Greely's Cove (35 page)

Whole minutes passed while Mitch teetered on the edge of a swoon, as half-remembered images flitted into and out of his head.

Anubis, the god of embalmers, with the head of a dog and horrible red eyes.

Mitch himself, an artist of the silvery scalpel, a master embalmer and priest of the god.

A submental cavern, cold and black and stinking, where Hadrian Craslowe was the host, the hypnotist, the server of an unholy feast.

The images evaporated, and he managed to right himself finally, to lean his back against the wall and face the insanity on the sofa. Another shuddering minute passed as his eyes digested the rest of the scene, for he was without his glasses, which added the handicap of nearsightedness to dizziness and terror.

Jeremy had not come alone. In his lap lay a mound of orange fur, scarcely bigger than a man’s two fists—a kitten. Next to him on the sofa lay another one, silvery gray and slightly larger, curled close against his blue jeans. On the carpet at his feet sat three dogs, all nondescript mongrels, none of which looked fully grown. The animals seemed strangely lifeless and inert, as though drugged, and Mitch got the feeling that they were incapable of movement on their own, of even breathing without Jeremy’s permission; that the silken creature on the sofa held them in an unseen grip.

Suddenly Mitch felt totally bloodless, too exhausted to flee whatever atrocity lay in store, beyond caring what else might happen to him. His head lolled and thudded against the ragged wallpaper. He closed his eyes in resignation, waiting like a condemned criminal for the whisper of the ax or the surge of 50,000 volts or the first sweet whiff of cyanide.

Jeremy spoke at last, ending the heavy silence.

“There now, that’s the spirit. You’ll feel much better in a moment, believe me, and we’ll be able to get on with our business.”

The boy’s oddly deep voice and aristocratic British accent sent another tremor of fear up Mitch’s spine: Jeremy could actually hear his thoughts.

“You really should take better care of yourself, you know. That’s a nasty rash you have, and I’d say you’re on the brink of pneumonia, from the sound of that cough.”

Mitch had not realized he was hacking up thick phlegm, or that his breathing was a continuous, whistling wheeze. These were discomforts that paled next to the realities of the screamer upstairs and the smiling boy who sat a few feet away, surrounded by entranced animals.

But just as Jeremy had promised, Mitch
did
start to feel better, having settled deep into resignation and given up the fight against the madness that was loose around him. Somehow he managed to speak around his bitten tongue, to coax words from the chaos in his head.

“What’s happening here—to me? Why are you
—doing
this? Why—”

“Oh, come now, Mitchell, you can’t possibly be that thick! Surely you must have some idea of what all this means. After all, you’ve been groomed for this moment since your early boyhood, just as I have—or shall I say
prepared,
since the term
groomed
seems somewhat inappropriate for a creature such as yourself.” The boy giggled at his own wit. “You should consider yourself fortunate to be a part of it—if you don’t mind my saying so—inasmuch as this is a very historic occasion. Only rarely are all the conditions right: the proper season, the new moon rising precisely six days after the start of Imbolc, all that sort of thing.”

“I don’t understand. I—”

“No, I don’t suppose you do. I sometimes overestimate people, as I have you. Still, you’ve performed rather nicely in a difficult role—that much I’ll give you. Only a few hundred men throughout the whole of human history have succeeded in doing what you’ve done, which is something you can take pride in, I should think.”

“The body,” croaked Mitch, motioning feebly toward the ceiling, “the one upstairs—your mother. What I did to her—is that what you’re talking about?”

“Ah, the truth dawns!”

“But I didn’t mean to—I mean, I didn’t really want—”

“Oh, but there’s no need to apologize, dear boy. You did exactly what you were supposed to do. Thanks to you—”

A sound interrupted, a mewling whine that came from overhead, causing Jeremy to glance toward the ceiling and Mitch’s flesh to crawl. It had a babyish ring, but it was grossly unlike any human baby’s cry that Mitch had ever heard.

“You’ll be happy to know,” said Jeremy, grinning broadly now, “that your involvement is nearly at its end. Even so, you can still be of use for a little while longer, and how well you perform your assigned tasks could determine whether you live or die. I assume that you wish to go on living.”

At this point Mitch was uncertain whether life held any appeal for him, whether an existence filled with lunatic horrors was preferable to whatever lay beyond death. What was life to a man who had done the things he had done, been what he had been? The likelihood of ever smiling again seemed slim, and slimmer yet the prospect of putting behind him the memories of the past weeks and months, of living doyn the guilt for the obscenities he had committed.

Jeremy, of course, caught these thoughts as though Mitch had spoken them aloud. He answered them, betraying anger for the first time. “I’m through coddling you, Mitchell. Now listen carefully to what I say, because it’s important.”

The mewling whine came again from above, louder this time, more demanding. Jeremy paused to appreciate it, then continued.

“The most loathsome thing about the human animal, Mitchell, is its conscience. Think about it: Man arrogantly assumes that his conscience sets him apart from all other living things, that it gives him the ability to declare what’s right and wrong for all creation and everything in it. He presumes to know the difference between good and evil, saying that conscience is the source of that knowledge, all the while conveniently ignoring the fact that no two men can agree on such matters. As for yourself, you would do well to ignore whatever feelings your conscience gives you and accept yourself for what you are. If you do this, you may yet have a chance at some semblance of a life. Are you listening to me, Mitchell? Can you grasp what I’m telling you, or is it over your head?”

“I’m not sure,” wheezed Mitch, blinking tears away. “Accept myself for what I am, you said. Just what am I, anyway?”

“Oh my God, lad, must we go into that? You’re what you are: a human reject, a mistake. Even your parents wished that you had never been born, but surely you’ve surmised that by now. You’re unschooled and stupefyingly ignorant. An alcoholic. An ex-convict. A grimy little functionary in Corley Strecker’s cocaine enterprise—what your fellow criminals call a
throwaway,
if I’m not mistaken. You have no job, no prospects, you’re ugly to look at, and you’re covered with sores from having slept with a dead woman. No one will ever love you, Mitchell, because you are quite simply one of your race’s truly unlovable specimens.”

Mitch’s chest heaved, and his throat felt as though he had swallowed a hot ball bearing. “You’re right—I’m all those things,” he managed. “So tell me, why should I want to live?” The boy ascended from the sofa, bearing the kitten in his arms, and glided close to where Mitch sat on the floor. He bent low and spoke directly into Mitch’s face, slowly, deliberately, giving punch to each word.

“For the simple reason that you have something the vast majority of your brothers and sisters lack: a true purpose
—my
purpose, Mitchell. Serve that purpose and you will survive—even prosper, I can assure you. Bury your sorry excuse for a conscience, accept what you are, and you will have a life that you want to keep—not like you’ve always wished for, perhaps, and certainly not like the others of your kind, but a life nonetheless. Fail me, and I promise you a death that’s horrible beyond words, beyond your worst nightmare.”

A third time the whine sliced through the night, rising both in pitch and volume until it pained Mitch’s eardrums, an insistent, demanding screech that raised the hairs on his neck. Jeremy’s face broke into a demonic grin. He stood upright, rose well off the floor to hang unsupported in the air, and turned slowly to face the door that gave onto the stairway. He began to move toward it, but en route he paused to look back at Mitch, his eyes glowering with hot glee.

Mitch cowered, not believing what he saw, wanting desperately to scrabble to his feet and bolt through the front door, but lacking the strength to do anything except sit transfixed and helpless.

“It’s time for my new brother’s first feeding,” said the boy, cradling the kitten in his arms. “This will be your job for the next few weeks, Mitchell—a simple one that should give you no trouble.”

He reached for the doorknob with a hand that seemed overly large and somehow deformed, like Hadrian Craslowe’s hands, which Mitch remembered from the rare occasions he’d glimpsed them. The door opened, and Jeremy tossed the limp but seemingly conscious kitten onto the stairs, then pushed the door closed again. The screeching from above immediately subsided, giving way to thumps and scrapes that suggested movement across the splintery floor to the stairway.

Robbie braked to a halt just inside the deteriorating gateposts of Whiteleather Place, switched off the headlights, and stared through the bleary windshield at the mansion, a dinosaurian hulk whose one yellow eye—a porch light—peered weakly through the secretive fog. Though dark and indistinct, the very sight of the place caused his guts to cramp, and he farted loudly.

“Catch that one and paint it green,” he said aloud, possibly to Katharine but more probably to himself, a locker-room quip dredged up from his boyhood.

The huge dog was unimpressed by this little show of juvenile bravado and said as much with a nervous whimper. Robbie had read somewhere that dogs have much stronger psychic powers than most humans do, and he half-believed this, having occasionally noticed that Katharine seemed to know what he was thinking. Sometimes she grew excited and joyful before he even suggested a ride in the van, while he was still only
thinking
about making an offer. He wondered now whether she sensed the threat nearby, as he himself did, whether her canine nerves were throbbing with psychic warning.

Robbie’s own nerves were not in the best of shape. Every sixty seconds or so he asked himself just what the hell he was trying to prove (and to whom?), driving out to this horrible place in the forest, braving fog and drizzle and slick roads in the black of night.

Why not do the sensible thing and notify Stu Bromton that the answers to the riddles of Greely’s Cove lay here, at Whiteleather Place, and let the wheels of the criminal justice system roll? Robbie was no cop, after all, and was ill-equipped to deal with even the least-dangerous felon, much less what lay in the house. He had no gun, no knife, not so much as a nightstick or a pair of handcuffs, though he doubted that such utensils could be of much use tonight.

Yet, he felt a strange tingling of power that he relished, a sharp sensation of being alive and in control of himself, having bested the dread that had paralyzed him earlier. He had discovered and experienced the truth of an old axiom: that courage is not the absence of fear but only the ability to beat it.

He was afraid, more so than he could have dreamed possible, but he was no longer a slave to fear, no longer a quivering little varmint who scuttered for a hole at the first sign of trouble. He was standing up to the dread, staring it straight in the eye and daring it to do its worst.

Which it probably would.

“Well, this is it, old girl,” he said, shutting off the engine. “No sense puttin’ it off any longer.”

Katharine whined disapprovingly, as though to ask
why?

“Good question. I’m not sure I know the answer. Maybe I’ve got somethin’ to prove—to myself, if nobody else. Or”—he stumped out his cigar butt in the ashtray—“maybe I’m just curious.”

Or just stupid. Some guys, he reminded himself, confuse stupidity with bravery, and history is littered with their broken bodies.

He opened the door, letting in a fenny night smell, and lowered himself to the ground, cringing from the electrical noise of the wheelchair lift. After alighting, he stood and leaned against the van, then collected a pair of metal crutches from their holder behind the driver’s seat—the ones with the broad, flat rubber tips, which were useful on soft ground. He buzzed the chair back to its place behind the wheel, shushed Katharine’s whining, and nudged the door shut as quietly as he could, locking it.

With his first hobbling steps toward the dark house came an overwhelming sense of aloneness, a feeling of naked exposure and vulnerability that nearly drove him back to the protective steel shell of the Vanagon and the loving company of Katharine. But he fought it and plodded on, keeping to the edge of the circular drive, carefully planting the rubber tips of his crutches onto the rock-chipped surface and testing for traction before swinging his weight forward, step after cautious step. Though the rain had stopped and the fog had begun to thin, his eyebrows and lashes were already picking up wetness from the humid air. The cold lay heavy against his face. He saw and heard no sign of life in or around the house that loomed ahead, except for the lonely light that glimmered under the arched ceiling of the enormous wooden porch—a beacon, it seemed, to warn away the foolish and unwary. Still he kept on, straining his eyes to glean details in the dark, drawing ever closer.

He became aware of the state of decay around him: the deadness of the trees with their twisted, holly-choked limbs. The tangled and brittle wreckage of shrubbery. The warped and sagging timbers of the porch that swept around the mansion.

Hanging in the air was the reek of rotting bark and noxious weeds, mingled with a hint of putrescence. More troubling than these physical sensations, though, were the psychic alarms that were clanging in his head, the equivalents of pulsating lights and blaring Klaxons.

He shook off the warnings, surprising himself with a display of renewed courage. He was crossing thresholds tonight, discovering new things about himself. He was not a spineless coward after all. His mind was no longer closed to the realities of the unseen world that his witchy friend, Mona Kleiman, endlessly spoke of. Robbie marveled now that he could have denied those realities, that he had gotten a small taste of them years earlier at a place called Carlyle Lake and still dismissed Mona’s wisdom as the fanciful drivel of a sweet old crackpot.