Fred Saberhagen - Dracula 05 by Dominion

Author:Dominion [Dominion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-15T22:52:33.308000+00:00

Simon called softly: "The guest that our hostess is expecting. Can you see him or her from where you are?"

And the disembodied voice: "Yes, Simon. Yes."

"A man or a woman?"

"A man." Margie from her secret observation place had perhaps learned something; otherwise there would have been no need for her to be so positive.

"Is he going to be able to join us here tonight?"

"He will try."

Vivian did not take her eyes from Simon. The rest of the audience looked everywhere, under the table, up among the distant rafters, for the source of the voice. Simon heard someone mutter about ventriloquism.

"Will he be here soon, do you think?"

"Either he'll be at the castle very soon… I think he will… tonight or tomorrow… or… if not soon, then never…"

"And are you going to join us too?"

"I'll try… Simon." There followed a soft, heartrending cry, from what sounded like an enormous distance. Oh beautiful, Margie! Beautiful!

Simon faced the table. "Our sprite is going to try to join us. It will help if we all concentrate intensely. All of us, even the old gentleman up there on the wall. I've been watching him. Now if I were to tell you that I've seen the eyes of that portrait move, you'd tell me that I've been seeing too many horror movies."

And in beautiful obedience to suggestion, all eyes, even Vivian's, swung together to regard the portrait high on the dim wall above Margie's secret door. And in the second of time he had thus obtained for invisible action, Simon's wrist flicked gently, tossing the object already in his hand behind him at the fire.

He and Margie now had about ten seconds to wait, if all went well. If it didn't, if his toss had missed the actual flames, then he'd have to distract the audience once more, and try again. But so far tonight everything was going so smoothly and so well that Simon was absolutely sure he hadn't missed.

And now while the count (five) was going on in his head (four), he kept the patter going (three): "To bring our guest among us, we call upon the powers ruling space and time, the strength of Astarte and Apollo, the oaths of Falerin—"

Where had that last name come from? There was no time to wonder now, for behind Simon the fire whooshed up most satisfactorily, smothering his words. The faces round the table all swiveled right to left, tennis-watchers startled bright green in the eerie new glow of a conjurer's chemistry set. Saul, under the surface of his mild surprise, still looked bored and worried; the man who called himself Reagan looked almost childlike in the openness of his wonder. Only Vivian's gaze did not turn all the way to the fire, but came to rest again on Simon himself.

This was the second of time in which Margie should be halfway through the panel. Simon of course was not looking toward the panel now, but it should be now, this very second—

It struck like some monstrous aftershock from the puny stage-explosion in the fireplace.

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