Chet Williamson - Reign

Abe stood up, stretched, heard, very dimly, voices speaking on the stage above him, and walked to the door that opened onto the long corridor that led to the lower lobby. He opened it, stepped through, and flicked on the light switch, illuminating the dank passage through which he would have to walk.

Though Abe had traversed that damp, dirt-floored corridor a thousand times, the shadowy bays whose contents Curt and Evan had catalogued now seemed to Abe like alcoves in some carnival house of horrors from which people dressed as monsters would jump and yell boo, or like tunnels opening into haunted caverns…

Yeah, he thought. Haunted.

Harry? He thought the word, then spoke it. "Harry?" Frightened, but needing to know, he stepped onto the dirt floor and closed the door behind him. The voices were still audible, but even more faraway now, as in a dream. And as in a dream Abe began to walk down the corridor, fearing to look to either side or in back of him.

Quentin Margolis stood at the rear of the Venetian Theatre and watched the show. The standing wearied him not at all, for the strength of the performance that Dennis Hamilton was giving gave him strength as well.

Dennis was, Quentin thought, nothing short of wonderful tonight. Every word, every note, every gesture was so unmistakably right that it seemed sacrilege that he had ever done the role any other way. All the tenderness, all the passion, all the boyish exuberance was there, along with subtleties of which youth was not yet capable. And they were not lost on the audience either. The mass seemed to hang on Dennis's every move. Nothing escaped them, because his artistry was such that he did not allow it. It was the most brilliant, yet the most spontaneous performance Quentin had ever seen, the only one in which not a line seemed written or thought out ahead, but rather sprang from the mind of the Emperor Frederick as they all watched, as though the role Dennis Hamilton was creating was creating itself, as though they watched, not artifice, but life.

And then something went wrong.

It was minor, but because of the perfection of Dennis's performance up to that point it stood out all the more rawly, like a sudden slash of blinding white on a dark, brooding Rembrandt. The scene was Act I, Scene 6, where Frederick tells Count Rinehart that he may send troops to assist the peasant revolt against the brutal usurper, King Andrei of Wohlstein. It was intended as the turning point, the first moment in the play that Frederick steps unmistakably into his position as Emperor.

Franklin Stern, as Rinehart, laughed bitterly and gave his line, "'Oh, of course. And I suppose before too long you'll grant your own people democracy.”

Dennis rose from his chair, clasped his hands behind his back, became Frederick becoming the Emperor Frederick, fixed Stern with a look that would have made lesser actors quail, and began his line – Better rule by the people… than rule by a fool, Rinehart! – but did not finish it.

"'Better rule by the people… than rule by -'" Dennis choked off, went pale, seemed to sway for a moment, then caught himself on the arm of the chair.

Quentin's breath locked in his throat, and he felt the sweat of fear suddenly moist on his face and chest. "Oh God," he whispered, as he watched Dennis struggle. "Oh dear God, please…”

The change was so abrupt that the audience could not help but notice, and in that instant Quentin saw hundreds of heads come together, and heard the static of whispers fill the air of the theatre like an audible cloud.

"Than rule by what, your majesty?" Franklin Stem none too gracefully fed Dennis.

Even from the rear of the auditorium, Quentin could see Dennis press his eyes closed, trying to bring back the character who had seemingly evacuated his body.

"'Than rule by… a fool!'"Dennis shouted, the outburst totally out of character. They were words said in desperation by a faltering actor, rather than from the strength and emotion of character, and Quentin 's heart sank. What had been there in all its glory was now lost, although he hoped not irretrievably. He felt like the handler of a prize fighter who was staggering and bloodied, praying he would get through the round and come back to his comer so he could tell him to…

What? Keep up his left? Jab? Keep moving? If Dennis was able to get to the intermission through this scene and the song and quintet that followed, what in God's name would Quentin tell him? It was only Dennis, Dennis alone, who could save himself now.

The scene went on, but instead of the Emperor Frederick revealing his soul, it was now Dennis Hamilton who read lines.

And Dennis Hamilton had faltered at the exact moment Abe Kipp had seen the first ghost in the cellar.

He had walked halfway down the dusty corridor when she stepped out of one of the bays, just a few yards away from him. At first he was startled, and his heart pounded hard, but then he saw that it was just a little girl, with empty blue eyes that looked lost, and he thought for a moment that she must have gone to the men's room in the lower level by mistake, then found the door to the tunnel and gone exploring. But as she walked trustingly toward him, as though he was the only one in the world who could help her, he saw that not only her eyes were blue. So was her dress. And her lips.

He knew now that he was seeing the Blue Darling. When she reached out her hand and put it in his, the coldness of it only reinforced his knowledge. Abe felt as though branches of ice had been placed in his hand, and that if he squeezed the fingers they would shatter.

He tried to jerk his hand back, but his fingers stuck to hers as tightly as his lips had stuck to the spout of his grandmother's pump one winter when he had been a boy. But now there was no grandma to come out with a kettle full of warm water to save him. The Blue Darling smiled at him then, and her blue lips cracked and showed teeth as sharp and pointed as icicles, and words came out, words in Harry Ruhl's voice that struck his ears like pellets of cold.

"Payback time, Abe…"

The Blue Darling grasped his other hand, lifted him up, impossibly, above her head, and dashed him to the ground. Though he fell less than four feet, the power with which he was hurled splintered bones and bruised muscles, and Abe cried out, and remembered what Billy Potts had said – come to see a Vaudeville 'n fell offa the balcony…

Abe whined and twisted his body around, the pain shooting through him like fire now, not ice, and as he put his hands up to ward her off, he saw his left hand hang limp and knew his wrist was broken even before he felt the pain there.

The little girl was gone, fled back, Abe thought, to whatever cold hell she came from, and he sobbed and tried to stand up, but his left leg would not hold him, sliding out from under him whenever he tried to put any weight on it. Blubbering, he began to scuttle down the corridor back toward the stage, pushing with his right leg, dragging himself with his right arm. He had gone only a few feet when he heard laughter, deep and booming, from above. It was a voice he had never heard before, and it could almost have come from the stage above and ahead.

Abe automatically looked up, and his neck and spine throbbed with the agony. Directly above him he saw, clinging from one arm to the top of one of the stanchions that made up the bays, a huge creature that looked more like an ape than a man. What he could see of its hair was blond and clotted with blood. Half of its face was a gray-red ruin, but the half that was left grinned down with splintered teeth. Its free arm held a hundred-pound sandbag such as had not been used in the Venetian Theatre for many years. It held it right above Abe Kipp's upturned face.

"Payback time, Abe…" said the Big Swede with Harry Ruhl's soft and gentle voice, and dropped the sandbag.