," Rictus replied.

      "Is he in the House?" Harvey asked, staring through the open door.

      "Haven't you guessed yet?" Rictus replied. "He is the House."

      As he spoke a cloud moved over the sun. The roof and walls darkened, and the entire House seemed to swell like a monstrous fungus. It was alive! From the eaves to the foundations, alive!

      "Go on!" Rictus said. "Speak to him. He's listening."

      Harvey took a step toward the House. "Can you hear me?" he said.

      The front door swung a little wider, and a sighing breath from the top of the stairs blew a cloud of Jive's dust out onto the porch.

      "He can hear you," said Rictus.

      "If I stay-" Harvey began.

      "Yesss...?" said the House, making the word from creaks and rattles.

      "-you'll give me anything I want?"

      "For a bright boy like you..." came the reply, "...anything."

      "You promise? On your magic?"

      "I promise. I promise. Just say the word..."

      "Well, for a start-"

      "Yesss?"

      "I lost my ark."

      "Then you must have another, my lodestar," the Hood-House said. "Bigger. Better." And a board of the porch folded back as an ark three times the size of the first one rose into view.

      "I don't want lead animals," Harvey said as he walked toward the steps.

      "What then?" said Hood. "Silver? Gold?"

      "Flesh and blood," Harvey replied. "Perfect little animals."

      "I like a challenge, "Hood said, and as he spoke a tinny din of bellows and roars rose from the ark, and the little windows were flung open and the doors flung wide and half a hundred animals appeared, all perfect miniatures: elephants, giraffes, hyenas, aardvarks, doves.

      "Satisfied?" said Hood.

      Harvey shrugged. "It's okay, I suppose," he said.

      "Okay?" said Hood. "It's a little miracle."

      "So make me another."

      "Another ark?"

      "Another miracle!"

      "What would you like?"

      Harvey turned his back on the Hood-House and surveyed the lawn. The sight of Mrs. Griffin, watching with puzzlement, inspired the next request. "I want flowers," he said. "Everywhere! And I don't want two alike."

      "What for?" asked the Hood-House.

      "You said I could have whatever I wanted," Harvey replied. "You didn't say I had to give you reasons. If I have to do that all the fun goes out of it."

      "Oh, I wouldn't want that," the Hood-House said. "You must have fun, at all costs."

      "So give me the flowers," Harvey insisted.

      The lawn began to tremble as though a minor earthquake were underway, and the next moment countless shoots pressed up between the blades of grass. Mrs. Griffin began to laugh with delight.

      "Look at them!" she said. "Just look!"

      It was quite a show; tens of thousands of flowers bursting into blossom at the same time. Harvey could have named a few of them if he'd been quizzed: tulips, daffodils, roses. But most of them were new to him: species that only bloomed at night on the High Himalayas, or on the windswept plateaus of Tierra del Fuego; flowers with blooms as big as his head, or as small as his thumbnail; blooms that stank like bad meat, or smelled like a breeze from Heaven itself.

      Even though he knew it was all an illusion, he was impressed, and said so.

      "Looks good," he told the Hood-House.

      "Satisfied?" it wanted to know.