Mirror of the Night

by E. C. Tubb

  Gregg nodded and smiled at Gus. Jeffers beckoned and, shrugging, the tall, thin man walked after the butler towards the study.

  The old man was waiting for him.

  He sat in a great chair, almost buried beneath a heap of blankets, his slippered feet extended towards a roaring fire. He looked even more old and withered than he had last night and Gregg knew that it was because he now saw the old man in the harsh light of day and not by the flattering illumination of the candles.

  But the study rather than the old man was the thing that immediately caught his attention.

  It was a cave of books, the walls were lined with them from floor to ceiling and others lay in stacked heaps on the floor. A tripod rested in one corner and stuffed bats and other grotesque animals hung on wires or lay, almost covered with dust, in obscure corners. A great crystal ball rested on a small table of black velvet and, amid all this confusion of books, stuffed animals, tripods and convoluted arabesques, a long table was littered with antiquated chemical apparatus, alembic, phials, retorts strange containers and jars with Arabic names and writhing terminology.

  Gregg stared about him and knew that he looked at the discarded toys of a man who had once dabbled in alchemy.

  “Futile, isn’t it?” The old man had watched Gregg’s reactions with eyes that betrayed his inward amusement. “And yet, you know, not all the old knowledge was superstition. Some little of it had power, great power, and used as it should be could bend mighty spirits to the will of those who summoned them.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Why not?”

  “I do not intend to argue with you,” said Gregg, and sat down in an indicated chair. “You must remember that I am a man of science and cannot waste time pondering the probabilities of so-called arcane lore. Perhaps some good did come from the early alchemical experiments but that good was arrived at by accident, not intention.”

  “For a man who seeks to solve the enigmas of the mind and soul you talk with a strange conviction,” said the old man. He hunched his blankets tighter around him. “Of all the people in this house you are the one intelligent man with whom I can talk. You hope for no gain from me and have no cause to hate or fear me. Will you join me in wine?”

  “So early?”

  “Good wine is always acceptable,” said the old man sternly. His claw-like hand reached for a decanter and steadily he filled two goblets to the brim with thick red wine. It glowed in the reflected light from the fire as if it were freshly spilled blood, clinging to the sides of the goblets as the old man picked them up and, even from a distance, Gregg could smell the heady aroma rising from the liquid.

  He took his glass, waited until the old man drank a little of his own, then touched his lips to the ruby wine.

  “You are cautious,” said the old man. “Fear not, I will not seek to snare your soul by my brews.”

  “Could you?” Gregg sipped again and glanced at the litter of equipment on the long table. “How long is it since you experimented?”

  “Many years now.” The old man shrugged as he dismissed the question. “In my youth I was a wild dog, none wilder though I say so myself. I’d wager a thousand guineas on my fancy and double that amount on the turn of a card. I…” He broke off and sipped at his wine. “Tell me, Gregg, why are you here?”

  “As a guest.”

  “Of my grandson’s?”

  “Naturally.”

  “Gus is weak,” said the old man softly. “You are strong. It comes to me that he would seek to lean on such a one as you. Your blood is hot and your courage high. Gus is becoming remarkable shrewd as the hour draws near.”

  “The hour?”

  “Aye, the hour.” The wine in the old man’s goblet had gone. He refilled it and drank as a man to whom drinking is no longer a luxury but a necessity. He drank and refilled and drank again and, as he drank, life seemed to swell his emaciated body and rekindle the light in his eyes.

  Gregg said nothing, drank little, but waited.

  He was still waiting when the scream echoed through the house.

  It was Lorna. She stood in the hall, her mouth a wide scar in the whiteness of her face, and the front of her dress was smeared and streaked with blood. She screamed again and, as Gregg ran towards her, pointed up the stairs towards the room she shared with her husband.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Gregg gripped her shoulders, slapped his hand across her face, shook her again as the light of hysteria died in her eyes.

  “Tony! Oh, my God! Tony!”

  Gregg thinned his lips as she slumped before him. He left her, racing up the echoing stairs towards the room she had occupied and, barely halting his speed, ran into the chamber.

  And stopped as he saw what was lying on the bed.

  Tony was dead, even from where he stood Gregg could see that. The fat man lay on his back, his throat a red ruff, his upper clothing bright with the blood which had gushed from his torn throat. Gregg stared at the body, his eyes narrowed as he examined the wound, and his thin nostrils twitched at the ghost of a peculiar odour.

  “What is it?” Gus entered the room. “What is happening?”

  “Tony’s dead.” Gregg caught the young man by the arm and led him from the room. “His throat has been torn out by a dog or some animal like that. He died the same as those two men you told me about.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Gus, paler than usual, made as if to enter the room. Gregg flung him away from the door.

  “You wouldn’t like to see what is in there,” he snapped. “And no one should enter that room but the police.”

  “The police?”

  “Of course. Tony didn’t die a natural death. He was murdered.”

  “Murdered!” Gus licked his lips with a nervous gesture of his tongue. “But you said that some animal had killed him.”

  “So I did, but which animal? Where? How did it get into the house?” Gregg shrugged aside the young man’s questions and led the way downstairs. From the study the old man’s querulous voice demanded to know just what had happened. Gregg ignored him.

  “Jeffers.”

  “Yes, sir?” The butler, pale but outwardly calm, appeared with his usual soft-footed tread.

  “Call your wife, have her take care of Lorna.” Gregg looked about him. “Where is your wife?”

  “Lying down, sir,” said Jeffers calmly. “She isn’t very well but I will attend to the lady. Is there anything else, sir?”

  “No.” Gregg watched as the man lifted the limp figure of the dead man’s wife. “Come with me, Gus. I want to speak to your grandfather.”

  The old man was waiting impatiently in his chair when they entered the study. He listened to what Gregg had to say and, surprisingly, broke out into a stream of stilted curses.

  “Stap me! The poltroon! ’Od’s death upon it for what it has done. The hour so near and this has to happen, Skin me for a leper but I’ll not have it. Jeffers!”

  “Jeffers is busy,'” said Gregg. The old man didn’t seem to have heard him.

  “Jeffers ye dog! Jeffers! Damme but I’ll take my cutting whip to the varlet for this. Jeffers!”

  “Save your breath,” snapped Gregg. “He’s busy looking after Lorna.” He turned and stared at Gus. “Well, this is one time when you’ve no option but to do what you have to. You’ll have to walk to the village and inform the police of what has happened.”

  “Must I?” Gus licked his lips again. “It’s getting late Gregg, and it will be dark soon. Must I go now?”

  “Someone’s got to go.”

  “Yes, but…” Gus broke off and stared at the old man. “Must I, grandfather?”

  “Can he stop you?” Gregg snorted with disgust. “What’s the matter with you, Gus? You know as well as I do that someone’s got to inform the police.” He glanced at the old man. “How about Jeffers?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need him,” said the old man. “He is my helper in times of stress. He canno
t go.”

  Gregg didn’t bother to argue with the grim finality in the old man’s voice. He shrugged.

  “Well, if Jeffers can’t go and Gus won’t then it’s up to me. I’ll go.”

  “No,” said Gus. “Gregg, you can’t. You promised.”

  “Murder makes things different, Gus. I can’t handle this on my own.” Gregg hesitated. “Come with me.”

  “And leave Lorna all alone? Is that wise?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Gregg frowned at the litter in the study. “The thing I can’t understand is how it could have happened. I was with your grandfather. Tony upstairs. Where were you, Gus?”

  “With Lorna most of the time. She went upstairs for something, to see if Tony was ready for dinner I think, and then I heard her scream.”

  “That leaves Jeffers and his wife,” mused Gregg. “Jeffers had no blood on him and his wife…?” He looked at the old man. “Could his wife have done it?”

  “Mayhap,” said the old man, and cackled. “Mayhap she did.”

  “You don’t seem to be worried about it,” snapped Gregg impatiently. “Are you?”

  “When you are as old as I am,” said the old man thinly, “you’ll find more to worry at than the death of a loon.” He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes gleaming. “Tell me, Gregg, was there much blood?”

  “Quite a bit.”

  “Tony was a florid man, he would have held much blood.” The old man drew in his breath with a moist sucking sound. “Aye, and the hour so near. Mayhap ’tis well. Mayhap ’tis very well.” He leered at Gregg. “Blood is power, young sir. Blood makes for potent magic. ’Aye, mayhap ’tis well.”

  Gregg frowned at the expression on the old man’s face.

  * * *

  The gunroom held few weapons and most of them old and obsolete. Gregg worked for a long time preparing a double-barrelled fowling piece, loading it with black powder from a leather horn and wadding it well with strips torn from a newspaper. Jeffers wasn’t in his pantry and Gregg spent some time selecting several spoons from the many in the baize-lined drawer. He tested them, made sure that they were of silver, and melted them down over the fire. The heat of the fire wasn’t strong enough to do a good job so he improvised by hacking the metal into fragments and stuffing them down the barrels of his fowling piece. He had hardly finished loading the crude weapon when Gus joined him.

  “Arming yourself?” The young man stared at the weapon. “Be careful of that thing, it’s liable to blow up in your face.”

  “It’s the best I could find,” said Gregg shortly. “I think that it will hold.”

  “What are you using for bullets? I didn’t think we had any in the house.”

  “I managed,” said Gregg. He hefted the weapon and shook his head at its clumsy balance. “Sure you won’t come with me, Gus?”

  “I can’t leave Lorna, you know that."

  “She’ll be safe enough. Jeffers and his wife will watch her and we won’t be gone longer than we can help. Say a couple of hours to walk to the village, another hour to phone the police and return by car. Three hours. We’ll be back before midnight.”

  “If you’re able to come back at all,” said Gus grimly. He looked over his shoulder, made sure that the door was shut, and lowered his voice. “Listen, Gregg, that animal, the one we saw when you first arrived.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s out there now. I saw it. You wondered why 1 just didn’t walk away from this place and never come back, well, that thing is the answer.”

  “That dog?”

  “You know better than that, Gregg. If I walked out I’ll lose the old man’s money, but that wouldn’t stop me, not now it wouldn’t. I’m afraid, Gregg, almost sick with fear, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” He looked over his shoulder again. “That animal, thing, whatever it is, is on guard. It attacks anyone who shouldn’t be here and it will prevent anyone leaving this house without grandfather’s permission. I know it, Gregg, that’s why I daren’t run away.”

  “So you think that that animal is your grandfather’s pet? Then why did it kill Tony?”

  “As a warning, Gregg, or, perhaps, because of a mistake. I don’t know, but this I do know, something terrible is going to happen here soon and I’m afraid.”

  He was afraid. Gregg could tell it by the sweat dewing the pallid features, the nervous flickering of the eyes, the trembling of the hands. Gus was sick with fear and yet, like a rabbit who is hypnotised by the snake advancing to kill it, he could do nothing about it. His fear was of something more than just human.

  He feared the unknown.

  Gregg sighed and wasted no more time. Taking the gun with him he climbed the creaking stairs to his room, donned warm clothing, tucked a scarf around his throat and, taking up the gun, went down the stairs and out of the house.

  He paused for a moment in the overgrown drive, conscious of the windows behind him, each staring at him like a blind, malevolent eye. It was growing dark, his preparations had taken longer than he had realised, and the thin wind wailed over the downs like a whimpering chorus of complaining ghosts.

  He shivered a little, not from the cold, and, the old fowling piece held ready before him, walked long-legged down the drive towards the coppice and the rutted path which led to the distant village.

  He walked just far enough to be sure that no one could observe him, then swinging sharply to the right, circled about the house almost back to his starting point.

  Nothing.

  Nothing human or animal appeared to move either in the house or on all the vast expanse of the downs. He could see nothing, strain his eyes as he might and, after a final searching glance around, Gregg struck out across the coarse grass of the downs toward the distant village.

  He hadn’t gone a quarter of a mile before he knew that he was being followed.

  It was instinct rather than anything else which warned him. A subtle rustling of grass, the tightening of the muscles at the back of his neck, the goose-pimples chilling his spine. Whatever it was Gregg knew that something was after him and, as he realised it, he acted.

  He turned, the gun flying to his shoulder, then, his finger tightening on the trigger, he paused.

  There was nothing to aim at. Nothing but the night, the murmuring grass, the distant bushes and…

  Something white, vague, dog-like, distant and loping across the ground with fantastic speed. Something that vanished even as he swung the gun around to point at it.

  Gregg frowned and stared at the point he had last seen the shape. If Gus were right, and there seemed no reason to doubt him, then that thing was intending to kill. Two men had already been found out on the downs and a third, fresh-dead, lay a red ruin in the house. The thing, whatever it was, was dangerous and Gregg knew with a chilling certainty that he could never walk to the village with the slightest hope of reaching it.

  To live at all he had to turn from the hunted into the hunter, the attacked into the attacker. He had to stalk and kill the thing or he would pay for his failure with his life.

  To Gregg there was no question about what he must do.

  Carefully he began walking back to the house, his eyes strained for a glimpse of white, his muscles quivering with tension and his hands gripping the gun, his sole protection, until they ached. Slowly he walked past a clump of gorse and fought his instinctive desire to fire at a hint of white. Carefully he refused to waste his one chance of survival and, as he walked, he became aware that the thing was biding its time.

  It wanted to kill him nearer to the house. It wanted him to walk closer to a favourite place, the place where two other men had died and conditions were good for the thing to perform its task. It wanted him to approach the coppice.

  Gregg did.

  He walked, the grass rustling beneath his feet, his lips parted so as the breath through his mouth, his ears strained for the slightest sound. He neared the coppice, entered its shadow, then turned, dropping on one knee, the gun thrown to his shoulder and his fing
er closing on the trigger as something big and white and soundless sprang towards him.

  The fowling piece exploded with a roar, a gush of flame and a billowing cloud of smoke. The recoil slammed against Gregg’s shoulder, knocking him backwards, and flying fragments of power burned his face and hands. For a moment he thought that the gun had burst in his face then, as he blinked his eyes, he saw that the barrels, though swollen and ruined, had held the charge.

  But of the thing at which he had fired he could see no sign.

  It was incredible, that fact. Two pounds of silver fragments had driven towards the creature and some of them must have hit it. Even if only one had hit there should have been blood and Gregg was confident enough of his marksmanship to know that he had aimed directly at the creature. He looked for the blood.

  It was hard to find in the eerie light of the fading moon and when he did find it, it was even harder to follow the dark splotches on the dark grass. Crouching low, bent almost double, he followed the trail into the coppice, beneath the bulk of a bush—and lost it.

  It entered the shadow of the bush and it did not come out. It was as if the wounded creature had simply flown up in the air or vanished from the face of the earth. Gregg did not believe that it had flown and believed even less that it had vanished into nothingness. Even with his belief to encourage him it took him a long time to find the trick of the hidden trap-door but when he found it many things became clear.

  A tunnel from the house to the coppice. Bodies found dead near the coppice and a thing that vanished from searching eyes. Vanished into a tunnel and appearing…?

  The gun was heavy and useless so Gregg threw it aside. The tunnel was dark but he dared not strike a match and, as he jumped down into it, his skin crawled from an expected attack. None came and, carefully groping along the slimed walls, he crept softly forward to where, shining like a splintered star, a thin wedge of light grew to a long gash and finally revealed itself as the edge of a door set ajar.

  In the dim glow of the flickering candles beyond the door Gregg could see something twisted, white, dappled with red and slumped in silent agony on the wet flags forming the floor of the tunnel.

  It was the body of a woman, and yet a woman who seemed to have been caught in the midst of some terrible change. Her limbs were twisted, her jaw elongated, her body half-human, half-wolf, her hair coarse and more like thick hairy fur than hair. She was dead. The silver that had smashed into her had killed her in the midst of a desperate effort to change back to a human shape.