Isaac Asimov - The Early Asimov. Volume 2

'Oh, a long time ago,' Harley said evasively. 'But I was here a whole day, and part of the night. The old man was crazy as a coot, but he didn't keep any ghosts in the attic.'

'This ghost was a friend of his,' Nicholls said. The gentleman in charge of the bar told you that, surely. Your late uncle was something of a recluse. He lived in this house a dozen miles from nowhere, came into town hardly ever, wouldn't let anyone get friendly with him. But he wasn't exactly a hermit. He had Hank for company."

'Fine company.'

Nicholls inclined his head seriously. 'Oh, I don't know,' he said. 'From all accounts, they got on well together. They played pinochle and chess - Hank's supposed to have been a great pinochle player. He was killed that way, according to the local reports. Caught somebody dealing from the bottom and shot it out with him. He lost. A bullet pierced his throat and he died quite bloodily.' He turned the wheel, putting his weight into the effort, and succeeded in twisting the car out of the ruts of the 'road,' sent it jouncing across unmarked sand to the old frame house to which they were going.

'That,' he finished as he pulled up before the porch, 'accounts for the blood that accompanies his apparition.'

Harley opened the door slowly and got out, looking uneasily at the battered old house. Nicholls cut the motor, got out and walked at once to the back of the car. "

'Come on,' he said, dragging things out of the compartment. 'Give me a hand with this. I'm not going to carry this stuff all by myself.'

Harley came around reluctantly, regarded the curious assortment of bundles of dried faggots, lengths of colored cord, chalk pencils, ugly little bunches of wilted weeds, bleached bones of small animals and a couple of less pleasant things without pleasure.

Pat. HISS. Pat. HISS -

'He's here!' Harley yelped. 'Listen! He's someplace around here watching us.'

'Ha!'

The laugh was deep, unpleasant and - bodiless. Harley looked around desperately for the tell-tale trickle of blood. And he found it; from the air it issued, just beside the car, sinking gracefully to the ground and sizzling, vanishing, there.

'I'm watching you, all right,' the voice said grimly. 'Russell, you worthless piece of corruption, I've got no more use for you than you used to have for me. Dead or alive, this is my land! I shared it with your uncle, you young scalawag, but I won't share it with you. Get out!'

Harley's knees weakened and he tottered dizzily to the rear bumper, sat on it. 'Nicholls -' he said confusedly.

'Oh, brace up,' Nicholls said with irritation. He tossed a ball of gaudy twine, red and green, with curious knots tied along it, to Harley. Then he confronted the trickle of blood and made a few brisk passes in the air before it. His lips were moving silently, Harley saw, but no words came out

There was a gasp and a chopped-off squawk from the source of the blood drops. Nicholls clapped his hands sharply, then turned to young Harley.

Take that cord you have in your hands and stretch it around the house,' he said. 'All the way around, and make sure it goes right across the middle of the doors and windows. It isn't much, but it'll hold him till we can get the good stuff set up.'

Harley nodded, then pointed a rigid finger at the drops of blood, now sizzling and fuming more angrily than before. 'What about that?' he managed to get out.

Nicholls grinned complacently. 'I'll hold him here till the cows come home,' he said, 'Get moving!'

Harley inadvertently inhaled a lungful of noxious white smoke and coughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. When he recovered he looked at Nicholls, who was reading silently from a green leather book with dog-eared pages. He said, 'Can I stop stirring this now?'

Nicholls grimaced angrily and shook his head without looking at him. He went on reading, his lips contorting over syllables that were not in any language Harley had ever heard, then snapped the book shut and wiped his brow.

'Fine,' he said. 'So far, so good.' He stepped over to windward of the boiling pot Harley was stirring on the hob over the fireplace, peered down into it cautiously.

That's about done,' he said. 'Take it off the fire and let it cool a bit.'

Harley lifted it down, then squeezed his aching biceps with his left hand. The stuff was the consistency of sickly green fudge.

'Now what?' he asked.

Nicholls didn't answer. He looked up in mild surprise at the sudden squawk of triumph from outside, followed by the howling of a chill wind.

'Hank must be loose,' he said casually. 'He can't do us any harm, I think, but we'd better get a move on.' He rummaged in the dwindled pile of junk he'd brought from the car, extracted a paintbrush. 'Smear this stuff around all the windows and doors. All but the front door. For that I have something else.' He pointed to what seemed to be the front axle of an old Model-T. 'Leave that on the doorsill. Cold iron. You can just step over it, but Hank won't be able to pass it. It's been properly treated already with the very best thaumaturgy.'

'Step over it,' Harley repeated. 'What would I want to step over it for? He's out there.'

'He won't hurt you,' said Nicholls. 'You will carry an amulet with you - that one, there - that will keep him away. Probably he couldn't really hurt you anyhow, being a low-order ghost who can't materialize to any great density. But just to take no chances, carry the amulet and don't stay out too long. It won't hold him off forever, not for more than half an hour. If you ever have to go out and stay for any length of time, tie that bundle of herbs around your neck.' Nicholls smiled. 'That's only for emergencies, though. It works on the asafoe-tida principle. Ghosts can't come anywhere near it - but you won't like it much yourself. It has - ah - a rather definite odor.'

He leaned gingerly over the pot again, sniffing. He sneezed.

'Well, that's cool enough,' he said. 'Before it hardens, get moving. Start spreading the stuff upstairs - and make sure you don't miss any windows.'

'What are you going to do?'

'I,' said Nicholls sharply, 'will be here. Start.'

But he wasn't. When Harley finished his disagreeable task and came down, he called Nicholls' name, but the man was gone. Harley stepped to the door and looked out; the car was gone, too.

He shrugged. 'Oh, well,' he said, and began taking the dust-cloths off the furniture.

Somewhere within the cold, legal mind of Lawyer Turnbull, he weighed the comparative likeness of nightmare and insanity.

He stared at the plush chair facing him, noted with distinct uneasiness how the strangely weightless, strangely sourceless trickle of redness disappeared as it hit the floor, but left long, mud-ochre streaks matted on the upholstery. The sound was unpleasant, too; Pat. HISS. Pat. HISS -

The voice continued impatiently, 'Damn your human stupidity! I may be a ghost, but heaven knows I'm not trying to haunt you. Friend, you're not that important to me. Get this -I'm here on business.'

Turnbull learned that you cannot wet dry lips with a dehydrated tongue. 'Legal business?'

'Sure. The fact that I was once killed by violence, and have to continue my existence on the astral plane, doesn't mean I've lost my legal rights. Does it?'

The lawyer shook his head in bafflement. He said, This would be easier on me if you weren't invisible. Can't you do something about it?'

There was a short pause. 'Well, I could materialize for a minute,' the voice said. 'It's hard work - damn hard, for me. There are a lot of us astral entities that can do it easy as falling out of bed, but - Well, if I have to I shall try to do it once.'

There was a shimmering in the air above the armchair, and a milky, thin smoke condensed into an intangible seated figure. Turnbull took no delight in noting that, through the figure, the outlines of the chair were still hazily visible. The figure thickened. Just as the features took form - just as Turnbull's bulging eyes made out a prominent hooked nose and a crisp beard - it thinned and exploded with a soft pop.