Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

Kirsten looked at him expectantly. “And so.”

“And so I reckon I can guess why this fellow Dread is so hot after killing you and John Chance first chance he gets,” Wells said. “And now that we’ve said what we’re both of us fighting against, we’d best be getting up to my place and think about what we’re going to have to do next. These boys here can wait till morning, but I got a feeling Dread won’t.”

“No,” said Kirsten. “He won’t.”

Chance’s Duesenberg SJ bored into the night. Slumped in the seat beside him, Moore felt the wind rush past them. Its cool blast whipped over the windshield, reviving him fully from the horror and shock he had endured earlier. The lighted clock on the dash read not much after ten.

God, was that all the late it was! It seemed to Moore that it must be close to dawn. Would this night ever end? For him, perhaps not…

Was he mad? Surely this was madness. It was all a dream of absinthe and hashish. Doubtless Chance could explain it to him, but then Chance too was possibly part of the dream. But his head throbbed with the surge of the SJ’s powerful supercharged engine, and his knotted stomach cringed each time Chance took a curve or dip at daredevil speed. If he could feel pain and cold, sickness and fear, then he must be awake — and alive.

The suicide? Moore pushed it from his thoughts, or tried to. He was alive, therefore he had not killed himself that evening. Cogito ergo sum, or perhaps the reverse, and damn the fired cartridge. If his suicide had all been a mad nightmare, then why trust his memory as to the number of bullets in the clip? Or maybe he’d fired the gun unconsciously under the spell of absinthe, and tomorrow he’d find a small round hole in the floor or wall. Absinthe is a strange liqueur, and God knows his nerves were strained beyond endurance…

But the appearance of Dread — had Dread been a part of the nightmare? And how could that be? Until less than an hour or so ago, Compton Moore had never heard of this uncanny creature. Even now he scarcely knew whether he dared believe the fantastic tale John Chance had unfolded. Call it prescience? Chance perhaps could explain that too; it would interest him. Moore thought about telling him, decided against it. He couldn’t think why. Another time he’d tell him.

Chance’s insane tale. Somehow Chance had dragged him back from the black abyss of horror and despair, sobered him up, stuffed him into his unpressed linen suit, flung him still dazed into the seat beside him. Now he tore along with Chance at a suicidal clip on a madman’s mission to save the woman he had loved for the friend he hated. All because of Chance’s insane tale…

“You’re the only man I can rely on to help me in time!” Chance had argued. “The local police are either fools or under Dread’s influence! By the time I could convince the state or federal authorities to start an investigation, it will be too late to save Kirsten! It’s been almost twenty-four hours since the wreck, and there’s still no word from her — she’s in deadly danger if she’s still alive at all!”

And thus Moore let himself be dragged into the night. Chance’s plans were at best sketchy. Mainly he wanted someone he could trust to back him up in a dangerous game. Just how dangerous, Moore was only beginning to realize.

The Duesenberg sped down Cherokee Boulevard and slewed into the drive of Chance’s sprawling Tudor estate. Chance meant to gather together such supplies and paraphernalia as he deemed of possible use to them, before setting out for Dillon that night. He knew enough already to realize that Dread’s hold over the mountain region was deeply rooted and insidious — presumably reaching into levels of local government. If Kirsten still lived, Chance reasoned, then she must either be Dread’s captive or else lost somewhere in the wild desolation of the mountains. Either way, it was a question first of finding her — and that meant personal search and investigation.

“Any word?” demanded Chance, as Reynolds, his majordomo, met them at the door.

“No word from Miss von Brocken, sir,” the hulking red-haired butler informed him. “Good evening, Mr. Moore. How good to see you here once again.”

Moore nodded. “Evening, Reynolds. Been a few years, hasn’t it.” He glanced around. There were changes — mostly exotic souvenirs of Chance’s travels that had replaced the mansion’s staid Edwardian furnishings.

Reynolds followed them into the huge library that served as Chance’s study. “There have been a number of calls and inquiries, of course, sir. From friends, the press and such. I’ve answered them as best I could with the information you left me, and told them you were unavailable for the present yourself, sir. You’ll find notations of all communications here on your desk.”

“That’s fine, Reynolds,” Chance said distractedly, glancing over the notes. “Damn! De Grandin can’t be reached! Is everything packed?”

“Yes sir. Blankets and camping gear, your clothes and other items. Also as requested the Winchester Model 12 and the.416 Rigby, along with ammunition.”

“Fine. Throw in a few boxes of 9 mm. Parabellum for Compton’s Luger as well. Pack whatever will fit into the SJ, and don’t bother too much with clothing — we’ll buy what we need in Dillon. We’ll be down as soon as I pull together some material here. Oh — and a thermos of coffee.”

“Already prepared, sir.” Reynolds bowed and left the room.

“I see you have Kirsten’s crystal,” observed Moore.

Chance was paging through a yellowed quarto volume. He looked down at the crystal — a translucent globe of emerald-green crystal some six inches across. In its silver tripod mounting, it rested on a small ebony table beside the alcove window. If Kirsten herself knew what manner of crystal the globe was fashioned from, she kept that knowledge to herself.

“Yes,” Chance acknowledged. “Kirsten keeps it with her wherever she travels, of course. She likes to sit along the window there at night and gaze into the crystal.”

Moore reached out to touch its murky green smoothness. The globe flickered with a pulse of light. Moore leapt back as if shocked.

“Good lord! Kirsten!” Chance exploded. “She’s trying to reach us!” He pounced upon the suddenly alive crystal.

“But how…?”

Chance peered into the globe. “You attended her seances in Berlin, man! You know that wasn’t sham — that Kirsten actually has powers of crystalomancy!”

“I knew she wasn’t fake,” Moore protested, recalling numerous frustrated attempts by skeptics to find hidden electric wires. “But I thought it was showmanship. Mass suggestion or hypnosis — coupled with a dash of true clairvoyance.”

“God! And you wonder why Kirsten grew bored with all her friends there!”

Moore colored and clenched his fists — but if Chance was too distracted to be tactful, Moore was too bewildered to take offense. “Good lord, John!” he burst out. “What you’re proposing isn’t paranormal psychic phenomena! It’s frank black magic — sorcery!”

“So they called it when they burned Kirsten’s ancestress for witchcraft,” Chance told him levelly. “Today we live in a so-called enlightened age and use different terms to safely categorize what we cannot explain — and Kirsten is less overt about her powers than was her unfortunate ancestress.”

“Then you’re seriously saying that Kirsten…”

“In terms of another age — is a witch, a sorceress, an enchantress,” Chance finished for him. “But to conform to modern rationality, let’s simply call her a psychic adept who uses objects such as globes, prisms, mirrors, reflecting surfaces, or the like to focus her occult powers into observable phenomena. And while you’re grappling with that, be still and let me concentrate on her crystal.”