Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

the six-story sheer drop to both streets. On the side of the Drive there is nothing but the open space

above the park. Opposite the other side is a church.

"It is at this side you must watch," I heard Ricori say; he pointed to the church. "You can turn the lights on

now, Doctor."

He started toward the door, then turned.

"I have many enemies, Dr. Lowell. Peters was my right hand. If it was one of these enemies who struck

him, he did it to weaken me. Or, perhaps, because he had not the opportunity to strike at me. I look at

Peters, and for the first time in my life I, Ricori-am afraid. I have no wish to be the next, I have no wish

to look into hell!"

I grunted at that! He had put so aptly what I had felt and had not formulated into words.

He started to open the door. He hesitated.

"One thing more. If there should be any telephone calls inquiring as to Peters' condition let one of these

men, or their reliefs, answer. If any should come in person making inquiry, allow them to come up-but if

they are more than one, let only one come at a time. If any should appear, asserting that they are

relations, again let these men meet and question them."

He gripped my hand, then opened the door of the room. Another pair of the efficient-appearing retainers

were awaiting him at the threshold. They swung in before and behind him. As he walked away, I saw that

he was crossing himself vigorously.

I closed the door and went back into the room. I looked down on Peters.

If I had been religious, I too would have been doing some crossing. The expression on Peters' face had

changed. The terror and horror were gone. He still seemed to be looking both beyond me and into

himself, but it was a look of evil expectancy-so evil that involuntarily I shot a glance over my shoulder to

see what ugly thing might be creeping upon me.

There was nothing. One of Ricori's gunmen sat in the corner of the window, in the shadow, watching the

parapet of the church roof opposite; the other sat stolidly at the door.

Braile and Nurse Walters were at the other side of the bed. Their eyes were fixed with horrified

fascination on Peters' face. And then I saw Braile turn his head and stare about the room as I had.

Suddenly Peters' eyes seemed to focus, to become aware of the three of us, to become aware of the

entire room. They flashed with an unholy glee. That glee was not maniacal-it was diabolical. It was the

look of a devil long exiled from his well-beloved hell, and suddenly summoned to return.

Or was it like the glee of some devil sent hurtling out of his hell to work his will upon whom he might?

Very well do I know how fantastic, how utterly unscientific, are such comparisons. Yet not otherwise can

I describe that strange change.

Then, abruptly as the closing of a camera shutter, that expression fled and the old terror and horror came

back. I gave an involuntary gasp of relief, for it was precisely as though some evil presence had

withdrawn. The nurse was trembling; Braile asked, in a strained voice: "How about another

hypodermic?"

"No," I said. "I want you to watch the progress of this-whatever it is-without drugs. I'm going down to

the laboratory. Watch him closely until I return."

I went down to the laboratory. Hoskins looked up at me.

"Nothing wrong, so far. Remarkable health, I'd say. Of course all I've results on are the simpler tests."

I nodded. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the other tests also would show nothing. And I had been

more shaken than I would have cared to confess by those alternations of hellish fear, hellish expectancy

and hellish glee in Peters' face and eyes. The whole case troubled me, gave me a nightmarish feeling of

standing outside some door which it was vitally important to open, and to which not only did I have no

key but couldn't find the keyhole. I have found that concentration upon microscopic work often permits

me to think more freely upon problems. So I took a few smears of Peters' blood and began to study

them, not with any expectation of finding anything, but to slip the brakes from another part of my brain.

I was on my fourth slide when I suddenly realized that I was looking at the incredible. As I had

perfunctorily moved the slide, a white corpuscle had slid into the field of vision. Only a simple white

corpuscle-but within it was a spark of phosphorescence, shining out like a tiny lamp!

I thought at first that it was some effect of the light, but no manipulation of the illumination changed that

spark. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I called Hoskins.

"Tell me if you see something peculiar in there."

He peered into the microscope. He started, then shifted the light as I had.

"What do you see, Hoskins?"

He said, still staring through the lens:

"A leucocyte inside of which is a globe of phosphorescence. Its glow is neither dimmed when I turn on

the full illumination, nor is it increased when I lessen it. In all except the ingested globe the corpuscle

seems normal."

"And all of which," I said, "is quite impossible."

"Quite," he agreed, straightening. "Yet there it is!"

I transferred the slide to the micro-manipulator, hoping to isolate the corpuscle, and touched it with the

tip of the manipulating needle. At the instant of contact the corpuscle seemed to burst. The globe of

phosphorescence appeared to flatten, and something like a miniature flash of heat-lightning ran over the

visible portion of the slide.

And that was all-the phosphorescence was gone.

We prepared and examined slide after slide. Twice more we found a tiny shining globe, and each time

with the same result, the bursting corpuscle, the strange flicker of faint luminosity-then nothing.

The laboratory 'phone rang. Hoskins answered.

"It's Braile. He wants you-quick."

"Keep after it, Hoskins," I said, and hastened to Peters' room. Entering, I saw Nurse Walters, face chalk

white, eyes closed, standing with her back turned to the bed. Braile was leaning over the patient,

stethoscope to his heart. I looked at Peters; and stood stock still, something like a touch of unreasoning

panic at my own heart. Upon his face was that look of devilish expectancy, but intensified. As I looked, it

gave way to the diabolic joy, and that, too, was intensified. The face held it for not many seconds. Back

came the expectancy then on its heels the unholy glee. The two expressions alternated, rapidly. They

flickered over Peters' face like-like the flickers of the tiny lights within the corpuscles of his blood. Braile

spoke to me through stiff lips:

"His heart stopped three minutes ago! He ought to be dead-yet listen-"

The body of Peters stretched and stiffened. A sound came from his lips-a chuckling sound; low yet

singularly penetrating, inhuman, the chattering laughter of a devil. The gunman at the window leaped to his

feet, his chair going over with a crash. The laughter choked and died away, and the body of Peters lay

limp.

I heard the door open, and Ricori's voice: "How is he, Dr. Lowell? I could not sleep-" He saw Peters'

face.

"Mother of Christ!" I heard him whisper. He dropped to his knees.

I saw him dimly for I could not take my eyes from Peters' face. It was the face of a grinning, triumphant

fiend-all humanity wiped from it-the face of a demon straight out of some mad medieval painter's hell.

The blue eyes, now utterly malignant, glared at Ricori.

And as I looked, the dead hands moved; slowly the arms bent up from the elbows, the fingers

contracting like claws; the dead body began to stir beneath the covers-