Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (14 page)

 
          
"So
you're saying Hitler was a black magician?" Claire said, trying hard to
keep the incredulity out of her voice.

 
          
"Members
of his inner circle undeniably were. They worked magick in places called Order
Castles that were scattered all over
Germany
. Nazism denounced
Christianity and set up a revisionist pagan cult in its place. The forces it
called upon in those ceremonies used Adolf Hitler as an instrument of their
will. Men can fight men
—
but only magick can fight magick."

 
          
He
thought he would lose her then, and blessed Claire for the unexpected gift of belief
when he needed it most. He knew this must sound like stark fantasy to her, and
he could not reveal the details that would have helped convince her.

 
          
"So
that's what you did in the war?" Claire asked, a little uncertainly.
"You fought magick
—
with magick?"

 
          
"That's
what I did," Colin said evenly. "It's not what I was trained to do,
but in essence, by accepting the training I did, I also accepted the responsibility
for seeing that it and similar disciplines are never used to harm.

 
          
"The
great mass of humanity neither knows nor cares about magick
—
true magick, and not the
Saturday Matinee Supernatural that many find so entertaining
—
and they have the right to
keep things that way. To not be troubled by forces outside the scope of their
daily lives, or manipulated by forces they have no way of resisting. When I
find someone interfering in people's lives with magick in that fashion, it's my
duty to stop them if I can
—
for their own sake, as well as for the lives they may
harm."

 
          
"Is
that what you're going to do with Toller?" Claire asked. "Stop
him?" "Yes," Colin said, suddenly sure of the direction in which
his path now lay. "I am if you'll help me, Claire."

 
          
Her
mother had always said that men wanted only one thing from women, and that went
double for a rich man and a poor woman. The memories were irrelevant, in light
of her current task, but as usual, Claire found it hard to get her mother's
words out of her head. They were so much like the buzzing of a hornet that
would alight to sting painfully the moment you forgot it.

 
          
It
was still raining, and while she'd borrowed an umbrella from Professor
MacLaren, her clothes were only half-dry. She shivered as she walked to the
corner, the heavy weight of her purse banging against her hip. Toller's house
was halfway down the block of the cross street, and she'd be chilled through by
the time she got there. Still, it would add what the professor had called
"artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing
narrative," a line from something called "The Mikado." He'd
promised to play it for her when this was over. He'd promised her a number of
other things, all of which Claire warily filed in the category of "too
good to be true."

 
          
Despite
that
—
against
every instinct and experience
—
she trusted Professor MacLaren absolutely. He radiated a
sort of goodness
—
not the sappy, all-absolving infatuation of the worse forms
of Christianity, but a sort of
demanding
kindness, a kindness that knew
that goodness was possible, though hard, and that you were capable of it.

 
          
Faced
with such belief, Claire's first instinct was to disappoint it somehow, to
evade it and drop back into the anonymous herd. But she wasn't going to do
that. Her self-respect wouldn't allow it. The professor believed she was
worthwhile; she owed him more than she could easily put into words for his
honesty and steadfastness. And besides that
—
on a very different level,
but one that seemed pointed in the same direction
—
she felt that Toller Hasloch
had gotten away with his pranks
—
too small a word, but it was all she had
—
for long enough.

 
          
What
he was doing wasn't right. It was like the bigger, stronger bully beating up
the younger schoolkids, just because he had the strength they lacked. As the
suffering victim of bullying
—
from classmates, siblings, teachers, everyone who'd
respond to her
differentness
with automatic malice
—
Claire hated bullies with
the strongest passion at her command. If that was Toller's game, he deserved
everything the world could dish out. And apparently one of the things the
world could dish out was Colin MacLaren.

 
          
As
she turned the corner, a gust of wind nearly wrestled the umbrella away from
her, and as she turned, fighting with it, Claire's coat blew open and a blast
of air cut across her ribs like an icy knife. She could no longer see the
professor's car, parked halfway up the side street, but she knew he was there.

           
He'd assured her that once she'd
found the room that he said
must
be hidden somewhere in Toller's house
and signaled him as they'd arranged, he would be able to come to her aid at the
right moment, and stop Toller Hasloch from doing . . . whatever he meant to do
tonight.

 
          
A
Black Mass ... it sounded unbelievably medieval, and of course it didn't seem
to be mentioned in her invitation. The fact that she'd received one at all
brought her thoughts full circle, back to her mother's convictions about rich
men and poor girls and the only thing men wanted.

 
          
Damn
Mother and her sisters both. The little inner voice
—
the one that always caused
her trouble, the one that dragged her into headlong collisions with other
people's lives
—
was silent at the moment, but the memory of its insistence
earlier this evening lingered like the aftermath of a dream. What would her
family say about her throwing herself at Professor MacLaren that way? That a
woman's first duty was to get married and settle down, and find some man to
protect and provide for her, probably. Only she didn't think Professor MacLaren
was willing to fall in with Mother's plans
—
nor did Claire think her
mother would quite approve of a man on such easy terms with Satanism and
parapsychology.

 
          
It
was much safer to think about Toller Hasloch. Now
there
was a catch to
delight a proud mama. . . .

 
          
Of
course Toller had never been acutely interested in her, but somehow Claire had
always found herself coming along to his bigger parties, usually brought by a
friend of a friend, as these things went. This was the first time she'd gotten
a personal invitation, and it wasn't hard for Claire to imagine why. After
she'd fainted
—
or worse
—
under the influence of the spiked punch at his Halloween
party, she'd become more interesting to someone like Toller Hasloch
—
assuming she could believe
half the things about him that Professor Colin MacLaren had told her.

 
          
And
despite experience and inclination, she could. She did. And she would do her
best to provide the help that the professor had asked for.

 
          
Claire
mounted the steps and rang the bell.

 
          
The
person who answered the door was vaguely familiar to Claire from previous
parties: a tall, older man with blazing blue eyes whose autocratic air didn't
quite seem to fit him. He smiled when he saw Claire and gestured her inside.

 
          
"Come
in, come in, come in! Welcome to Toller Hasloch's House of Fun
—
please make yourself right
at home."

 
          
He
reached for her umbrella, and Claire, not sure of what else to do, surrendered
it to him. There was no reason to believe that everybody here was of sinister
intent; Professor MacLaren had stressed that most of them were probably
innocent bystanders, completely unaware of Toller's secret plans. Claire
reminded herself of that firmly as she added her coat to the collection in the
bulging hall closet and walked past the stairs and into the living room/ dining
room of the large white Victorian, clutching her purse tightly against her
chest.

 
          
Miraculously,
the old house had escaped the almost inevitable subdividing that had come with
the trend to smaller families and the postwar urban flight of the last several
decades. Half of the first floor was given over to two large rooms
—
the living room and the
dining room or parlor
—
while the other side held kitchen, closets, foyer and
stairs, and a small room that Toller used as a study. The two large rooms could
be closed off from each other by oak sliding panels that were currently thrown
open, making the two into one large room that was filled with local college
students
—
a lot of people for a late party on a Thursday night when
everyone had classes the next day. The record changer of the hi-fi set in the
corner held a stack of current LPs, and the Chad Mitchell Trio was on the
turntable, singing "John Birch Society."

 
          
Most
of the kids had taken their shoes off and were dancing. Others wandered in and
out of the kitchen, emerging with Cokes and bowls of chips. Several people
greeted her, and she smiled and waved, though with newly honed suspicion,
Claire realized how few of them were in any of her nursing classes. In fact,
this seemed to be almost a different crowd even from the usual for Toller's
parties
—
a
lot of the people here were older than the average
Berkeley
student
—
she even saw one man with
grey in his hair, standing to one side as if he were trying not to be noticed.

 
          
But
then, she reminded herself, trying to be fair, Toller was a senior. He'd have
his Bachelor's next fall. Why shouldn't he have older friends
—
she and Toller certainly
didn't run in the same circles; how could she pretend to imagine she knew who
his friends were?

 
          
Only
if that were true
—
and it was
—
why his painstaking care to include her in his festivities,
as though she were one of his circle . . . ?

 
          
Unless,
as the professor seemed to think, Toller, too, knew what she had the power to
become, and was courting her for it, seducing her slowly from the paths of
sanity and common sense.

 
          
Tommyrot,
Claire told herself roundly. She'd only taken the vodka punch because
Mother had just called on one of her drunken vendettas to tell Claire what a
disappointment she was. Everyone on campus knew that Claire was the original
wet blanket when it came to booze. Toller couldn't have imagined she'd be
having any when he'd slipped the LSD into the punch.

 
          
The
crepe-paper Halloween decorations that had been in evidence the last time she'd
been here had all been taken down, supplanted by a handmade banner wishing
Toller a happy birthday. There was a brief, sickening moment in which the room
seemed to shimmer and reel, caught between that moment and this, but then
things steadied, and Claire knew where she was once more.

 
          
But
the fact remained: he did take an interest in her.

 
          
Get
a grip on yourself, girl. Everybody who drank that punch got Toller's Mickey
Finn
—
it wasn't anything personal. If walking in the front door
is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies, how are you ever going to handle the
rest of it?

 
          
She'd
find the strength. Claire squared her shoulders and walked into the nearest
knot of partygoers.

 
          
*    
*     *

           
It was easy to deceive them, Claire
realized a few moments later. She wasn't that good a liar, but none of them
were paying any particular attention. There was drinking
—
there always was, at
Toller's parties
—
and once in a while Claire caught a whiff of a sweetish,
burning scent that she thought was probably marijuana.