Basilisk

by Graham Masterton

  ‘It’s Doctor Zauber, isn’t it?’ said Patti, excitedly. ‘The second I read that story, I knew it was Doctor Zauber.’

  ‘Well, hold up a minute. There’s no way of telling for sure. Maybe the bus had a leak in its muffler, and all those old folks died of carbon monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘It’s Doctor Zauber, you know it is! He’s gone back to Poland to make himself another basilisk!’

  Nathan couldn’t help smiling. ‘You know something, you’re even crazier than me.’

  ‘I’m not crazy, I’m unprejudiced, that’s all. I’m prepared to believe that anybody is capable of absolutely anything, and that’s how I find all my best stories. I put two and two together and make six-and-a-quarter. It was me who broke that story about the man who tried to kidnap Punxsutawney Phil – you know, the groundhog from Groundhog Day – and eat him.’

  ‘What? I never heard about that.’

  ‘It’s true. He wanted to broil him and eat him so that he could forecast the weather, and get a job as a weatherman on NBC.’

  ‘That is crazy.’

  ‘Yes, but it happened, and it was true. Just like the basilisk is true.’

  Nathan was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘I saw him again – Doctor Zauber. I heard him again, the same way I did before. I saw a new basilisk, too. Right in here.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘Three days ago? Why didn’t you tell me? You promised to keep me up to date.’

  ‘I know. But it was only a nightmare. Or a daymare, rather. And I haven’t had another one since.’

  Patti tapped the printout again. ‘Look at the date that happened. That was three days ago, too.’ She paused, and then she said, ‘Did you actually see Doctor Zauber’s face, like you did on the ceiling? Did he say anything to you? What did he say?’

  ‘Pretty much the same thing. He says he wants us to work together, to breed more mythological beasts. He says he needs me. He obviously knows how to bring these creatures to life, and how to keep them alive, but he doesn’t know how to control their cell growth.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘They don’t develop properly. You know, like kids who are born with only one eye, or spina bifida, something like that. The basilisk that Grace and I saw at the Murdstone was very badly deformed, but if we’re going to use mythological beasts for stem-cell therapy, they’ll have to be pretty well perfect. We don’t want to cure somebody’s multiple sclerosis but give them some other affliction that’s even worse.’

  Patti frowned at him. ‘You sound like you’re thinking of actually doing it.’

  Nathan looked across at Grace. ‘Doctor Zauber said that he could bring her out of her coma, if I did. And I have to admit that I was tempted, for a moment. But only for a moment.’

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  He held up the printout. ‘I’m going to call my friend Rafał Jasłewicz, from the Museum of Zoology in Kraków, in Poland. Well, I say “friend”. I only met him once, at a zoological seminar in Chicago, but he’s like the world’s leading expert on basilisks and chimeras and gargoyles, and he’s a really great guy.’

  ‘I thought you were the world’s leading expert on all that stuff.’

  ‘The biological side of it – yes, maybe. But Rafał knows all about the history, and the mythology. He was incredibly helpful when I was starting up my gryphon project. He agrees with me: he believes that most mythical beasts actually existed, but he doesn’t believe that they were the result of natural evolution.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, gryphons and basilisks didn’t evolve naturally like apes and horses and elephants – or us, for that matter. They were bred deliberately by alchemists who had discovered how to cross one totally different species with another.’

  He stood up, and took down his coat from the back of the door. ‘Do you want to come along? I’m going home to make this call, and then Denver and I are going out to eat. You’re welcome to join us.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Patti. She looked across at Grace and said, ‘Any improvement?’

  Nathan shook his head.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ said Patti. ‘Wherever she is, God’s taking care of her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were religious.’

  ‘Of course I am. When you’ve seen how evil people can be, you know that there must be a Devil. And if there’s a Devil, there has to be a God. QED.’

  It was nearly nine thirty in the evening in Poland when Nathan called Rafał Jasłewicz. He hadn’t spoken to him for over three years, but Rafał greeted him as if they had gone out drinking together only the week before.

  ‘Nathan! I hear about your disappointment with your gryphon! I am very sorry for this! Maybe you have better luck with the next try!’

  ‘There isn’t going to be a next try, Rafał. Not just yet. The Zoo canceled my funding.’

  ‘This is ridiculous! Don’t they understand how difficult it is, this work? This is not like rearing chickens! It takes many years!’

  ‘That’s for sure. But, listen, Rafał. I have something serious to ask you. Did you ever hear of a cryptozoologist called Doctor Zauber? He’s German, but he’s been living and working in the States for quite a few years.’

  ‘You mean Christian Zauber? Yes, of course! He was once at the Jagiellonian University here in Kraków, maybe fifteen years ago. He wrote several papers on medieval magic. I remember one of them very well because it was all about mythical beasts, which of course is one of my specialties. And they were very notorious, these papers, at the time.’

  ‘Notorious? Why was that?’

  ‘Christian Zauber said that black magic was completely misunderstood, and that if we studied it scientifically, we would discover that it was not really magic at all, but a practical way to harness the existing powers of the world around us. That was not very popular with the university faculty, as you can imagine! And especially not the church! But it was his paper on the mythical beasts that caused such an outrage, and he was asked to leave the university before he brought it into further disrepute.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Nathan. ‘What was so outrageous about it?’

  ‘He called it De Monstrorum, which was the title of a very rare sixteenth-century treatise which was written by the monks of Leipzig University. As far as I know, only two copies exist, although I have never seen one. The monks had been trying to breed extraordinary creatures, but in secret they had been using local women to procreate with horses and birds and reptiles, and some of their experiments were monstrous.

  ‘Zauber was convinced from what he had read in De Monstrorum that the monks had actually succeeded in recreating several mythical beasts. They had also created some new ones of their own, such as a child with the tentacles of a squid instead of arms and a woman with a horse’s legs, like a centaur. He said it was essential that we try to repeat their experiments, using modern technology, because there was no reason why different species should not intermingle, to make the best of all of our attributes. In the final analysis, he said, we are all God’s creatures. Men should be able to swim like dolphins. Women should be able to give birth to dogs.

  ‘Maybe Zauber was not completely serious about his ideas. Maybe he was simply trying to be provocative. But he was German, and his suggestions brought back too strongly the medical research at Belsen and Auschwitz. And, of course, he upset the Roman Catholic bishops.’

  ‘Sure. I can understand that. I got enough flak from the church myself. What happened to Zauber after that?’

  ‘He stayed in Kraków for a year or two. I know, because I used to see him almost every week sitting alone at the Nostalgia restaurant on Karmelicka Street, eating his lunch. Always the same, potato dumplings with mushrooms, and a glass of white wine.

  ‘I saw one article about him, in the Dziennik Polski newspaper. He said that he had turned from medieval mythology to medieval archeology. He was exploring the cultura
l history of Kraków by digging down through the many layers of buildings which had been built on top of buildings, churches on top of churches, cellars on top of cellars.

  ‘That must have been eight or ten years ago. After that, I never saw him again, and there was nothing about his archeology in the papers. Until you call me tonight, my friend, I never thought about Christian Zauber once.’

  ‘Rafał, I really need to find him. I’ll explain why when I get to Kraków.’

  ‘You are coming to Kraków? For real? This would be excellent! I will take you to my favorite restaurant and fill you with bigos!’

  ‘I look forward to it, whatever bigos is.’

  He put down the phone. Patti said, ‘Well?’

  ‘I think I’m going to Poland,’ he told her.

  ‘So I was right?’

  He nodded. ‘I think so. I think he’s gone back to Kraków and he’s trying to breed another basilisk – and God knows what other monstrosities.’

  ‘Well . . . if it was him who offed all of those old folks, it sounds like he might have done it already.’

  ‘We can’t jump to any conclusions. Like I say, we don’t have any evidence that he had anything to do with it. But I think you’re right. I think it is him. I just don’t understand how this life-energy thing works. How do you take somebody’s life-energy? Like, where is it, exactly? My cousin Jack is a neurosurgeon at the Temple University Hospital and he said that even after twenty years of poking around in people’s brains, he still hasn’t managed to locate anybody’s soul.’

  ‘Maybe Doctor Zauber does it by black magic,’ Patti suggested.

  Nathan said, ‘I don’t believe in that.’

  ‘Doctor Zauber’s face comes out of the wall and talks to you, and a seven-foot basilisk appears in front of you, and you don’t believe in black magic?’

  ‘It was a nightmare, like I said. Or if it wasn’t a nightmare, there must be a perfectly good scientific explanation for it.’

  ‘Oh, for sure! Except that you don’t have the first idea what that perfectly good scientific explanation could possibly be. Like you don’t have the first idea why your wife is in a coma, just because she was stared at by some shambling collection of old sacks.’

  ‘Do you believe in black magic?’

  ‘I believe in being totally open-minded.’

  ‘OK. I’m prepared to accept that even if I don’t believe in black magic, Doctor Zauber does, and he’s going to be acting accordingly. So when I find him – if I find him – I’ll watch out if he tries anything that looks like sorcery.’

  ‘When you find him? What about me?’

  ‘You don’t want to come to Poland, do you?’

  ‘Of course I want to come to Poland. This is my story and I’m sticking with it. Who found you that item from EIN?’

  ‘I don’t know, Patti. It could be genuinely dangerous. Especially if Zauber has actually managed to create another basilisk.’

  ‘I like dangerous. Besides, you need me. My mother was Polish, and I know what bigos is.’

  SIXTEEN

  Night Flight

  When Denver arrived home, they drove together to the Trolley Car Diner on Germantown Avenue. It had been raining again, and the lurid neon lights on the Trolley Car’s façade were reflected in the black asphalt of the street outside. They found themselves a booth at the end of the diner and ordered fried chicken and soft-shelled crabs and strawberry shakes. The jukebox played doo-wop music.

  Denver said, ‘You’re going to Poland? How long for?’

  ‘I don’t know. As long as it takes to find Doctor Zauber.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘I want you to stay here and keep an eye on Mom for me.’

  ‘Yes, but if what you say is true, and you need to find this Zauber dude before Mom can wake up, what’s the point of my staying here? If I come to Poland, too, I can help you to look for him. You can always call the doctor to check on Mom.’

  Nathan looked at Patti and Patti shrugged.

  ‘Come on, Pops,’ Denver urged him.

  ‘OK,’ said Nathan. ‘You can be my back-up. But I want you to stay well clear of Doctor Zauber, if we find him. I don’t want you ending up in a coma like your mom. Or worse than that, dead.’

  He wasn’t sure if Denver would be more of a hindrance than a help, but on reflection he would rather have him close to him, where he could make sure that he wasn’t getting into any trouble. And Denver was right: he could call the hospital at any time to check on Grace, and Poland was only half a day away. ‘Let’s finish up here and then we can go home and pack.’

  They left the Trolley Car around nine. Patti promised to come around at seven thirty in the morning, well in time for their American Airlines flight from PHL. Nathan took Denver home, and logged on to his computer to book an extra ticket to Kraków. Then, while Denver packed his bag, he drove down to the Hahnemann to see Grace.

  The room was dimly lit, and Grace lay there as pale and silent as if she were dead. It was only when he bent over her to kiss her that he could feel her breathing.

  ‘Grace, sweetheart, I’m going away for a few days, but I’ll come back as soon as I can. I promise you, I’m going to find that Doctor Zauber and I’m going to get you out of this coma, and I’m never going to mess with any of those Cee-Zee creatures, ever again. They say you shouldn’t try to be smarter than God, don’t they, because you never can be, and you’ll get your comeuppance sooner or later.’

  The Egyptian-looking nurse had silently entered the room, and had been standing in the corner watching him. When he realized that she was there, he turned around and said, ‘Hi . . . I didn’t hear you come in.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked him.

  ‘Poland. There’s something I have to do there – somebody I have to find. I’m not sure how long I’ll be away. You will take good care of her, won’t you? You have my cell number, you can call me any time at all.’

  ‘Of course we will take care of her, Mr Underhill. She appears to be quite stable, at the moment. Doctor Ishikawa does not anticipate any dramatic changes.’

  She came up to him, and laid her hand on his arm.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You are feeling helpless, but there is nothing more that you can possibly do.’

  We’ll see about that, thought Nathan. He glanced across at the crater in the wall, where the door handle had dented the plaster. Wherever you are, Doctor Zauber, I’m coming after you, and I’m going to find you, and you’re going to give me my wife back.

  ‘What is it?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘What do you mean, “what is it”?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ever since your wife has been here, I have sensed something in this room. I don’t know how to explain it.’

  She looked around. ‘You know – it is almost like somebody else is here, watching her. I have never felt like that with a patient before. Please – I don’t mean to alarm you, or upset you. But I thought you ought to know.’

  ‘There is somebody watching her,’ said Nathan. ‘I can’t explain it, either, but that’s the reason I have to go away.’

  The nurse reached up with both hands and unfastened the catch of her necklace. She drew the pendant out from underneath her uniform and gave it to him. He held it in the palm of his hand and frowned at it. It was an ankh, an Egyptian cross, studded with black pearls. It was still warm from her skin.

  ‘Take it with you,’ she said. ‘It will help to protect you from bad things.’

  ‘No, I can’t. Supposing I lose it?’

  ‘You won’t lose it. You will bring it back to me safe; and when you do that, your wife will wake up.’

  Nathan looked at her narrowly. Was she aware of something that he wasn’t? She was talking to him as if she knew exactly why Grace was in a coma, and why he was going to Poland. She was talking to him almost as if she had seen Doctor Zauber, too.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, but he deliberately said it as if he was expecting an e
xplanation.

  ‘Just go,’ she told him. ‘Go and come back. Don’t be worried. I’m a nurse, remember, and when you are a nurse you see things that nobody else sees. You see people very close to dying, with all of the color bleached out of their eyes. You see their spirits, like shadows standing in the corner. You see their souls.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Nathan repeated; but this time he meant nothing at all but thank you.

  ‘I know where your wife is,’ said the nurse. ‘I know what kind of lands she is walking through. Once you discover how to do it, you will call her back, I promise you, and she will come to you.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Because I was trained to watch people, and the way they behave. I was trained how to recognize fear, and worry; but I was also taught how to recognize bravery, and hope.’

  ‘It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mr Underhill, all of us have somebody who takes care of us, whether we know it or not.’

  ‘If you say so, nurse.’

  ‘You can call me Aisha. It means “alive”.’

  Nathan gave Grace two more kisses, once on the lips and once on the forehead. He couldn’t bear to leave her but there was no other way.

  ‘God keep you safe,’ said Aisha.

  Nathan walked out of the hospital and headed through the rain toward the parking structure. He didn’t really understand how Aisha had any inkling of what he was intending to do; but he felt reassured and grateful that she was looking after Grace.

  Outside the parking structure, a skinny young man was standing in a corner, trying to keep out of the rain. He wore a brown woolen hat pulled down over his ears, and a baggy parka.

  ‘How about a little change, man?’ he called out, in a thin, nasal voice.

  Nathan dug into his pocket and came out with a handful of pennies and dimes and quarters. The young man looked down at it disdainfully. ‘Is that all? I haven’t eaten in three days.’