Death Trance

'It was my fault for tampering,' said Anne. 'I should have realized that Mictantecutli was far too strong for me.'

'You're safe, that's all that matters.'

Anne looked up at me. Her left eye was badly bloodshot. 'At what price, though? That's the frightening thing.'

'No price at all. I was considering that option already.'

'You were really considering letting Mictantecutli go free?'

'Of course I was. It was offering me my wife and my child back. What would you have done?'

Anne looked away. On the lawn outside, in the sunshine, a meadowlark tentatively hopped, and then flew off. 'I suppose I would have done exactly the same thing,' she said. 'But now I feel that you had to make that decision because of me. It's as if my life is being exchanged for all those others.'

'All what others?'

'All those others who will die when Mictantecutli gets loose.'

'Who says anybody's going to die, just because a 300-hundred-year-old demon is set free?'

'Mictantecutli is far more than 300 years old,' Anne corrected me. 'It was already centuries old when David Dark brought it to Salem. It had been known in Aztec culture since the beginning of recorded time. And always, it has demanded its sacrifices. Human hearts to feed its stomach, unfinished lives to feed its spirit, human affection to keep it warm. It is a parasite without any purpose except to exist; and it was only because the Aztecs used it to threaten any of their people who refused to pay homage to Tonacatecutli the sun-god, and because David Dark tried to use it to frighten the people of Salem into coming to chapel more regularly that it had any useful function at all. I promise you, John, when Mictantecutli is set free, it will immediately seek more souls.'

'Anne,' I protested gently, 'these are modern times. People don't believe in this stuff anymore. How can Mictantecutli possibly have any influence if people don't believe in it?'

'It doesn't matter whether they believe in it or not. You didn't believe that Jane could return from the grave until you saw her; but that didn't diminish the power of her manifestation, did it?'

I was silent for a while. Then I looked at her and shrugged. 'It's too late now, anyway. I've made Mictantecutli a promise. I'll just have to stick to it and see what happens. I still don't believe that it's going to be that much of a danger.'

'It will be worse than you can possibly imagine. Why do you think I begged you to let me die? My life is nothing compared with what Mictantecutli will do.'

'But I promised,' I reminded her.

'Yes, you promised. But what is a promise to a demon worth? If you had once made a promise to Hitler, and broken it, would anybody have held you guilty? Would anybody have said that you were untrustworthy or disloyal?'

'Hitler might have done. Just as Mictantecutli might do, if I break my promise to set it free.'

'John, I want you to break your promise. I want you openly to say to Mictantecutli that you refuse to set it free.'

'Anne, I can't. It'll kill you.'

'My life doesn't matter. Besides, if you're really so skeptical about Mictantecutli's powers, you shouldn't worry.'

'I'm not skeptical about its powers. I just don't think that it's got the strength to survive in a society that doesn't believe in demons anymore.'

Anne reached up and touched the back of my hand. 'And there's Jane, too, isn't there? And your unborn son?'

I looked at her for a moment, and then lowered my eyes. 'Yes,' I said. There's Jane.'

We sat for a very long time without saying anything to each other. In the end, I got up from the bed, bent forward, and kissed Anne on the forehead. She squeezed my hand for an instant, but didn't speak, not even to say goodbye. I closed the door behind me as silently as if I were closing the door in a house of death.

On the way out, I came around the corner into the reception area and bumped straight into Mr Duglass Evelith, in a wheelchair. He was being pushed along by Quamus, and Enid Lynch was walking just a little way behind. They looked dressed for an outing: old man Evelith was wearing a black derby and an opera cape, a silver-topped cane held between his knees; Quamus wore an overcoat in gray Prince-of-Wales check; and Enid was dressed in a clinging dress of gray wool, through which her chill-tightened nipples showed with considerable prominence.

'Well met, Mr Trenton,' said Duglass Evelith. He reached out his hand, and I shook it. 'Or rather, ill met, under the circumstances. Anne told me on the telephone what had happened.'

'She called you?'

'Of course. I am like an uncle to all my witches.' He smiled, although there was very little humour in his eyes. His expression instead was suspicious, searching, and critical. What had happened at Quaker Lane Cottage that had led Anne to be injured? I felt there was a magical circle surrounding these people; a psychic bond into which I had unwittingly blundered, setting off alarms within all of their collective minds. If I had hurt Anne in any way, if I had compromised the understanding we had between us to raise the David Dark from the sea-bed and deliver Mictantecutli to Duglass Evelith's house without delay, then I felt uneasily sure that all of these people would know about it without even having to ask.

'Anne is… very much better,' I said. 'Dr Rosen says that she should be able to go home later today, or early tomorrow. He just wants to make sure that she's out of shock.'

Duglass Evelith said, 'It was your dead wife, she told me. A manifestation of your dead wife.'

'Yes,' I said. I looked up at Quamus. His face gave nothing away. Slabby, high-cheekboned, impassive. But he didn't blink once, or deflect for even a moment that cold, penetrating stare. 'Yes, there was some sort of a conflict between them. Anne was trying to give me some temporary peace from ghostly visitations; and I think my wife objected.'

'You mean that Mictantecutli objected. For it is the demon, you know, which causes your wife to appear in this way.'

'I meant — Mictantecutli,' I said. I felt ridiculously guilty. All three of them were looking at me as if I had just sold my mother to a white slave-trader. It was obvious that they sensed something; although quite what it was they couldn't be sure.

Enid said, 'It would probably be better if you were to stay away from your house for the next few weeks. Have you anywhere you can go?'

'I could stay with my father-in-law, I guess, down at Dedham; and, incidentally, talking about my father-in-law, it seems that he may be able to raise enough finance to bring up the David Dark.'

'Well, that is good news,' said old man Evelith. 'But why stay all the way out at Dedham? If you care to, you can stay with me, at Tewksbury. I have a spare suite of rooms which you are quite welcome to use for as long as you wish. It would be quite convenient, too, wouldn't it, while you and your colleagues are raising the ship? You could keep me in touch on your progress from day to day, and in return you could use my library for any additional research you might need.'

I glanced from Enid to Quamus to old man Evelith. It would probably be stuffy and oppressive, living at Billington mansion, but on the other hand it would give me access to all of old man Evelith's papers and books; and I might even be able to discover how he proposed to deal with Mictantecutli once the demon was raised from the bottom of the sea. If I knew what he intended to do, and how he was going to keep the demon in bondage, then I might also be able to find out how to break the bonds, and set the demon free.