“If they get me,” said Nick at last, “they get me. I get you first.”
His grip tightened on the revolver. And at that moment my tardy ghost reeled out of the closet. He brandished the empty green tequila bottle in one hand, and his face was carefree and roistering.
My ghost pointed the bottle dramatically at Nick Wojcek and grinned broadly. “Thou art the man!” he thundered cheerily.
Nick started, whirled, and fired. For an instant he stood rooted and stared first at the me standing by the desk and then at the me slowly sinking to the floor. Then he flung the revolver away and ran terror-stricken from the room.
I was kneeling at my ghost’s side where he lay groaning on the floor. “But what happened?” I gasped. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” he moaned. “Got a little drunk . . . started haunting too soon—” My ghost’s form was becoming indistinct.
“But you’re a ghost. That knife went right through you. Nothing can wound you.
“That’s what I thought. But he did . . . and here I am—” His voice was trailing away too. “Only one thing . . . could have—” Then there was silence, and I was staring at nothing but the empty floor, with a little glistening piece of light metal on it.
Father Svatomir and Charlie were in the room now, and the silence was rapidly crammed with questions. I scrambled to my feet and tried to show more assurance than I felt. “You were right, Father. It was Nick Wojcek. Went for me with that revolver. Luckily, he missed, got panicky, and ran away.”
“I shall find him,” said Father Svatomir gravely. “I think that after this fright I may be able to talk some sense into him; then perhaps he can help me convince the others.” He paused and looked down at the gleaming metal. “You see, John? I told you they believed you to be a black magician.”
“How so?”
“You notice that? A silver bullet. Ordinary lead cannot harm a magician, but the silver bullet can kill anything. Even a spirit.” And he hastened off after Nick Wojcek.
Wordlessly, I took the undematerialized tequila bottle from Charlie and paid some serious attention to it. I began to see now. It made sense. My ghost hadn’t averted my death—that had been an absurd hope—but he had caused his own. All the confusion came from his faulty memory. He was haunting not mine, but his own murderer. It was my ghost himself who had been killed in this room.
That was right. That was fine. I was safe from murder now, and must have been all along. But what I wanted to know, what I still want to know, what I have to find out and what no one can ever tell me, is this:
What happens after death to a man whose ghost has already been murdered?
Snulbug
“That’s a hell of a spell you’re using,” said the demon, “if I’m the best you can call up.”
He wasn’t much, Bill Hitchens had to admit. He looked lost in the center of that pentacle. His basic design was impressive enough—snakes for hair, curling tusks, a sharp-tipped tail, all the works—but he was something under an inch tall.
Bill had chanted the words and lit the powder with the highest hopes. Even after the feeble flickering flash and the damp fizzling zzzrwhich had replaced the expected thunder and lightning, he had still had hopes. He had stared up at the space above the pentacle waiting to be awe-struck until he had heard that plaintive little voice from the floor wailing, “Here I am.”
“Nobody’s wasted time and powder on a misfit like me for years,” the demon went on. “Where’d you get the spell?”
“Just a little something I whipped up,” said Bill modestly.
The demon grunted and muttered something about people that thought they were magicians.
“But I’m not a magician,” Bill explained. “I’m a biochemist.”
The demon shuddered. “I land the damnedest cases,” he mourned. “Working for that psychiatrist wasn’t bad enough, I should draw a biochemist. Whatever that is.”
Bill couldn’t check his curiosity. “And what did you do for a psychiatrist?”
“He showed me to people who were followed by little men and told them I’d chase the little men away.” The demon pantomimed shooing motions.
“And did they go away?”
“Sure. Only then the people decided they’d sooner have little men than me. It didn’t work so good. Nothing ever does,” he added woefully. “Yours won’t either.” Bill sat down and filled his pipe. Calling up demons wasn’t so terrifying after all. Something quiet and homey about it. “Oh, yes it will,” he said. “This is foolproof.”
“That’s what they all think. People—” The demon wistfully eyed the match as Bill lit his pipe. “But we might as well get it over with. What do you want?”
“I want a laboratory for my embolism experiments. If this method works, it’s going to mean that a doctor can spot an embolus in the blood stream long before it’s dangerous and remove it safely. My ex-boss, that screwball old occultist Reuben Choatsby, said it wasn’t practical—meaning there wasn’t a fortune in it for him— and fired me. Everybody else thinks I’m wacky too, and I can’t get any backing. So I need ten thousand dollars.”
“There!” the demon sighed with satisfaction. “I told you it wouldn’t work. That’s out for me. They can’t start fetching money
