Image of the Beast

  This was his last chance to find out anything about them.

  He said, "Why the films? Why were they sent in to the police?"

  "The films are made for our private use, for our entertainment, Mister Childe. We send them to each other all over the world. Via private couriers, of course. The baron decided to break a precedent and to let the others in on some of them. Because we would enjoy the furor and the shaking up of the police. The shaking up--of all humans, in fact. The baron and his group were going to move out soon, anyway, so there was no chance of our being connected with the films.

  "The baron planned on mailing the films of earlier subjects, working backward chronologically, to the police. Most of the subjects had been listed as missing persons, you know, and the earliest had been dropped by the police because the cases were so old. You found their skins. And lost them.

  "You were lucky or smart. You used an unorthodox method of investigation and stumbled across the truth. The baron couldn't let you go then because you knew too much, so he decided you would become the latest subject. Now, the baron won't have to leave this area to get away from the smog..."

  "I saw the old woman, the baroness, trying to conjure up smog!" Childe said. "What..."

  "She was trying to get rid of it, you fool! This used to be a nice place to live in but you humans...!"

  Childe could feel the fury making the man inarticulate. However, when the voice returned, it was again cool and mocking.

  "I suggest you look in your bedroom. And remember to keep silent, Mister Childe. Otherwise..."

  The phone must have been moving down to the rest. But, before the click, he heard bells tolling and an organ playing the first bar of Gloomy Sunday. He could imagine the rest of the music and the Inner Sanctum rusty-hinge screeching.

  He stood for a while with the phone in his hand. Woolston Heepish? That call came from the house of Woolston Heepish?

  Nonsense! There must be another explanation. He did not even want to think about the implications, if...no, forget this.

  He put the phone down, and then remembered with a start what the man had advised. He slowly walked into the bedroom. The bedside lamp had been turned on during his absence.

  She was in bed, staring straight up. A sheet was draped over her to just below the naked breasts. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow.

  He came closer and murmured. "I didn't think they could harm you, Dolores."

  He pulled the sheet back, expecting to find the evidences of some horror committed upon her. She was unmarked. But her body tilted upward, the feet rising first, the stiff legs following, and then, as the body began to point straight upward, it rose toward the ceiling. The heavy hair, and the little red valve on the back of the neck, stopped it from floating up all the way.

  The makeup was very good. It had given her skin a solid fleshy appearance and kept him from seeing through it.

  Childe had to leave the room for a while and sit down.

  When he came back, he stuck a pin in her. She exploded with a bang as loud as a pistol's. He cut her up into strips with scissors and flushed her down the toilet, except for the head hair, which he put into the garbage.

  A century and a half of haunting, a brief fleshing, a few short and wild copulations, a few killings of ancient enemies, and here she was. Rather, there she went. One dark eye, long eyelashes, a thick black eyebrow whirled around and around and then were sucked down.

  At least, he had not found Sybil's skin in his bed.

  Where was she? He might never find out. He did not think those "people" knew. The "man" had sounded genuinely puzzled.

  It was not necessary to postulate those "people" to account for her disappearance. Human beings had enough monsters of their own.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 21

  It seemed that the rain would never stop.

  On the evening of the sixth day, in a city like the planet of Venus in a 1932 science-fiction story, Herald Childe followed Vivienne Mabcrough.

  A few minutes before, he had stopped behind a big black Rolls-Royce, waiting for a light change at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. The Rolls was equipped with rear window wipers, and these enabled Childe to see Vivienne Mabcrough. She was in the back seat with a man and turned her head just as the light changed to green.

  For several seconds, while horns blared behind him, he had an impulse to let her go. If he trailed her, he might find himself the object of attention from her and her kind. That was something no sane man and very few insane would wish.

  Despite this, he moved the 1972 Pontiac across the street after the Rolls, cutting off a Jaguar which had swung illegally to his left to pass him. The Jaguar's horn blared, and the driver mouthed curses behind his glass and plastic enclosure. A spray of water covered Childe's car, and then the wipers removed it. He could see the Rolls turn west on Little Santa Monica, going through a yellow light. He stopped for the red and, seeing no police car in any direction--though he could not see far because of the gray curtains of water--he went left on the red light. He saw the taillights of the Rolls turn right and followed. The Rolls was stopped before the Moonlark Restaurant, and Vivienne and her escort were getting out. They only had to take one step to be under the canopy and a doorman assisted them. The Rolls drove off then, and Childe decided to follow it. The driver was a uniformed chauffeur and possibly he would take the car back to Vivienne's residence. Of course, the car could be her partner's, but that did not matter. Childe wanted to know where he lived, too.

  Although he was no longer a private detective, Childe had kept his recording equipment in the car. He described the car and the license plate number into the microphone while he tracked it back across Santa Monica and then north of Sunset Boulevard. The car swung onto Lexington, and in two blocks drove onto the circular driveway before a huge Georgian mansion. The chauffeur got out and went down the walk along the side of the house to the rear. Childe drove half a block and then got out and walked back. The rain and the dusky light made it impossible for him to see any house addresses from the street. He had to go up the driveway, hoping that no one would look out. The house was lit within, but he could see no sign of life.

  He returned to the car, which he entered on the right side because he did not wish to wet his shoes and legs. The dirty gray-brown water had filled the street from curb to curb and was running over onto the strips of grass between street and sidewalk.

  In the car, he recorded the address. But instead of driving off, he sat a long time and considered what he should do next.

  They had not bothered him since that night in Baron Igescu's house, so why should he bother them?

  They were murderers, torturers, abductors. He knew this with the certainty of personal experience. Yet he could not prove what he knew. And if he told exactly what had happened, he would be committed to a mental institution. Moreover, he could not blame the authorities for putting him away.

  There were times when he could not believe his own vivid memories. Even the most piercing, of when he had flushed the complete skin of Dolores del Osorojo, eyes and all, down the toilet, was beginning to seem unbelievable.

  The mind accepted certain forms and categories, and his experiences in that enormous old house in northern Beverly Hills were outside the accepted. And so it had been natural that his mind should be trying to bury these forms and categories. Shove them down, choke them off in the dusty dusky cellar of the unconscious.

  He could just go home to his place in Topanga Canyon and forget all about this, or try to.

  He groaned. He was hooked and couldn't fight loose.

  If he had not seen Vivienne, he might have continued to ignore his desires to take up the trail once more. But the sight of her had gotten him as eager as an old bloodhound that whiffs fox on the wind from the hills.

  He drove away and did not stop until he pulled into a Santa Monica service station. There was a public phone booth here, which he used to call the Lo
s Angeles Police Department. His friend, Sergeant Furr, finally answered. Childe asked him to check out the license number of the Rolls. Furr said he would call him back within a few minutes. Three minutes later, the phone in the booth rang.

  "Hal? I got it for you. The Rolls belongs to a Mrs. Vivienne--V-I-V-I-E-N-N-E--Mabcrough. I don't know how you pronounce that last name. M-A-B-C-R-O-U-G-H. Mabcrow, Mabcruff?"

  "Mabcrow," Childe said.

  The address was that of the house where the Rolls was parked.

  Childe thanked Furr and hung up. Vivienne was confident that he would not bother her anymore. She had not changed her name. Evidently she believed that he had had such a scare thrown into him, he would under no circumstances come near her or her kind--whatever that was.

  He trudged through the rain and got into the car and drove slowly and carefully back to the house in which Vivienne Macbcrough lived. It was nightfall now, and the streets of Beverly Hills in the downtown district were little rivers, curb-to-curb and overflowing. Although this was a Thursday night, there were very few pedestrians out. The usual bumper-to-bumper traffic was missing. Not half a dozen cars were in sight within the distance of three blocks in any direction. Santa Monica Boulevard traffic was heavier, because it served as a main avenue for those on their way to Westwood or West Los Angeles or Santa Monica on one side of the street, and on their way to Los Angeles, or parts of Beverly Hills, on the other.

  The headlights looked like the eyes of diluvian monsters burning with a fever to get on the Ark. A car had stalled as it was halfway through making a left turn from Santa Monica onto Beverly Drive, and the monsters were blaring or hooting at it. Childe nudged his car through the intersection, taking two changes of light to do so because cars in the lanes at right angles insisted on coming through instead of waiting so that the intersection could be cleared.

  When he got through, he proceeded up Beverly Drive at about twenty miles an hour but slowed to fifteen after several blocks. The water was so high that he was afraid of drowning out his motor, and his brakes were getting wet. He kept applying a little pressure intermittently to the pedal in order to keep the brakes dry, but he did not think he was having much success. Four cars went by him, passing from behind or going the other way, and these traveled so fast they threw water all over his car. He wanted to stick his head out of the window and curse at them for their stupidity and general swinishness, but he did not care to be drenched by the next car.

  He parked half a block down from the Mabcrough residence. Hours passed. He was impatient at first, and then the habits of years of sitting and waiting while he was a private eye locked into his nervous system. He pissed a couple of times into a device much like airplane pilots use. He munched on some crackers and a stick of beef jerky and drank coffee from a canteen. Midnight came, and his patience was beginning to thin out against the grindstone of time.

  Then the chauffeur came out from behind the house, got into the Rolls, and drove off. Childe could see the dark figure, outlined by the lights from within the house. He wore a slicker and a shiny transparent covering over his cap. As the car went by, Childe hunkered down behind the wheel. He waited until it was a block away and then swung out to follow it without turning his lights on immediately. The rain had not ceased, and the streets were even deeper in water.

  The Rolls picked up Vivienne and her escort at the club and then went back towards the mansion. Childe had hoped it would; he did not feel like trailing her from one spot to another. The Rolls stopped before the big porch to let its passengers off, and they went into the house. The chauffeur drove the car away, presumably to the side entrance and into the garage behind the house.

  Childe had gotten out of the car by then and walked down along the side of the house. He saw the lights in the story above the garage come on. The chauffeur, he hoped, lived there.

  He went to the side door, which was surrounded by dense shrubbery and a wall behind him. The people next door could not see him, and anybody passing by on the street would not be likely to see him.

  The door opened after a few minutes of trying a number of keys. He shot his flashlight around, looking for evidences of a burglar alarm and could not find any. He went on slowly into the house, ready to run if a dog gave warning. There was no sound except for the chiming of a big grandfather clock on the second floor.

  A moment later, he was crouched outside the partly opened door of Vivienne's bedroom.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 22

  The room was very large. There was a single light on from the lamp on the floor. Its base was at least four feet high and was some red-shot quartz-like stone sculptured into two naked nymphs--or female satyrs--back to back. The shade looked like thin parchment or skin. Childe, seeing this, was chilled through as if a huge icicle had been shoved up his anus all the way to his hindbrain.

  There were paintings in red, blue, and purple on the lampshade, outlines of semihuman figures writhing in flames.

  The walls were covered with what looked like heavy quiltwork. This had three figures, repeated over and over. There was a satyr standing on a low stone on one hoof, the other slightly raised. His back was arched and his arms and head were raised while he blew a syrinx. A nymph was crouched before him sucking on his enormous purple penis. Behind her was a half-human, half-snake creature. Its lower part was that of a gargantuan python with white and purple markings, and the upper part was a woman's from the belly button up. She had full and well-shaped breasts with spearpoint scarlet nipples, a lovely three-cornered face and long silver hair. Her slender fingers were spreading the egg-shaped buttocks of the nymph, who was bent over, and a long forked tongue was issuing from the snake-woman's mouth and just about to enter the anus or the vagina of the nymph.

  Beyond the lamp was a tremendous twelve-postered bed with a crimson many-tasseled canopy. On it were Vivienne and the man, both naked.

  She was on her back and he was on top with her legs over his shoulders. He was just about to insert his cock.

  Childe watched. He expected either something strange coming from the man or something strange, but not unfamiliar, from the woman.

  "Put it in for me, baby," the man said. He was about thirty-five, dark and hairy and beginning to flesh out. And then the man screamed and soared backwards off the bed, propelled by his sudden movement and his push upwards with one arm and by a snapping movement of his body that could only have been induced by utmost terror.

  He went back and up, trying to stand up at the same time that he moved away from Vivienne. Her legs flew apart as if they were two white birds that had startled each other.

  The man fell off the bed and crashed onto the floor. By then, he had quit screaming, but he shook and moaned.

  Vivienne got onto her knees and crawled over to look over the edge of the bed at him. Something long and dark-headed between her legs slid back into the slit and disappeared.

  "What's the matter, Bill?" she said, looking down at him. "Did the cat get your cock?"

  He was sitting up by then, intently handling and eyeing his penis. He looked up at her with surprise.

  "My God! What happened? You ask what happened? I thought...I really did think...you got teeth in your cunt?"

  He stood up. The gray of his skin was beginning to redden out. He waved his prick at her.

  "Look at that! There are teeth marks there!"

  She took the limp organ, which looked like a giant but sick worm, and bent over to examine it.

  "How can you say those are teeth marks?" she said. "There are some tiny little indentations there, but nothing serious. There! Does that make Mommy's boy feel better?"

  She had kissed the big purple-red glands and then run her tongue along the shaft.

  He backed away, saying, "Keep your distance, woman!"

  "Are you out of your mind?" she said. She was sitting up on the edge of the bed with the magnificently full and conical breasts pointed at him, Her pubis was a large triangle of thick dark-red hair, almost the same
shade as the long thick rich auburn hair on her head. The legs were extraordinarily long and very white.

  Bill continued to keep his distance. He said, "I tell you; something bit me. You got teeth in your cunt!"

  She lay back down on the bed with her legs stretched out so that the tips of her toes touched the floor. She said, "Put your finger in, darling, and find out what a fool you are."

  He eyed the reddish fleece and the slit, somewhat opened by the posture.

  He said, "I like my finger, too!"

  Vivienne sat up suddenly, her beautiful face twisted. "You asshole! I thought you were a normal healthy man! I didn't know you were psychotic! Teeth in my cunt, indeed! Get to hell out of here before I call the psycho ward!"

  Bill looked as if he felt foolish. He said, "Honest to God, I don't know how to explain it! Maybe I am going nuts! Or maybe I just had a sudden strain, maybe that was the burning sensation I felt! No, by God, it felt like tiny teeth! Or a bunch of needles!"

  Vivienne got down off the bed and reached out a hand to Bill.

  "Come here, baby. Sit down on the bed. Here!" She patted the edge of the bed.

  Bill must have decided that he was making a fool of himself. Moreover, the sight of the superbly shaped Vivienne, with her outrageously beautiful face, overcame his fears. His penis began to swell, but it did not rise. He seated himself on the bed, and Vivienne walked around the side and got a pillow. Returning, she threw it on the floor and got down on her knees on it.

  "I've got teeth in my mouth, baby, but I know how to use them," she said. She picked up the semi-flaccid organ and ran her tongue out to flick the slit on the end of the glands. He jumped a little but settled back to look down at her while she took half of the cock into her mouth. She began to work her head back and forth, slowly, and the organ disappeared entirely, then emerged slick and shining red as far as the head.