In the House of Secret Enemies

by George C. Chesbro

  “Belial! Hear me where thee dwell! Restore the sanctity of this virgin child! Leave us without delay! Enter this phial! Enter this phial! Enter this phial!”

  There was no question: The candle flames were flickering. Daniel leaned over the book and began to chant from it. It was all gibberish to me, but delivered as it was in a low, even voice, the precisely articulated words gripped my mind, flashing me back over the centuries.

  Daniel finished abruptly and stabbed the center of the book three times. Kathy’s head began to glow with blue-white light.

  I blinked hard, but the halo remained. There was an intense pain in my chest, and I suddenly realized that I had been holding my breath. I let it out slowly. Something was hammering on the inside of my skull. Fear.

  Daniel pointed with the tip of the dagger toward the egg. “Enter this phial! Enter this phial! Enter this phial!”

  The light flashed, then leaped from Kathy’s head to the ceiling, where it pulsated and shimmered like ball lightning. And then the room was filled with an almost unbearable stench, like some fetid gas loosed from the bowels of hell.

  The light had begun to glow. Daniel folded his arms across his chest and bowed his head. “Go in peace unto your place, Belial,” he whispered. Then came the nod of the head. Somehow I remembered to turn the page.

  There was more chanting that I couldn’t understand, delivered in the same soft voice. There was a different quality to Daniel’s voice now, a note of triumph. He finished the chant, paused, then whispered: “May there be peace between me and thee. Belial, go in peace unto—”

  Suddenly the door flew open and the lights came on. I wheeled and froze. There was a ringing in my ears. Dr. Juan Rivera stood in the doorway.

  “What in God’s name—?!”

  I started toward him, but suddenly Daniel’s hand was on my shoulder, holding me firm. “Stay!” he commanded.

  Daniel was halfway across the room when the sphere of light began to glow brighter. He stopped and stiffened, thrusting both arms straight out into the air in Rivera’s direction. No word was spoken, and Daniel was still at least ten feet away from the door. Still, Dr. Rivera slumped against the wall, then fell to the floor unconscious.

  The light skittered across the ceiling, stopped directly above the white-coated figure. Daniel leaped the rest of the distance, at the same time digging in his robe. He came up with another container. He ripped it open and began to spray a blue powder over Rivera.

  There was a sharp hissing sound and the light shot from the ceiling to Daniel’s head and shoulders. Daniel stiffened, then arched backward and fell hard against the floor, where he writhed in pain, his head now glowing brightly.

  “Jesus!” I murmured, stepping out of the circle and starting toward him. “Oh, Jesus!”

  “Stay back!”

  Instinctively, I made a cross with my forearms, holding them out in front of me like some talisman. “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”

  And then I was beside him. I grabbed hold of the material of his sleeve and dragged him back across the floor, inside the circle. Again there was a hissing sound, and the light shot to the ceiling. I continued to whisper: “Jesus!”

  Daniel’s voice, tortured and twisted out of shape now, came up under my own, like some strange, vocal counterpoint.

  “Go in peace, Belial. Let there be peace between thee and me. Enter the phial!”

  There was an almost blinding flash, and the light expanded, then contracted, shooting in a needle shaft over our heads and into the egg. The egg seemed to explode silently in slow motion, its pieces smoking, then dissolving in the air.

  Kathy Marsten suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. Her eyes widened, and for a moment I thought she was going to speak. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Then she collapsed over on her side. I tasted terror.

  “It’s over,” Daniel said. I could barely hear him.

  It was a long time before Garth could bring himself to say anything. “You claim you saw all this?”

  “Yes.”

  There was another long pause, then: “One of three things has to be true. For openers, either you’ve really fallen out of your tree, or you were hypnotized. I like the hypnosis theory best. Like I said before, it would also explain the girl’s reaction.”

  “Really? How?” I found I wasn’t much interested in “logical” explanations.

  “I’m willing to buy the notion that this Bannon—or ‘Daniel’–had something on the ball mentally. He hypnotized the girl, probably with her parents’ help, and put her into a deep coma. It can be done, you know. Then he got you up into that room and ran the same number on you. Remember, you said the girl seemed to be coming out of it anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why? What was Daniel’s motive? What you’re saying simply doesn’t make any sense. And don’t try to tell me it does.”

  “How the hell should I know what his motive was?” Garth said impatiently. It was the cop in him coming out: He was having a hard time making his case. He went on: “Daniel was obviously crazy. Crazy people don’t need motives for doing crazy things.”

  “What about Rivera?”

  “What about him?”

  “He doesn’t remember a thing. He called me the next day to tell me Kathy had made what he called a miraculous recovery. I pumped him a little, gently. Nothing. I don’t think he even knows he passed out.”

  “Which brings us to the third possibility.”

  “I can’t wait to hear this one.”

  Garth paused for emphasis. “You were never up in that room, Mongo.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Goddamn it, you listen to me and listen to me good! It never happened! That business in the room never happened!” He paused and came up for breath. He continued a little more calmly, “You didn’t hear yourself on that phone: I did. I’d say you were damn near hysterical. When I got there I found you unconscious next to the phone booth.”

  “Back to square one: I fell out of my tree.”

  “Why not? It happens to the best of us from time to time. You were under a lot of pressure. You’d seen two neighbors burn to death, saved a little girl only to feel that she was in danger of dying. That, along with the witchcraft business, pushed you over the brink for just a few moments.”

  “Who pushed Daniel?” I said as calmly as I could. Garth was beginning to get to me. I was beginning to feel he had a specific purpose in mind, and I was hoping he’d get to it.

  “Nobody pushed Daniel. Daniel fell. It’s as simple as that. It blew your circuits. I think you dreamed the rest when you passed out after calling me.”

  “But you must admit that Daniel was real.”

  Garth gave a wry smile. “Of course Daniel was real. The coroner’s office can testify to that. No, what I personally think may have happened is that he committed suicide. The death of his sister, his niece’s illness, unhinged him. Unfortunately, you happened to see him fall and the shock … upset your nerves. Made you imagine the whole thing.”

  Suddenly I knew the point of the conversation. “You didn’t include me in your report, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Only as the caller … a passerby.” He looked up. “You start telling people you tried to break into—or did break into—that hospital, and you’ll end up with charges filed against you. There goes your license. Second, I don’t want to see my brother locked up in the Bellevue loony bin.”

  “You’re not so sure, are you, Garth?”

  He avoided my eyes. “It doesn’t make any difference, Mongo. You said the materials Daniel used are gone.”

  I glanced at my watch and was amazed to find that only twelve minutes had passed since I’d climbed through the window. Daniel had gotten slowly to his feet and laid Kathy back on her pillow. He still wore the robe, and no part of his flesh was visible.

  “We … must bring everything out with us,” he whispered in a strained voice. “Clean … everything.”

  There was no time
to think, just do. I quickly checked Dr. Rivera. He was still unconscious, but breathing regularly. I heard footsteps outside in the hall. They paused by the door and I tensed. After a few seconds the footsteps moved on.

  I used Daniel’s towels to erase all traces of the blue powder he had used. When I finished I found him waiting for me by the window. He had replaced the objects in the knapsack and held that in one hand, the book of shadows in the other. I still could not see any part of his face or hands.

  He handed me the knapsack, then motioned for me to go through the window first. I climbed through, balanced on the ledge outside, then swung over onto the fire escape. Then I turned back and offered my hand. He shook his head.

  I frowned. “Don’t you want to take that robe off?”

  He shook his head again. “Go ahead,” he mumbled. “I’ll be right behind you.” There was something in his voice that frightened me, but I turned and started down the fire escape.

  “Frederickson!”

  The texture of the voice—the despair and terror—spun me around like a physical force. He was suspended in space, one hand gripping the fire escape railing, the other holding the book of shadows out to me. Both hands were covered with blood.

  “Destroy,” he managed to say. “Destroy everything.”

  The book of shadows dropped to the grate and I grabbed for Daniel. His hood slipped off, revealing a head covered with blood.

  The ceremonial magician Daniel was bleeding from every pore in his body: Blood poured from his nose, his mouth, his ears. His eyes.

  And then he was gone, dropping silently into the darkness to be crushed on the pavement below.

  Totally devoid of rational thought, a series of primitive screams bubbling in my throat, I picked up the book of shadows and half fell, half ran down the fire escape. I dropped the last few feet and raced to the white-shrouded body. It didn’t take me more than a moment to confirm that the hospital would be of no use to Daniel.

  I was the one who needed help.

  I vaguely remembered a pay telephone booth across the street from the hospital. I raced down the alleyway toward the street, pausing only long enough to hurl the knapsack into one of the hospital’s huge garbage disposal bins. It was only as I neared the street that I realized I was still holding the book of shadows.

  I wouldn’t remember telephoning my brother, or passing out.

  I got up from the chair and pretended to stretch. “Okay, Garth, it’s over. And if that’s it, I’m going to throw you out. I’ve got a long drive to Pennsylvania tomorrow. I’ve traced some of Kathy’s relatives.”

  “Witches?”

  “Sure. But I wouldn’t worry about it. The coven leader also happens to be mayor of the town. His brother is chief of police. A nice, typical American family.”

  Garth’s eyes narrowed. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not kidding.”

  Garth rose and walked to the door, where he turned and looked at me. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Garth, get the hell out.”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you.”

  “I’ll see you.”

  I closed the door behind Garth, then went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. I took a deep breath, then opened the drawer in the night stand and brought out the book of shadows. It was still covered with Daniel’s bloody prints.

  I brushed dirt off one corner and opened it to the pages Daniel had read from. The writing was still totally incomprehensible to me. But Daniel had been able to read it. Undoubtedly, there were others.

  I wondered what some of my colleagues at the university would think of the book of shadows, of Belial. Summoning up a demon would make an interesting research project.

  I glanced at the night stand and the small pile of change there. Fifty-seven cents.

  I ripped the pages out of the book, tossed them in a metal wastebasket and threw a lighted match after them. There was nothing unusual about the flame.

  Aha! A nice, innocent, straightforward animal story. It is a piece that draws on Mongo’s circus background while showing his almost mystical way with large and dangerous creatures, a theme that will not be fully explored until twenty years later, in a yet-to-be published novel.

  Tiger in the Snow

  I don’t like working blind, and there aren’t many men who can get me to drop everything and fly three thousand miles across the country on the strength of no more than a round-trip airline ticket and a barely legible note.

  But Phil Statler was one of those men. I owed Phil.

  He was waiting for me at the Seattle airport. Dressed in an ancient, patched sweater and shapeless slacks, his full lips wrapped around a dead cigar, Phil was not likely to be taken for one of the world’s most successful circus entrepreneurs, which he was.

  “You look ugly as ever,” I said, shaking the huge, gnarled hand extended to me, “only older.”

  Phil didn’t smile. “Thanks for coming, Mongo.”

  “What’s the matter? All the phones broken around here?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come if you knew what it was about.”

  “Hey, that’s great! That’s one of the most exciting pitches I’ve ever heard!” Phil had jammed his hands into his pockets and was staring at his feet. “Okay,” I continued seriously, “so I’m here. You got trouble?”

  “Sam’s loose.”

  The chill that ran through me had nothing to do with the Washington winter. “He kill anybody?”

  “Not yet.”

  “My God, if Sam’s loose in the city—”

  “He ain’t in the city.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Let’s take a ride,” Phil said as he stooped and picked up my bag.

  “He’s somewhere out there.”

  I gazed in the direction of Statler’s pointing finger, out across a broad, open expanse of crusted snow that glittered blue-white under the noon sun. Beyond the snow, forest hogged the horizon, stretching east and west as far as I could see.

  “How do you know he’s up there?”

  “He was spotted. Some guy down in Ramsey.”

  “That’s the town we just passed through?”

  Phil Statler nodded. I leaned back against the Jeep and pulled the collar of my sheepskin coat up around my ears. “Okay, Phil,” I said, “I’m beginning to get the picture. You’re missing a six-hundred-pound Bengal tiger and you want me to employ my natural cunning to track him down. What would you suggest I say to Sam if I find him? He may not want to come back, you know.”

  Now, a man with a missing tiger needs a laugh, or at least a smile. But Statler simply continued to stare at me for what seemed a very long time. When he did finally speak, his hoarse, gravelly voice was a strange counterpoint to the tears in his eyes.

  “It don’t make no difference he didn’t hurt anybody, Mongo,” he said. The tears were already beginning to freeze on his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe them away. “They’re going to kill Sam. The people in the county got their minds set. Okay. But if Sam’s gotta’ be killed I want it to be done by somebody he knows, somebody who cares about him. That’s why I asked you to come, and that’s why I didn’t tell you what it was about. I want to see a man’s face when I’m asking him to risk his life.”

  “I don’t understand. There are other ways of bringing a tiger in than shooting him. You know that. You also know there are a lot of other men more qualified to do it. Nobody’s ever accused me of looking like Tarzan.”

  Statler took a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. I unfolded it and recognized it as the front page of the local newspaper. TIGER ON THE LOOSE was splashed across the top. Below that was a picture of Sam’s head, his eyes glowing with cat fire, his jaws gaping. His fangs glinted in the artificial light of the photographer’s flash.

  “Sam’s never looked so good,” I said. “That picture must be five years old.”

  “They got it off one of our publicity posters.”

  At the bottom of
the page was a picture of a man who obviously enjoyed having his picture taken. Heavy-set, in his late thirties or early forties, he was the kind of man other men try not to prejudge, and always do. I studied the photo for a few moments and decided that Sam’s eyes reflected far more character. Underneath the photo was the caption, GO GET HIM, REGGIE!

  “Who’s Reggie?” I said, handing back the paper.

  “Reggie Hayes,” Statler said, spitting into the snow. “He’s the county sheriff, with headquarters down there in Ramsey. Sam’s done a lot for him.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Seems Hayes is up for reelection. It also seems Hayes is not the model public servant. I don’t know all the details, but up until a few days ago he’d have had trouble getting his mother to vote for him. All that’s changed. People forget about corruption when they feel their lives are in danger, and Hayes is the man who’s going to bag their tiger for them.

  “People don’t want their terrors drugged or carted away in a net; they want them killed. Hayes knows that, and he’s been up in those woods every day for the past three days. Sooner or later he’s gonna luck out. You read the local papers and you’ll see how Sam’s the best thing that ever happened to him.”

  “This is big gun country. I’d think Reggie’d have a lot of competition from the local sporting types.”

  “Sure. Must be hundreds of people around here who’d like to bag a tiger, but none of them want to tangle with a crooked sheriff who’s out to win an election.”

  “I can see their point,” I said evenly. I could. A county sheriff in an isolated area is the closest thing the United States has to an ancient feudal chieftain.

  “I’d do it myself,” Statler said, his eyes narrowing, “but I know I’m too old. I know I ain’t got what it takes. I know you do. Besides,” he continued after a pause, “you’re the only one Sam ever really took to.”

  That took me back for a moment, then I realized it was true. I wondered if it was because both of us, in our way, lived life inside a cage—Sam’s cage of steel, mine of stunted bone and flesh. I didn’t dwell on it.