Childe did not reply for a moment, then he said, "What do youwant?"
His voice was steady. He had thought it would crack, as if itwere crystallized with the ice encasing him.
"You have been very discreet, Mr. Childe, in not telling thepolice. Or, asfar as we know, anybody. But we want to ensure your silence, Mr. Childe. We could easily do that by methods you well know by now. But it pleasesus to have you know about us and yet be able to do nothing."
Childe shouted, "What did you do with Sybil?" There was a silence. And then the voice, "Sybil? Who's she?" "My wife! My ex-wife, I mean! You know, damn you! What have you
done with
her, you filthy monster, unnatural...!" "Nothing, I assure you, Mr. Childe. "The voice was cool and mocking. "We rather admire you, Mr. Childe, because of what you
accomplished. Congratulations. You managed to kill, permanently, a number of ourfriends who have survived for a very long time indeed, Mr. Childe. You could nothave done it without the help of del Osorojo, of course, but that was somethingwe did not foresee. The baron did not anticipate it, and for his carelessness, or ignorance, he paid, and, those with him. Some of them, anyway."
This was his last chance to find out anything about them. He said, "Why the films? Why were they sent in to the police?" "The films are made for our private use, for our entertainment,
Mister Childe. We send them to each other all over the world. Via privatecouriers, ofcourse. The baron decided to break a precedent and to let the othersin on some of them. Because we would enjoy the furor and the shaking up of thepolice. Theshaking up--of all humans, in fact. The baron and his group weregoing to moveout soon, anyway, so there was no chance of our being connected withthe films.
"The baron planned on mailing the films of earlier subjects, workingbackward chronologically, to the police. Most of the subjects hadbeen listed as missing persons, you know, and the earliest had been dropped by thepolicebecause the cases were so old. You found their skins. And lost them.
"You were lucky or smart. You used an unorthodox method ofinvestigation andstumbled across the truth. The baron couldn't let you go then becauseyou knewtoo much, so he decided you would become the latest subject. Now, the baron won't have to leave this area to get away from the smog..."
"I saw the old woman, the baroness, trying to conjure up smog!" Childe said. "What..."
"She was trying to get rid of it, you fool! This used to be anice place tolive in but you humans...!"
Childe could feel the fury making the man inarticulate. However, when the voice returned, it was again cool and mocking.
"I suggest you look in your bedroom. And remember to keep silent, Mister Childe. Otherwise..."
The phone must have been moving down to the rest. But, before theclick, heheard bells tolling and an organ playing the first bar of GloomySunday. Hecould imagine the rest of the music and the Inner Sanctum rusty-hingescreeching.
He stood for a while with the phone in his hand. WoolstonHeepish? That callcame from the house of Woolston Heepish?
Nonsense! There must be another explanation. He did not even wantto think about the implications, if...no, forget this.
He put the phone down, and then remembered with a start what theman had advised. He slowly walked into the bedroom. The bedside lamp had beenturned on during his absence.
She was in bed, staring straight up. A sheet was draped over herto justbelow the naked breasts. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow.
He came closer and murmured. "I didn't think they could harm you, Dolores."
He pulled the sheet back, expecting to find the evidences of somehorror committed upon her. She was unmarked. But her body tilted upward, thefeet rising first, the stiff legs following, and then, as the body beganto pointstraight upward, it rose toward the ceiling. The heavy hair, and thelittle red valve on the back of the neck, stopped it from floating up all theway.
The makeup was very good. It had given her skin a solid fleshyappearanceand kept him from seeing through it.
Childe had to leave the room for a while and sit down.
When he came back, he stuck a pin in her. She exploded with abang as loudas a pistol's. He cut her up into strips with scissors and flushedher down the toilet, except for the head hair, which he put into the garbage.
A century and a half of haunting, a brief fleshing, a few shortand wild copulations, a few killings of ancient enemies, and here she was. Rather, thereshe went. One dark eye, long eyelashes, a thick black eyebrow whirledaround and around and then were sucked down.
At least, he had not found Sybil's skin in his bed. Where was she? He might never find out. He did not think those
"people" knew. The "man" had sounded genuinely puzzled.
It was not necessary to postulate those "people" to account forher disappearance. Human beings had enough monsters of their own.
CHAPTER 21
It seemed that the rain would never stop.
On the evening of the sixth day, in a city like the planet ofVenus in a 1932 science-fiction story, Herald Childe followed VivienneMabcrough.
A few minutes before, he had stopped behind a big black Rolls- Royce, waitingfor a light change at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard andCanon Drive in Beverly Hills. The Rolls was equipped with rear window wipers, andthese enabled Childe to see Vivienne Mabcrough. She was in the back seatwith a man and turned her head just as the light changed to green.
For several seconds, while horns blared behind him, he had animpulse to lether go. If he trailed her, he might find himself the object ofattention from her and her kind. That was something no sane man and very few insanewould wish.
Despite this, he moved the 1972 Pontiac across the street afterthe Rolls, cutting off a Jaguar which had swung illegally to his left to passhim. The Jaguar's horn blared, and the driver mouthed curses behind his glassand plasticenclosure. A spray of water covered Childe's car, and then the wipersremoved it. He could see the Rolls turn west on Little Santa Monica, goingthrough ayellow light. He stopped for the red and, seeing no police car in anydirection--though he could not see far because of the gray curtainsof water--he went left on the red light. He saw the taillights of the Rolls turnright andfollowed. The Rolls was stopped before the Moonlark Restaurant, andVivienne and her escort were getting out. They only had to take one step to beunder the canopy and a doorman assisted them. The Rolls drove off then, andChilde decided to follow it. The driver was a uniformed chauffeur and possibly hewould take the car back to Vivienne's residence. Of course, the car could be herpartner's, but that did not matter. Childe wanted to know where he lived, too.
Although he was no longer a private detective, Childe had kepthis recordingequipment in the car. He described the car and the license platenumber into the microphone while he tracked it back across Santa Monica and thennorth of Sunset Boulevard. The car swung onto Lexington, and in two blocks drove onto the circular driveway before a huge Georgian mansion. The chauffeur gotout and went down the walk along the side of the house to the rear. Childe drovehalf a block and then got out and walked back. The rain and the dusky light madeit impossible for him to see any house addresses from the street. He hadto go upthe driveway, hoping that no one would look out. The house was litwithin, buthe could see no sign of life.
He returned to the car, which he entered on the right sidebecause he did not wish to wet his shoes and legs. The dirty gray-brown water hadfilled the street from curb to curb and was running over onto the strips ofgrass betweenstreet and sidewalk.