“Leave her alone! She’s not young, and her heart isn’t too good.”
“Nothing wrong with my heart,” Andrea said decisively. She shoved the bottle away and set her empty glass down with a thud. “I said I needed that, and I did. As for you, Mr. Collins, if you’re such a pretty little skeptic, what the hell are you doing here? Stooging for the great Gordon Randolph? The delectable decoy, to lead her out into his waiting-claws?”
Michael took a step toward her and stopped himself with an effort that left him shaking.
“Sit down,” Andrea said gruffly. “I take it back. If you are a decoy, you’re an unwitting one. I know what you’re thinking-this crazy old bat has corrupted the innocent girl with her weird ideas of witchcraft. Baby, I didn’t give Linda the idea. She gave it to me. And, God help me, I didn’t believe her until tonight. I saw him. I knew him. He’s waiting out there, waiting for her. He can’t get in. Not yet. But he’s summoning his powers. Can’t you feel them, growing, feeding on evil? Soon he’ll be strong enough. Soon he’ll come.”
The high, crooning voice was semihypnotic. Crouched in her chair, monotonously stroking the black cat that had sprung to her lap, Andrea cast a spell of conviction. Michael shook himself.
“I thought you said you had a protective spell around the house,” he said.
“Ordinary white magic, against ordinary intruders. This isn’t ordinary. He’s strong. Very strong. But it takes time to build up the power. It’s building now. Can’t you feel it? I can feel it. Like electricity in the air. When it’s strong enough-then he’ll come for her.”
The cat’s fur crackled under her moving hand.
“What does he want?” Michael demanded. “Damn it, there has to be a reason, even if it’s a crazy reason. What is he after?”
Linda felt like a spectator, or a piece of meat over which two merchants were haggling. She hated the feeling, but she could not fight it; the force of the other personalities was too strong. They faced one another like duelists. Michael’s fists were clenched. Andrea’s weapons were more subtle-the crooning voice, the air of conviction.
“He’s after her soul,” she said softly. “Her immortal soul. His own is already in pawn to the powers of darkness. He wants hers, not to redeem his own, but to suffer with him, in flames, through eternity.”
Michael turned away.
“That’s insane.”
“Why should you stop at that, when you’ve accepted so much?” Andrea asked, in the same insidious whine. “You came here to save her, didn’t you? Oh, you don’t need to answer; I know, I know it all. I’ve seen the thread, the silver thread that binds the two of you. It’s knotted and tarnished now, but there’s no break in it. It will bind you forever, into death and beyond. It drew you here, to her side, when she needed you.”
Andrea stood up. The cat slid down like a pool of viscous ink. There was a power in the old woman, if only the power of her belief. It forced Michael to face her.
“But you can’t save her,” she said. “Love is a strong force, the purity of the soul is stronger; but nothing can avail against the powers of darkness except the concentrated power of good. And only I can control that power. I can save her. And I will! All my life, all my studies, have led me toward this moment.”
Michael spoke to Linda. He had himself under control now; there was even a certain compassion in his face as he glanced at the old woman.
“Will you stay here, with her?” he asked. “Or will you come with me, now? The choice is yours, Linda. It has to be yours.”
Linda hesitated. The tone of his appeal reached her, drawing on some core of sanity and strength. The appeal of being allowed-no, forced-to decide her own fate was something only she could fully appreciate, after years of life with Gordon. Michael waited patiently for her to answer, but Andrea did not.
“No, no,” she shrieked. Rushing toward Linda, she caught at the girl’s shoulders with both hands. They felt like bird’s claws, fragile and fleshless.
“You can’t go out there,” she whimpered. “Don’t think it, don’t dream it. He doesn’t understand. He wants you, he wants you for himself, to save you for himself and keep you. Make him stay. He can help. He can help if he will, he’s strong and young… But if he will go, don’t go with him. Stay, I’ll save you. Andrea will save you, she knows…”
“All right,” Linda said. “All right, Andrea.”
She turned to Michael.
“I can’t go,” she said. “It isn’t only because of Andrea. I’m afraid, Michael. I’m afraid to go out into the dark-even with you.”
She knew that Andrea’s hysteria had convinced Michael, but not in the way she had hoped. The very wildness of Andrea’s appeal had swayed his mind back toward rational rejection. If there ever was an obvious picture, this is it, Linda thought dully-a crazy old woman and a weak-minded young one. She wondered how much of her decision to stay was due to her pity for Andrea rather than fear-and how much to her instinctive recoil from one of Andrea’s statements: “He wants you for himself.”
“We’ll stay, then,” Michael said. “If that’s what you want. I guess it can’t do any harm.”
Her purpose achieved, Andrea turned brisk and businesslike. The volte-face was so sudden that Linda was left wondering, futilely, how much of Andrea was real and how much was calculated theatricalism.
“We must begin,” Andrea said, rubbing her hands together. “At once. The time is short. Purification. It must be symbolic, I daren’t let you out of my sight. Come along, both of you.”
Andrea’s workroom, as she called it, was a small separate building, once a shed or outdoor kitchen, now connected to the house by a lowceilinged passageway. Linda heard Michael’s gasp, and sympathized; if the kitchen had been picturesque, this room came straight out of the ages of alchemy.
Its single window was heavily draped. There were no electric lights. Andrea moved about lighting candles-candles in bottles, candles in tall brass candlesticks, candles stuck onto saucers in puddles of grease, candles in glass-covered brackets on the wall. In their eerie, moving light, the room looked even more uncanny than it did by daylight.
A long, rough table was completely covered with a fantastic collection of miscellany, from papers of all sizes, shapes, and colors, to samples of dried vegetation. Small baskets, boxes, and ordinary brown paper bags were strewn about. One pile of papers, whose vivid colors and angular shapes suggested Japanese origami creations, was held down by a human skull. Another, narrower, table had oddly shaped glass bottles and beakers, filled with colored liquids, like those in an old-fashioned pharmacist’s window. The contents of the flasks glowed, lambent in the mellow candle-light-sea blue, crimson, gold, and green. Rough wooden shelves along one wall held a collection of crumbling leather books. The walls, of whitewashed, unfinished planks, were hung with drawings and diagrams. Dominating the room, on the wall opposite the door, was a huge medieval crucifix with its tormented Image, flanked by glass-covered candle sconces. The center of the floor was empty and uncarpeted and almost without varnish after centuries of traffic. The air in the room was close and stale, permeated by a cloyingly sweet smell.
As soon as the candles were lighted, Andrea fumbled in the basket she had brought with her. Another scent, pungently different but equally unpleasant, wafted forth to war with the stench of stale incense. Linda recognized it; her guess was confirmed when Andrea scooped up a double handful of small whitish-gray bulbs. She opened her hands and the bulbs separated, like the Dutch chocolate apples which are made up of pre-formed slices; but instead of dropping to the floor, the segments of garlic hung from her hands, suspended on long pieces of twine.
Michael sneezed.
“God bless you,” Andrea said, with the force of an incantation.
She draped the threaded cloves of garlic over the window and the threshold of the closed door. Michael watched silently. Linda watched Michael. She saw, with growing despair, that the pendulum of his thinking had swung back, toward the rational world and away from her. Andrea’s mumbo jumbo had destroyed his sensitivities; his hostility and distaste for her were so strong that he couldn’t feel that dreadful reality behind the ritual. Linda felt it even more strongly here, in this frail wooden box that was exposed to the night on all four sides. No. Not four sides-five. On the roof, the rain drummed with importunate demand; but above the normal pressure of the storm, Linda was conscious of other forces gathering, closing in.