“Thanks for getting my name right for a change,” Marc said, and Natalie stifled a grin.
“They wasted too much energy on the useless things, not enough in seeking out those things that truly count.”
“Like the ring?” Natalie said.
Toal looked as though he’d been slapped, but his recovery was rapid. “No. Not quite, Mrs. Windsor. More exactly, what the ring represents.”
“Satan?”
“Absolutely not!” He leaned forward, his arms resting on his thighs. “But it is true that there are worlds outside our own. I knew it had to be because otherwise there would be no gods, no demons, no legends of superhuman heroes. There had to be something, the fire in the smoke, and once I had convinced myself of that, I was determined to discover what it was, harness it if I could, and make my little fortune, if you will.”
“ ‘To direct the Eye, open the Lid,’ “ Natalie quoted softly.
“Well,” Toal said with a shade of displeasure, “I see you have read my guardian tome. Yes, for want of a better direction, I call the way to this other world the Eye, and in order to see you have to lift your eyelid, don’t you?”
“And what did you see?” Marc asked, fascination in his voice despite the danger he was in.
“I have no word for it,” Toal answered angrily. “There is no word for it. Labels are confining, but it is a place of living things ... energy organisms, if you will, that lie unformed and undirected. Mediums and psychics tap it when they fall into trances. Their own minds shape this energy and they mistakenly label it visitors from beyond the grave, beyond the plane, and all the other tripe they create in their ignorance. I, however,” and he tapped his chest for emphasis, “recognize it for what it is, a source of control and immortality that need only be exercised as one would a disused muscle before one can successfully manipulate … “ and he spread his arms wide again, “anything.”
“And the rings?” Natalie said.
“Conductors, perhaps, and insulation. To tap this world of mine is a dangerous process for the uninitiated, Mrs. Windsor, and fatal for the unprotected. Simple. I made them myself.”
That he believed what he was saying was frightening enough, but that what he was saying also pieced together the puzzle confused and terrified her.
“It’s this energy, then,” Marc was saying, “that keeps me from Oxrun when I leave. You can’t control me directly for some reason, so you hide from me just as you hide from the rest of the world.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say hide from you, Mr. Clayton, but you do have the general principle. I extend, let’s say, a veil of control over the Station, and the workings of the minds that inhabit it so they can find their way back. All the little people, Mr. Clayton, are essential, or the mechanics of the community would grind to a halt. Those minds I can’t control, I eliminate.”
“The books,” Natalie said, revulsion welling in her throat. “What about the books?”
Toal lighted another cigarette, and his face took on an expression of tragic sorrow. “Mrs. Windsor, every dictator since the dawn of man knows it will not do to have his subjects think too much along the wrong lines. Those books that would have aided them were replaced. They had to be, or somebody might have tumbled too soon.”
She couldn’t ignore the feeling any longer. “You are a murderer.”
“I protect myself, Mrs. Windsor,” Toal said haughtily. “When I have perfected the Oxrun control, I will be able to step outward.” He rose and stared into the fire. “It won’t be an easy thing, but I will do it. You have seen what I can do, not only for myself but to others.” He turned, and the gown was a shimmering emptiness ringed by flame. “I literally have all the time in the world, Mrs. Windsor. It has taken me over a century to get this far. What’s another two or three when the end is plainly in sight. I come to the final act, Mrs. Windsor. Tonight I will create a permanent breach in the wall to my world, and when it happens, when all that decadent energy downstairs is added to the power you’ll find up here, I’ll have everything I need to shape my control.” His hand lifted to the design, stretched outward. “The ring, Mrs. Windsor. The party has ended.”
Natalie shook her head quickly, but couldn’t stop her hand from jumping to her chest. Toal uttered a choking exclamation and darted forward as she twisted away over the divan’s arm. Marc leaped to his feet and kicked the coffee table into Toal’s legs, causing him to spill over it.
Natalie backed to the door, then, while Marc fell onto the millionaire’s back and began pummeling his head and shoulders until Toal stopped squirming. He slumped, one fist raised, then turned around. His grin faded instantly and his eyes widened.
“Natalie, behind — ”
She spun too late. Hands gripped her shoulders and pinned her arms to her side. She was lifted bodily off the floor and her backward kicks were ineffectual and ultimately painful as the wooden sandals dropped from her feet and clattered against the wall.
And as she struggled, too angry to scream, she saw Marc rise, take a step over Toal’s body, then fall hard as though he’d been clubbed. Behind him, a dark figure in front of the fire smiled and dropped the poker onto the chair.
There was pressure on the back of her neck, a sharp pain that stiffened her spine, and the room went black.
Seconds later she regained consciousness and realized she was being carried on Sam’s shoulder through the door between the portraits. Marc was being dragged ahead of them, Artemus Hall clutching his heels, ignoring the thumping Marc’s head was receiving.
And they were in the room Natalie had seen the night she had fled from Toal’s women.
They were placed, then, on the outer rim of the floor, facing the center and the light, which had been replaced by a kerosene cousin flickering at the end off the black linked chain. Figures were sitting in a tight circle on the ebony floor directly under the flame. All of them were naked.
She recognized without triumph the Halls, the Bains, Elaine and Sam, Dederson, two school officials, Wayne, Bradford the jeweler, and Karl Hampton. None turned to acknowledge her, none bothered to look at her when she pulled her legs beneath her and crawled over to Marc. She bit back a sob and cradled his head in her lap, brushing tenderly at the dark-matted hair where the poker had split his scalp. He would die if she didn’t get him medical aid soon, and there was no help to be had in this diabolical room. Her eyes wide, she tried to see beyond the reach of the light, searching for the door through which she’d been carried, or the door she knew led into the hall. But the velvet hangings were complete, and a reconnaissance would easily be intercepted. She bent over, then, and kissed his forehead, rocking slowly and trying with the hem of her sleeve to stem the flow of blood from his wound.
A cold wind. The light swayed, and the shadows moved as if they were alive.
Silence was complete.
Cynthia, naked except for a loin cloth of silver, and red paint on her nipples, stepped out of the darkness and stood on the far side of the circle.
Christine, totally naked, moved to the circle’s center and lifted her arms to the light. The ring on her hand flashed red and silver, and the others began a swaying soft motion in perfect time.
And finally, after what seemed like a century, there was Ambrose, still robed, parting the increasingly frigid air to stand by her side. His hand reached down and she stared up at him dumbly.
“The book,” he said, and she refused. “The book!” he repeated, and his voice was the void on the other side of midnight. “You can’t use it, Mrs. Windsor.” The hand moved to poise itself over Marc’s throat. “Give it to me, Mrs. Windsor, or I’ll kill him now!”
A weight made its presence at the back of her neck, making her slump forward, ease Marc’s head off her lap. She groped under his toga, unfastened the strap and pulled out the book. Her arm was a leaden bar when she lifted it, heavier still when he took the volume and carried it to the floor.
And there was only the sound of his bare feet on the wood, the slide of but
tocks as the circle expanded to give double-arms’ distance to each of the disciples. Christine backed away from the center and Toal was in her place. She stood, then, beside her daughter, and they joined hands in reaching for the light whose pendulum motion now carried it parallel to the floor.
Natalie closed her eyes tightly as she was forced prone, fighting the sensation that a block of marble was crushing her bones into the wood.
She felt it, then: a tingling that made the hairs on her neck stand, her longer hair fly out from her head. The caftan snapped to cling warmly to her skin, and her teeth began to ache.
The light swung faster, its passage the only sound in the room: a swift, loud and soft hissing.
Like the blade of a sword whipped over her head.
Fists were raised and, with an anguished twist of her head, she saw the rings snaring the glow, turning the red to scarlet, the scarlet to crimson, and through it all a lightning flash of white-bright silver.
They are calling it, she thought suddenly. This is how they do it. Toal can’t do it alone; and the revelation of his empty boasts buoyed her, gave her the strength to push herself up to her elbows.
The only face clearly visible now was his, upraised, stone, the ring positioned in front of his eyes that were wide and staring as though the madness of the look alone could conjure the forces he claimed to control.
Darts of light from the eyes of the rings reached out and clashed, mingled, and spread again until they met, separated, met yet once more. A web of slender red interwoven with snakes of silver.
Toal moved his hand, and the web converged on his ring. The electricity increased, the cold made her teeth chatter, yet the backs of the people nearest her were running with perspiration.
The final act, Mrs. Windsor. Tonight I will create a permanent breach in that wall to my world, and when it happens … I’ll have everything I need to shape my control.
Suddenly, she felt a tugging at her chest. She looked down and saw a bulge under the cloth. She slapped at it, but it refused to lie flat. She looked up again, and Toal was beginning to strain. His arms trembled, and the web wavered slightly.
Natalie wanted to shout to shatter his concentration, but though her mouth opened, there was no sound but the hiss of the light.
She tried to pound her fist on the floor, but she could not find the strength to do more than a feeble tap.
And Toal’s chest was heaving. A lack she sensed he might overcome and succeed; the web steadied, shimmered, steadied once again.
The bulging distracted her, and she watched as the ankh pendant slid sideways, felt the wool press tight across her back. Her neck was pulled forward, and elation demanded a scream of discovery. As rapidly as the lack of room would allow, she hiked up her robe and grabbed at the ring, yanked and cried out silently as the chain dug into her skin. It was Ben’s ring he was missing, what he needed to make the transition as simple, as easy as always. He might be able to do without its intersection into the web, but its destruction would ...
Hooking a finger through it to keep it with her. she placed the thin band on the floor, raised a fist, and held it in the air as its rubies began to pulse, its silver stroke glimmered and strained upward. No! she thought, I’ll not be his damned key after all this! She struck it, felt it bite into her flesh, but though it was fragile, it was still too much for her bare hands to damage. She reached down to her feet.
The light swayed, its hissing climbing to a thundering roar.
Toal began to smile, his lips twisted ferally.
Natalie groped flesh; the wooden sandals had fallen while she’d struggled.
The roaring pitched to a catlike snarling, and there were images in the air, in and through and above the sun-bright web. Sparks of colors that had no name. Gathering, spiraling, whirling above Toal’s head.
Natalie clutched frantically at her temples, pounded them, forcing the encroaching dizziness to retreat. She twisted and felt a weight at her breasts, reached up and grabbed the heavy ankh. Licking her lips. Falling to her face. The ring not an inch from her eyes, strands of crimson writhing slowly into the air.
She bent her head and slid the braided necklace free, but the ankh as a tool was a feeble, frustrating failure until she realized she would have to use the room to defeat itself.
Snarling to screeching.
The images solidifying.
The ring, and Toal’s eyes.
Feeling her muscles tearing, knowing at least one small bone in her wrist had snapped under the strain, she lifted her arm until the elbow locked. Pressure beginning to break through her skull. Painfully, blood seeping down her arm, dripping onto the floor, her fingers maneuvered the ankh until it was held like a dagger; the blood made it slippery, and she waited no longer but let the weight of Toal’s world thrust her arm, her hand, the edge of the ankh down upon her finger, and the rim of the ring.
She saw it split, shatter, rise into sparks that died in the cold wind. Saw her finger severed, saw the ankh embedded in the black floor.
The silence of the moment ended, and she heard a grumbling that mushroomed into a lightless explosion while a man screamed and screamed and screamed above the roaring.
She saw the swaying chain snap and the lantern shatter against the far wall. Flames of no color spread up the velvet and became orange and blue and a licking deep gold that rushed in a living river toward the figures in the middle of the floor.
The weight lifted. Vanished. Left her gulping the cold air.
The screaming continued, augmented by others joining rage with terror, fury with hate.
There was light again, wavering. The room flamed into a furnace, and Natalie heard herself cry out, calling Marc’s name and seeing him stir. Without thought, she jammed her hands under his shoulders and pulled him to the near wall, felt the flesh of her fingers peel away as she yanked at the velvet and, in its falling, exposed the hall door. It opened, and she and Marc and the fire spilled into the corridor.
The agony of her maimed hand numbed her senses one by one.
As she heard a man scream, a guest walking by, caught in the consuming fire tide that attacked the rugs and the drapes opposite.
As she smelled the charred stench of blackening flesh.
As she tasted the blood of the hand at her mouth.
As she felt the stub where her finger had been.
As she saw through the flames in the holocaust room.
Saw Toal glaring at her, his ring impotent before him.
Saw at his throat the fangs of a cat tearing, ripping, shredding his flesh and scattering its blood until the flames closed round and the ceiling collapsed.
A hand at her back and someone lifted her. She called out for Marc and watched as a Satan cradled him and raced down the hall.
There was pain, and she screamed until she fainted.
There was pain, numbing, and she slept beneath cool sheets. There was pain, faded, and when she opened her eyes, Marc was sitting on the edge of the bed. His head was swathed in clean smelling bandages, and his hands were covered by thick white gloves.
But he was smiling as he lay a hand to her cheek.
“This,” he said, “is getting to be a habit.”
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (Necon Classic Horror) Page 20
