Graham Masterton - Death Trance

'Nervous.'

'Well, good. If you're nervous, then you'll be alert. I'll tell you what we've managed to arrange during the night. Quamus has obtained two cases of dynamite, as well as all the necessary fuses; and all that has been loaded on to the station wagon ready to go. Mr Walcott will be ready for you by the time you reach Salem Harbour, and will sail you out to the David Dark . When you dive, you will take down with you an airlift, and you will use this to excavate a narrow crevice in the silt, right beside the David Dark’s hull. Into this crevice you will pack both cases of dynamite, and you will then swim back to the surface, paying out fuse as you go. The fuse is largely made of magnesium, so it will burn underwater. You will light it, and then retreat from the area as quickly as possible, while the dynamite detonates. According to the preparatory work I have done during the night, the explosion should completely shatter the hull of the David Dark , and blow most of the silt out of the area where the ship has been buried. Now comes the difficult part: you will have to search the sea-bed, almost blind, for a great deal of silt will be clouding the water, and you will have to locate the copper vessel within a matter of minutes. Fortunately, Mr Walcott has metal-detecting equipment, and that should help you find it reasonably speedily. We will be keeping the coastguard away from the area by putting out a false emergency call from further up the coast, off Singing Beach, and we will just have to hope that nobody else gets too inquisitive before we are able to winch the copper vessel up to the surface.'

'What are we going to do with Mictantecutli ; once we get him ashore?' I wanted to know.

'That is all arranged, too. A refrigerated truck will be waiting by the harbour, and the copper vessel will immediately be put into cold storage, and driven here. Enid will be preparing all the necessary rituals to keep Mictantecutli under our control; and she should be ready by the time we get back here.'

I looked down at my unfinished eggs. They were stone cold now, and congealing on the plate. I pushed them away, and poured myself another cup of coffee.

'If this doesn't work,' I asked old man Evelith, 'what's the worst that can happen? A $500 fine for setting off explosives? A couple of months in jail?'

Duglass Evelith pursed his lips. Those will be nothing, compared with the fury of Mictantecutli . The worst that can happen, Mr Trenton, is that every grave in Salem and Granitehead will open, and that the dead will rise to massacre the living.'

At that moment, Gilly came into the room, blinking at the sunlight. 'I woke up and you were gone,' she said. 'Does everybody get up this early around here?'

'I have to go to Boston to pick up some research material,' I lied. 'I thought I might as well make an early start.'

Gilly sat down, and Quamus came in to pour her some fresh coffee. He looked across the table at me as he did so, and by the expression on his face he seemed to be asking me whether I was ready to go. I wiped my mouth, put down my napkin, and stood up. Gilly looked at me in surprise.

'You're not even going to have breakfast with me?'

I leaned across and kissed her. ‘I’m sorry. I really have to go.'

'Are you all right?' she asked, glancing at old man Evelith as if she suspected him of kidnapping me, and injecting me with strange drugs.

‘I’m fine,' I reassured her. 'All you have to do is finish your breakfast and leave when you feel like it. I'll call you later in the day. Maybe I'll even drop in and see you. And don't forget to tell Edward that I'd like to talk.'

'I won't,' said Gilly distractedly, as I left the dining-room, and followed Quamus across the hallway and out to the garage. In the gloom of the garage, Duglass Evelith's LTD wagon was waiting, black and polished, with two large packing-cases stowed in the back, both of them unmarked. Quamus opened the passenger door for me, and I climbed in, turning around to stare at the crates in trepidation.

'How much dynamite do we have there?' I asked him.

He pressed the remote button which opened the garage door. He looked across at me and almost smiled. 'Enough to blow this car to Lynnfield, no driving necessary.'

'Very reassuring,' I told him.

We were circling the shingle driveway when Enid came down the front steps of the house and waved to us. Quamus drew the wagon to a halt and put down the window. Enid looked pale and distraught, and her hair was flying loose.

'What's wrong?' I asked her. 'Did we forget something?'

'It's Anne,' she said. 'Your doctor just called, Dr Rosen?'

That's right, Dr Rosen. What's the matter?'

'It's terrible. I sensed that something was wrong during the night. A feeling, you know, of sudden loss. A feeling that part of us had suddenly vanished. A very cold feeling.'

'What's happened?' I demanded. 'For Christ's sake, tell me what's happened.'

'She was found hanging in her room this morning. They had kept her in for one more day of observation. Then, when they went in this morning, they found her hanging. Her own belt, from the light.'

'Oh, God,' I said, and I felt my eggs begin to curdle in my stomach. Quamus touched his forehead in a sign which I assumed to be the Indian symbol for 'bless me,' or 'rest in peace.'

'She left a message,' said Enid. 'I can't remember what it said exactly, but it was addressed to you, Mr Trenton. It said something like, "Don't feel you have to keep your promise, just for me." She didn't say what promise, though, or why you didn't have to keep it.'

I closed my eyes, and then opened them again. The day looked very gray, like a harsh black-and-white photograph. 'I know what promise,' I said quietly.

The co-operative Mr Walcott of the Salem Salvage Company turned out to be a short, broad-shouldered, Slavic-looking man with shaggy gray eyebrows and a vocabulary that consisted chiefly of 'C'd be' and 'Likely that's so', two forms of non-committal agreement that after only half an hour of sailing I began to find extremely irksome and frustrating.

Mr Walcott said that his mother had been Polish and his father had been English, and that between the two of them they had brought up a family that had been part mad, part romantic, part frosty, and part inspirational, and that was all he was going to say in the matter. He helped Quamus to load the dynamite boxes on to the deck of his diving-boat, a greasy 90-foot lugger that I had noticed several times moored up at the less savoury end of Salem Terminal Wharf; then he started up the diesels, and we left the quayside without any delay.

It was a chilly morning, but the sea was calm, and I was confident that I would be able to cope with the diving conditions. I wasn't at all sure about the dynamite, but I kept telling myself that it was all for Jane; and that if I played my part in this carefully and wisely, I would soon have her restored to me. It was an extraordinary thought, but if Mictantecutli kept his promise, it was possible that I might even have her back by tonight.

Quamus touched my shoulder, and beckoned me back to the lugger's after-deck, where our diving-gear was all laid out. A young girl with short-cropped blonde hair and a smudge of oil on her nose was checking the regulator valves on the oxygen cylinders. She wore identical denim overalls to Mr Walcott, and her eyes were the same sharp blue, and from her stocky, busty build I took her at once to be Mr Walcott's daughter. She said, 'Hi,' and looked at us skeptically, a gray-haired Indian of anything between 60 and 300 years old; and a nervous antique dealer in a dark blue business coat.

'You guys want to get ready?' she asked. ‘I’m Laurie, Laurie Walcott. Either of you guys ever dive before?'