“All right, rifleman,” he said.
Blaine, his rifle at high port, just managed to parry the thrust. The blade of the rapier rasped along the gun barrel, past his neck. Automatically he deflected it. Something drove him to roar as he lunged, to follow the lunge with an eager disembowelling slash and then a hopeful butt stroke intended to scatter his enemy's brains across the rocks. For that moment, Blaine was no longer a civilized man operating under a painful necessity; he was a more basic creature joyously pursuing his true vocation of murder.
The Quarry avoided his blows with quick silken grace. Blaine stumbled after him, anger sapping his skill. Suddenly he was shoved aside by Sammy Jones.
“Mine,” Jones said. “All mine. I'm your boy, Hull. Try me with the pigsticker.”
Hull, his face expressionless, advanced, his rapier flashing. Jones stood firm on slightly bowed legs, the battleaxe turning lightly in his hands. Hull feinted and lunged. Jones parried so hard that sparks flew, and the rapier bent like a green stick.
The other hunters had come up now. They chose seats on nearby rocks and caught their wind, commenting on the duel and shouting advice.
“Pin him against the cliff, Sammy!”
“No, over the edge with him!”
“Want some help?”
“Hell no!” Jones shouted back.
“Watch out he don't nip a finger, Sammy.”
“Don't worry,” Jones said.
Blaine watched, his rage ebbing as quickly as it had come. He had assumed that a battleaxe would be a clumsy weapon requiring a full backswing for each stroke. But Sammy Jones handled the short, heavy axe as though it were a baton. He took no backswing but let drive from any position, recovering instantly, his implacable weight and drive forcing Hull toward the cliff's sheer edge. There was no real comparison between the two men, Blaine realized. Hull was a gifted amateur, a dilettante murderer; Jones was a seasoned professional killer. It was like matching a ferocious house dog against a jungle tiger.
The end came quickly in the blue twilight of the mountaintop. Sammy Jones parried a thrust and stamped forward, swinging his axe backhanded. The blade bit deep into Hull's left side. Hull fell screaming down the mountain's side. For seconds afterward they heard his body crash and turn.
“Mark where he lies,” Sammy Jones said.
“He's gotta be dead,” the saber man said.
“He probably is. But it isn't a workmanlike job unless we make sure.”
On the way down they found Hull's mangled and lifeless body. They marked the location for the burial party and walked on to the estate.
18
The hunters returned to the city in a group and threw a wild celebration. During the evening, Sammy Jones asked Blaine if he would join him on the next job.
“I've got a nice deal lined up in Omsk,” Jones said. “A Russian nobleman wants to hold a couple of gladiatorial games. You'd have to use a spear, but it's the same as a rifle. I'd train you on the way. After Omsk, there's a really big hunt being organized in Manila. Five brothers want to suicide together. They want fifty hunters to cut them down. What do you say, Tom?”
Blaine thought carefully before answering. The hunter's life was the most compatible he had found so far in this world. He liked the rough companionship of men like Sammy Jones, the straight, simple thinking, the life outdoors, the action that erased all doubts.
On the other hand there was something terribly pointless about wandering around the world as a paid killer, a modern and approved version of the bully, the bravo, the thug. There was something futile about action just for action's sake, with no genuine intent or purpose behind it, no resolution or discovery. These considerations might not arise if he were truly what his body seemed; but he was not. The hiatus existed, and had to be faced.
And finally there were other problems that this world presented, other challenges more apropos to his personality. And those had to be met. “Sorry, Sammy,” he said.
Jones shook his head. “You’re making a mistake, Tom. You’re a natural-born killer. There's nothing else for you.”
“Perhaps not,” Blaine said. “I have to find out.”
“Well, good luck,” Sammy Jones said. “And take care of that body of yours. You picked a good one.”
Blaine blinked involuntarily. “Is it so obvious?”
Jones grinned. “I been around, Tom. I can tell when a man is wearing a host. If your mind had been born in that body, you'd be away and hunting with me. And if your mind had been born in a different body —”
“Yes?”
“You wouldn't have gone hunting in the first place. It's a bad splice, Tom. You'd better figure out which way you’re going.”
“Thanks,” Blaine said. They shook hands and Blaine left for his hotel.
He reached his room and flung himself, fully dressed, upon the bed. When he awoke he would call Marie. But first, he had to sleep. All plans, thoughts, problems, decisions, even dreams, would have to wait. He was tired down to the very bone.
He snapped off the lights. Within seconds he was asleep.
Several hours later he awoke with a sensation of something wrong. The room was dark. Everything was still, more silent and expectant than New York had any right to be.
He sat upright in bed and heard a faint movement on the other side of the room, near the washbasin.
Blaine reached out and snapped on the light. There was no one in the room. But as he watched, his enamelled washbasin rose in the air. Slowly it lifted, hovering impossibly without support. And at the same time he heard a thin shattering laugh.
He knew at once he was being haunted, and by a poltergeist.
Carefully he eased out of bed and moved toward the door. The suspended basin dipped suddenly and plunged toward his head. He ducked, and the basin shattered against the wall.
His water pitcher levitated now, followed by two heavy tumblers. Twisting and turning erratically, they edged toward him.
Blaine picked up a pillow as a shield and rushed to the door. He turned the lock as a tumbler shattered above his head. The door wouldn't open. The poltergeist was holding it shut.
The pitcher struck him violently in the ribs. The remaining tumbler buzzed in an ominous circle around his head, and he was forced to retreat from the door.
He remembered the fire escape outside his window. But the poltergeist thought of it as he started to move. The curtains suddenly burst into flame. At the same instant the pillow he was holding caught fire, and Blaine threw it from him;
“Help!” he shouted. “Help!”
He was being forced into a corner of the room. With a rumble the bed slid forward, blocking his retreat. A chair rose slowly into the air and poised itself for a blow at his head.
And continually there was a thin and shattering laughter that Blaine could almost recognize.
PART THREE
19
As the bed crept toward him Blaine shouted for help in a voice that made the window rattle. His only answer was the poltergeist's high-pitched laugh.
Were they all deaf in the hotel? Why didn't someone answer?
Then he realized that, by the very nature of things, no one would even consider helping him. Violence was a commonplace in this world, and a man's death was entirely his own business. There would be no inquiry. The janitor would simply clean up the mess in the morning, and the room would be marked vacant.
His door was impassable. The only chance he could see was to jump over the bed and through the closed window. If he made the leap properly, he would fall against the waist-high fire escape railing outside. If he jumped too hard he would go right over the railing, and fall three stories to the street.
The chair beat him over the shoulders, and the bed rumbled forward to pin him against the wall. Blaine made a quick calculation of angles and distances, drew himself together and flung himself at the window.