An Affair Of Sorcerers

Krowl almost smiled. 'You're tough, Frederickson. And you have personal power. I respect you.'

'Fuck you, you creep son-of-a-bitch.'

Krowl looked at me strangely, his pinkish eyes slightly out of focus. 'Down through the centuries, dwarfs have always been considered receptacles of power,' he said distantly. 'They were kept as consorts, for good luck, in the Medieval courts. Maybe that's what we should do with you. We could chain you, keep you here in a cage. No one would ever know.'

'Krowl,' I whispered, 'come Mental Health Week, I'm going to nominate you for Poster Child.'

I was rather hoping he'd get mad; if he got mad, he might get sloppy. He disappointed me.

'Keeping you with us was just a thought,' Krowl said with a shrug, his eyes coming back into focus on my face. 'You're going to die.'

I sighed. 'Where's the rest of the coven?'

'They'll be here-except for Smathers and Kee, of course. It seems their power was not equal to yours.'

'Will Esobus be here?'

'Yes.'

'Spouting electronic bullshit from his own private cabin,' I said, watching Krowl carefully, waiting for another chance at him. In order to get it, I'd just about have to put him to sleep; I couldn't generate much momentum from my seated position, and Krowl looked as though he were paying attention. 'You don't even know who Esobus is, do you?'

Something like chagrin or embarrassment moved in the albino's eyes, but he didn't speak. I motioned toward the book of shadows left open on the cot. 'Come on, Krowl,' I continued. 'Your coven-buddy Watson didn't know, and he indicated that he was pretty pissed off about it. The only reason he went along was because he'd been asked to by the man who'd recruited him. That was Smathers, a fellow weirdo and pervert Watson had known for years. In fact, you all joined by invitation, and the hosts for the party were Smathers and Esobus. Smathers vouched for Esobus, and one of the conditions for joining was that Esobus be allowed to maintain absolute secrecy about his identity.' I slowly planted my hands on the floor at my sides. 'I think you've all been witched-out, Krowl; Smathers was just jerking around the bunch of you.'

Krowl's pale eyes glinted. He noticed my position and wiggled the gun. I put my hands back in my lap. 'Esobus is the greatest ceremonial magician alive,' he said intently. 'He made it possible for all of us to join together. Tonight, we-or one of us-will be asked to share the secret of his identity.'

'Smathers was the liaison between Esobus and the rest of the coven,' I said. 'But Smathers is dead, and you just told me there was no backup man. There won't be a new messenger boy until tonight. How will Esobus know about this meeting?'

'Tonight's meeting was scheduled beforehand,' Krowl said softly. 'You picked the best of all possible times to visit us.'

I most fervently hoped Esobus would show up. It was Esobus who'd saved Kathy's life, Esobus who'd undoubtedly cut my bonds in Smathers' lab-and Esobus who was going to have to get me out of this one. Esobus was my last potential ace in the hole-a possible secret ally. It was a paper-thin chance, especially in view of the fact that he was going to have to pull this particular dwarf rabbit out of a hat in full view of the other coven members, but it was the only hope left on the shelf.

A movement to the left caught my eye. A robed figure had appeared and was standing just outside the entrance to the cubicle. The hood covered the man's face, and his hands and arms were folded inside the flowing sleeves of the robe. He nodded to Krowl, but didn't speak. Number Two had arrived, and we were obviously in a holding pattern. My stomach muscles knotted painfully, and for a moment I was afraid I was going to be sick.

Krowl acknowledged the other man's presence with a brief movement of his head, then turned his attention back to me. 'It was all in the tarot cards,' he said absently. 'Except that you almost brought me bad luck.'

'I remember something about disaster,' I said tightly.

'For you, Frederickson; not for me.'

'I'm not dead yet,' I said, and was sorry I'd spoken. It was false bravado, to say the least, and it sounded desperate and silly.

'You will be soon.'

'Christ, you're a bunch of sickies!' I said with a lot more feeling than I'd intended to show. I knew that I had to stay calm and look for my best chance; but I vividly remembered what Daniel's body had looked like. Krowl, with his gun, and the gathering, robed assemblage outside the cubicle did tend to make me nervous. A rational part of me kept insisting that dead was dead, and it didn't make any difference how you died. But I didn't want to be tortured, cut, burned; I didn't want a dead animal stuffed in my mouth, or to be howled over by men in crimson robes. Their 'spell' was working as it was supposed to: I was very much afraid, and my fear had a paralyzing effect. They were working my head over before they began on my body. I didn't really have much hope that Esobus or anyone else was going to save me. At least, I hoped to die with some dignity, which meant I'd have to try to mask my fear for as long as possible.

Krowl gestured with the barrel of his gun toward Watson's book of shadows. 'You've been doing a lot of digging, and now you've read a genuine book of shadows. Have you finally satisfied your curiosity?'

Something in his voice-or perhaps the question itself-struck me as odd, and for a moment curiosity displaced fear. It suddenly occurred to me that there was something Krowl wanted from me. I certainly hoped so; from where I was sitting, I didn't look like a man with too much bargaining power.

Three more hooded, red-robed figures had joined the first man outside. That left five more to go-assuming Garth hadn't picked up Sandor Peth.

'I know you're all full of shit,' I said, trying to keep my voice steady as I fought my mounting fear with words. 'Your supercoven is shit. Men who are supposed to be the best ceremonial magicians in the country are brought together into one coven, and what do we get? People raised from the dead? Darkness at noon? Lead turned to gold? Nope. We get a bunch of nasty little boys dressed in Halloween costumes ripping off gullible people. It would be mildly funny if not for the fact that you're murderers. You're still all absolutely ridiculous, you know, and killing me won't change that.'

That struck a nerve. Krowl's eyes flashed angrily, and the muscles in his jaw clenched and fluttered. 'You miss the point, Frederickson,' he said, his voice rising a notch.

I snorted. 'They've been selling the Brooklyn Bridge to idiots like the people you've conned ever since we bought Manhattan from the Indians.'

'We're committed to the accumulation of power through the conscious pursuit of evil,' Krowl said in the tone of a slightly wounded professor correcting a dense student. 'I won't even try to explain states of consciousness, or the inner journeys of the mind that we're able to achieve together.'

'Spare me. I can take you on a tour of Bellevue and show you other people with altered states of consciousness.' I paused, waited for my heartbeat to slow down; the longer we bantered, the longer I'd stay alive, and I was talking too fast. 'Besides,' I continued in a more measured tone, 'the way I see it, you do all the work, Krowl. You've got a talent. Maybe it's just supersensitivity; whatever it is, I accept the fact that you gain tremendous insight into people, with your cards, in the wink of an eye. You can see their hopes and their secret terrors. But you're the one with the talent, and I suspect you're the single piece of flypaper that holds this wormy outfit together.'

'Your analogy aside, I'm flattered,' Krowl said. He obviously was.

'Don't be,' I snapped. 'I haven't finished. You know what I think? This alleged 'supercoven' of yours, with the possible exceptions of Smathers and a leader who won't even tell you his real name, is, in fact, the B group; you're second-raters.' I paused, then asked softly, 'What did you and Michael McEnroe fight about?'

Krowl stared at me for a long time, then slowly blinked once. 'What do you know about McEnroe?' he asked tensely.

'I know he is-or was-your mentor. Your entire operation, including the hand casts, is patterned after his. I know McEnroe's very heavy, and that he taught you everything you know. My guess is that people like him and Daniel would have made up the A group; they were the first ones invited to form a coven. Smathers used the name of Esobus as bait to dangle in front of the real heavies. They may have laughed at him; more likely, they simply ignored him. So Smathers and Esobus had to widen the list. God, they really had to scrape the bottom of the cookie jar to come up with a madman like Sandor Peth. But they