Image of the Beast / Blown

  seemed to be paralyzed for a few seconds—and then he

  turned just in time to see the section swing back into

  place. Beyond, the beam from a large flashlight flicked

  into existence.

  A band, still sticky from playing with his penis, slipped

  into his and the white figure led him down a passageway

  and up a flight of steps. The dust was thick here; he

  sneezed resoundingly several times. Igescu would have

  no trouble following them because of their newly made

  footprints. They had to get out of the secret ways, for a

  while, anyway.

  Dolores, whose footprints were as clear as his, seemed

  to realize that they betrayed them. She stopped before

  a wall, unfastened several latches and slid back the

  section. They stepped into a room with gray-and-white

  marble walls, red marble ceiling, black-and-red marble

  floor, and furniture of white or black marble. The chan-

  delier was a mobile composed of thin curved pieces of

  colored marble with sockets for candles.

  Dolores led him across the room. She had dropped his

  hand and her right hand was pressed against her breast,

  which must hurt very much. Her face was expressionless,

  but the hot black eyes seemed to promise him revenge.

  If she had wanted it, she could have abandoned him in

  the passageway, he thought. Perhaps she wanted to take

  revenge personally.

  He caught a glimpse of them as they passed a tall mirror. They looked like two lovers who had been

  interrupted in bed and who were fleeing a jealous hus-

  band. She was naked, and his penis, still wet and tipped

  with a globule of spermatic fluid, was projecting from his

  fly. They looked comical enough; the purse added an

  incongruous, doubtful, touch.

  There was nothing comical about the pack behind

  them. He crowded on Dolores' heels and urged her to

  go faster. She said something and half-ran through the

  door and down a luxurious hall with thick carpeting.

  Near the end of the hall, by a curving stairway with

  marble steps and a carved mahogany handrail, she

  pushed open another door. There was a suite of four

  rooms done in opulent Edwardian style. The bedroom

  contained the entrance to the intramural passageway; a

  bookcase slid aside to reveal an iron gate of two sections

  secured by a combination lock. Dolores turned the dial

  swiftly as if she had much practice with it. The two sec-

  tions of gate were pushed aside. When they were on the

  other side, she pushed them together and spun the com-

  bination dial on this side. Apparently, this action acti-

  vated a mechanism, because the bookcase slid back

  into place. The light through the opening had shown

  him that they were not in a passageway but in a small

  room. Cool air moved past him. Dolores turned on a

  lamp. He saw several chairs, a bed, a TV set, a bar, a

  dresser with mirror, books, and cabinets. The cabinets

  held cans of food and delicacies; one cabinet was the

  door to a well-stocked refrigerator. A door off the room

  led to a bathroom and a closet full of clothes. Igescu

  could hide here for a long time if he wished.

  Dolores spoke in Spanish, slowly. He understood the

  simple sentence. "Here we are safe for a while."

  "About my biting you, Dolores," he said. "I had to.

  I must get out of here."

  She paid him no attention. She looked at her breast in

  the mirror and murmured something. Teethmarks and

  a red aureole ringed the nipple. She turned and shook

  her finger at him and then smiled, and he understood that

  she was gently reprimanding him for being overpassion-

  ate. He must not bite her again. After which warning,

  she took his hand and pulled him toward the bed.

  He lunged away, tearing loose from her grip, and said,

  "Nothing doing! Show me the way out of here! Vámanos!

  Pronto!"

  He began to inspect the walls. She spoke slowly be-

  hind him. Her words were clear and simple enough. If

  he would stay for a little, he would be shown the way

  out. But no more biting.

  "No more nothing," he said. He found the control, a

  piece of corner carving which could be moved on a pivot.

  The dresser moved out on one side. He went through

  while Dolores yelled at him from the room. She sounded

  so much like Sybil giving him hell, although he under-

  stood not a word, that he was able to ignore her. He car-

  ried a sharp-edged rapier, one of a set on the wall, in

  one hand and the flashlight in the other. The handle of

  the purse was over his left shoulder. The sword gave

  him confidence. He did not feel so helpless now. In fact,

  if he got a chance, he would leave the passageway and

  walk out the front door and if they got in his way, they

  would get the blade where it would do them the least

  good and him the most.

  The way out did not come easily, however. The pas-

  sageway ran into a stairway which led steeply upward

  into the shadows. He backtracked to look for one-way

  windows or entrances to rooms but could find no unlock-

  ing controls. He returned to the stairway, which he walked

  up with as little weight on his feet as possible. He stuck

  the sword through his belt and held the flashlight in his

  teeth while he braced his arms against the walls. If the

  stairway straightened out, it would not drop him down

  a chutey-chute.

  The stairs held, and he was on a narrow landing. The

  door was easily opened by a conventional knob. He

  stepped cautiously out into a curving-wailed room with

  a great window lit by the moon, a dim pale eye in the

  haze. Looking through the window, he saw the yard and

  trees and driveway at the front of the central portion.

  He was in the cupola on the left wing, just beside the

  original Spanish building. It contained three rooms, two

  of which were empty. The door to the third was part way

  open, and light streamed through it. He crouched by it

  and slowly extended his head, then had to withdraw it

  while he shook and spurted and clenched his teeth and

  clamped his lips to keep from groaning.

  18

  Afterward, he looked through the doorway again. The

  baron's great-grandmother was sitting on a high stool

  before a high table with a sloping top, such as old-time

  bookkeepers (Bob Cratchit) used when they wrote ac-

  counts (for Ebenezer Scrooge). He could not see what

  was on the table except that it was a large paper of some

  sort. Her jaws were moving, and now and then he could

  hear something but could not tell if the words were

  English or not. The only light was from a single

  lamp suspended from the ceiling directly overhead, ft

  dimly showed walls with large, thick, black painted sym-

  bols, none of which he recognized; a long table with

  racks of bottles containing fluids; a globe of Earth with

  all sorts of curlicues painted in thin lines over it, sitting

  at t
he end of the table; a large birdcage on a stand in

  one corner with a raven, its head stuck under a wing;

  and a robe hanging on a hook on the wall.

  After a few minutes of muttering, the baroness got

  down off the stool. Her bones snapped and creaked,

  and he did not think she would make it to the robe, she

  shuffled so slowly and shakily. But she got the robe down

  and put it on with some difficulty and then proceeded

  with one foot dragging after the other toward the long

  table. She stooped, groaning, and straightened up with

  more creakings and with an enormous book in her arms

  which she had taken off a shelf beneath the table.

  It did not seem likely that she could get far with this

  additional burden, but she made it, huffing and creaking

  and even lifted the book above her head to slide it over

  the front of the tilted-top table. The book slid down until

  stopped by a strip of wood fixed horizontally halfway up

  the top. Another strip at the lower edge of the top kept

  the paper from falling off. He could see that it was a

  map of the Los Angeles area, just like the maps service

  stations give to their customers.

  His view of it was blocked by the baroness, who

  climbed back upon the stool, swaying so that he once

  started to go after her to catch her. She did not fall, and

  he settled back, asking himself what he cared if she fell.

  But conditioning took over at the oddest moments, and

  he had been taught to be kind and respectful to old

  ladies.

  The back of the robe was white with a number of

  large black symbols, some of which duplicated those on

  the wall. The old woman lifted her arms to flap the wide

  sleeves as if she were an ancient bird about to make

  a final flight. She began chanting loudly in a foreign

  tongue which sounded like that used at times by others

  in the household. Her arms waved; a large gold ring on

  a finger glinted dully at times, seeming like an eye wink-

  ing at him.

  After a while she quit chanting and clambered down,

  off the stool again. She tottered to the table and mixed

  up several of the fluids in the bottles in a glass and drank

  the contents. She belched loudly; he jumped at its loud-

  ness and unexpectedness. She got back on the stool and

  began to turn the pages of the huge book and, apparently,

  read a few phrases from each page.

  Childe guessed that he was looking upon a genuine

  magical ritual, genuine in that the witch believed in her

  magic. What its object was, he did not know. But he felt

  chilled when he suddenly thought that perhaps she was

  trying to locate or influence him by means of this ritual.

  Not that he believed she could. It was just that he did

  not like the idea. At another time and under different

  circumstances, he would have laughed. Too much had

  happened tonight, however, for him to make light of

  anything in this house.

  Nor did he have any reason to crouch here in the

  doorway as if waiting to be born. He had to get out,

  and the only way was past the baroness. There was a

  door beyond the table; that door, as far as he knew, was

  the sole exit from the cupola, except for the way by

  which he had come. That door probably led to a hall-

  way which would lead to a stairway to the lower floors or

  to a window to the top of a porch.

  He doubted that he could get by her without being

  seen. He would have to knock her out or, if necessary,

  kill her. There was no reason why he should be gentle.

  She had to know what was going on here and probably

  had participated in her younger days or, for all he

  knew, still did.

  Sword in hand, he stood up and walked slowly to-

  ward her. Then he stopped. Above her, a very thin

  haze, greenish-gray, shapeless with some short curling

  tentacles, had appeared. It could be accounted for if she

  were smoking. She was not. And the haze grew thicker

  and spread out sideways and down but not upward.

  Childe tried to blink it away. The smoke flowed

  over her gray Psyche knot of hair and down her neck

  and over the shoulders of the robe. She was chanting

  even more loudly and turning the pages of the book

  more swiftly. She could not be looking up to read the

  book; her head was bent so far forward that she had

  to be staring at the map.

  Childe felt a little disoriented again. It was as if

  something were wrong with the world, however, not

  with him. Then he shook his head and decided to tiptoe

  by her if he could. She seemed so intent, she might

  not see him. If the smoke grew thicker, that is, if there

  indeed was smoke and he was not suffering another

  hallucination, he would be hidden from her.

  The smoke did expand and become denser. She was

  sitting in a ragged column of it. And she was suddenly

  coughing. Smoke blew out of the way of her breath

  and then coiled back in to fill the gap. He caught a

  whiff of a tendril and stepped back. It was acrid,

  burning, filled with the essence of a million automo-

  bile exhausts and smokestack products of chemical

  factories and refineries.

  By now, he was opposite her and could see that the

  cloud had spread downward and was beginning to cover

  the map.

  She looked up, as if she had suddenly detected his

  presence. She squalled and fell backward off the stool but

  whirled and landed on all fours and then was up and

  running toward the doorway through which he had just

  come. He was startled for a second at her swiftness and

  agility but recovered and went after her. She had

  slammed the door before he could stop her, and when

  he turned the knob and pulled on it, he found that the

  door was locked. To break it down was useless, since

  she would be long gone down the stairway and the

  passageway.

  No, there was Dolores. She might stop the old

  woman. Then, again, she might not. Her position in this

  situation was ambiguous. He suspected that she would do

  what was best for Dolores and that might not coincide

  with what would be good for him. It would be good sense

  to quit chasing after the baroness and try to get out

  before she could warn the others.

  The smog over the table was disappearing swiftly and

  was gone by the time he left the room. The door led di-

  rectly into an elevator cage which must have been made

  about 1890. He hated the idea of being trapped in it but

  he had no other way out. He pressed the DOWN button.

  Nothing happened except that a small light glowed above

  the button and a lever near it. He pushed down on the

  lever, and the elevator began to sink. He pressed more

  on the lever, and the rate of descent was a little faster.

  When he pushed the lever upward past the neutral posi-

  tion, the elevator stopped. He pressed the UP button and

  then pushed the lever upward, and the elevator began

/>   to ascend. Satisfied that he could operate it, he started

  it downward and stopped at the second story. If the alarm

  had been given, they would be waiting for him on the

  ground floor. They might also be waiting on every floor,

  but he had to take some chances.

  The door was just like the other doors, which was why

  he may not have known about the elevator. He turned

  the knob and pushed it and found himself near the door

  to Magda's bedroom. At the same time, increasingly

  loud voices and rapid footsteps came up the stairway.

  He didn't have time to run down the hall and try other

  doors. He slipped into the room again. Glam's body

  was still in the marble enclosure, the boots sticking over

  it. The wall-section was open. He considered for a mo-

  ment hiding under the many pillows and cushions in-

  side the enclosure but decided that he would be found

  if they moved Glam's body. There was nothing to do ex-

  cept enter again the passage behind the wall.

  He hid behind the inner wall and waited. The first one

  to step through was going to get a sword in his guts. The

  sword trembled in his grip, partly from weariness and

  partly from nervousness. He had had no experience in

  swordplay, no fencing lessons, no conditioned reflexes

  built up, and so he suddenly realized that he was not as

  dangerous as he would have liked to be. To handle a

  sword expertly, a man had to know where to thrust and

  where not to thrust. An ill-placed stab could hit a bone

  and glance off and leave the intended victim only lightly

  wounded and able to run off or attack, if he were tough

  and experienced. Even a hard musculature could turn

  an inept thrust.

  He swore. He had been so intent on what he was go-

  ing to do with the sword that he had not noticed that his

  penis was working up to, another orgasm. Stormed, he

  dropped the sword with a clatter but did not care about

  the noise for a few seconds. He jetted, the chlorox

  odor rising strong in the dusty hot passageway. Then he

  picked up the sword and waited, but he was even more

  uneasy. Those people out there might have nostrils more

  sensitive than human beings—he admitted by now that