An Affair Of Sorcerers

police could make anyone they captured talk before some kind of action was taken against the mother and daughter. But I was certain I could; I had a few spells of my own to cast.

Traffic in midtown and on Riverside Drive was almost nonexistent. It was a clear night illuminated by a full moon. The Hudson River, on my left, had taken the cold light, shattered and rewoven it into a brightly spangled robe that stretched, swelled and glittered to the New Jersey shore on the opposite bank.

It took me only fifteen minutes to reach the north entrance to Fort Tryon Park, where The Cloisters is located. It struck me as I drove slowly up the lower driveway how appropriate the setting was for communing with a bunch of witches. The Cloisters is one of New York's landmarks, an enormous castle structure which is a museum housing prime examples of Medieval European art and architecture. There is a great deal of church art, and the very name conjures up visions of pious, ascetic men and women devoting their lives and talents to their Deity. And, of course, the witch in the Middle Ages carried as much weight as the priest. Now, in the twentieth century, the church had revered landmarks and the occultists had sidewalk scam parlors. It looked as if Esobus were trying to turn the clock back a few centuries, at least symbolically.

I didn't want any cruising patrol cars to spot my Volkswagen and come looking for me, so I parked the car on the shoulder of one of the parking areas, between two trees. There was always a chance that my reception committee had arrived even earlier, but I doubted it. I walked in the darkness up toward the Medieval castle. The Cloisters had always been one of my favorite places; now, at night, it was different and threatening, like a gentle friend who has without warning turned neurotic and vicious. In the night, under the full moon, it looked eerie, haunted, with its stone balustrades jutting like blunt teeth chewing a sky bleeding midnight blue.

I had no idea who was supposed to find whom, but I wanted to make certain that I saw my hosts first. To that end, I climbed up on one of the ramparts circling the vast lawn and walked up to the museum. Then it was Circus Time. I managed to human-fly my way up the rough stone wall of The Arcade until I was on the roof of the building. I walked across the pebbled surface and positioned myself behind a balustrade above the Fuentiduna Chapel. That gave me a view of the main approach road. I crouched down, gun in hand, and waited.

And waited.

By twelve fifteen I was anxious. Staying low so as not to show a silhouette, I'd already been around the perimeter of the roof several times, checking out the surrounding area below. There was no sign of life. Twenty minutes earlier a patrol car had cruised up, turned at the head of the drive, then headed back. By twelve thirty, I was soaked with nervous sweat. It occurred to me that they could be watching, waiting. If they thought I hadn't followed their directions. .

I clambered back down the side of the building the way I'd come. Once on the ground, I began making a circuit of the museum. My stomach was beginning to cramp again-not only from the antirabies serum, but from fear and tension. I started whistling to attract the attention of anyone who might have trouble seeing a dwarf in the dark. I was convinced that if the coven had said they intended to kill April and Kathy if I didn't show up, they'd do it.

One circuit completed, I sat down on the stone wall near the entrance and whistled some more, louder. By one thirty, I knew no one was coming. I walked back to my car, distracted and tormented by the thought that Kathy and April could now be in jeopardy because of my game-playing. If I was lucky, the night's exercise had been only a run-through to see if I would show up alone; if I was lucky, they hadn't noticed that I'd spent two hours holed up on the roof trying to get the drop on them. If I was lucky.

Bad luck to one you love, Krowl had said.

With my state of mind what it was, my senses and reflexes weren't quite what they should have been. Also, I was suffering from a bad case of the stupids not to have thought of where else they might try to ambush me. I was seated in my car, turning the key in the ignition, when I felt the skin on the back of my neck begin to prickle. But it was too late. I tried to twist away, but the man in the back who'd picked the lock on my car door reared up and sapped me expertly. There was a loud thud inside my skull, which kept ricocheting around inside my head. I tried to follow the sound's bounces, and suddenly one echo became a white ball of fire that rushed at me. I tried to duck away from it, tripped over another echo and plunged down into a sea of red- tinged darkness.

Chapter 17

I seemed to be trapped in some strange, nonvisual dream; there was no light, no images-only lucid thoughts. What I was thinking was that I had to get up and go to the hospital for my daily shot. Without my injections, I would go mad and die in agony. It occurred to me that something had happened, a problem had arisen, which could prevent me from going to the hospital. I tried to remember what it was, and couldn't. I decided it was nothing; I wasn't hurt, and I couldn't imagine anything aside from injury that could keep me from going for my medication. That would be suicide. It was simply a matter of waiting to wake up.

Something was tapping softly on the inside of my head-not painfully but persistently, with a sound like a pencil eraser bouncing on soft wood. Then I realized with astonishment that it was only the blood pulsing through my veins. I listened for a few minutes until it faded away and I was once again left alone with only my thoughts. I couldn't move, which seemed to reaffirm the fact that I was dreaming after all. That was all right; I was resting, as Joshua had told me to. I would rest a little while longer, then wake up and go to the hospital.

I didn't seem to be able to wake up. I kept waiting for the phone to ring, or Garth or someone else to come and wake me up. No phones rang, and no one came. Time lost any meaning; after a while I couldn't tell whether I was awake or asleep. My thoughts were my only companions, and I couldn't shake off the feeling that something terrible had happened to me. Or was happening. I fought against a growing sense of panic by carrying on long internal monologues, telling myself old jokes over and over again, laughing without sound inside my mind. The line between sleeping and waking became increasingly blurred, then seemed to disappear altogether.

I remembered. A low moan started somewhere in the back of my mind and exploded in a silent, breathless scream punctuated by terror-filled images: My attacker had fractured my skull and I was in a deep coma. Or I was paralyzed. I had no head, no toes, no legs, no fingers-no body at all. There was only the theater inside my mind, and I wondered how long that was going to stay open. Or perhaps what I was experiencing was but a split-second journey that all men must travel between life and death.

I choked back my terror and tried to think. Obviously, I wasn't dead yet. I felt no hunger or thirst, and it occurred to me that I could be in a hospital, being fed intravenously. Garth, Joshua and April could be at my bedside. Janet might be there, praying for me.

Maybe the doctors didn't know my mind was working; maybe they'd pull the plug on whatever machine was keeping me alive. Or, maybe I was simply lying in a ditch at the side of some road.

Maybe I'd be buried alive.

Waiting; silence; a constant struggle against a terror that, once out of control, would devour my mind before the rabies that was now coursing unchecked through my system. I tried to think of other things, but 'other things' always ended up April-and I knew I loved her. I longed for her. That made me cry. I couldn't feel tears, couldn't hear my sobs, but I knew I was crying-at least, inside my mind. Every thought was filled with emotion, and emotion was my only link with reality. Suddenly my mind screamed again, and I backed down into myself, away from the terrible need to see and touch someone I loved, and who loved me.

My mind blinked, and I found myself on a gray plain stretching endlessly off to-nothing. There was no horizon, only a black pit directly in front of me. I backed up. . and the pit moved forward, like some living thing stalking me. It yawned before me like a dark hole on a silent planet. There were sounds in the hole-wailing winds, screams, groans; and I realized the hole was myself, the deepest part of me. It was an abyss, a tear in my psyche I knew I must, at all costs, avoid falling into; at the bottom was madness.

I was crying again. I thought of April, then of my mother-a beautiful, willowy woman who'd loved me, and