The stone wall touched her back.
“Come here.” The man moved toward her slowly. His eyes were unblinking, and in them grew a frightening happiness. Then he smiled lightly, as if at the foolishness of simply telling her to come to him.
His strong-looking arms were half extended, fingers curved for a quick grab.
“No.”
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah, lady. Here to me.”
If the man lunged straight across the rack he would be able to grab her. And now he did lunge, with unexpected, cobraish speed. He had Margie by the wrist, trying to pull her toward him.
Margie had wiry strength, and desperation. They struggled together for a moment like obscene actors, across the old man’s naked torso. Then something happened, Margie couldn’t tell what, but the crushing grip on her arm was suddenly broken. Her assailant made a strange sound, slumping back, sliding down to one knee.
Gasping as if she had been knifed, Margie scraped herself out from behind the constricting rack and ran for the tunnel door. Wherever the other door might lead, her attacker had come from there, it was his turf, there might be more of him that way. Her one thought was to reach the open air and daylight. Once out in the tunnel she climbed the stairs in a mad all-fours scramble that brought her back to the main passage. Then she turned to her right and ran, gambling that she could run in this thick gloom without disaster, rather than delay the fraction of a second needed to get the flashlight from her costume’s pocket.
Daylight had all but disappeared when Margie reached the cave mouth. In her terror she saw this fact as another phase of an attack aimed at her. Sobbing, she threw herself down at the base of the barred gate that held her in the cave, fumbling in a mad panic to loosen again the padlock and the chain. With every second stretched in terror she heard imagined footfalls of pursuit. And yet no horror arrived to seize her from behind. Somehow the lock did open in her fingers; the chain rattled through them, tearing at her skin.
Margie burst the freed door clanging open and ran out. A few heavy, preliminary drops of rain were striking on the paved court, on the stone table with its obscure sundial. A statue gaped in her path, glaring at her with dead gray eyes; she ran around it. The heat of the day had dissipated now in the damp hush before the storm; the shadow of the castle lay enormous on the woods around her now. She scraped her shin, uncaring, on the low stone fence that rimmed the courtyard from the woods. Tree branches hanging motionless in gloom scraped at her as she fled. The path was not really visible now, but here there was only one level route a path could take. Margie sped along it gasping, the branches that clawed at her threatening to turn into apparitions.
Even with the forest altered by dusk the intersection of paths was unmistakable. She turned downhill, running without pause. In what seemed nightmare slowness the switchback curves of the descending path flowed past her. It was now so dark that she was sure the sun was down. A single raindrop struck her cheek. Through gaps in the trees, by the light of an odd sky, she saw clouds coursing thick and low, like airborne giants hunting across the valley of the Sauk.
The ugly realization overtook Margie as she ran: there would be no boat waiting at the landing below. Simon would already have taken it back across the river.
Then she would plunge into the water, swim, wade, do whatever she had to do to get away. At least, thank God, no one was chasing her.
And then she heard, from up the hill behind her, that someone was. Or something. Not even human feet. In a moment the sound identified itself to her fear as a pounding, four-legged run, as of some monstrous dog.
Terror compounded, escalating into something approaching madness. Just as Margie rounded the last steep descending turn of path, exhausted muscles failed and her foot slipped, the ankle starting to twist. She came down heavily, in rough grass and weeds. With superhuman speed her pursuer was catching up. The sound of onrushing feet was mixed now with a hideous growling and snuffling, the noises of a menacing dog amplified to the proportions of a bear.
Margie screamed, her mind gone in blind panic. Just as she lunged to regain her feet, a shaggy, stinking shape loomed over her. What felt like a furred muzzle struck her on the cheek, hard enough to knock her down again. She had a moment’s glimpse of literally glowing eyes, and monstrous fangs.
Margie screamed again, a hopeless quavering. The pressure of a paw at her throat kept her down on her back. At last with pure relief she heard the running arrival of a pair of human feet, she cared not whose.
The black man’s soft voice, panting, was hot with anger now. “You got her. Good.” It sounded as if he were speaking to another person, not a beast. Then his tone shifted, purring at Margie: “One more yell, and he’ll take a chunk out of you where you won’t like it. Believe me?”
“Yes,” said Margie. And the animal, as if her answer had satisfied it, at once removed its pinning weight.
“Get up,” the man said.
Margie got up, very slowly, surprised to find herself practically unhurt. What had been a gauzy costume was little more than trailing rags. She and the man were both still gasping from the downhill run. Meanwhile the impossible beast—Margie couldn’t convince herself it was only a dog—sat on its haunches staring at her. Its black fur was long and so was its lolling pink tongue. There was something thickly, horribly human about that tongue. In its sitting position the beast was almost tall enough to look Margie in the eye.
“Now don’t run,” the man advised her, getting his breathing under control. “Don’t do anything now but what I say. Just walk back up the path. That way you stay alive.”
Surely, thought Margie, before she had climbed as far as the castle again, she could somehow manage to wake up. No nightmare went on indefinitely. And at the same time she knew better. Across the river, its sound carrying freely over the broad water, a diesel semi was taking the narrow highway at high speed. Its headlights might as well have been shining somewhere on Mars.
“Get moving.”
Slowly, wordlessly, Margie turned and started up the path. At least her ankle wasn’t really twisted. But she kept to a slow limp.
The man, climbing only a pace behind her, spoke in a low voice almost in her ear. “Tell me, how many of you were in that tunnel altogether? Who else is there?” And another few steps behind them both, the beast paced slowly. From its throat now came a straining growl, as if only with the greatest effort could it keep itself from seizing Margie in its jaws.
Margie would have been quite willing to answer the man’s question, if she could have understood it. To ask how many were in the tunnel seemed to mean—
This time the four-footed run approaching down the path was almost silent; for all its size the pale bulk that hurtled leaping in the night was almost on top of Margie, before she was aware of it. She made a small sound and tried to throw herself aside. A furred shape as heavy as that of the first beast brushed her in its passage, knocking her aside. This time Margie fell softly. On the slope below there sounded impact, as if a rolling boulder had collided with a tree. Margie slid into tangling bushes on the steep slope. Nearby was thrashing confusion, savage noise as of great beasts in combat. When Margie freed herself from the bushes she slipped and again rolled over on the slope. Her mind spun dizzily.
Half stunned, she raised her head. The black man was nowhere to be seen. The beast that had threatened her, the dark-furred one, was down on the ground while the pale newcomer crouched over it, attacking, driving for the throat. The position held for only a moment. Then the dark beast with a great yowl of agony fought to its feet. Another cry, and it had torn free of its attacker and burst into flight. It hurtled past Margie, ignoring her, its eyes glaring redly. Its next howl, receding, seemed to reach her ears from a long distance away.
The merciless clarity of a lightning flash showed Margie the second beast turning her way. Its own glowing eyes were now fixed on her, and dark stains were already matting dry on its pale fur.
Margie rolled away. With horrible ineffective slowness she got herself up on all fours. She knew even as she moved that before she could even begin to run again the great pale beast was going to land on her back…
Lightning flashed again.
“Wait,” said a man’s voice, close behind Margie, just as she crouched to run. It was a deep, compelling voice, one that she had not heard before.
Poised for hopeless flight, she turned her head. The pale-furred animal had vanished. Where it had been, a tall, lean man now stood, dressed in black trousers and a black turtleneck shirt. His eyes did not glow, but they were fixed on Margie just as the eyes of the pale wolf had been. The man appeared to be bleeding heavily from his left shoulder, up near his throat, but still he stood erect.
