"Because you think of being absorbed." Stroganoff laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's a fear we all have, from time to time. But in this case, it's foolish. The laws that guard dreamhouse patients are very strict, Mirane, and they're very tightly enforced."
"I'm sorry you got caught up in this," Whitey said, his face hard. "But if PEST actually does try anything against us, they're likely to catch you in the overflow."
"You're worrying about nothing, really!" Chornoi smiled brightly. "And it'll be fun. If only half the things I've heard are true, it'll be more fun than you've ever had."
Mirane still looked doubtful, but she clutched her computer-pad tightly and followed them in.
The thinclad attendant just inside the front door smiled brightly, ran a practiced eye over them, added in the fact that they'd come in a batch, and asked, "Single dream, or group?"
Yorick frowned. "What's a group dream?"
"You'd all be tied into the same computer," the hostess explained, "and you'd share the same dream. Only two of you would be the protagonists, of course, but you'd all be characters in it."
Whitey gave his companions a jaundiced glance. "How does the computer decide who's going to be the hero, and who's going to be the heroine? Chance?"
"No, it matches character to personality type. And it's less expensive, on a per person basis."
"Less expensive?" Mirane pounced. "How does the billing work?"
"For individual dreams, you'd each be charged 937 kwahers," the hostess explained. She ignored Rod's gulp and went on, "that's about 7500 kwahers for all of you. But a group dream only costs 3000 for any number of persons up to thirteen."
"There're eight of us," Mirane muttered to Stroganoff. "The group dream might even leave our fugitives enough cash for passage to Terra."
"Don't worry about us," Rod hissed.
"Thank you, Don Quixote," Whitey snorted. "Don't forget, the faster you're off Otranto, the safer we are."
"Why do they say that, everywhere I go?" Rod sighed.
"Speculation later." Whitey nodded to the hostess. "We'll take the group dream, Miz."
She took their money, then took them to a wide, low-ceilinged room with ten couches upholstered in varying degrees of opulence, and invited them to lie down. They did, casting wary glances at the headboards full of electronic gear.
"Hold very still," the hostess cooed. "This won't hurt a bit."
They were each ramrod stiff as she fitted skull caps over their heads. "Nothing penetrates the skull," she assured them. "The electrodes just fit against your scalps and induce the dream through the bone."
That wasn't exactly reassuring, but they submitted with good grace, and all took their medicine like good boys and girls. It was thick and syrupy, and tasted like pomegranates. "Now just relax," the hostess soothed, but the drug flowed through their veins so fast that they were very relaxed indeed, before she finished the sentence. Delicious languor enveloped them, and they drifted off into a sleep that was so welcome, it was positively sybaritic.
The young woman glanced about to make sure no one was watching, then quickly stepped into the shadow of a huge old tree and fumbled with something behind her back. "There! Darn bosom-binder keeps coming unfastened!" She stepped back out, with her mammary measurements drastically dwindled. "Golly whillikers, Deviz, it's really unfair to have to put up with so much out in front, when some lucky girls scarcely have any!"
Her Scots terrier looked up at her and yapped in agreement.
The young woman glanced about nervously. "Golly whillikers, Deviz, maybe we shoulda stayed on the street where we live! I don't think I like this gloomy old neighborhood!" She swallowed heavily. "Maybe I wouldn't be so scared if I weren't still a virgin. But all those spooky old houses set back so far from the sidewalk… And all those bony old trees, with the brown and sere leaves dropping off and drifting to the ground like the ghosts of sorrows worn out with grieving." She frowned, jogging the side of her head with the heel of her hand. "What's the matter with me? I don't speak like that!"
There was a sudden flurry of yaps, and her head snapped up, just in time to see Deviz go bounding away after a dim and spectral squirrel. "Deviz!" she yelped, and leaped to follow him, the skirts of her jumper billowing in the breeze. "No, Deviz! Not in there!"
But the dog dashed right after the bounding rodent as it leaped through the rusty grillwork of the ancient fence and sprinted up the rotting flagstones of the curving path, all the way up the hill to the gaunt old house that brooded over the scene.
"No, Deviz!" The girl struggled with the rusty gate, then climbed over the fence. Her skirt caught on one of the iron points, but she yanked it loose and leaped down to follow her dog.
She almost caught up with him on the porch, but the door suddenly opened, and the squirrel shot through with Deviz hot on its heels. The girl bolted after them, but skidded to a halt as she saw the lady who stood in the doorway.
"Good afternoon, my dear." She was tall, slender, and pale, with just a touch too much rouge, and glossy black hair that swept down to her shoulders in a straight fall, turned up just a little on the ends. The girl stared, then squeezed her eyes shut, opened them, and looked again. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the woman's eyeteeth were much longer than usual. And very sharply pointed.
"Do come in," the lady purred, stepping back from the doorway.
Dread rose up in the young girl, but her beloved dog was in that house, so she hadn't much choice. With reluctance weighing down her dainty feet, she stepped across the threshold.
Her hostess closed the door with unseemly speed. "My name is L'Age D'or. What is yours?"
"Petty," the girl stammered, "Petty Pure." She stared around her. "Golly! You've got an awful lot of real old things… YIKE! One of them moved!"
"Why, yes, that's my uncle." L'Age took the arm of the old gnarled man with the yellowed straggling hair and the shiny black suit. "Petty Pure, allow me to introduce Sucar Blutstein."
The old man stared at Petty, his eyes wide and round, his mouth stretched wide in a grin. A drop of moisture dripped from one pointed fang. Petty shuddered.
"Ah, I see you've noticed his dentition." L'Age smiled, revealing her own fangs. "It runs in the family."
"Puh… pleased to meet you, I'm sure," Petty stammered.
"And I," Sucar Blutstein chuckled, "and I."
"Keep a lid on it, you old fool," L'Age muttered to him, "or you'll scare her off." Aloud, she said to Petty, "Won't you sit down and make yourself comfortable? I'll ring for tea." She stepped over to the corner to pull on a bell-rope. A moment later, the butler shambled in, and Petty gasped in horror. He was a giant, seven feet at least, and all his clothes were way too small for him. His feet were too large, and his face was seamed with scars and was squarish, with a ragged hairline. His eyelids drooped, and an electrical contact protruded from each side of his neck. He hooted sullenly.
"Tea," L'Age snapped, then beamed at Petty. "Cream or lemon, my dear?"
"Uh… cream, if you please. And sugar." Petty scrunched back against the high back of her wing-chair in terror.
"And, um, tomato juice for me," L'Age finished. "And some teacakes, of course. Yes, that will be all, Frank."
The butler growled and shambled from the room.
Petty slowly uncurled. "What… what is he?"
"Oh, just some tinkering I did in an idle moment." L'Age waved the issue away. "Now, my dear, tell me about yourself. Have you any family?"
The butler shambled into the kitchen, grunting. Auntie Diluvian, a fat, sweaty old woman in a floor-length gaudy dress, looked up from the pot she was stirring. "She wants what?… Tea? Whatever for?… Company? A virgin? Oh, yes, I'm sure they welcomed her with open arms—first real food they've seen in years. Been living on that son of hers, she has—and what he's been living on, I hate to think… Roderick!"
Uncle Roderick, an aging hunchback, looked up from the tomatoes he was squeezing. "Eh?"
"Run upstairs and drain me two
ounces," Auntie Dil called.
"But he already gave today," Uncle Roderick protested.
"It's a special occasion," Auntie Dil snapped. "He'll just have to pump up some more."
"Bleed him white, that's what she'll do," Roderick grumbled, but he picked up a small beaker and trudged up the back stairs.
On the first floor landing, he limped past the sumptuous mistress bedroom and turned into the adjoining chamber. It was spare and Spartan—only a bare wooden floor, blank beige walls, and, in a corner, an old, forgotten, dried-up Christmas tree, its balls cracked and broken, its tinsel sadly tarnished.
In the center of the room stood a dusty old canopied bed, and on it lay a bronzed body, eyelids closed, chest rising and falling gently.
"The poor lad," Uncle Roderick sighed as he hobbled over and sat in the straight chair beside the bed. "The poor lad." He took the young man's unresisting hand, propped it over the edge of the bed, held the beaker under the wrist, and turned the little spigot set into the vein. Dark ruby fluid welled out and into the beaker. When it had risen to the "2 oz." line etched in the glass, Uncle Roderick turned off the little faucet, wiped it with a hanky, and laid the hand gently back on the bed. "There, there," he soothed, even though he knew McChurch couldn't hear him. "There, there."
He stood up with a creak of old bones and a sigh, and turned away to leave, but stopped in the doorway to look back at the incredibly handsome young man, his muscular shoulders and chest bulging up from under the sheets, his eyes closed. Uncle Roderick sighed and shook his head, and shut the door behind him.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Sucar Blutstein fairly pounced on him, eyes glittering. "Did you get it? Do you have it?"
"Oh, yes, Master Blutstein," Roderick sighed.
"Oh, bliss! Oh, rapture!" Sucar Blutstein poised clawed fingers, drooling only a little. "Let me see it! Let me taste…" He broke off as Roderick held up the beaker, showing the two inches of dark red fluid. Blutstein stared at it, lips writhing back in terror. "Aieeeee!" He squeezed his eyes shut, raising his hands to block out the sight. "Take it away! Take it away!" He staggered off toward the drawing room, shuddering.
"Ah, the poor man," Roderick sighed. "How horrible to be a vampire, but feel your stomach turn at the sight of blood." Shaking his head, he limped on into the kitchen.
"Did you get it?" called Auntie Dil.
"Of course I got it," Roderick grumbled as he hobbled over to his wife. "What was he to do—leap up and fight me off? When he's been in a coma these two years now? The poor lad!"
"Poor lad, my great toenail!" Auntie cried. "Who gave him the blow that first laid him cold, eh? Yourself!"
"Well, yes—but who'd have thought he'd never waken? Besides, what would you have had me do, when his mother and his uncle were stepping in through our front door without so much as a by-your-leave, to tell us this was their house now, and we'd have to serve them forevermore, or serve as entrees?"
"So, of course, you smashed your club into the only one who wasn't threatening us!"
"But he was the only one who looked strong enough to do any damage," Roderick protested. He pulled the step-stool over to the doorway and climbed up with two boards and a string.
"And what are you doing now, you old fool? You know your traps never work!"
"Well, we must keep trying, mustn't we?" Roderick glared pointedly at her steaming cauldron. "Or do you intend to give over stirring up witch's brews?"
Auntie stepped in front of the cauldron as though to defend it. "What else should I do? I'm a witch, aren't I?"
"No. You're a fortune-teller." Roderick used the one board to prop up the other. "Only an old Gypsy fortuneteller. Which might be why none of your brews ever work. But if you don't deride my traps, I'll say nothing of your potions. What's the secret ingredient this time?"
"Silver salts," Auntie Dil snapped. "What's in the bucket?"
"Water." Roderick climbed back up the step stool and hefted a pail up onto his impromptu shelf. "Only water."
"What good will that do?"
"Probably none, but I've tried everything else." Roderick tied the string to the bucket handle and led it over to a thumbtack in the door-corner. "Besides, I read a story when I was a boy…"
"That was a witch, you idiot, not a vampire!"
"Oh, that's why the salts! But doesn't it have to be pure silver?"
"Look out!" Auntie Dil cried, but the door crashed open, and Roderick went flying. So did the bucket, but it only flipped over once and clanged down over the head of the monster coming through. He froze for a second in stunned astonishment, then tore the bucket off with a roar.
"Now, now, nephew." Auntie Dil slipped between the giant and Roderick. "I know it's nasty to be drenched like that, Frank, but it was just an accident. He meant it for that old biddy and her uncle."
The monster grumbled and growled, rubbing the contacts in his neck.
"Yes, I know it could have short-circuited you, and I'm sure he's sorry." Auntie Dil turned to glare over her shoulder. "Aren't you, Roderick?"
"Oh, indubitably," Roderick moaned, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing his back.
The monster glowered at him, grumbling something deep in its throat. Then it turned back to Auntie Dil and grunted a question.
"The tomato juice? Yes, it's ready." Auntie Dil poured the contents of the beaker into a small glass and set it on a tray with the tea service. She took down a shaker and started to sprinkle something into the glass, but Frank caught her hand and shook his head, rumbling negatives.
"Oh, all right, I'll leave out the arsenic," Auntie Dil grumbled. "But we do need some lemon slices. Be a dear and fetch them from the icebox, won't you, Frank?"
The monster turned away, and Auntie Dil whirled to snatch up a pharmacist's toottte. "Nowl JusV a pinch of the.
her brow. "Nay! Wherefore do I such deeds? 'Tis naught that I would ever consider…"
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Roderick squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. "I get the feeling that I'm not really Roderick. Some name like that, maybe, but…"
"Oh, we all get these feelings from time to time," said a smooth, urbane voice. "Nothing to worry about, really— just a trick our neurons are playing on us, like dejti vu."
"Oh, no!" Roderick recoiled in horror. "It's Old Nick!"
"Not old at all." The suave, debonair devil stroked his goatee. "And not Old Nick, just Old Nick's son. But you can call me 'Buzzabeez.'"
"Well, that's just fine for you," Roderick said, with a truculent frown, "but what do I call myself?"
"Roderick," the devil said, with steel in his tone, "and don't you dare try to be anything different!" Then he smiled, softening his approach. "I know how it is—you keep having these flashes, snatches of feeling that you're really someone else. Don't let it bother you; it's just a symptom of an internal conflict. I have them myself. You wouldn't believe it, but every now and then I find myself muttering in Church Latin!"
"You're right," Roderick growled, "I don't believe it."
"Whether you believe it or not, you'll do it!" Buzzabeez glared around at the three of them. "I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: You're under my power, and you'll damned well do as you're told!"
"'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 xtve staaket vtfto 'tY'te mslebasYsX. '"NovC S&'t& 'tS't't17k'tKftL, "sprinVte it 'tnV 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 t
o 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."
"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. "Urn—if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just run upstairs to the power room." She set down her teacup and rose.
The Warlock Wandering Page 20
