Darker Than You Think (15 page)

"You
don't believe, Barbee." Her dry voice was edged again with a
veiled mockery. "Most people don't. That fact is our chief
protection—for we are the enemies of people." Her red lips
curved at his incredulous amazement. "You can see why men must
always hate us—because we are different. Because we have inborn
powers greater than are given men—and yet not great enough!"

A
savage spark of wild hostility lit her greenish eyes, as she half
whispered that. In a moment they were dark again, expressionless and
hard, but Barbee had glimpsed a naked, stark ferocity that he
couldn't forget. His own glance dropped uneasily, and he deliberately
drained his cocktail.

"Mondrick
was trying to expose us—so that men could destroy us," her
hard voice rapped. "That's what frightened me tonight. Perhaps
he had invented a scientific test to identify witches. Years ago, I
remember, he wrote a scientific paper on the correlation of blood
groups and introversion—and
introvert
is
one of the harmless scientific terms he used to use when he was
really writing about witches.

"Can't
you understand, Barbee?"

Her
low, husky voice was suddenly pleading, and that hard blankness had
gone from her eyes. Perhaps the alcohol had affected her, after all,
to dissolve the barriers of normal reserve. Now her eyes seemed warm,
as intimately appealing as her voice.

"Don't
you see, Will, that I was fighting tonight for my life? Can you blame
me for using all my own poor weapons against such a great and cunning
enemy as old Mondrick? For he was my enemy—as that stupid dairy
man was, and all true men must be. Men aren't to blame. I know that,
Barbee. But then—am I?"

Tears
wet her limpid eyes.

"I
can't help it, Barbee. The trouble began when the first witch was
hounded and stoned to death by the first savage man. It will go on
till the last witch is dead. Always, everywhere, men must follow that
old Biblical law:
Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Her
naked shoulders shrugged hopelessly.

"That's
me, Will," she whispered bitterly. "You wanted to break the
pretty little shell of my illusion. You weren't satisfied with my
performance as a human woman—though I can't believe it's really
so bad. You had to see the thing beyond my veil."

Wearily,
she reached for her white fur again.

"So
here I am," she told him quietly. "A hunted enemy of all
the human breed. Old Mondrick was the ruthless human hunter—cunningly
seizing every resource of science to track down and wipe out me and
my kind. Can you blame me if I made a feeble little spell to save
myself? Can you blame me if it worked?"

Barbee
moved to rise, and sat back abruptly. He shook himself, as if to
break the fascination of her liquid eyes and shining hair and softly
pleading voice.

"Your
kind?" he echoed sharply. "Then you aren't alone?"

The
warmth left her long eyes; again they narrowed, flat and cruel and
wary, the eyes of a pursued and desperate animal. Her face went
whiter, and her voice turned coldly toneless.

"I'm
quite alone."

Barbee
leaned forward, grimly intent. "Mondrick spoke of a 'secret
enemy.' Do you think he meant—witches?" "He did."

"Do
you know any others?"

Her
answer, he thought, was a fractional second delayed. Her eyes were
screens for thought, opaque and hard. Her tense white face showed
nothing.

"No."
Suddenly her whole body trembled, so that he knew she was fighting
back tears. In the same flat and lifeless voice, she asked: "Must
you
persecute
me?"

"I'm
sorry," Barbee whispered. "But now, when you have told me
so much, you must go on and tell me everything. How else can I
judge?" His hands closed hard on the edges of the little table.
"Do you know what Mondrick meant when he spoke of a leader
coming—the Child of Night?"

He
half glimpsed, for a tiny instant, a queer little smile—too
swiftly come and gone for him to be sure she had smiled at all. Her
fine shoulders lifted above the strapless gown.

"How
could I know?" she said. "Is that all?"

"One
more question—and then we'll eat." Barbee's gray eyes
strove to pierce those hard screens of unfeeling malachite. "Do
you know what proteins Dr. Mondrick was allergic to?"

Her
wary hostility gave way to a genuine bewilderment.

"Allergic?"
Her voice was puzzled. "That has something to do with hay fever
and indigestion, hasn't it? Why no, of course I don't. Really, Will,
I didn't know Mondrick personally—only his work. I don't think
I ever saw him before tonight."

"Thank
God!" breathed Will Barbee.

He
stood up and filled his lungs gratefully with the heavy bar fumes,
smiling down at her.

"That
was a pretty cruel grilling," he said. "Forgive me,
April—but I just had to know those things."

She
remained seated, and her tired face failed to reflect his eager
smile.

"Forgiven,"
she said wearily. "And we'll skip the dinner. You may go when
you wish."

"Go?"
he protested quickly. "Lady, you have promised me the evening.
You said you were hungry as a wolf, and the Knob Hill chef is famous
for his steaks. We can dance after dinner—or maybe take a drive
in the moonlight. You don't
want
me
to go?"

The
hard screens vanished from her eyes, and he saw a tender delight.

"You
mean, Barbee," she whispered softly, "even after you've
seen the strange, poor thing behind my veil—"

Barbee
grinned, and suddenly laughed. His tension had somehow evaporated
completely. "If you're a witch, I'm completely under your
spells."

She
rose with a smile that grew slowly radiant.

"Thank
you, Will." She let him take her fur coat, and they started
toward the dining room. "But, please," she whispered
huskily, "just for tonight— won't you try to help me
forget that I'm—what I am?"

Barbee
nodded happily.

"I'll
try, angel."

CHAPTER
SIX

As
a Wolf Runs—

They
stayed at the Knob Hill until closing time. The steaks were perfect.
The dance band played, he felt, for the two of them alone; and April
Bell moved in his arms with a light, smooth grace that made him think
of some wild creature. They spoke of nothing graver than the music
and the wine, and she seemed to forget that she might be anything
more dangerous than a very gorgeous redhead. So did Barbee—most
of the time.

The
white flash of her perfect teeth, however, reminded him now and then
of the white jade pin he had brought in his pocket—he knew it
must be hers, but still he didn't quite dare return it. The greenish
mystery of her long eyes shocked him more than once with a
disquieting awareness that the haunting riddle of Mondrick's death
was still not really solved, that her own strange confession had only
added another new enigma.

He
wanted to drive her home, but her own maroon convertible was parked
on the lot behind the nightclub. He walked her to it, opened the door
for her, and then caught her arm impulsively as she started to slide
under the wheel.

"You
know April—" He hesitated, not quite certain what he meant
to say, but the bright expectancy on her face made him go on. "I've
a feeling about you that I don't understand. A funny feeling—I
can't explain—"

He
paused again, awkwardly. Her white face was lifted to him; he wanted
to kiss her, but that sudden preemptory emotion demanded expression.

"An
odd feeling that I've known you somewhere, before tonight." His
voice was bewildered, groping. "That you are part of
something—old and somehow very important—that belongs to
us both. A feeling that you wake something sleeping in me." He
shrugged, helpless.

"I
want to tell you," he whispered. "But I can't quite pin it
down."

She
smiled in the darkness, and her velvet voice hummed a bit of a song
to which they had danced: "Maybe It's Love."

Maybe
it was. Years had passed since the last time Barbee had really
thought himself in love, but as he recalled the experience it had
never seemed quite so disturbing as this. He was still afraid—not
of the dark-lipped girl who seemed to be waiting for his kiss, not
even of the twentieth-century sorceress she pretended to be, but
rather of that vague and strangely terrifying feeling she aroused, of
awakening senses and powers and old half memories in himself. There
was nothing he could actually put into words, but he couldn't help
shivering again.

"This
wind's still cold!" He didn't try to kiss her. Abruptly, almost
roughly, he pushed her into the car and shut the door. "Thanks
for a wonderful time." He was trying to cover the unresolved
conflict of his emotions, and his voice turned brisk and cool. "I'll
call you tomorrow at the Trojan Arms."

She
looked at him from the wheel. The slow, tantalizing smile on her dark
lips suggested an amused and pleased awareness of all the disturbed
emotion she aroused in him.

"Night,
Barbee," she purred gently, and bent to start the motor. Barbee
stood watching as she drove away, fingering the white jade wolf in
his pocket. He wondered why he hadn't dared return it. The bitter
wind struck him, and he turned uneasily toward his own shabby car.

Barbee
covered Mondrick's funeral for the
Star.
The
simple services were held at two, next day. Although the wind had
shifted toward the south, the day was blustering and raw, and only
the blind widow and a few close friends from the university and the
Foundation braved it to watch the graveside ceremony.

Nick
Spivak and Rex Chittum were among the pallbearers, looking very taut
and grim. Surprisingly, Sam Quain was absent. Barbee walked up to
Nora, who stood alone near where Rowena Mondrick waited with her
nurse and her great tawny dog, to ask concernedly: "Is Sam ill,
Nora?" He saw her start, as if from grave preoccupation. "I
thought he'd be here."

"Hello,
Will." She gave him a little wan smile; Nora had always seemed
friendly, even since Sam and Mondrick changed. "No, Sam's all
right," she said. "He just stayed at the house to watch
that green box they brought back from Asia. Can you imagine what they
have in it?"

Barbee
shook his head; he couldn't imagine.

Rowena
Mondrick must have heard their voices, for she turned quickly toward
them—her attitude, Barbee thought, oddly alarmed. Her taut face
was colorless beneath her opaque black glasses; the grasp of her thin
fingers on the huge dog's leash and its silver-studded collar seemed
somehow almost frantic.