Suddenly I knew the point of the conversation. "You didn't include me in your report, did you?"
He shook his head. "Only as the caller. . a passerby." He looked up. "You start telling people you tried to break into-or did break into-that hospital, and you'll end up with charges filed against you. There goes your license. Second, I don't want to see my brother locked up in the Bellevue loony bin."
"You're not so sure, are you, Garth?"
He avoided my eyes. "It doesn't make any difference, Mongo. You said the materials Daniel used are gone."
I glanced at my watch and was amazed to find that only twelve minutes had passed since I'd climbed through the window. Daniel had gotten slowly to his feet and laid Kathy back on her pillow. He still wore the robe, and no part of his flesh was visible.
"We. . must bring everything out with us," he whispered in a strained voice. "Clean. . everything."
There was no time to think, just do. I quickly checked Dr. Rivera. He was still unconscious, but breathing regularly. I heard footsteps outside in the hall. They paused by the door and I tensed. After a few seconds the footsteps moved on.
I used Daniel's towels to erase all traces of the blue powder he had used. When I finished I found him waiting for me by the window. He had replaced the objects in the knapsack and held that in one hand, the book of shadows in the other. I still could not see any part of his face or hands.
He handed me the knapsack, then motioned for me to go through the window first. I climbed through, balanced on the ledge outside, then swung over onto the fire escape. Then I turned back and offered my hand. He shook his head.
I frowned. "Don't you want to take that robe off?"
He shook his head again. "Go ahead," he mumbled. "I'll be right behind you." There was something in his voice that frightened me, but I turned and started down the fire escape.
"Frederickson!"
The texture of the voice-the despair and terror-spun me around like a physical force. He was suspended in space, one hand gripping the fire escape railing, the other holding the book of shadows out to me. Both hands were covered with blood.
"Destroy," he managed to say. "Destroy everything."
The book of shadows dropped to the grate and I grabbed for Daniel. His hood slipped off, revealing a head covered with blood.
The ceremonial magician Daniel was bleeding from every pore in his body: Blood poured from his nose, his mouth, his ears. His eyes.
And then he was gone, dropping silently into the darkness to be crushed on the pavement below.
Totally devoid of rational thought, a series of primitive screams bubbling in my throat, I picked up the book of shadows and half fell, half ran down the fire escape. I dropped the last few feet and raced to the white-shrouded body. It didn't take me more than a moment to confirm that the hospital would be of no use to Daniel.
I was the one who needed help.
I vaguely remembered a pay telephone booth across the street from the hospital. I raced down the alleyway toward the street, pausing only long enough to hurl the knapsack into one of the hospital's huge garbage disposal bins. It was only as I neared the street that I realized I was still holding the book of shadows.
I wouldn't remember telephoning my brother, or passing out.
I got up from the chair and pretended to stretch. "Okay, Garth, it's over. And if that's it, I'm going to throw you out. I've got a long drive to Pennsylvania tomorrow. I've traced some of Kathy's relatives."
"Witches?"
"Sure. But I wouldn't worry about it. The coven leader also happens to be mayor of the town. His brother is chief of police. A nice, typical American family."
Garth's eyes narrowed. "You're kidding."
"No, I'm not kidding."
Garth rose and walked to the door, where he turned and looked at me. "You sure you're all right?"
"Garth, get the hell out."
"Yeah. I'll see you."
"I'll see you."
I closed the door behind Garth, then went into the bedroom and sat down on the bed. I took a deep breath, then opened the drawer in the night stand and brought out the book of shadows. It was still covered with Daniel's bloody prints.
I brushed dirt off one corner and opened it to the pages Daniel had read from. The writing was still totally incomprehensible to me. But Daniel had been able to read it. Undoubtedly, there were others.
I wondered what some of my colleagues at the university would think of the book of shadows, of Belial. Summoning up a demon would make an interesting research project.
I glanced at the night stand and the small pile of change there. Fifty-seven cents.
I ripped the pages out of the book, tossed them in a metal wastebasket and threw a lighted match after them. There was nothing unusual about the flame.
Tiger in the Snow
I don't like working blind, and there aren't many men who can get me to drop everything and fly three thousand miles across the country on the strength of no more than a round-trip airline ticket and a barely legible note.
But Phil Statler was one of those men. I owed Phil.
He was waiting for me at the Seattle airport. Dressed in an ancient, patched sweater and shapeless slacks, his full lips wrapped around a dead cigar, Phil was not likely to be taken for one of the world's most successful circus entrepreneurs, which he was.
"You look ugly as ever," I said, shaking the huge, gnarled hand extended to me, "only older."
Phil didn't smile. "Thanks for coming, Mongo."
"What's the matter? All the phones broken around here?"
"I wasn't sure you'd come if you knew what it was about."
"Hey, that's great! That's one of the most exciting pitches I've ever heard!" Phil had jammed his hands into his pockets and was staring at his feet. "Okay," I continued seriously, "so I'm here. You got trouble?"
"Sam's loose."
The chill that ran through me had nothing to do with the Washington winter. "He kill anybody?"
"Not yet."
"My God, if Sam's loose in the city-"
"He ain't in the city."
"Where, then?"
"Let's take a ride," Phil said as he stooped and picked up my bag.
"He's somewhere out there."
I gazed in the direction of Statler's pointing finger, out across a broad, open expanse of crusted snow that glittered blue-white under the noon sun. Beyond the snow, forest hogged the horizon, stretching east and west as far as I could see.
"How do you know he's up there?"
"He was spotted. Some guy down in Ramsey."
"That's the town we just passed through?"
Phil Statler nodded. I leaned back against the Jeep and pulled the collar of my sheepskin coat up around my ears. "Okay, Phil," I said, "I'm beginning to get the picture. You're missing a six-hundred-pound Bengal tiger and you want me to employ my natural cunning to track him down. What would you suggest I say to Sam if I find him? He may not want to come back, you know."
Now, a man with a missing tiger needs a laugh, or at least a smile. But Statler simply continued to stare at me for what seemed a very long time. When he did finally speak, his hoarse, gravelly voice was a strange counterpoint to the tears in his eyes.
"It don't make no difference he didn't hurt anybody, Mongo," he said. The tears were already beginning to freeze on his cheeks, but he made no move to wipe them away. "They're going to kill Sam. The people in the county got their minds set. Okay. But if Sam's gotta' be killed I want it to be done by somebody he knows, somebody who cares about him. That's why I asked you to come, and that's why I didn't tell you what it was about. I want to see a man's face when I'm asking him to risk his life."