Christopher Priest - The Prestige

I saw: snow-covered ground, the black shape of the house, two windows lighted, an open doorway with a light beyond, snow hurtling from the sky!

My brother yelled in my mind!

I turned back, found him sprawled across the steps, and picked him up. I stumbled out into the snow.

I floundered and staggered through the thick snow, aiming for the doorway, turning my head constantly to look back over my shoulder at the black rectangle of the open vault, dreading to see the emergence of whatever it was that had been following me.

Suddenly, the intruder light mounted on the side of the house came on, half-blinding me. The blizzard thickened in the glare. Kate appeared at the open doorway, dressed in a quilted coat.

I tried to shout a warning to her, but I could not find the breath. I continued on, sliding and staggering in the snow, Nicky's body held before me. At last I reached the yard in front of the door, slithered on the snow-covered concrete and pushed past her into the brightly lit hallway beyond.

She stared wordlessly at the body of the little boy in my arms. Gasping for breath, I turned around and went back to the doorway, leant against the post, looked back across the snow-covered garden at the indistinct shape of the vault entrance. Kate was beside me.

"Watch the vault!" I said. It was the only sentence I could get out. "Watch!"

Nothing was moving, over there on the other side of the snow. I took a step back, put down Nicky's body on the stone-flagged floor.

I fumbled in my pocket and found the label that had been on Nicky's rack. I shoved it at Kate. I was still struggling for breath, and I felt as if I would never again breathe normally.

I gasped, "Look at this! The handwriting! Is it the same?"

She took it from me, held it up in the light, and gazed intently at it. Then she looked straight back at me. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"It is, isn't it?" I shouted.

She put her hands around the upper part of my arm, and held herself against me. I could feel her trembling.

The intruder light went out.

"Get it on again!" I shouted.

Kate reached behind her, found the switch. Then she held my arm again.

The snow whirled in the blaze of light. Through it, vaguely, we could see the entrance to the vault. We both saw the slight figure of a man emerging from the door of the vault. He was dressed in dark clothes, and was covered up against the weather. Long black hair straggled out from under the hood of his jacket. He raised a hand to protect his eyes from the glaring light. He showed no curiosity about us, or fear of us, even though he must have known we were there, watching him. Without looking at us, or anywhere in the direction of the house, he stepped out on to the flat ground, hunching his shoulders in the blizzard, then moved to the right, between the trees, down the hill, and out of our sight.

Christoper Priest established a reputation for himself in the 1970's as "a master of romantic science fiction" ( The Washington Post ) before moving to more literary fiction. His eight previous novels include The Affirmation (1981) and The Glamour (1984), which won the Kurd Lasswitz Award. He lives in England with his wife, novelist Leigh Kennedy, and their twin children, Elizabeth and Simon.