Part 3

Certainly if any means of ingress originally existed, it must have long since been sealed up. I did not see how a fair-sized insect could squirm inside.

But when my host finally--for the first time I believe--removed his huge straw hat, placed it on a shelf, and crawled under his mosquito net, he still wore a worried frown.

I had had a tiring day and I fell asleep soon afterwards. About three hours later I was awakened by a hair-raising scream. I sat up and stared around in the blackness. My heart was pounding. I thought that a bushmaster or some other deadly kind of snake had gotten into the shack.

Cecil Hubbers moaned in the nearby darkness. "The vampire!" he cried. "It's been at me again!" He began to whimper like a sick child.

I felt sure that he had merely experienced a recurrent nightmare, but nevertheless I got up and lit the kerosene lantern. When I brought it to his cot, I gasped. He was staring down at a tiny circular incision on the top of his foot where the blood was still flowing.

I was more shaken by the sight of blood trickling out of that little hole than I have been at the sight of gory accidents.

I suggested that we both undertake an immediate search of the shack. If the bat was still inside, we would find it and kill it.

He shook his head and moaned again. "It's no use. They can't stand light. As soon as you lit the lantern, it got out."

He finally arose, bathed and bandaged the puncture on his foot and sank back on his cot. He left the lantern lit and he lay there with his eyes wide open. He looked so haunted and unhappy I wished I could say something to cheer him up, but for the life of me I couldn't think of anything that made sense.

I stayed awake for a while trying to figure out how the bat had gotten in. But I had watched Hubbers inspect the interior of the closely-screened building inch by inch a few hours before and I couldn't think of a single corner or chink that he might have missed. Finally sleep overcame me again.

When I got up the next morning, my host was sitting on the veranda. He looked even worse than he had the night before. His face was ghastly, really grey and drawn, and his eyes appeared feverish. I knew without asking that he hadn't slept again after the vampire's attack.

After breakfast I suggested that he ask the pharmaceutical company to transfer him to some other locality.

"I haven't enough strength left to go out in the jungle with the gathering parties," he said. "And there isn't anything else."

He said nothing more. His tense agitation of the previous day appeared to be changing into a sort of fatalistic apathy. I felt seriously concerned about him and I wished I might help, but I didn't know what I could do.

The party I was to accompany arrived by mid-morning and soon afterwards I bid Cecil Hubbers goodbye. He wished me good luck and shook hands in a perfunctory manner.

At the edge of the jungle I turned around. He was slumped down in his chair on the veranda. All I could see of him was his pinched white face under the brim of his immense cone-shaped hat. He didn't bother to wave.

Nearly two months passed before I returned to the settlement on my way back to Cuyaba. I had separated from the government party several days before and I arrived with my own Indian guides.

I immediately crossed to Cecil Hubbers' shack. He was not on the veranda. I went up the three steps and rapped on the screen door. A short swarthy man who looked part Indian and part Portuguese got up from a cot inside and came to the screen. I asked for Mr. Hubbers.

"He's dead," the dark man said in good English.

Somehow I had expected it, but still I was startled.

"What happened?" I inquired bluntly.

The man rolled his thick shoulders as if explanations were distasteful to him. "The little bat took too much blood," he said. "One morning they found him dead on his bed."

"How horrible! I'm very sorry," I said. And I meant it.

There was something more I wanted to know. "Did they ever find out how the bat got in?" I asked.

The man rolled his shoulders again. "It didn't get in," he said. "It _was_ in--all the time. It was living in his hat."

I stared at him and I suspect my mouth fell open.

He nodded. "The bat clung by day in the top of Mr. Hubbers' funny big hat. He never took his hat off except at bedtime; it was always dark inside. At night the vampire came out and fed on him. After he was dead, we found the bat asleep in the top of his hat, on the shelf. It was a very fat bat and we killed it."

I stood there on the porch remembering Cecil Hubbers' huge high-crowned, cone-shaped straw hat--the hat that left his head only just before he crawled under his mosquito net at night.

In spite of the close moist warmth of that clearing, I felt myself enveloped by an eerie chill.

"It's--unbelievable!" I murmured, half to myself.

The dark man turned from the door with a shrug. "He's dead!" he grumbled.

THE SEVENTH INCANTATION

"Of these black prayers or incantations there be seven, three for ordinarie charmes and aides, and the like numbere for the unholie and compleat destruction of alle enemie. But of the seventh the curious in alle these partes are warned. Let not the last incantation be recited, unlesse ye desire the sight of moste aweful deamon. Although it be said the deamon shews not unlesse the wordes be spake by the bloodie altar of the Olde Ones, yet it were well to beware. For it be knowne that the Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal, dide wantonlie chante the dire wordes and the deamon dide come--and not finding a bloodie offering did rage at the wizard and rende him exceedinglie. The life bloode of a childe or chaste maid be best, yet a beaste, a goode ox or sheep, is said sufficient. But beware lest the beaste be dead when the bloode be taken, for then shall the deamon's rage be dire. If the offering be well, the deamon shall give unholie power, so that the servant grow riche and reache above alle his neighbors."

For the third time, and with growing excitement, Emmet Telquist read the faded words. They were contained in a crumbling and curious and probably unique bound manuscript book which he had discovered quite by accident some days before while shuffling through the dust-laden packing crates which held his deceased uncle's library.

The book was entitled simply "True Magik", and the writer signed himself "Theophilis Wenn." Quite possibly the name was a pseudonym; certainly, judging by the contents, the rash author must have had reason to keep secret his real identity.

The book was a veritable encyclopedia of devils' lore. There was everywhere manifest a genuine and erudite scholarship which had been lavished on a vast variety of esoteric and forbidden subjects. There were detailed discussions on enchantments and possession, paragraphs on vampirism and ghoul legend, pages devoted to demonology, witch worship, and eldrich idols, notes on holocaust rites, unspeakable maculations and fearsome full-moon sacrifices to the powers of pristine darkness.

Evidently the writer had been a necromancer of note. The style in general was arbitrary and assured, betraying egoism and not a little arrogance. There was no faint note of humor. Theophilis Wenn--or whoever it was that disguised his true identity under that name--had written in dire earnest. Of that there could be no doubt.

Emmet Telquist, the village outcast, the bitter misanthropic issue of an infamous father and a mother who had died insane, regarded the book as a sudden treasure, a secret storehouse of knowledge and power which would enable him to compete with his more successful neighbors.

He had always been an outsider, a misfit, the subject of vindictive local gossip and criticism. He had always felt himself more or less allied to inhuman laws and agencies.

His uncle, the only relative he ever remembered, had been a sour, black-hearted brooding old man who tolerated him only because of the chores and errands which he performed. He never had had the slightest doubt that his uncle would have disowned him utterly had he not been a useful drudge. The bond of blood would have been meaningless to the old man.

As a matter of fact, had it not been for his sudden and somewhat mysterious death, the scoundrel probably would have seen to it that his nephew inherited only black memories. But since no will had been located, Emmet Telquist had gained possession of his uncle's rambling farm house and such meager chattels as it contained.

But as he squinted eagerly at the quaint faded hand-writing of the necromancer, Theophilis Wenn, Telquist began to believe that the manuscript book was by far the most valuable item which his evil relative had unintentionally put into his hands.

Furthermore, a number of matters which had always puzzled him in the past became less baffling. He had often wondered about the peculiar behavior of his uncle--his long absences from the house, especially at night, the muttering and mumbling which frequently came from his room, his unexplained sources of income.

With a sense of mounting suspense and expectation, he turned the pages whereon the seventh incantation was inscribed. It was written in a peculiar bluish-grey ink which seemed faintly phosphorescent. He did not dare to read the words; he merely glanced at them, ascertaining that they were what appeared to be merely a jumble of meaningless vowel sounds frequently interspersed with the name "Nyogtha."

Grinning slyly to himself, he turned back the pages and reread the paragraph which served as an introduction and explanation of the incantations. Well he knew what Theophilis Wenn had in mind when he referred to the "bloodie altar of the Old Ones"! He, Emmet Telquist, had seen such an altar.

Although that had been years before when the swamp was not as nearly impassable as it had since become, he had no doubt that he could locate the accursed sacrificial cromlech. How well he remembered crawling along the faint raised pathway which wound through the swamp! The sudden, unexpected knoll, dark, somehow, even in the mid-day sunlight, the circle of huge monoliths, the mound in the center, the enormous flat slab on its top, rusty red with an unspeakable eldrich stain which even the rains and winds of centuries could not blot out!

He had never spoken of his discovery to anyone. The swamp was a forbidden place--ostensibly because of rumored quicksands and poisonous serpents. But on more than one occasion he had seen old-time villagers cross themselves when mention was made of the area. And it was said that even hunting dogs would abandon the pursuit of game which fled into its fastnesses.

Already anticipating the power which would ultimately be his, Emmet Telquist began to formulate plans. He would not make the mistake of the unfortunate Saracen sorcerer, Mal Lazal. Although he did not quite dare to take the necessary steps to secure a human sacrifice, "a childe or chaste maid", a sheep should be relatively easy to obtain. He could steal one at night from any of the several village flocks. He knew all the woods and lanes and would be safely away with his prize long before the loss was discovered.

The night before the advent of the full moon, he slipped into a nearby pasture where sheep were grazed and made away with a fine fat ewe, shoving and dragging it over a stone wall and then leading it off along circuitous back roads and grass-grown lanes.

The next day he paid a stealthy visit to the environs of the forbidden swamp, exploring the rank underbrush until he discovered the start of the faint trail down which he had stolen years before. Although it was partially obliterated by a thick growth of sedges, vines and lush swamp grass, there were indications that deer used it occasionally. Probably patience would be required to force a way through, but at least the path should not be impassable.

Carefully noting its location, he returned home and completed his preparations for the evening.

Shortly before eleven o'clock he crept into the shed where he had tethered the ewe and led it forth into the moonlight.

The countryside was steeped in a bewitching silver light. He experienced no difficulties in reaching the swamp and after some little searching located the narrow trail.

But as he plunged into the shoulder-high grass, the tether tightened in his hand. The ewe strained against the rope, its eyes suddenly wild with fright.

Cursing, he scrambled around and kicked it brutally. It bolted forward a few yards and stopped. Grimly determined, he tightened the tether until it cut through the ewe's wool into its hide.

He made progress by the foot and by the inch. The ewe had to be dragged and shoved at regular intervals. And as he penetrated toward the heart of the swamp, the increasing height and thickness of the lush undergrowth made passage more difficult.

Moonlight filtered down eerily among the trees and on all sides treacherous pools gleamed silver-black in the shadowy darkness. Occasionally hidden watchers stared at him out of the depths and quite often enormous toads hopped into the path and regarded him with their amber eyes. They seemed to be devoid of fear, almost as if they considered the swamp their special domain and deemed him incapable of harming them. He began to imagine there was something vaguely malignant about them. He had never seen them so large before, nor in such numbers. But probably that was merely because they were left unmolested in the swamp to breed and develop without encountering the artificial obstacles which would inevitably prevail in any less shunned area.

As he pushed into the heart of the swamp, the gathering silence became oppressive. The ordinary night sounds ceased altogether and only his own strained breathing broke the silence. The ewe became more obstinate than ever; all his strength was required to drag it along. It appeared, he imagined, to sense the fate which awaited it.

Suddenly, so suddenly that he nearly cried aloud in astonishment, the underbrush ended and he was standing at the base of the unhallowed knoll.

It was just as he had remembered it--huge menhirs standing in a rough circle about a central mound upon which lay a large flat slab of a dark hue which did not match the color of the surrounding monoliths. Over all a shadow seemed to fall, and yet when he glanced upward he saw that the full moon stood directly overhead.

Shaking off the sense of dread which closed upon him, he started up the lichen-covered slope. But now the ewe sank upon its forelegs and he was obliged to drag it inch by inch toward the circle of megaliths. He rather welcomed the exertion however, for it freed his mind of the nameless fear which the cromlech aroused in him.

By the time he had dragged the sheep alongside the ring of boulders, he was nearly exhausted, but he dared not pause to rest, for he knew that delay would be his undoing. He already had a wild desire to leave the ewe and rush back through the toad-infested swamp to the familiar outer world.

Quickly slipping off the sheep's tether, he bound its legs firmly together and with a tremendous heave shoved it onto the rust-colored sacrificial slab.

Rejecting an almost uncontrollable impulse to flee, he unsheathed the hunting knife which he carried and drew from his pocket the curious bound manuscript book, "True Magik" by Theophilis Wenn.

He had no difficulty in locating the strangely sinister seventh incantation, for in the bright moonlight the unusual bluish-grey ink in which the characters were inscribed seemed actually luminous.

Holding the book in one hand and the knife ready in the other, he began to repeat the jumble of unintelligible sounds.

As he read, the syllables appeared to exert some unearthly influence upon him, so that his voice rose to a savage howl, a high-pitched inhuman ululation which penetrated to the farthest depths of the swamp. At intervals his voice sank to low gutturals or a thin sibilant hiss.

And then, at the last enunciation of the oft-repeated word, "Nyogtha", there reached his ears as from a vast distance a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind, although not even a leaf stirred on the surrounding trees.

The book suddenly darkened in his hand and he saw that a shadow had fallen across the page.

He glanced up--and madness reeled in his brain.

Squatting on the edge of the slab was a shape which lived in nightmare, a squamous taloned thing like a monstrous gargoyle or a malformed toad which stared at him out of questing red eyes.

He froze in horror and a sudden rage flamed in the thing's eyes. It thrust out its neck and an angry hiss issued from its mottled beak.

Emmet Telquist was galvanized into action. He knew what the thing wanted--life blood.

Raising the knife, he advanced and was about to plunge it downward into the sheep when a new horror seized him.

The ewe was already dead. The unspeakable presence which squatted beside it had already claimed it. It had died of fright. Its eyes were glazed and there was no indication that it still breathed.

Remembering Theophilis Wenn's warning, "beware lest the beaste be dead", Emmet Telquist stood like a stone statue with the knife still upraised in his hand.

Then he dropped it and ran.

Darting between two menhirs, he plunged down the knoll and raced toward the swamp trail.

Lifting its scaly neck, the presence on the slab looked after him and finally, hissing in fury, bounded off the stone and leaped in pursuit.

One terrible shriek rang out and presently the thing hopped back onto the slab, holding in its bloody beak a dangling lifeless form, a fitting sacrifice.

KILLER CAT

It had occurred to him quite suddenly and he had acted on the impulse before there was time to ponder the matter.

He had the little paper open and was slipping the barbital powder into a glass when the idea first came to him. For a half minute he just stood there while his heart beat faster. Then he dumped in three more of the powders and walked to the bedroom where his Aunt Martha lay softly moaning. She swallowed the drug without even opening her eyes and one hour later she was dead. It was as simple as that.

Dr. Myerbron assured him that her heart had given out, showed no surprise and even hinted that he had expected her demise long before.

Dennis Stonegate was no calloused murderer. Far from it. After the funeral when he had finally moved into his aunt's house for good, he assured himself on that point.

He had, he told himself, acted through mercy. His aunt was suffering; Dr. Myerbron had tacitly admitted more than once that she would not recover; and certainly a few weeks or even months could make little difference to the semi-conscious invalid. Better to relieve her of suffering rather than permit her to linger and perhaps undergo worse tortures later on when her last powers of resistance were spent.

He repeated this to himself so often he finally came to believe it. But secretly he knew otherwise. Some small insistent chamber in his brain kept whispering the truth. The truth was he had grown tired of waiting.

At first all seemed to go well. Now that he was relieved of a certain measure of responsibility, he began to enjoy life. Of course, for a time, he had to put on a sober countenance when he left the house in the morning. And he had to act properly subdued on certain occasions. But that was easy enough. He even prided himself a little on his acting ability. Sometimes he played the part so well he could feel himself becoming melancholy. And then he would laugh, struck by the irony of the situation. His Aunt Martha had never meant very much to him. She had merely been an obstacle to be removed.

The first time the cat annoyed him he dismissed the incident without further thought. It was a big black Persian with a silky plume of a tail and luminous yellow eyes and it had been his aunt's favorite pet for years.

One night after he had mashed some sardines in its dish, he became irritated when, instead of running up to eat, it drew back and spit at him. But he merely shrugged and went back to the paper.

The next day it again refused to eat. He speculated, idly, assumed that it was undergoing a disorder, or distemper, or whatever it was that cats undergo, and forgot the matter.

A week or so later however, the cat's actions began to annoy him. He remembered then that so far as he could recall it had eaten almost nothing he had set out for it since his aunt's death.

Even then, the affair did not really bother him much. It was just an irritant in the back of his mind.

Nevertheless, some time later he had an experience which definitely upset him. There was certainly nothing very unusual about it--and he felt a little like a fool at times when he realized how he permitted the incident to prey on him.

He had gone to bed late and had had a vague but unpleasant dream. It seemed that he was lying somewhere in the darkness unable to move, pinned down by a deadly paralysis, a smothering weight. He awoke suddenly drenched with sweat and saw two yellow eyes staring into his own. For just a moment he was on the verge of a scream; then he remembered the cat and felt at once relieved and rather angry. The beast was lying flat on his chest and made no move until he swung his arms and swept it roughly to the floor. It sprang toward the door, turned once and scurried down the hall.

The next morning he laughed at himself. The cat had often slept on his aunt's bed and had happened to climb up on his for a cozy place to spend the night.

He felt uneasy though, when he recalled how wide-awake the cat had been when he opened his eyes.

For well over a week nothing further happened to upset him. The cat skulked out of sight most of the time.

Then he had an experience which thoroughly frightened him and he determined to get rid of his aunt's old pet.

Again he had a dream. Again he was in darkness. And this time he was being smothered. He was rigid, unable to stir, struggling to breathe, and there was no air to be had. He awoke as before, suddenly, cold with sweat, and felt his spine tingle when he realized that something soft and black was pressed firmly against his face. He sat up violently and groped wildly for the switch. Something plopped on the floor just as light flooded the room and then the cat paused at the door as before, turned its yellow eyes on him and disappeared.

He sat still for some minutes, while his head whirled. He was frightened and shocked at the things which he dared not admit to himself and now a determined rage took possession of him.

The next day did not shake his determination. He brooded about the cat and purposely planned his work so that he could leave early.

He let himself in quietly, entered the kitchen and picked up the iron poker, and then softly started down the cellar stairs. It was here the cat usually hid itself when it sensed his approach.

Pressing the light switch at the bottom, he quickly crossed toward the coal bins. He had left some wooden crates piled near a window in one of the bins and now in the light he saw the cat's yellow eyes shining behind the bottom slats.

Springing toward the crates, he swung the poker viciously. The bottom crate collapsed with a rending of brittle wood and the whole pile lurched off balance. As he stepped back to avoid being struck, the cat shot past.

Cursing, he started after it, but his foot caught on a crate and he fell headlong. He jumped up, white with rage, and rushed into the open cellar. Dust billowed out from the bin and he could not see the cat. He stood back, glaring around the cellar, and waited for the dust to settle. His foot felt hot however, and glancing down he was shocked to see his shoe wet with blood. A nail must have penetrated his ankle and cut a vein. Thoroughly unnerved now, he dropped the poker and hurried upstairs.