Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/53

 is no Satan. But there was a Presence, and it had horns and a tail and great, shining teeth and lustful, shining eyes."

STOOD up from my chair. "That's enough!" I yelled at him.

He looked at me and then, shockingly, suddenly, gave a low chuckle. "Quaint tale, isn't it? What's the matter?"

"You tell me!" I snapped. "What's on your mind?"

"Allow me to get on with the story. I'm afraid I was becoming hypnotized by my own rhetoric. And interrupt if you feel too weak to stand it." I flushed suddenly as I felt his eyes on my twisted foot. Where did the damned slander start that cripples are loose in the head?

"Go on," I growled.

"To be brief, direct and—crude—the women then proceed to caress this creature. And then—!

"There appears a man in that cavern who does not wear a pendant from his neck. He is no demonologist. He is, God knows, not wealthy. He is but a simple mathematician who made the horrid mistake of attempting to tie in his mathematics with occult philosophy."

Another very long pause. "Go on," I said.

"Don't get me wrong," said Mac. "Don't do that. I didn't know what I was doing. If I'd known I would have cut off my hand before I wrote the supersonics equations. But it's so simple. All you need is a scale of tuning forks—then you modify them the right way and you find yourself in the nearest occult vortex. It's so simple! The clue is in several of Madame Blavatsky's Meditations. That old hag didn't know what she was writing, I suppose. You need money, millions, to get into the circle. I was an outsider.

"The Presence vanished, and I was cursed by those people—cursed while I was waking, sleeping, talking, walking, dancing, writing and reading. Then they opened a door and threw me out."

"A door!" I asked. "In a cavern?"

He laughed like the closing of a lock. "The rocks," he said, "were papier mache. The cavern was the third floor ballroom of a hotel on 32nd Street."

"And so?" I asked.

"I wired back to Council Bluffs for bus fare. I was back there in two days with a tale of urgent business in New York."

"That's plenty, Leonard. Now you can get the Hell out of my house. Yes, even before you build up to the touch for the rare herbs that'll take the curse off you."

"Sorry," he said, rising. "I tried to let you know. It, wasn't a touch. I remembered that you have a cousin, or had, the one you wrote that Bronx monograph on—"

"He's up the river. Dewey got him, with the rest of Murder Incorporated. Did you want a bodyguard against the demons? Or do you want to become a policy banker?"

He had his hat on. From the door he said: "I wanted to have a murder done for me. But now I suppose I'll have to do it myself"

I locked the door and went to bed, fuming like a tea-kettle. I'm from a short-lived clan; we break down early and live in the fear of death. That night I found myself with a hacking cough, which didn't add to my sense of well-being, for my father and sister had died of throat infections. You could accurately say that between Mac's turning out to be a chiseling phoney and my fears that in a week I'd be a dead man, I bordered on distraction. There was a heightening of the sensory powers—all the sensory powers. The darkest room was not dark enough for me, and the traffic below jerked me up in bed repressing shrieks of pain. It was as though I had been flayed alive, for the silk bedsheets I use for that very reason were like sacking-cloth—or sandpaper.

How I managed to fall asleep I didn't know. Certainly the quality of my dreams was horrid enough to wake me up screaming.

GOT disconnected scraps and images from Leonard's story of that night. I saw over again, in the most damnably vivid colors, the lie he had told of the ceremonial in the Hotel. Details he had omitted were plentifully supplied by my subconscious—revolting details. Cripples, I am told, are generally stews of repression and fear.

Quite the most awful part was the Presence turning to me and stating, in a language of snarls and drooling grunts, the following message:

"A curse is no mouthing of words. That worries at a man, but does not kill. A curse is no juggling of hands. That worries at a man, but does not maim. A curse is no thinking of evil. That worries at a man but does not blind, tear, crush, char and slash. A curse is something you can see, hear, feel, hate, and love."

That was not the end of the dream, but it was near. After I—subconsciously doubling for Mac—had been thrown out of that ball room it ended and I awoke. My throat irritation was gone, which was good. That night I did not sleep any more, but read and re-read the clippings Mac had sent me. I wanted to look at his letters, but they were in no kind of order.

I saw the sun rise and made myself a breakfast of bacon and eggs. It was interrupted by a telegram slipped under my door. The yellow slip read: "Please phone me. Not a touch. Mac Leonard." The telegram was because I have no phone; if you want to hear my dulcet voice you have to coerce me into going down to the corner drug store to call you up.

Frankly, I didn't know what to do. I was still mad, half because of his ridiculous story, half because of his continuous rude