The bloodstone, p.26
The Bloodstone, page 26
“The kitchen.” She had picked out a key and seemed to stroke it.
“What do you remember the most about the kitchen?”
“The light. There was a light over the door leading to the basement.” Chandal smiled somewhat sadly. “When the light was on, I wasn’t supposed to go into the cellar. Justin had a darkroom down there and when he turned on the light, it meant he was developing negatives.” She added in a depressed voice: “The light was on so often. He wanted to be alone with her picture.”
“Whose picture?”
“Magdalen’s picture. It doesn’t make sense, does it? She was so old.” She seemed to have concluded the thought and sat waiting for guidance.
“Can you take me into another room? The bedroom.”
Sudden sharp disgust filled her eyes. “Justin! No—” She began to flail outward with her arms. “Justin—not that way! Oh, God. What are you—” A scream rose. “You’re hurting me! You’re hurting—!”
“Another room,” Luther said swiftly. “The basement.”
She sat breathing harshly. “That’s where the mannequins are,” she said after a shaken moment.
“What are the mannequins for?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you imagine?”
She glanced up with sudden glee. “We needed them for the ceremony,” she said.
“Ceremony? What kind of—”
“We were a coven of two,” Chandal said in precise, almost primly inflected words. “It was ordered that the mannequins be used.”
Luther hesitated and then murmured, “Coven? Did you say—”
Chandal’s expression altered, her eyes changed with puzzlement. “What do you mean? I don’t understand what you mean by coven.”
Ron felt his hands clench into fists. He had had the sudden dizzying image of a separate personality. A refined personality, but underneath....
“We were talking about the mannequins,” Luther said.
“Oh. I don’t know what they were used for. I believe the two sisters used to be dressmakers.” Her face was totally guileless and straightforward. “Of course, we don’t really know that much about them. They seem so open, but in a way they keep to themselves. You see, we live downstairs and they live up on the second level.”
“Chandal, can you take me upstairs?”
“Oh, no!” she said swiftly. “We’re not allowed to go up there.”
“And you never broke that rule?”
“No,” she muttered nervously.
“You have the keys to the upstairs rooms. Surely, at least once....”
Her eyes widened. “You mustn’t tell. Because, you see, if—they knew I saw them....”
“What were they doing?”
The scream burst out of her. She screamed and screamed, curling inward into a tight ball. “They were—! Oh, Christ, they were cutting—!” The screams continued, the occasional words becoming moans. Now she was clawing her own skin, raking her nails down her neck, drawing blood.
“Chandal! You will wake up now. When I count to five, you will be totally awake, totally peaceful.... One—two—”
Screams as her nails dug deeper.
“—three—four—five! You are awake! You are awake!”
The two men now knelt in front of Chandal, attempting to prevent her from doing further damage to herself. Each had hold of one of her arms.
With a contemptuous gesture, she flung them both backward as though they were stuffed dolls, then stooped down suddenly and jerked the bloodstone pendant from Luther’s fingers.
She shuddered as she pressed the stone to her bleeding throat and then to her lips, where she seemed to be drinking greedily of her own blood.
“Chandal—hear me!” ordered Luther. “You are awake! You are awake!”
Ron made a swift move to seize her which Luther intercepted by pulling him aside. “Not now—watch her eyes.”
Chandal tottered, the pendant dangling loosely in her fingers. Her eyes had rolled upward in her head as her lashes flickered quickly. She mumbled a few unintelligible words and with a tremor let her pupils roll down until they seemed to focus on Ron’s face without recognition. Then there was a thoughtful remembrance touched by something of hate. The hate grew, became intense. She seemed to sneer at him, taunting him. Then her features were possessed by a sense of bewilderment and terror.
In the next instant, she fell unconscious to the floor.
“Are you satisfied she’s out of the damned trance?” Ron asked as he came from the kitchen bearing two cups of steaming hot coffee.
Luther glanced up from the dining table where he sat making notes. “She’s normal again. Just afraid and exhausted. The exhaustion is partly a defense mechanism, allowing her to retreat into sleep.”
“What would you call what happened to her?”
“Possibly retreating from a truth she was suddenly too close to. Even to the point of retreating into the other personality. You did recognize the other personality?”
“Jesus, yes. I would have sworn it wasn’t even Chandal sitting there. And then when she jumped up and grabbed that damned necklace out of your hand....”
“The interesting thing is her attachment to the stone. I had hoped she could separate herself from it, but as exhausted as she was, she absolutely wouldn’t sleep until it was safely fastened around her neck.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let her have it,” Ron said, absently stirring two teaspoons of sugar into his coffee.
“I couldn’t take that chance. She’s on unsteady footing emotionally as it is. Anything could make her snap at this point. That’s how close she is to...” Luther seemed to interrupt himself. He reached for his coffee and grimaced when after his first sip he discovered he had omitted sugar. “I’m hopeful,” he went on with a good deal of professional cheer, “that in the next session—”
“Next session, for God’s sake,” Ron interrupted, ashenfaced. “After what happened tonight—”
“She let us get very close, Mr. Talon. At great pain and risk to herself. She wants this—can’t you feel how badly?”
Ron’s face seemed terribly confused and young to the older man. Also unwell. Luther knew that Ron was suffering the aftermath of a severe flu, but he couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t something more serious. He was also convinced that Ron would not tend to his own needs until he was satisfied that Chandal was well on the way to recovery. Ah, these young knights in their shining armor, he thought, shaking his head. He was, more than anything else, pleased that it could still be so in this world where sexual conquests seemed to be all. So love is not quite dead yet, he thought, and was glad that Chandal had found this young man with his rather remarkable dedication to her.
It occurred to him on his way downtown in a cab, that perhaps he was a bit of a romantic himself. For example, he hadn’t bothered to mention to Ron that he had taken a hotel room in Manhattan for the following week. It was a simple thing to do at this time. He still had almost two weeks vacation coming before he had to return to Lakewood and his private practice. That he had planned to spend this time fishing up in the mountains was rather beside the point.
He was unaware of exactly at what instant he realized he was in danger. It was before the horn started blowing, before his cabby had slammed on the brake and swerved the steering wheel. Awareness came instead in a rush of subliminal energy, the bitter taste of fear on his tongue, the strangled cry that rose unbidden to his lips.
In the next instant metal had demolished metal as a gray Cadillac tore through a red light and slammed into the driver’s side of the taxicab. Luther instinctively fell to the right, grabbing hold of the armrest to pull himself forward, snatching his legs out of the way an instant before they would have been severed from his body by the monster lips of the Cadillac’s disembodied fender that even now had closed around the screaming cabby, crushing him and molding him into the contents of an impossibly small metal container. With a last terrified scream, the cabby watched his body explode with blood and begin to come apart in human strips that looked like ground meat coming out of a butcher’s grinder.
Luther closed his eyes, held fast, and refused to give way to screaming. It was his finest triumph.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HE WAS AWAKENED FROM SLEEP BY HIS HEAD SLAMMING AGAINST the windshield. The car was going into a tailspin and his body cleared the back seat when the car rammed headlong into the lightpost after the collision. Ron pulled himself up, glimpsed his reflection in the grimy blood-splattered glass, and the sight of himself, pale and unconnected to where he was, sucked the breath from his lungs, causing him to gasp for air. He woke completely then, covered in sweat, his clothes all rumpled, and wandered around the living room of the carriage house for a moment. Then he lit a cigarette and sat down, his mind blank, looking at the creases in his crumpled shirt. His mouth was full of the bitter taste of sleep and tobacco. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead, trying to hold his mind steady against the shock of the car’s collision and the horrible death of the cab driver.
What car? What cab driver?
A nightmare, he told himself. One of those terrible dreams so intense as to confuse itself with reality. Even the knowledge that there had been no accident was insufficient to remove the shock. His head was throbbing in a deeply impenetrable spot in the back of his skull. Suddenly, his cigarette was making him violently ill. He snubbed it out immediately in the ashtray and made his way hurriedly to the front door.
The night air offered a pittance of relief as he paced up and down the flagstone path. He was so weak that his legs threatened to collapse.
He seemed to hear the chorus of chanters. Some faint voice laughed. Laughed as Ron Talon stepped off the path and began to vomit. Believe me, a woman’s voice seemed to cry, there’s nothing that can save you. Believe me!
Ron straightened up. He had emptied the bitterness out of his stomach for the moment. Even the pounding in his head lessened as he stared up at the sky. He could feel something in him struggling to express itself and flushed slightly as he realized he was trying to pray. Then, humbled, he closed his eyes and felt the prayer pouring out of him on a wordless intimate level of one-to-one communication with the ruling power of the universe. And he could feel, he knew, he was being listened to. He was deeply peaceful, trusting, on a level he had never experienced. Expectant, as though an avenue was going to present itself to him.
His eyes flew open suddenly. Without surprise he saw what he knew he was supposed to see: The light that shone steadily from the fifth-floor window. Jubilant, he laughed. I see it! he felt like shouting. Felt like running inside and waking Chandal so that she would know he had seen it too. Just a little thing, perhaps, but on this slight level he had managed to enter into her reality.
Glancing at his watch, he noticed it was close to 1:00 A.M. Quickly he made his way to the interior entrance to the brownstone. He turned the handle and found it locked. Swearing, he tugged harder, hoping it was merely stuck. Suddenly the door gave way and came flying open toward him so quickly that he fell backward.
Doreen Hammer stepped forward, her red hair in curlers, her eyes narrow and accusing.
“I heard someone prowling outside,” she said nervously. “My God, it’s a good thing I didn’t call the police.”
“There’s a light on in the fifth-floor apartment,” Ron said eagerly. “I’m terribly sorry for disturbing you, but I need to go up there right away....”
Doreen’s face froze into remote lines. “Don’t tell me she’s gotten you involved in playing her little game. Haven’t you caught on yet? She’s hallucinating. She’s out of her mind. I hate to say it. I mean, she’s a good friend of mine, but the best way you can help her is to get a few tranquilizers into her. No kidding. That’s what Mike says.”
“She’s getting professional help,” Ron said slowly.
“I wouldn’t give you a dime for a shrink,” Doreen offered confidentially, sticking her small fists into the pockets of her long navy robe. “A friend of mine went to a shrink once, but it never did any good.”
“Doreen, I don’t mean to cut you off, but could you possibly give me the key to that apartment on five?”
“Mike was right!” Doreen gasped incredulously. “You’re just as crazy as Chandal is!”
“Well, you could convince me there’s no one up there very simply. Either go up there with me or lend me the key.”
Deliberately, Doreen stepped full-frame into the doorway, blocking his way. “Mike wouldn’t like it—”
“Doreen, I’m going up to that apartment.”
“I don’t have the right to let you in. You don’t understand. Mike—”
“I don’t give a damn about Mike!”
“Well,” Doreen said stubbornly, a flush suffusing her cheeks, “I do. I can’t let you in.”
Slowly Ron stepped forward until Doreen’s face was only inches from his own. Something in the depths of her china blue eyes startled him. Something out of place, incongruous to her gentle, rather shy, countenance. A hint that in back of her gentle façade a ruthless woman stood lurking, a woman whose wishes were not to be denied. Cautiously Ron put a hand on either shoulder. Something drew a shudder from between his lips as she glanced at him. He tore his eyes from hers and pushed her to one side. Quickly she dug her fingers into his back and desperately tried to keep him from proceeding.
He pushed forward, freeing himself from her grasping fingers.
She screamed.
Ron glanced backward, as both her arms came around his neck, dragging him back. He had no idea why he was suddenly so afraid of a woman whose strength was certainly far inferior to his own, even in his weakened condition. Perhaps it was the wild look on her face, something akin to that of an untamed beast confronting an enemy.
He grabbed her arms and managed to extricate himself. Unexpectedly he felt the tension slide from her body; she actually smiled. Something warned him. He glanced around just in time to see Mike leap nimbly down several steps and close in on his other side.
“I just saw someone in the fifth-floor apartment,” mumbled Ron, suddenly aware of the awkwardness of his position.
Mike, however, was seemingly oblivious to whatever had been occurring between his wife and Ron. “You saw me,” he said almost pleasantly.
“What?” Ron exclaimed, taken unawares.
“I was painting.”
“Painting?” Ron snapped, wondering if the man could think him an utter fool. “At this time of night?”
Mike smiled bitterly. “In case you’re interested, I have a head full of shrapnel from the war. Sometimes I can’t sleep. So I work. Anything to get my mind off the pain.”
“I thought you said no one lives up there?”
“They don’t.”
“Then why paint?”
“The landlord called. He’s decided to start renting a few of the empty apartments.”
“Quite a coincidence.”
“Why? Most landlords like to rent their apartments, don’t they?” He sneered as if daring Ron to make a reply. “By the way, how is Chandal this evening?” he drawled.
For a long moment the two men stood staring at each other and then Ron said distinctly: “From now on, how Chandal is is none of your business. I want you to stay away from her. You hear me? Leave her alone!”
“We’ll let her be the judge of that, why don’t we?” replied Mike evenly.
A strangled sound burst from between Doreen’s lips and she wheeled around and slammed through the door of her apartment. Ron felt a sudden jolting return to reality. Good God, what had he been saying? Confused, he tried to get hold of himself, to put thoughts together cohesively.
“Now, if you don’t mind...
Pointedly, Mike indicated the door of the brownstone. Haltingly Ron retraced his steps and found himself quickly on the outside of the building, a locked door between himself and Mike. Back in front of the carriage house, he stared upward. The fifth-floor light had been extinguished. The window lay empty and deserted of life. But he had seen it. That was the important thing.
So what? jeered a sarcastic observer. What does that prove?
And Ron had to admit in his confusion that it could mean very little. Possibly not a damned thing.
His head began to ache again as he closed the front door of the carriage house. He had no sooner fastened the safety chain when the telephone began to ring. Quickly he snatched the receiver from its cradle.
“Hello?” he said in a half-whisper.
“Ron?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“It’s Dr. Luther.”
“Oh. I hardly recognized your voice. Is anything wrong?”
“I’m afraid you’ll never believe what happened to me after I left the house. I’ve been involved in an accident. The cab I was in collided with another car.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. A nasty bump on the head, but I’ll survive. I’m at St. Vincent’s down here in the Village. I’m afraid we’ll have to cancel tomorrow’s session. They want me to stay the weekend. We’ll pick it up again on Monday.”
“But, shouldn’t—”
“I’m sure everything is going to be all right. You get some rest. And take care of our little girl. Okay?”
“Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m fine. We’ll go again on Monday. Say around eight o’clock?”
“All right.”
“Good night, Ron.”
“Good night.”
Ron slowly lowered the receiver. Then he put his head in his hand and closed his eyes. Some distant, remote part of his mind was trying to send him a message, trying to communicate something urgent, but his slamming headache was so agonizing that he was unable to concentrate. “What the hell is going on?” he muttered. “What?”
In the silence, there was no answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, IT WAS SPRING THAT CAME FULLY alive in New York. The temperature climbed into the mid-sixties and the morning newspapers forecast more of the same over the weekend.
