Tracy ordered the cabman to stop in Hollywood at a convenient bar, where he gulped several whiskey sours and fingered the book in his pocket. He didn't quite dare to examine it there, however, and, in any case, the lighting was indirect-perhaps on the questionable principle that people seldom appear at their best when they are tight. Replenished and conscious of a mounting excitement, Tracy reached his Wilshire apartment at last, closed the door behind him, and switched on the light.
He stood motionless for a time, just looking around. Then he went to a couch, lit a reading lamp, and took the brown volume from his pocket.
The inset white disk on the front cover was blank. His own name was scrawled in gilt lettering against the dull brown cloth. He turned to Page 25. It said, 'Try the windshield.'
Tracy closed the book and opened it at the flyleaf, which was blank. The next page was more interesting. In the familiar hand type, his own name leaped up at him.
Dear Mr. Tracy:
By this time, you may already have discovered the peculiar qualities of this grimoire. Its powers are limited, and only ten page references are allotted to each owner. Use them with discrimination.
Compliments of the author.
Cryptic-but significant! Tracy looked up grimoire, but the word wasn't in his dictionary. It meant a book of magic, he remembered rather vaguely, a collection of spells.
Thoughtfully he flipped the book's pages again. Spells? Advice, rather. Certainly the advice about the coupe's windshield had come in very handy.
Tracy's lips tightened in a crooked smile. One advantage of the accident: he had forgotten to be worried by the murder! Maybe that wasn't so good. If the police grew suspicious- But there was no reason why they should be. His presence in Laurel Canyon was easily explained; the boulevard was a well-traveled thoroughfare. And Gwinn's body might not be discovered for days, in that isolated section.
He stood up, stripping off the ragged overcoat and tossing it aside with a gesture of distaste. Tracy liked clothes, with an almost sensuous feeling. He went into the bathroom to start the shower, and came back instantly, followed by the beginnings of steam clouds. He picked up the book from the couch.
It lay on a stand as he bathed and donned pajamas and a robe. It was in his hand as he slippered back into the living room, and his gaze was upon it as he mixed himself a drink. It was a stiff drink and, as he sipped the whiskey, Tracy felt a warm, restful languor beginning to seep into his mind and body. Till this moment he had not realized how jangled were his nerves.
Now, leaning back, he pondered on the book. Magic? Were there such things? He thumbed through the pages again, but the printed lines had not altered in the least. Extraordinary, and quite illogical, how that message about the windshield had saved his life. The other pages-most of them bore sentences wild to the point of lunacy. 'Werewolves can't climb oak trees.' So what?
Tracy fixed himself another drink. He was going somewhat beyond his capacity tonight, for fairly obvious reasons. But he didn't show it, except for a glisten of perspiration on his high, tanned forehead.
'This should develop into something interesting,' a soft voice said.
It was the cat. Fat, glossy, and handsome, it sat on a chair opposite Tracy, watching the man with enigmatic eyes. The mobile mouth and tongue of a cat, he thought, were well suited for human speech.
The cat rippled its shoulder muscles. 'Do you still think this is ventriloquism?' it asked. 'Or have you progressed to hallucinations?'
Tracy stood up, walked across the room, and slowly extended his hand. 'I'd like to make certain you're real,' he said. 'May I-'
'Gently. Don't try any tricks. My claws are sharp, and my magic's sharper.'
Satisfied by the feel of the warm fur, Tracy drew back and looked down consideringly at the creature. 'All right,' he said, his voice a little thick. 'We've progressed this far, anyhow. I'm talking to you-admitting your existence. Fair enough.'
The cat nodded. 'True. I came here to congratulate you on escaping the dryad, and to tell you I'm not discouraged.'
Tracy sat down again. 'Dryad, eh? I always thought dryads were pretty. Like nymphs.'
'Fairy tales,' the cat said succinctly. 'The Grecian equivalent of yellow journalism. Satyrs only made love to young deciduous dryads, my friend. The older ones-well! You may be able to imagine what the dryad of a California sequoia would be like.'
'I think so.'
'Well, you're wrong. The older an anthropomorphic being grows, the less rigidly the dividing lines are drawn. Ever notice the sexlessness of old human beings? They die, of course, before they progress farther than that. Eventually the line between human being and god is lost, then between human being and animal, and between animal and plant. Finally there's a commingling of sentient clay. Beyond that you'd not care to go. But the sequoia dryads have gone beyond it.' The cat eyes watched, alert and inscrutable. Tracy sensed some definite purpose behind this conversation. He waited.
'My name, by the way, is Meg,' the cat said.
'Female, I presume?'
'In this incarnation. Familiars in their natural habitat are sexless. When aliens manifest themselves on earth, they're limited by terrestrial laws-to a certain extent, anyway. You may have noticed that nobody saw the dryad but you.'
'There wasn't anybody else around.'
'Exactly,' Meg said, with an air of satisfaction.
Tracy considered, conscious more than ever that he was dueling with the creature. 'O.K.,' he nodded. 'Now let's get down to cases. You were Gwinn's-eh?-familiar. What does that imply?'
'I served him. A familiar, Tracy, serves a wizard as a catalyst.'
'Come again.'
'Catalysis: a chemic reaction promoted by the presence of a third unaffected substance. Read 'magic' for 'chemic.'
Take cane sugar and water, add sulphuric acid, and you get glucose and levulose. Take a pentagram and ox blood, add me, and you get a demon named Pharnegar. He's the dowser god,' Meg added. 'Comes in handy for locating hidden treasures, but he has his limitations.'
Tracy thought that over. It seemed logical. All through the centuries, folklore had spoken of the warlock's familiar. What purpose the creature had served was problematical. A glorified demoniac valet? Rather silly.
A catalyst was much more acceptable, somehow, especially to poor Tracy's alcohol-distorted brain.
'It seems to me we might make a bargain,' he said, staring at Meg. 'You're out of a job now, aren't you? Well, I could use a little magical knowledge.'
'Fat chance,' the cat said scornfully. 'Do you think for a minute magic can be mastered by a correspondence course? It's like any highly trained profession. You have to learn how to handle the precision tools, how to train your insight, how to-My master, Tracy, it's something more than a university course! It takes a natural linguist to handle the spells. And trained, whiplash responses. A perfect sense of timing. Gwinn took the course for twenty-three years before he got his goatskin. And, of course, there's the initial formality of the fee.'
Tracy grunted. 'You know magic, apparently. Why can't you-'
'Because,' Meg said very softly, 'you killed Gwinn. I won't outlast him. And I had been looking forward to a decade or two more on Earth. In this plane, I'm free from certain painful duties that are mine elsewhere.'
'Hell?'
'Anthropomorphically speaking, yes. But your idea of Hell isn't mine. Which is natural, since in my normal state my senses aren't the same as yours.'
Meg jumped down from the chair and began to wander around the room. Tracy watched it-her-closely. His hand felt for and clutched the book.
The cat said, 'This will be an interesting game of wits. The book will give you considerable help-but I have my magic.'
'You're determined to-to kill me?' Tracy reached for his topcoat. 'Why?'
'I told you. Revenge.'
'Can't we bargain?'
