‘Oh my God!’ Patti exclaimed. ‘Oh my God, I don’t believe it!’
‘Jesus, Pops,’ said Denver. ‘What the hell is it?’
Nathan was silent for a moment, but then he said, ‘It’s the same creature that I was trying to breed. A gryphon. Half bird, half lion.’ He paused. ‘This one’s an opinicus gryphon, which means it has a lion’s front legs.’
He turned to Doctor Zauber. He could feel himself shaking. ‘How did you do it?’ he asked him.
Doctor Zauber looked down at his creation with a mixture of pride and pity. ‘Our late friend Richard brought me all of your research, of course. But I also used a formula that was described by Doctor John Dee, the famous English mystic from the days of Queen Elizabeth the First. He visited Poland in the late sixteenth century with a nobleman called Albert Laski, and learned from alchemists in Kraków how gryphons were reared.’
‘This is unbelievable,’ said Nathan. He leaned forward and peered at the gryphon more closely, feeling angry and jealous, but ragingly curious, too. He had worked so many years to breed a creature like this, and here was one, right in front of him. It stared back at him with its unblinking red eyes, and uttered a high, creaky sound in the back of its throat.
‘I almost succeeded, as you can see,’ said Doctor Zauber. ‘But this poor creature suffers from serious skeletal malformation, especially its hindquarters. If it had turned out to be perfect, it would be a very fearsome beast indeed, and we would not be standing here talking about it so blithely. But now you see why I need your talents so much.’
The gryphon continued to drag its way toward them, letting out another cockerel cry. It reached the wire mesh and tried to peck at it with its beak. Rafał stepped back and crossed himself.
‘So, you’ve managed to breed a gryphon,’ said Nathan. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘Well, I will have to destroy it, sad to say. I cannot use its stem cells because of its deformity. But at least I have learned that, with Doctor Dee’s formula, it is possible to create such a creature, and that it can survive.’
Nathan hunkered down in front of the wire mesh. Denver came up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, almost as if Denver were the father and he were the son.
‘Pops, it’s a no-brainer.’
‘I know.’
‘The doctors at the Hahnemann, they can find a way to get Mom out of her coma. They must be able to.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
Nathan stood up. He turned to Doctor Zauber and said, ‘If there was any other way of doing this, without killing anybody, believe me, I’d do it.’
‘Nobody will actually suffer,’ Doctor Zauber assured him. ‘I use ketamine. They are never aware of what happened to them. It is just like putting down cattle, in the Schlachthaus.’
Nathan shook his head. ‘There’s no way. I can’t be any part of this.’
‘So that is your final decision?’ said Doctor Zauber. His voice was steady, but Nathan could tell that he was furious.
‘That’s right.’
‘You are going to abandon your wife, and your entire life’s work, for the sake of some high-minded moral principle?’
‘I don’t think that declining to murder people is exactly a high-minded moral principle.’
‘In spite of the fact that you will be saving thousands and thousands more people than you will ever eliminate? Maybe even millions.’
‘Doctor Zauber, for the last time, I’m not going to help you.’
‘So what are you going to do? Report me to the police?’
‘I should. Whether I do or not – well, I haven’t decided yet.’
Doctor Zauber said, ‘This is the gravest mistake you will ever make in your life. You know that, don’t you?’
Nathan put his arms around Denver and Patti and said, ‘Come on, guys. We’re leaving. Rafał?’
Rafał nodded and the four of them walked back to the staircase.
Doctor Zauber turned his back on them. Inside its cage, the gryphon let out another screaming cry, followed by a growl, and jumped up against the wire mesh.
Rafał laid his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. ‘Maybe it was better that you did not succeed in breeding one of those creatures. It is worse than something that you meet in your bad dreams, yes?’
They climbed the stairs and came out into the hallway. ‘Come on,’ said Nathan. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here and then we can decide what to do next.’
As they walked toward the front of the house, however, they heard a banging noise from upstairs, like somebody slamming doors, one after the other. Nathan looked up, and saw that the first-story landing was in total darkness.
Before he could work out what was happening, however, there was another loud bang, and the shutters that covered the hallway window flew shut. Immediately, there was a double bang from the living room, and another bang from the kitchen.
Within less than ten seconds, they found themselves standing in absolute blackness, as if they had all suddenly gone blind.
‘He’s closed all the shutters,’ said Nathan.
‘How did he do that?’ asked Denver.
‘Don’t ask me. Telekinesis. Magic. Some kind of remote control. Can anybody find the goddamned light switch?’
Rafał slid his hands along the wall. ‘It is not on this side. Maybe it’s next to the door.’
‘Hold on,’ said Nathan. ‘I’ll just find my flashlight.’
‘Nathan – I have found the front door,’ said Rafał. Nathan took his flashlight out of his pocket and switched it on. Rafał was trying to twist open the catch, but it was locked solid. He tried rattling the handle, but the door still wouldn’t open.
‘Come on, we’ll have to try the back of the house.’
They were making their way to the kitchen when Doctor Zauber stepped out of the cellar door, right in front of them, like a stage magician appearing from nowhere. Nathan shone his flashlight directly into his eyes but he didn’t even blink.
‘I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, Doctor Zauber, but we’re going to be getting out of here whether you want us to or not.’
Doctor Zauber said, ‘Yes, you will be getting out of here. Of course! Although not perhaps in the same form in which you entered.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I am talking about you, my friends. All of you. I am talking about your life-energy.’
Rafał stepped up to him, his fists bunched and his moustache bristling pugnaciously. ‘You will move out of our way, please, Doctor. You cannot stop us.’
‘My dear friend, I am not even going to try.’
With that, he took a step to one side, and vanished. Nathan said, ‘Let’s go, quick!’ But immediately there was a muffled roar, almost as if the whole house were collapsing. Patti screamed, and even Rafał shouted out in fright.
Out of the open cellar door a monstrous black figure emerged, with branching horns and a hunched back and a narrow skull like some terrible horse.
‘Basilisk!’ Nathan shouted. ‘Don’t look at it! Whatever you do, don’t look at it!’
He pushed Denver and Patti back along the hallway, and into the living room, and Rafał was right behind him. He tried to close the door, but he was too late. The basilisk burst into the room and stood in the doorway, breathing deeply and harshly. Its eyes were not yet fully lit. They shone like two dim lamps, but they were gradually growing brighter and brighter.
‘Don’t look at it,’ Nathan repeated. ‘It can kill you. It can instantly stop your heart. However much you’re tempted, just don’t look at it.’
Patti was sobbing. ‘I can’t do this! I can’t take any more!’
‘Do you have your mirror?’ Nathan demanded. ‘Do you all have your mirrors? Get them out! This is the time! We can beat this, if you all remember what we were going to do!’
‘I can’t do it! I can’t do it!’
‘Patti – yes, you can! Take out your mirror! Get yourself ready! Remember w
hat we were going to do! Reflect the light from one to the other, remember?’
‘I’m too scared!’ Patti wailed, and sank to the floor on her knees.
Denver put his arm around her and tried to lift her up again. ‘Patti, you can do it! We have to do it!’
The basilisk stayed in the doorway, its head swaying, its horns scraping against the ceiling. It looked first at Rafał, and then at Nathan, and then at Denver and Patti, and as it did so its eyes began to shine so brightly that the whole living room was illuminated.
‘Mirrors!’ Nathan shouted, keeping one hand lifted to protect his eyes. ‘Take out your mirrors!’
Rafał took out his mirror and cupped it in his hands; as did Denver. He tried to take out Patti’s mirror, too, but Patti was sobbing now, the way a small child sobs, and she was almost hysterical. The Schleimgeist had been too much for her, and she simply couldn’t face another creature.
Nathan stood in front of the basilisk, his head lowered. He knew what would happen if he looked directly into its eyes. All around him, the room was so bright that all the colors were bleached out of it, and there wasn’t a shadow anywhere.
He was just about to give the order for all of them to raise their mirrors, and deflect the basilisk’s stare, when he saw Doctor Zauber’s shiny black shoes standing on the carpet right in front of him.
‘You think you can destroy me, Professor?’ Doctor Zauber asked him. His voice sounded detached, and whispery, as if he were hearing it inside his head.
‘You need to call your basilisk off and let us go,’ said Nathan.
‘My basilisk? Well, that’s very true. It is my basilisk. And the basilisk is me.’
‘What? What are you talking about? You need to let us go!’
‘I needed a young life-energy to make the Schleimgeist, Professor, and Richard Scryman volunteered for that. But I needed so much more life-energy to breed another basilisk. I needed the life-energy of Robert Cichowlas, the painter; and the life-energy of the Walach family. But even they were not enough. Not for a creature as powerful as a basilisk.’
‘Doctor Zauber, no good is going to come of this. You know that as well as I do. For Christ’s sake, just let us go.’
Doctor Zauber said, ‘I cannot do that, Professor. I need you. And I promise you that I will give you back your wife, if you agree to help me.’
The basilisk’s eyes swept the living room from one side to the other, and they were as blinding as a lighthouse.
‘This manifestation you see of “Doctor Zauber”, this is merely transvection, in the same way that I appeared in your bedroom. Psychic transference.’
‘Call this damned thing off, will you? You want to be guilty of our murders, too?’
Doctor Zauber came closer. ‘I cannot call it off, Professor. As I told you, I am the basilisk and the basilisk is me. It would not have survived without my life-energy. That is why I need you more than ever. I need you to be the human face of our joint enterprises, while I am the source of all of our power.’
The basilisk was looking at him directly now, and the light from its eyes was so intense that Nathan had to clamp his hand over his face to prevent himself from being dazzled. But all the same he said, ‘What part of “no” don’t you understand, Doctor Zauber?’
‘You cannot refuse me!’ Doctor Zauber screamed at him. ‘Not now! Sie können nicht ablehnen!’
Nathan said, ‘Rafał! Denver! Patti! Mirrors – now!’
He lifted the mirror in his right hand, shielding his face with it. Rafał was standing on his right, and he held up his right hand, too, so that the light was reflected to Patti, who was standing on his left.
But before Patti could catch the light in her mirror, the basilisk swung its horselike head around and concentrated its glare on Rafał.
‘Rafał!’ Nathan shouted. ‘Turn your face away!’
But Rafał had fumbled a second too long trying to aim his reflected light into Patti’s mirror. He glanced toward the basilisk – only for in instant – but he instantly stiffened, and shouted out ‘nie!’ and dropped his mirror.
‘Rafał!’
Rafał was caught in the glare of the basilisk’s eyes as if he had been caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He pitched over backward, hitting his head against the tiled surround of the fireplace, and lay awkwardly jammed between the fireplace and one of the old-fashioned armchairs, shaking and juddering. The lenses of his spectacles were completely blacked out, and his face was reddened.
Denver and Patti both stepped away from the basilisk, unsure of what to do next, now that they had lost Rafał and his mirror. But Nathan said, ‘Denver! Patti! The mirror over the fireplace! Use that instead!’
The basilisk swiveled its head back toward him, and Nathan held up his mirrors again. He deflected the light from the basilisk’s eyes to Patti’s mirror, and she shone it toward the mirror over the fireplace. The shaft of light came back to her, at an angle, and this time she shone it to Denver, and Denver shone it back to Nathan.
Nathan had to guess where to aim his second mirror, because he didn’t dare to look straight into the basilisk’s eyes. He jiggled it slightly from side to side, hoping that it would flash the basilisk’s glare directly back to it, even if only for a split second.
The basilisk let out a deafening screech, and lurched toward him. He heard a splintering, crackling sound, and he was showered by dozens of sharp black bone fragments. The blinding light from the basilisk’s eyes swiveled all around the room, from one wall to the other, from the ceiling to the carpet, and it felt as if the floor were tilting.
Still shielding his eyes, Nathan looked quickly to each side of his mirror. Denver was crouching down in the corner, behind one of the armchairs, and Patti was backing away from the basilisk with both hands held over her face.
The basilisk screeched again, in rage and pain. Nathan lowered his mirror and saw that it was swaying and staggering. Its horns shattered, and its entire body seemed to be collapsing, like a huge black tent.
We’ve done it, he thought. We’ve destroyed it, and Doctor Zauber with it. But at the same time he thought: how am I going to save Grace now?
At that moment, however, the basilisk turned toward him. Its glare was nothing like as dazzling as it had been before, but it was still intense enough to make Nathan lift his hand up in front of his face. There was no mistaking the creature’s fury. Its teeth were bared – three rows of sharp, barbed spines, with a thin, snakelike tongue lashing between them, and it was groping at the air with both of its front claws, as if it wanted to rake him open from head to foot.
He backed away until he could back away no further, because the couch was right behind him. But the basilisk’s breathing was becoming increasingly labored, whining and whistling through slowly collapsing lungs, and its eyes were growing dimmer and dimmer. As it did so the room grew darker, too, and after a while Nathan thought it was probably safe for him to lower his hand.
‘Patti,’ he said. ‘How about switching on the lights?’
Patti went across and found the light switch by the door. A wrought-iron chandelier with five branches was hanging from the ceiling, like a large dead spider. Only three of its light bulbs were working, but that was enough to illuminate the living room with a harsh, unflattering light.
Nathan watched the basilisk struggling for breath. He realized that he was probably witnessing the end of his dreams. It was clear to him now that it took much more than genetics to breed mythological creatures successfully. It took a high degree of sophisticated sorcery, too; and as Doctor Zauber and his basilisk came closer to death, the knowledge of that sorcery was dying with them. Nathan didn’t feel at all triumphant that they had managed to defeat this creature. He felt only frustration, and sadness, and regret.
‘Pops?’ said Denver. He was kneeling on the floor next to Rafał. ‘He just said something. I don’t know what it was, but he’s still alive.’
Nathan was about to turn around when the basilisk’s e
yes suddenly flared up again, blindingly bright, and it let out one last hate-filled scream. It was a shrill, throaty scream, like a turkey-vulture, but it had a sharp hiss to it, too, like a deadly poisonous snake. It also had a human resonance: the angry shout of a man who knows that his life is nearly over, without having achieved his life’s ambition.
Nathan closed his eyes tight shut, but he still felt as if he had been slammed into a solid concrete wall. He fell backward, just as Rafał had done, and toppled over the corner of the couch. He lay on the carpet – blinded, deafened and breathless, unable to move.
‘Pops!’ Denver shouted.
TWENTY
Eye for an Eye
Nathan blinked, and blinked again. Gradually his vision began to return, and he could see Denver’s face leaning over him, although at first he looked like a photographic negative, with white eyes and gray skin.
‘Pops, are you OK?’
‘Can’t – move –’ Nathan whispered. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs, and he still had a high-pitched singing noise in his ears.
Denver stood up. The basilisk’s eyes had dimmed again now, and it was standing in the middle of the room, swaying, as if it had used up almost all of its remaining life-energy. Underneath its scaly skin, its skeletal structure was gradually collapsing, joint by joint. It made an intricate pattern of snapping noises, like somebody breaking branches. But it was still huge, and its shattered horns still scraped the ceiling as it swayed.
‘You goddamned monster!’ Denver screamed at it. ‘You goddamned murdering piece of lizard shit!’
He picked up the long brass poker that was hanging beside the fireplace, and approached the basilisk with it, prodding and feinting at it as if he were a swordsman.
‘You want a fight? You want to try and murder me, too? Come on, then, you ratty black bag of mythological crap!’
The basilisk snarled and spat, and tried feebly to claw at him. Its eyes began to light up again, too.
Patti said, ‘Denver – its eyes!’ But Denver said, ‘Oh, no! There’s no way you’re doing that to me, dude!’
Basilisk Page 24
