ELEVEN
The Black Ultimatum
A figure stepped out in front of the creature and Grace immediately shone her flashlight across his face. It was a large-headed man, wearing a black silk shirt, buttoned up to the neck, and black pants. His steel-gray hair was slicked straight back from his forehead, and his eyes were concealed behind reflective spectacles with steel-gray lenses. He was carrying a riding crop.
‘Doctor Zauber!’ said Grace.
‘Well, of course,’ said Doctor Zauber, in his precise German accent. ‘Who else would you expect?
He raised his hand toward Nathan and said, ‘Please . . . the gun. I promise you that the basilisk will not harm you so long as it is under my control.’
Close behind him, the basilisk shuffled and swayed, and its breathing sounded more and more labored.
‘So you did it,’ said Nathan. ‘You actually bred one, and it survived.’
‘Yes! But only thanks to you, Professor Underhill! I freely acknowledge my debt to you, and your research team. Without your admirable work, the basilisk could never have come back to life.’
He turned around, and looked at the basilisk. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘it is far from a perfect creation. You can hear for yourself that it suffers from respiratory problems, and it has some serious malformation of its skeletal structure. It has survived, yes, but I don’t know for how much longer. Which is why I have appealed to you for help.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Nathan demanded. ‘You had Richard Scryman steal all of my research, and now you want to pick my brains some more?’
‘Please, the gun,’ Doctor Zauber repeated. ‘The basilisk is very sensitive to hostile intentions.’
‘You said that you had it under control,’ said Grace.
‘Of course. But only in the same way perhaps that a dog handler has a pit bull terrier under control. If anybody should show aggression to its master, the pit bull will attack, nicht wahr? and there is nothing that anybody can do to hold it back.’
Reluctantly, Nathan pushed the SK back into his belt. Then he took out his flashlight and shone it on to the ragged black bulk of the basilisk, lighting up its huge misshapen head and its coronet of jagged horns. In response, the basilisk’s eyes glowed a little brighter, as if it resented Nathan examining it so intently.
Doctor Zauber said, ‘You and I have been working for nearly three years in co-operation with each other, Professor Underhill. I realize that it was a partnership of which you were totally unaware, but I did not think that you would willingly share your research with me.’
‘Well, you got that right. How much did you pay him? Richard Scryman – for stealing my notes?’
‘Not so much. Richard was not so interested in the money, even though he told me that you paid him only a pittance. Just as I did, he wanted more than anything else to see a mythical creature come to life, and he realized very early on that neither of us could do it alone.’
Nathan was mystified, and incredulous, and angry, all at the same time. ‘I bred a gryphon, goddammit, from embryonic cells and DNA, and it didn’t take any help from you.’
‘Of course you did,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘And what you did was unglaublich. Unbelievable. But your gryphon died inside its shell, and every other gryphon you attempted to breed would have died inside its shell, too. You were missing the one vital ingredient for success that only I possess.’
‘Oh, yes? And what is that, exactly?’
The basilisk suddenly lurched toward him, and its breathing changed to a high-pitched whine. Nathan reached for the butt of his automatic again, but Doctor Zauber clapped his hands together loudly and snapped, ‘Halt Denk! An die Strafe!’
The basilisk uttered an extraordinary noise in the back of its throat, as if it were being strangled. Doctor Zauber said, ‘It is not a patient creature, the basilisk, as you can see for yourselves. Sometimes it has to be reminded where it came from – who made it, and who can help it to survive.’
‘OK,’ said Nathan, impatiently. ‘But what is this magic ingredient that you have and I don’t? And if you were so keen to co-operate with me, why didn’t you approach me before? We could have worked together, couldn’t we? Maybe my gryphon wouldn’t have died and the Zoo wouldn’t have axed my research program.’
Doctor Zauber shook his head. ‘If I had approached you at any time, Professor Underhill, you would not have agreed to work with me. So there was no other way for me to recreate a mythical creature than to borrow your research and combine it with mine, without your knowledge.
‘Now that your program has been curtailed, however, what could I do to carry on my own research except come to you direct, and ask if you would be prepared to assist me? Together, for instance, we could breed another basilisk, much healthier and stronger than this poor specimen. We could breed your gryphon, too, and wyverns, and salamanders, and maybe even a bennu bird.
‘We could open our own clinic in Switzerland, and people would come from all over the world to be cured of incurable illnesses. Have you seen what Doctor Geeta Shroff is doing in India, with embryonic stem cells? She is even curing quadruple paraplegia, like that of Christopher Reeve, after serious sporting accidents.
‘We would be living saints, Professor Underhill. We would change the face of medicine for ever, you and I. And of course we would be very, very rich.’
‘So what is the magic ingredient?’ Grace challenged him. ‘And why don’t you think that Nathan would have agreed to work with you before?’
Doctor Zauber said, with a humorless smile, ‘Why did you come here yesterday night? And why did you come here tonight?’
‘We came here because Grace told me about Doris Bellman dying,’ Nathan retorted. ‘And her cockatoo dying, too. And her plants. And she told me that one of your residents had seen a big black creature with horns. We came here because I had two nightmares, about the same kind of creature.’
‘But you were not so sure, were you? You didn’t call the police. Well, maybe you were sure, and you thought: there could be a basilisk, at the Murdstone Rest Home, there could really be a real living basilisk, and whatever the risk, I must see it for myself?’
‘OK,’ said Nathan defensively. ‘But that first night I found a broken-off piece of horn in Doris Bellman’s room, and took it back to the lab and analyzed it, and then I knew for sure. Basilisk. The only creature in millions of years to have all three varieties of DNA.’
Doctor Zauber nodded, as in approval. Then he said, ‘You took quite a risk, ja, trespassing on my property? And to bring your wife, too, who is an MD, with a professional reputation to maintain? She could be struck off for such nefarious activities.’
‘You knew that we were here last night?’ Grace asked him.
‘Of course. You think I run a residential home for thirty-eight seniors without knowing everything that happens here, twenty-four hours of every day?’
He paused. This was obviously a rhetorical question; but for some reason it sounded as if he was expecting Nathan to answer.
Nathan didn’t respond; and after a while Doctor Zauber said, ‘Last night, regrettably, you arrived too late to see the basilisk. It was almost daylight, and as you are aware the basilisk must hide in complete darkness during the day. But . . . everything was not lost. You found the piece of horn that I left for you, and that was obviously good enough to convince you that the basilisk was really here. Not all of my little plans work out, you know, but this one did.’
‘So you wanted us to come here?’
‘Natürlich. I wanted to meet you, and talk to you, and show you the basilisk. I wanted to ask you if you would consider working with me, now that your own project has been canceled.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you just phone me? Or send me a message through Richard? That would have been a damn sight easier, wouldn’t it?’
‘Easier, Professor, yes. But I am a careful man who protects his interests. There are certain aspects involved in the breeding of mythi
cal creatures which cross over the boundaries of medical ethics. That is why I never believed that you would agree to work with me.’
‘So what are you trying to tell me? That you’re doing something illegal?’
‘Not entirely. But I did take the precaution of making sure that you came to the Murdstone as a trespasser. Or – who knows? – maybe you are something more than a trespasser? Maybe you came here intent on theft? There are so many defenseless seniors here, with some very valuable items of jewelry, not to mention paintings, and books, and china figurines, as your wife would have told you. And you – you have just lost your job.’
‘Oh . . . you really think that I’d break into a rest home to steal old ladies’ necklaces? Give me a break.’
‘Desperate people have done worse. And for me, the fact that you brought your wife with you is of course a bonus. What would they say at the Chestnut Hill medical practice, if she were to be arrested on suspicion of burglary? All I have to do now is call the police.’
Nathan said, ‘You can’t be serious. You can’t threaten us like that.’
‘Of course not. I am only making a joke, of sorts. But you know that every joke has a tragic side to it; just as every dream can easily turn into a nightmare. Like your nightmares, Professor.’
‘What?’
‘Where do you think they came from, your nightmares? That basilisk, that reared up from the end of your bed? That face on your bedroom ceiling?’
‘What? How do you know about that?’
Doctor Zauber stepped closer. He took hold of Nathan’s wrist and twisted it upward so that his flashlight was shining directly into his face. Then he took off his reflective eyeglasses, and rolled up his eyes so that only the whites were showing.
Nathan tugged his hand away. It was Doctor Zauber’s face that he had seen on the ceiling. And now he thought about it, it was Doctor Zauber’s voice that he had heard, taunting him.
As I say, my friend, you are the expert in the difference between dreams and reality.
‘How did you do that? I saw you! You were there, on the ceiling! You talked to me! And the basilisk, that was there, too! It almost froze me to death!’
Doctor Zauber made a soft clicking noise with his tongue, as if he were calling a horse, and the basilisk dragged itself a few feet nearer. Grace took three or four steps back. The musty smell was overwhelming.
‘I have the ability,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘I have always had the ability, all my life. It is something one is born with. Transvection, that is what they call it in English. Psychic transference. But, I had no intention of hurting you, Professor. I wanted to hook you, that was all. Like a fish! To arouse your curiosity and reel you in! And look! You’re here!’
He laid his hand on the basilisk’s hunched-up back. ‘So many creatures used to exist in medieval times, in the days of magic. Dragons! Gargoyles! But I never thought that I would be able to bring any of them back to life. I dreamed about it, of course, but in spite of my natural abilities it needed much more than wishful thinking, or even the rituals of reincarnation that were handed down from one great necromancer to another. The creatures were extinct. They were dead, they were gone. They had fallen from the skies and fossilized into stones. And who can get blood from a stone?’
He replaced his eyeglasses and looked at Nathan ruefully. ‘It needed science, Professor. It needed a man like you.’
Nathan was growing increasingly edgy. The basilisk kept shuffling closer and its eyes began to shine brighter, even through three or four layers of blackened sacking.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘it needed a man like me. But what kind of a man are you? Are you some kind of psychic or something? Some kind of conjuror?’
‘You will find out, Professor, if you really want to. But if we are to work together, I expect from you equal respect for my abilities. Maybe I am not a scientist as you would recognize it, but what I am able to do is just as powerful. Without my contribution, your project will never come to anything. Ever.’
‘Listen, Doctor, I don’t even know what your abilities are, apart from giving me nightmares, and appearing on my bedroom ceiling like some goddamn Mardi Gras mask.’
Doctor Zauber shook his head. ‘When I first came to Philadelphia, I knew nothing about you, or what you were doing. I found out about your cryptozoology project only three years ago, when your wife came to visit one of our residents and we started to chat together. I pretended to your wife that I was politely interested, but the truth was that I was thunderstruck. Suddenly I saw a way of making these mythical creatures come back to life. I felt that the clouds had parted and God Himself had appeared to me, in all His glory.’
Nathan and Grace looked quickly at each other but neither of them said anything. They both sensed that Doctor Zauber was right on the verge of telling them what Nathan had been missing, and why his gryphon had died. At the same time, however, Nathan could see that the basilisk’s eyes were shining brighter and brighter, so that pencil-thin shafts of light began to play across the corridor.
‘Listen,’ said Nathan, ‘I’m getting real uncomfortable with this. Maybe we should talk about this tomorrow, without the basilisk looming over us.’
‘The basilisk senses that I need an answer,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘It feels its own mortality, too.’
‘So tell me. Where have I been going wrong? What can you and I do together than I can’t do by myself?’
‘Life-energy,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘All mythical creatures feed on life-energy. They are mythical, that is what you have to understand. They are legends, existing halfway between the real and the unreal. Stories made flesh. They find no nourishment in dead meat, or carrion, or grain. They subsist on the souls of the people who believe in them, and any other kind of life that they can.’
‘They feed on souls?’ said Grace. ‘What exactly does that mean?’
‘Exactly that. Take Doris Bellman. Physically, she was close to the end of her natural life, but her soul was just as vibrant as it was when she was a young girl.’
‘So you let the basilisk take it from her? Is that it?’
‘The basilisk needed sustenance, or else it would have died; and if the basilisk had died, all of its resident stem cells would have died with it. As misshapen as it is, this one creature can save thousands of people who suffer from serious degenerative illnesses. Multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy. Don’t you think that the soul of one elderly woman is worth that?’
Grace said, ‘For God’s sake . . . you can’t kill people for the sake of medical research. That’s what the Nazis did, and the Japanese. Some people think you shouldn’t even sacrifice animals.’
‘Anyhow,’ said Nathan, ‘how can you physically do it? How is it possible to take someone’s soul?’
The basilisk had started slavering and whining, and he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at it with increasing unease. Its eyes were shining almost as brightly as car headlights, and if they hadn’t been covered in layers of sacking, they would have been dazzling. As a precaution, Nathan reached for the mirror that was hanging around his neck, and held it ready in his left hand.
Doctor Zauber said, ‘If you agree to come here and work with me, Professor, in a spirit of true co-operation, then I can demonstrate it to you. It is not easy to explain it in words. It involves procedures which date right back to the Middle Ages, to the times of the great shamans – especially the táltos of Hungary.’
‘The táltos? Who the hell were they?’
‘They were like guides to the spirit world. People who could find the souls of the living when they inadvertently strayed into the world of the dead, and the souls of the dead when they inadvertently strayed into the world of the living.’
‘This is insane,’ said Nathan. ‘Even if I believed you, I couldn’t agree to take anybody’s soul, no matter how many other people were going to be cured.’
‘How can you possibly not believe me? Here in front of you is the basilisk – the living, breathing evidence that
everything I am telling you is true. And you were equally instrumental in its creation. Without you, without your research, this basilisk could never have come to be.’
He briskly clapped his hands and shouted out, ‘Bravo, Professor! Your gryphon died, but your basilisk still lives!’
Nathan dragged out his gun again. ‘This is over, Doctor Zauber. If this is the only way that the Cee-Zee program can work, then I don’t want to have anything more to do with it.’
Doctor Zauber warned, ‘Please, Professor. Put the gun away. It really isn’t necessary.’
Nathan stepped sideways, raising his gun so that it was pointing directly at the basilisk’s head. He put his arm around Grace’s shoulders, and pulled her in close to him.
‘What we’re doing now, Doctor Zauber, we’re leaving.’
‘Oh, yes? And after you have left, what are you going to do then?’
‘You’ll find out.’
Doctor Zauber took another step closer, so that the SK was leveled at his heart. ‘You won’t leave here, Professor. Not without agreeing to help me. You can’t.’
‘I can, and I will.’
‘This creature behind me, it’s your whole life’s work, and mine. This is everything you studied for, worked for, argued for. This basilisk is you, Professor. How can you possibly leave? How can you possibly walk away? Es ist total unmöglich.’
‘Oh, and what will you do, if we do walk away? Call for the cops, have us arrested?’
‘Maybe. Maybe something much more simple than that, something more terrible. Maybe the creation could devour its creator.’
‘Oh, yes? And where would that leave you? With one deformed basilisk, and no idea of what to do next?’
‘So können Sie nicht mit mir sprechen! Ohne mich würde es kein Geschöpf geben! Ohne mich würden Sie noch Jahre brauchen, um überhaupt anfangen zu können, geschweige denn Fertig zu werden!’
Doctor Zauber was shaking with anger. ‘Without me,’ he translated, ‘you will be nothing at all. So the choice is yours. Fame, and wealth, and a place in biological history. Or obscurity.’
Basilisk Page 12
