"Now…" said Valentin '… downstairs."
As they moved to the door something in the street ignited, or so it seemed, for the interior suddenly brightened. The light was not kind to their burden. It revealed the crudity of the cosmetics applied to Swann's face, and the burgeoning putrescence beneath. Harry had an instant only to appreciate these felicities, and then the light brightened again, and he realised that it wasn't outside, but in.
He looked up at Valentin, and almost despaired. The luminescence was even less charitable to servant than to master; it seemed to strip the flesh from Valentin's face. Harry caught only a glimpse of what it revealed beneath events stole his attention an instant later – but he saw enough to know that had Valentin not been his accomplice in this venture he might well have run from him.
"Get him out of here!" Valentin yelled.
He let go of Swann's legs, leaving Harry to steer Swann single-handed. The corpse proved recalcitrant however. Harry had only made two cursing steps towards the exit when things took a turn for the cataclysmic. He heard Valentin unloose an oath, and looked up to see that the mirror had given up all pretence to reflection, and that something was moving up from its liquid depths, bringing the light with it.
"What is it?" Harry breathed.
"The Castrate," came the reply. "Will you go?"
There was no time to obey Valentin's panicked instruction however, before the hidden thing broke the plane of the mirror and invaded the room. Harry had been wrong. It did not carry the light with it as it came: it was the light. Or rather, some holocaust blazed in its bowels, the glare of which escaped through the creature's body by whatever route it could. It had once been human; a mountain of a man with the belly and the breasts of a neolithic Venus. But the fire in its body had twisted it out of true, breaking out through its palms and its navel, burning its mouth and nostrils into one ragged hole. It had, as its name implied, been unsexed; from that hole too, light spilled. By it, the decay of the flowers speeded into seconds. The blossoms withered and died. The room was filled in moments with the stench of rotting vegetable matter.
Harry heard Valentin call his name, once, and again. Only then did he remember the body in his arms. He dragged his eyes from the hovering Castrato, and carried Swann another yard. The door was at his back, and open. He dragged his burden out into the landing as the Castrato kicked over the casket. He heard the din, and then shouts from Valentin. There followed another terrible commotion, and the high-pitched voice of the Castrate, talking through that hole in its face.
"Die and be happy," it said, and a hail of furniture was flung against the wall with such force chairs embedded themselves in the plaster. Valentin had escaped the assault however, or so it seemed, for an instant later Harry heard the Castrato shriek. It was an appalling sound: pitiful and revolting. He would have stopped his ears, but he had his hands full.
He had almost reached the top of the stairs. Dragging Swann a few steps further he laid the body down. The Castrate's light was not dimmed, despite its complaints; it still flickered on the bedroom wall like a midsummer thunderstorm. For the third time tonight – once on 83rd Street, and again on the stairs of the Bernstein place – Harry hesitated. If he went back to help Valentin perhaps there would be worse sights to see than ever Wyckoff Street had offered. But there could be no retreat this time. Without Valentin he was lost. He raced back down the landing and flung open the door. The air was thick; the lamps rocking. In the middle of the room hung the Castrato, still defying gravity. It had hold of Valentin by his hair. Its other hand was poised, first and middle fingers spread like twin horns, about to stab out its captive's eyes.
Harry pulled his.38 from his pocket, aimed, and fired. He had always been a bad shot when given more than a moment to take aim, but in extremis, when instinct governed rational thought, he was not half bad. This was such an occasion. The bullet found the Castrate's neck, and opened another wound. More in surprise than pain perhaps, it let Valentin go. There was a leakage of light from the hole in its neck, and it put its hand to the place. Valentin was quickly on his feet.
"Again," he called to Harry. "Fire again!"
Harry obeyed the instruction. His second bullet pierced the creature's chest, his third its belly. This last wound seemed particularly traumatic; the distended flesh, ripe for bursting, broke – and the trickle of light that spilled from the wound rapidly became a flood as the abdomen split.
Again the Castrate howled, this time in panic, and lost all control of its flight. It reeled like a pricked balloon towards the ceiling, its fat hands desperately attempting to stem the mutiny in its substance. But it had reached critical mass; there was no making good the damage done. Lumps of its flesh began to break from it. Valentin, either too stunned or too fascinated, stood staring up at the disintegration while rains of cooked meat fell around him. Harry took hold of him and hauled him back towards the door.
The Castrate was finally earning its name, unloosing a desolate ear-piercing note. Harry didn't wait to watch its demise, but slammed the bedroom door as the voice reached an awesome pitch, and the windows smashed. Valentin was grinning.
"Do you know what we did?" he said.
"Never mind. Let's just get the fuck out of here."
The sight of Swann's corpse at the top of the stairs seemed to chasten Valentin. Harry instructed him to assist, and he did so as efficiently as his dazed condition allowed. Together they began to escort the illusionist down the stairs. As they reached the front door there was a final shriek from above, as the Castrate came apart at the seams. Then silence.
The commotion had not gone unnoticed. Revelers had appeared from the house opposite, a crowd of late-night pedestrians had assembled on the sidewalk.
"Some party," one of them said as the trio emerged. Harry had half expected the cab to have deserted them, but he had reckoned without the driver's curiosity. The man was out of his vehicle and staring up at the first floor window. "Does he need a hospital?" he asked as they bundled Swann into the back of the cab.
"No," Harry returned. "He's about as good as he's going to get."
"Will you drive?" said Valentin.
"Sure. Just tell me where to."
"Anywhere," came the weary reply. "Just get out of here."'
"Hold it a minute," the driver said, "I don't want any trouble."
"Then you'd better move," said Valentin. The driver met his passenger's gaze. Whatever he saw there, his next words were: "I'm driving," and they took off along East 6st like the proverbial bat out of hell.
"We did it, Harry," Valentin said when they'd been travelling for a few minutes. "We got him back." "And that thing? Tell me about it."
"The Castrato? What's to tell? Butterfield must have left it as a watchdog, until he could bring in a technician to decode Swann's defence mechanisms. We were lucky. It was in need of milking. That makes them unstable." "How do you know so much about all of this?"
"It's a long story," said Valentin. "And not for a cab ride."
"So what now? We can't drive round in circles all night."
Valentin looked across at the body that sat between them, prey to every whim of the cab's suspension and road menders' craft. Gently, he put Swann's hands on his lap.
"You're right of course," he said. "We have to make arrangements for the cremation, as swiftly as possible." The cab bounced across a pot-hole. Valentin's face tightened.
"Are you in pain?" Harry asked him.
"I've been in worse."
"We could go back to my apartment, and rest there."
Valentin shook his head. "Not very clever," he said, “it's the first place they'll look."
"My offices, then -”
"The second place."
"Well, Jesus, this cab's going to run out of gas eventually."
At this point the driver intervened.
"Say, did you people mention cremation?"
"Maybe," Valentin replied.
"Only my brother-in-law's got a funeral busines
s out in Queens."
"Is that so?" said Harry.
"Very reasonable rates. I can recommend him. No shit."
"Could you contact him now? Valentin said.
"It's two in the morning."
"We're in a hurry."
The driver reached up and adjusted his mirror; he was looking at Swann.
"You don't mind me asking, do you?" he said. "But is that a body you got back there?"
"It is," said Harry. "And he's getting impatient."
The driver made a whooping sound. "Shit!" he said. "I've had a woman drop twins in that seat; I've had whores do business; I even had an alligator back there one time. But this beats them all!" He pondered for a moment, then said: "You kill him, did you?"
"No," said Harry.
"Guess we'd be heading for the East River if you had, eh?"
"That's right. We just want a decent cremation. And quickly."
That's understandable."
"What's your name?" Harry asked him.
"Winston Jowitt. But everybody calls me Byron. I'm a poet, see? Leastways, I am at weekends." "Byron."
"See, any other driver would be freaked out, right? Finding two guys with a body in the back seat. But the way I see it, it's all material."
"For the poems."
"Right," said Byron. "The Muse is a fickle mistress. You have to take it where you find it, you know? Speaking of which, you gentlemen got any idea where you want to go?"
"Make it your offices," Valentin told Harry. "And he can call his brother-in-law."
"Good," said Harry. Then, to Byron: "Head west along 45th Street to 8th."
"You got it," said Byron, and the cab's speed doubled in the space of twenty yards. "Say," he said, “you fellows fancy a poem?"
"Now?" said Harry.
"I like to improvise," Byron replied. "Pick a subject. Any subject."
Valentin hugged his wounded arm close. Quietly, he said: "How about the end of the world?" "Good subject," the poet replied, “just give me a minute or two."
"So soon?" said Valentin.
They took a circuitous route to the offices, while Byron Jowitt tried a selection of rhymes for Apocalypse. The sleepwalkers were out on 45th Street, in search of one high or another; some sat in the doorways, one lay sprawled across the sidewalk. None of them gave the cab or its occupants more than the briefest perusal. Harry unlocked the front door and he and Byron carried Swann up to the third floor.
The office was home from home: cramped and chaotic. They put Swann in the swivel chair behind the furred coffee cups and the alimony demands heaped on the desk. He looked easily the healthiest of the quartet. Byron was sweating like a bull after the climb; Harry felt – and surely looked – as though he hadn't slept in sixty days; Valentin sat slumped in the clients' chair, so drained of vitality he might have been at death's door.
"You look terrible," Harry told him.
"No matter," he said. "It'll all be done soon."
Harry turned to Byron. "How about calling this brother-in-law of yours?"
While Byron set to doing so, Harry returned his attention to Valentin.
"I've got a first-aid box somewhere about," he said. "Shall I bandage up that arm?"
"Thank you, but no. Like you, I hate the sight of blood. Especially my own."
Byron was on the phone, chastising his brother-in- law for his ingratitude. "What's your beef? I got you a client! I know the time, for Christ's sake, but business is business…"
"Tell him we'll pay double his normal rate," Valentin said.
"You hear that, Mel? Twice your usual fee. So get over here, will you?" He gave the address to his brother-in- law, and put down the receiver. "He's coming over," he announced.
"Now?" said Harry.
"Now," Byron glanced at his watch. "My belly thinks my throat's cut. How about we eat? You got an all night place near here?"
"There's one a block down from here."
"You want food?" Byron asked Valentin.
"I don't think so," he said. He was looking worse by the moment.
"OK," Byron said to Harry, “just you and me then. You got ten I could borrow?"
Harry gave him a bill, the keys to the street door and an order for doughnuts and coffee, and Byron went on his way. Only when he'd gone did Harry wish he'd convinced the poet to stave off his hunger pangs a while. The office was distressingly quiet without him: Swann in residence behind the desk, Valentin succumbing to sleep in the other chair. The hush brought to mind another such silence, during that last, awesome night at the Lomax house when Mimi's demon-lover, wounded by Father Hesse, had slipped away into the walls for a while, and left them waiting and waiting, knowing it would come back but not certain of when or how. Six hours they'd sat – Mimi occasionally breaking the silence with laughter or gibberish – and the first Harry had known of its return was the smell of cooking excrement, and Mimi's cry of "Sodomite!" as Hesse surrendered to an act his faith had too long forbidden him. There had been no more silence then, not for a long space: only Hesse's cries, and Harry's pleas for forgetfulness. They had all gone unanswered.
It seemed he could hear the demon's voice now; its demands, its invitations. But no; it was only Valentin. The man was tossing his head back and forth in sleep, his face knotted up. Suddenly he started from his chair, one word on his lips: "Swann'
His eyes opened, and as they alighted on the illusionist's body, which was propped in the chair opposite, tears came uncontrollably, wracking him. "He's dead," he said, as though in his dream he had forgotten that bitter fact. "I failed him, D'Amour. That's why he's dead. Because of my negligence."
"You're doing your best for him now," Harry said, though he knew the words were poor compensation. "Nobody could ask for a better friend."
"I was never his friend," Valentin said, staring at the corpse with brimming eyes. "I always hoped he'd one day trust me entirely. But he never did."
"Why not?"
"He couldn't afford to trust anybody. Not in his situation." He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand. "Maybe," Harry said, “it's about time you told me what all this is about."
"If you want to hear."
"I want to hear."
"Very well," said Valentin. "Thirty-two years ago, Swann made a bargain with the Gulfs. He agreed to be an ambassador for them if they, in return, gave him magic."
"Magic'
"The ability to perform miracles. To transform matter. T o bewitch souls. Even to drive out God." "That's a miracle?"
"It's more difficult than you think," Valentin replied.
"So Swann was a genuine magician?"
"Indeed he was."
"Then why didn't he use his powers?"
"He did," Valentin replied. "He used them every night, at every performance."
Harry was baffled. "I don't follow."
"Nothing the Prince of Lies offers to humankind is of the least value," Valentin said, “or it wouldn't be offered. Swann didn't know that when he first made his Covenant. But he soon learned. Miracles are useless. Magic is a distraction from the real concerns. It's rhetoric. Melodrama."
"So what exactly are the real concerns?"
"You should know better than I," Valentin replied.
"Fellowship, maybe? Curiosity? Certainly it matters not in the least if water can be made into wine, or Lazarus to live another year."
Harry saw the wisdom of this, but not how it had brought the magician to Broadway. As it was, he didn't need to ask. Valentin had taken up the story afresh. His tears had cleared with the telling; some trace of animation had crept back into his features.
"It didn't take Swann long to realise he'd sold his soul for a mess of pottage," he explained. "And when he did he was inconsolable. At least he was for a while. Then he began to contrive a revenge."
"How?"
"By taking Hell's name in vain. By using the magic which it boasted of as a trivial entertainment, degrading the power of the Gulfs by passing off their wonder- working as mere illusio
n. It was, you see, an act of heroic perversity. Every time a trick of Swann's was explained away as sleight-of-hand, the Gulfs squirmed." "Why didn't they kill him?" Harry said.
"Oh, they tried. Many times. But he had allies. Agents in their camp who warned him of their plots against him. He escaped their retribution for years that way."
"Until now?"
"Until now," Valentin sighed. "He was careless, and so was I. Now he's dead, and the Gulfs are itching for him." "I see."
"But we were not entirely unprepared for this eventuality. He had made his apologies to Heaven; and I dare to hope he's been forgiven his trespasses. Pray that he has. There's more than his salvation at stake tonight." "Yours too?"
"All of us who loved him are tainted," Valentin replied, “but if we can destroy his physical remains before the Gulfs claim them we may yet avoid the consequences of his Covenant."
"Why did you wait so long? Why didn't you just cremate him die day he died?"
Their lawyers are not fools. The Covenant specifically proscribes a period of lying-in-state. If we had attempted to ignore that clause his soul would have been forfeited automatically."
"So when is this period up?"
"Three hours ago, at midnight," Valentin replied. "That's why they're so desperate, you see. And so dangerous."
Another poem came to Byron Jowitt as he ambled back up 8th. Avenue, working his way through a tuna salad sandwich. His Muse was not to be rushed. Poems could take as long as five minutes to be finalised; longer if they involved a double rhyme. He didn't hurry on his journey back to the offices therefore, but wandered in a dreamy sort of mood, turning the lines every which way to make them fit. That way he hoped to arrive back with another finished poem. Two in one night was damn good going. He had not perfected the final couplet however, by the time he reached the door. Operating on automatic pilot he fumbled in his pocket for the keys D'Amour had loaned him, and let himself in. He was about to close the door again when a woman stepped through the gap, smiling at him. She was a beauty, and Byron, being a poet, was a fool for beauty.