“On the contrary, I seek only that you do not hinder me.”
“In dying?”
Kaleton’s mouth became a perfect “O” and an exhalation of rancid air escaped from it. Professor Slocombe, who had switched off his olfactory sense upon Kaleton’s entrance, sat back in his chair, fearing the spread of disease.
“The games,” said Kaleton, “the stadium and the games are to be my epitaph. I may not live to see them, but through them I will live for ever.”
“Posthumous fame for one who will not reveal his true name to the public, how can this be?”
“By their deeds shall you know them.”
“But at what expense?”
“Expense?”
“Deaths have already occurred, I believe you must answer for them.”
Sounds came from Kaleton’s mouth, sounds of coarse mocking laughter, “No one has died. Professor,” he crowed. “Are you too so easily fooled?”
“Not as easily as you might believe.”
“The creation of holographic images as a security system, guard dogs without teeth, without substance, conjured from the Ids of the trespassers. Effective, do you not think?”
“The chimera on the barge and the island griffin?”
“Advanced optical trickery, nothing more.”
“I think not, Kaleton.” Professor Slocombe reached beneath his desk and brought out Pooley’s present. “And this?”
“All right,” said Kaleton. “The creation of the stadium is too important to risk interruption from meddling ne’er-do-wells.”
“Quite simply, you are prepared to kill in order to protect your interests, your immortality.”
“Men die daily, men without vision, without worth. My genius will benefit generations to come.”
“Monomania. You are sick not only in body, but also in mind.”
“If you are not for me, then you are against me!”
“Then I am against you, in body and soul. I do not fully comprehend your true motives, but I suspect them to be anything other than beneficial to mankind. I request that you leave immediately.”
Kaleton climbed with difficulty to his feet and stood with his back to the Professor. “You are an annoyance,” said he, “I think perhaps I should be rid of you.”
“That might prove more difficult than you imagine.”
“You say that, knowing how simply I voided the spell of protection which surrounded your house.”
“You will not invade my privacy with such ease in the future, I can assure you.”
Kaleton’s head revolved slowly until it reached a point midway between his malformed shoulder-blades. “You have no future,” he said, in a voice which might have been one, or a chorus of many. “You are finished.”
“Leave now while you are still able.”
“I think not.” Kaleton’s mouth widened, became a gaping maw, devoid of teeth, gums or tongue. A torrent of icy wind swept from it, striking the Professor from his chair and blasting him against the wall. But the effect was momentary for the sage rose from behind his desk and stared defiantly at his attacker, words of an ancient formula upon his lips.
Above the study Jim Pooley reclined in rose-scented bath-water, a copy of the Lazlo Woodbine thriller Farewell my Window propped before him upon the bath-rack. “That Laz,” said Jim, “he slays me.”
In a house, not so very far away, John Omally lazed upon silken sheets, clad only in his boxer shorts. Before him, humming gently to herself, Jennifer Naylor shed her outer garments.
Kaleton raised a crooked hand to fend off the tongue of darting fire which leapt towards him. The flames froze into glassy splinters tinkling on to the Persian carpet to dissolve into nothingness. A look of perplexity crossed Professor Slocombe’s face as he summoned the powers that greater words commanded. Kaleton made a single gesture and the world which was the Professor’s study vanished, became a darkened sphere enclosing only himself and the magus. “There is no future,” whispered the crippled man, “not for you or any of your cohorts.”
Jennifer Naylor’s brassiere fell to the floor, exposing a pair of breasts most men could only dream of witnessing, first hand. Omally felt the mark of his manhood rising to meet the occasion as the rare beauty slipped her thumbs into her silken camiknickers and dropped them to her feet.
“Only you and I,” said Kaleton.
“Only you and I,” echoed Jennifer Naylor.
Professor Slocombe made a series of lightning passes with his old frail hands. Before him a wall of white chitin composed itself and behind the light returned, as a small opening, through which he stepped backwards with some alacrity. He was once more at his desk, but from within the dark sphere the wall of protection crumbled away and the image of Kaleton swam into view swelling ever larger. The black mouth spread encompassing all before it. “And so die,” came the chorus of a thousand voices which were also only one.
“And so die,” said Jennifer Naylor. Her left hand slid up behind her back, rose to the nape of her neck where it took hold of something which might have been a zip fastener. She drew it down the length of her naked spine.
Kaleton’s image bulged and grew, the mouth was a great black hole, all-consuming. A bottomless pit, into which all must surely fall. The Professor folded his arms across his chest and uttered the syllables of his final spell.
A great shock wave passed through the ether of humankind.
The outer shell, which had been the skin of the bogus Jennifer Naylor, dropped to the floor, a crumpled empty husk. Before Omally stood a group of elemental horrors supported one upon another in a writhing mass, which momentarily retained Jennifer’s shape before tumbling towards the boy in the boxer shorts.
“Hell’s teeth!” said John Omally, which was a close approximation.
The things swept towards him in a heaving, crying cacophony. Great bloated maggots with the heads of babies, beasts all spine and scorpion stings, bladders and entrails. Eyeless heads with one mouth set beneath another. A gross and fetid stench burned the air like fumes of acid. Omally flattened himself against the bedhead as the whirling, screaming nightmare engulfed him.
“Up and begone!” Professor Slocombe raised his arms and exerted the final issue of his strength, spoke the final syllable of the great spell. The black image wavered in intensity, crumpled in upon itself with a deafening explosion, re-gathered in a cluster of spinning fragments and finally flew upwards through the ceiling, an icy maelstrom of escaping energy.
“Aaaaaaaagh!” Jim Pooley howled in anguish as his bath-water froze into a solid block of ice.
In a room of unutterable blackness, Professor Slocombe collapsed unconscious to the floor.
In the bedroom of a house not so very far away, a thick green slime dripped down a silken sheet to mingle in a pool of human blood.
“Oh, help,” wailed a living iceberg in a marble bath. “Oh, bloody hell, help!”
34
The police cordon parted as the Inspectre’s car tore through it at speed. As it slewed to a halt amidst the confusion of police cars, ambulances and fire-engines, Hovis leapt from the cab and followed a wildly gesticulating constable towards the house of Professor Slocombe. In the rear seats of the car, Paul leant over and whispered into his brother’s ear, “More big shit going down here, best we bugger off pronto.” With all the tenacity of the four-toed civet the two braves eased open the offside rear door and melted into the night.
“Stand aside if you please.” Hovis elbowed his way through the crush before the Professor’s gateway and into the magical garden. “Is he alive?” the Inspectre demanded. The constable’s head bobbed up and down. “Only just, sir. Constable Meek was on beat duty here when the whole place went up. He pulled the old man out and gave him mouth to mouth. He was nearly gone. They’re treating him in the ambulance, sir. Sir, he’s frostbitten, in a terrible state!”