“I’m too keyed up to sleep yet,” she said. “What about a nice soothing cup of tea?”

“Okay.”

Linda went into the kitchen. She couldn’t tell him of her feelings; he was too tired to cope with anything else tonight. But her panic was real, and it was steadily growing. She had to see the letters now, without delay, as a hunted man, feeling the approach of the hunters, might desperately try to fashion the smallest scrap of wood or metal into a weapon.

The letters were too small a scrap. They told her nothing she didn’t already know. But the warm drink and the forced concentration helped her nerves. Lethargy replaced her earlier anxiety. Even the sudden movement of the cat did not startle her; but Michael started and swore as the long, lean body streaked for the kitchen.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“What?”

“There goes a plate… Oh, nothing. But he usually doesn’t move that fast unless he hears someone coming.”

He was sitting upright, frowning. Funny, Linda thought. Now he’s getting nervy, and I’m falling asleep. She put the last letter down.

“Your father didn’t like Gordon,” she said.

“No. I wonder why.”

“Antipathy, he says.”

“That’s just a word people use to explain reasoning they aren’t consciously aware of. What I don’t understand is that letter about the Hellfire Club.”

“Oh, that was Gordon,” she said vaguely. She yawned.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s been dabbling with demonology for years. Good God,” she said, roused by anger, “you still think I invented all this, don’t you? Where do you think I got my ideas? Why did you think Gordon and Andrea were at swords’ points? Why do you think she hated him?”

“I never imagined…” Michael looked dazed. “He’s such a fastidious person…”

“You’re thinking of Satanism in terms of Aleister Crowley, and the Great Beast, and sexual orgies. That’s only a perversion added by some psychotics. It was never like that with Gordon. If anything, he’s too puritanical, too cold. It’s power he wants, power and control. Isn’t that the ultimate control-over the minds and the will of others? He tried teaching and he tried politics, but they weren’t enough. Through them he could partially dominate certain types, but there were always a few who were immune, and they were the ones he wanted most to dominate.”

Another wide yawn interrupted her. It was a pity, she thought sleepily, that she should be so tired. This was an important point, something Michael hadn’t realized, something he had to know.

“The clue to Gordon Randolph,” Michael muttered. “Is this what I’ve been groping for? Hey-you’re going to fall apart, you’re yawning so. We’ll talk more in the morning. Bed for you.”

Linda let him lead her toward the bedroom, knowing that she ought to be tending to him, but too sleepy to care, too sleepy to pay attention to his explanations and his arrangements. He said something about sleeping on the couch. Linda looked up at him, blinking; her eyelids were so heavy.

“All right,” she said obediently.

She might have been able to prevent it if she had seen it coming; but she was too sleepy, and he was too strong. His arms went around her; even the arm that was bandaged from wrist to elbow held her close. His mouth was warm and hard and insistent on hers. For a few sleep-dazed moments she was lax in his embrace, not responding, but not resisting. Then a frenzy of revulsion filled her, and she struggled.

He let her go at once.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that. But you looked so…”

He was pale; whether with pain or anger, she could not tell. Linda swayed, gasping for breath; and the words that came out of her mouth were not the words she had meant to say.

“Michael. Lock me in!”

His eyes widened, and then narrowed to slits as the meaning of her words struck him.

“No,” he said violently.

“Please.”

“No.” His voice was gentler but inexorable. “I won’t, even if I could. Hell, I don’t know where the key is, if there is a key. There is no need for me to lock you in. Now go to sleep. Sleep well.”

With a whimper she turned away, stumbling, and threw herself down on the bed. The movement took the last of her strength; a great weight seemed to be pressing down on her, on mind as well as body. But her mind fought off the pressure for several seconds after her body had succumbed; she knew what was coming. And knew also that those few seconds of awareness were part of Gordon’s plan-the realization of danger coupled with the inability to avoid it is the highest refinement of cruelty. Then, finally, the weight closed in, and her last spark of will flickered out.

III

Michael watched until her breathing slowed and she lay quiet. His hand went to the light switch, and then withdrew. If she woke, in the dark…

Was it only an irrational symbol, this concept of darkness versus light? Darkness concealed; but why need the objects it hid be objects of fear? They might be friendly things, things of beauty. Perhaps they only feared the dark who had seen some frightful thing come at them out of the veils of darkness. From the dark, the dark on the other side…

Turning away from the door, Michael wished fervently that he had never met Kwame nor heard that enigmatically threatening phrase. What did it really mean? It meant something to Kwame, something he felt so strongly that he could transfer the impression to other people. Michael remembered the horrifying vision he had had when Kwame first spoke the words. That had to have been some kind of ESP; he couldn’t have thought of it by himself.

And it was a hell of a picture to have in the back of his mind, especially after a night like this one. Michael found himself reluctant to turn out the lights in the living room, though the glow from the open bedroom door was brighter than his sleeping room usually was.

He threw himself down on the couch, too tired to look for blanket or pillow. His feet were propped on one arm of the couch. It was too short for comfort, but tonight he didn’t care; he could have slept on a stone. He was too tired to think-and that was just as well, because the thoughts foremost in his mind were ugly thoughts. Satanism, possession, werewolves, the dark on the other side…His arm was throbbing. The pain killer was wearing off. He thought about getting up and taking another pill. But the bottle was in his coat pocket and his coat was in the closet and the closet was ten feet away, and that was just too damned far for a man who had been up all night, battling werewolves and witches and…Heavily, Michael slept.

And woke, with one of the wrenching starts that sometimes rouse a sleeper from a dream of falling. He had only been asleep for a few minutes; his muscles still ached with fatigue. Something had wakened him.

Mind and body drugged by the short, annihilating nap, Michael lay quiescent and listened. There were sounds, out in the kitchen. That was what had roused him. Someone was in the kitchen, moving around.

The most logical source of noise was Napoleon. But his sleeping mind was accustomed to the cat’s comings and goings, it would have noted the sounds, classified them, and let him sleep. These were not the noises the cat made when it thudded down into the sink or lapped water or chewed the hard, crunchy bits of cat food. These were small, metallic sounds, like coins chinking in someone’s pocket…a loose metal strip blown by the wind against another piece of metal…knives and forks in a drawer, being shifted…

When he recognized the sounds and identified the key word, his brain refused to accept the conclusion. Maybe Linda had been unable to sleep. Looking for the wherewithal to make coffee or food, she would naturally move quietly, so as not to disturb him.

Then he saw her. The kitchen, out of the direct beam of light from the bedroom door, was very dark. As she moved out into the diffused dimness of the living room, her slim body seemed to be forming out of shadows like a dark ectoplasmic ghost. She stood still for several seconds, as if listening; and Michael remained quiet, not from design, but because his paralyzed body was incapable of movement. There was just enough light to reflect, with a pale glitter, from the long shiny object in her right hand.