Phantoms

exists.”

“Well,” Bryce said, “maybe insects that size thrived a long time ago, tens of millions of years ago, back in the age of dinosaurs. Maybe that's when the shape-changer fed on them.”

Lisa's eyes widened. “You mean the thing that came out of the manhole might've been millions of years old?”

“Well,” Bryce said, “it certainly doesn't conform to the rules of biology as we know them — does it, Dr. Yamaguchi?”

“No,” the geneticist said.

“So why shouldn't it also be immortal?”

Jenny looked dubious.

Bryce said, “You have an objection?”

“To the possibility that it's immortal? Or the next thing to immortal? No. I'll accept that. It might be something out of the Mesozoic, all right, something so self-renewing that it's virtually immortal. But how does the winged serpent fit? I find it damned hard to believe that anything like that has ever existed. If the shape-changer becomes only those things it has previously ingested, then how could it become something like the winged serpent?”

“There've been animals like that,” Frank said, “Pterodactyls were winged reptiles.”

“Reptiles, yes,” Jenny said, “But not serpents. Pterodactyls were the ancestors of birds. But that thing was clearly a serpent, which is very different. It looked like something out of a fairy tale.”

“No,” Tal said, “It was straight out of voodoo.”

Bryce turned to Tal surprised. “Voodoo? What would you know about voodoo?”

Tal didn't seem to be able to look at Bryce, and he spoke with evident reluctance. “In Harlem, when I was a kid, there was this enormous fat lady, Agatha Peabody, in our apartment building, and she was a boko. That's a sort of witch who uses voodoo for immoral or evil purposes. She sold charms and spells, helped people strike back at their enemies, that sort of thing. All nonsense. But to a kid, it seemed exciting and spooky. Mrs. Peabody ran an open apartment, with clients and hangers-on going in and out all day and night. For a few months I spent a lot of time there, listening and watching. And there were quite a few books on the black arts, In a couple of them, I saw drawings of Haitian and African versions of Satan, voodoo and juju devils. One of them was a giant, winged serpent. Black, with bat wings. And terrible green eyes. It was exactly like the thing we saw tonight.”

In the street, beyond the windows, the fog was very thick now. It churned sluggishly through the diffused glow of the streetlamps.

Lisa said, “Is it really the Devil? A demon? Something from Hell?”

“No,” Jenny said, “That's just a… pose.”

“But then why does it take the shape of the Devil?” Lisa asked, “And why does it call itself the names of demons?”

“I figure the Satanic mumbo-jumbo is just something that amuses it,” Frank said. “One more way to tease us and demoralize us.”

Jenny nodded. “I suspect it isn't limited to the forms of its victims. It can assume the shape of anything it has absorbed and anything it can imagine. So if one of the victims was somebody familiar with voodoo, then that's where it got the idea of becoming a winged serpent.”

That thought startled Bryce. “Do you mean it not only absorbs and incorporates the flesh of its victims but their knowledge and memories as well? ”

“It sure looks that way,” Jenny said.

“Biologically, that's not unheard of,” Sara Yamaguchi said, combing her long black hair with both hands and nervously tucking it behind her delicate ears. “For instance… If you put a certain kind of flatworm through a maze often enough, with food at one end, eventually it'll learn to negotiate the maze more quickly than it did at first. Then, if you grind it up and feed it to another flatworm, the new worm will negotiate the maze quickly, too, even though it's never been put through the test before. Somehow, it ate the knowledge and experience of its cousin when it ate the flesh.”

“Which is how the shape-changer knows about Timothy Flyte,” Jenny said, “Harold Ordnay knew about Flyte, so now it knows about him, too.”

“But how in the name of God did Flyte know about it?” Tal asked.

Bryce shrugged. “That's a question only Flyte can answer.”

“Why didn't it take Lisa last night in the restroom? For that matter, why hasn't it taken all of us?”

“It's just toying with us.”

“Having fun. A sick kind of fun.”

“There's that. But I think it's also kept us alive so we could tell Flyte what we've seen and lure him here.”

“It wants us to pass along the offer of safe conduct to Flyte.”

“We're just bait.”

“Yes.”

“And when we've served our purpose.”

“Yes.”

* * *

Something thumped solidly against the outside of the inn. The windows rattled, and the building seemed to shake.

Bryce stood so fast that he knocked over his chair.

Another crash. Harder, louder. Then a scraping noise.

Bryce listened intently, trying to get a fix on the sound. It seemed to be coming from the north wall of the building. It started at ground level but swiftly began to move up, away from them.

A clattering-rattling sound. A bony sound. Like the skeletons of long-dead men clawing their way out of a sepulcher.

“Something big,” Frank said, “Pulling itself up the side of the inn.”

“The shape-changer,” Lisa said.

“But not in its jellied form,” Sara said, “In its natural state, it would just flow up the wall silently.”

They all stared at the ceiling, listening, waiting.

What phantom form has it assumed this time? Bryce wondered.

Scrape. Tick. Clatter.

The sound of death.

Bryce's hand was colder than the butt of his revolver.

The six of them went to the window and looked out. The fog swirled everywhere.

Then, down the street, almost a block away, at the penumbra of a sodium-vapor lamp, something moved. Half-seen. A menacing shadow, distorted by the fog. Bryce got an impression of a crab as large as a car. He glimpsed arachnid legs. A monstrous claw with saw-toothed edges flashed into the light, immediately into darkness again. And there: the febrile, quivering, seeking length of antennae. Then the thing scuttled off into the night again.

“That's what's climbing the building,” Tal said, “Another damned crab thing like that one. Something straight out of an alky's DTs.”

They heard it reach the roof. Its chitinous limbs tapped and scraped across the slate shingles.

“What's it up to?” Lisa asked worriedly, “Why's it pretending to be what it isn't?”

“Maybe it just enjoys mimicry,” Bryce said, “You know… the same way some tropical birds like to imitate sounds just for the pleasure of it, just to hear themselves.”

The noises on the roof stopped.

The six waited.

The night seemed to be crouched like a wild thing, studying its prey, timing its attack.

They were too restless to sit down. They continued to stand by the windows.

Outside, only the fog moved.