Witch Water (33 page)

He’d already seen the animal responsible for
those sounds.

He tripped just as he would exit the
alley—more rubbish. These people just piled their garbage in the
alley? The Wraxall house stood in sight, bathed in moving
moonlight, but—

I’m never going to make it,
he
realized, because he could already hear the nearly mule-sized dog
race into the alley’s mouth.

“Fly, Pluto!” a voice shot. “Tear the wizard
asunder!”

As Fanshawe scrabbled forward, he heard the
huge paws tear toward him from behind. He clawed ahead; he knew
that at any second the massive jaws would snap a foot off, then the
other, and this would only be the beginning of a slow, unimaginable
death—

The image of Abbie flashed in his mind;
Fanshawe managed a smile…

He thought he could actually feel gusts of
hot breath blowing into the back of his neck, when—

There was a
pop!
then a long sizzle
which accompanied a broad, ball-shaped flash of light that was
scarlet with moving veins of green. The light filled the alley;
Fanshawe smelled acrid smoke. At the same time, resonant words
drifted: “Nattel’gleg shebb m’gy-hotl…”

Fanshawe stared terrified over his shoulder.
The blossom of light dissipated a moment later, but now, instead of
hunting him, the mammoth Doberman was snarling as if wildly
aggravated, and turning circles in the alley. It seemed to be
chasing its own tail.

“Pluto! Sic!” one voice called from the
alley’s other side.

“Of all the…”

“Look! The wizard’s
bewitched
the
dog!”

Fanshawe still had spots in his eyes from
the mysterious flash when he was hoisted to his feet and shoved. A
sturdy man in dark clothing pointed toward the open front door of
the Wraxall house.

“Who—”

“Stifle thy words!” a whisper snapped back.
“And mind thy tongue lest it be the death of us…”

Fanshawe stared into the stranger’s
face…

Callister Rood.

“Make haste and close Master’s door!”

“But—”

Another hard shove. “Be off!”

Fanshawe sprinted to the door to the house,
closed it as quietly as he could, then turned to peer out of a
small glass pane in the side-light.

By now the Doberman had churned its way out
of the alley, still snarling, still chasing its tail. Sheriff
Patten and the others lumbered after it through the trash-clogged
by-way.

Rood rushed to meet them. “Good Sheriff! I
glimpsed a hellish light, then spied a man in evil raiments flee
thither! Pray, let me aid thee in thy chase!”

“Callister Rood, surely thy vigilance be
blessed by God Himself!” Patten barked, then, behind him, “This
way, men! Ye divell’s made off
this
way!” and then the
sheriff, Rood, and the rest tramped off down the street till they
were out of sight.

Fanshawe’s face pressed against the glass;
he exhaled long and hard, and felt relieved when the last of the
posse’s footsteps faded to silence.

He turned, to face almost total darkness.
The entrance, which was probably just a narrow foyer back
then,
 he guessed. The only light could be seen very dimly
at the top of the first stairwell.

“I’m here to see Jacob Wraxall,” he
announced loudly to the darkness.

There was no vocal response but—

What-what’s that?

Fanshawe heard the faintest sound, like a
muffled, hot thumping…

A heartbeat!

Someone was in the room.

He raised his flashlight, was about to turn
it on—

From behind, some form of garrote looped
around his neck and tightened. A chuckling like bubbling tar
gurgled. Fanshawe’s tongue shot out of his mouth from the tightness
of the noose; he had no choice but to drop the flashlight so that
he could raise his hands to hook his fingers under the rope.

“Might this break thy starch?” a man’s voice
slithered up. Then Fanshawe’s eyes bugged when he was kicked from
behind between the legs. Pain bloomed. He doubled over.

He began to choke at once. His heels
pummeled the floor; he was being dragged by the noose across the
floor, through horrid darkness, then—

thunk, thunk, thunk

—dragged up the stairs.

Fanshawe’s face ballooned as his attacker
tugged him along as though he were a sack of feed. He continued to
kick, twist, and contort in resistance, all for nothing.

“So,” the mocking voice resumed, “ye
venturer desires to be a
warlock,
aye? He dares quest to be
one with ye Squire?”

“No!” Fanshawe croaked out. “I just came
to—”

A hard yank of the rope cut off the rest of
his garbled words. Up another flight of steps, Fanshawe was hauled,
then the last flight, and then down the hall. Splinters from the
wood floor lanced through the rump of his slacks and into his
flesh; he could only
gargle
his torment against the
noose.

He was dragged to the left, into a room. For
a moment, the noose’s pressure lessened; a needed rush of blood
shot into his head.
Got to get up!
he realized, and he’d
almost accomplished that when—

whap!

He toppled again when his attacker rammed a
fist into his stomach.

If Fanshawe hadn’t summoned the strength to
get his fingers back under the noose, he probably would have
strangled, because just after the blow, his attacker began to climb
the now-familiar rope ladder with one hand, while keeping the
noose-rope attached to Fanshawe’s neck in the other.

“Up, up goes ye venturer!”

Fanshawe’s eyes could’ve popped out now: his
back and then his feet left the floor as he was suspended aloft by
his neck. In hard jerks, he was hoisted up into a room he’d seen
three hundred years in the future…

Fanshawe’s vision dimmed, and the pressure
made his face fit to erupt. Just as he thought he would die, he was
slammed down onto a floor of wood planks.

The noose was taken off.

Fanshawe heaved in air while coughing at the
same time. His mind spun like a child’s top; no coherent thoughts
formed, which seemed understandable. But as his vision brightened,
he
was
able to see exactly where he was: the
secret
section of the attic.

He sensed his attacker’s bulk just behind
his head. Fanshawe was enraged now; he wanted to fight, as
implausible as that instance was.
Play dead,
he thought.

And so he did.

He lay as if unconscious, while the man
who’d dragged him up here puttered with some task. Fanshawe kept
his eyes open only to the most narrow slits. He glanced in
snatches, each glimpse revealing more of the hidden room: the book
shelves, only new and clean, bereft of cobwebs and dust; rows and
rows of lit candles; the woodstove, with fire-light showing in the
grill-slits of its hatch; and the long tables which housed all
manner of the laboratory apparatus of another day. An awful odor
permeated the warm room, and that’s when Fanshawe guessed what its
source might be:

A large cauldron sat atop the woodstove,
eddying ribbons of steam.

He let his eyes veer to the right, and in
the wall of candlelight, he got a full look at the man who’d hauled
him up here.

Callister Rood.

He can’t be here!
Fanshawe thought in
consternation.
I just saw him on the street!

“I know thy prank, sir,” the thick-jawed man
said down to him. “Yet there be reason why feigning death wilt fool
me not,” and then Rood leaned over and grinned broadly down at
him.

Fanshawe leapt up, grabbed a knife from a
rack on the table, then lunged at Rood.

Rood’s mouth ejected words thick as
half-formed objects: “Nard’gurnlut do’blyn srug…”

Fanshawe fell limp. He could see and think,
he could feel, but he couldn’t move. Had the alien words really
caused his paralysis or had his neck been broken during the hoist
into the attic. Suddenly rough hands were on him— “Venturer, first,
thy garb must be got rid of,” Rood said, amused. Fanshawe felt his
shoes pulled off, then his slacks, then his underpants, and his
sports jacket and shirt. Then—

SPLAT!

—a bowl of something warm suddenly slapped
Fanshawe’s face. The copper-salt taste that leaked into his mouth
told him it was blood.

“Now,” Rood’s voice fluttered from above,
“thine fit and proper anointment.”

Blood drooled down Fanshawe’s face and stung
his eyes.

“And afore ye most unholy of imprecations—as
mine Squire sayeth—thy gullet must be filled,” and then another
bowl was wielded, and put to Fanshawe’s lips. “Drink all this up,
good sarvant.”

Revolted, Fanshawe kept his lips sealed; he
shook his head no. He knew it wasn’t merely blood Rood wanted him
to swallow, but
baby’s
blood.

“Nay? Why dare displease the Squire?”

The edge of the bowl pushed at the seam of
his lips.

“Heed, and take this down into thy belly,
stranger. Thy worth must first be proved.”

Fanshawe kept shaking his head, eyes
squeezed shut as tightly as his lips.

“Be an encumbrance not, or suffer…” and then
Rood picked up a hand-forged linoleum knife whose inner curve had
been honed to the sharpness of broken glass.

The knife was hooked under Fanshawe’s
scrotum.

“Many’s the time, sir—and believeth it—ye
pleasure’s been mine to skive a man’s groin bare.” A chuckle
fluttered. “’T’will make a
woman
of thee if thou refuse to
drink.”

Fanshawe tensed as the blade’s edge
threatened to break the skin.

The bowl nudged his lips. “Drink with
faith.”

Shuddering, Fanshawe gulped the bowl’s
contents down.

“Fine, fine Rood,” another voice seemed to
sing. A graceful shape passed before the wall of candlelight. “A
glorious christening it is thee’ve achieved.”

A lithe figure towered over Fanshawe.
Evanore,
he knew by the voice. She giggled, gliding a bare
foot up the inside of his thigh. When she leaned over, he could see
she was not only naked but feverishly
intent
on him. “A
handsome one, isn’t he?”

Rood, still behind Fanshawe, only
grunted.

“Calm thyself, Rood. Our ilk has naught for
jealousy, hmm? Our Benefactor hath spoken it,” but her words were a
mockery of their meaning. Fanshawe saw the woman’s large bare
breasts moving closer—she was kneeling between his splayed legs.
“Yea, I’ll pleasure in filching the cream from
this
 one. Do taketh away thy knife, friend Rood. You’ll
wither him to nothing, and what use have I of that?”

More giggles sailed off as Rood put the
knife away; even in his paralysis, Fanshawe relaxed…but only for a
moment.

Terror had shrunk Fanshawe’s genitals, but
now Evanore purred as she applied some oily fluid to them. “Surely
this even-time’s events hath affrighted our venturer out of his
vitality.” Her hands worked the slick oil all around Fanshawe’s
groin. “But this shall resurge him a’plenty—the juice of many
blister beetles, b’mixed with but a half-dram of nightshade
oil…”

Beaten, hanged, forced to drink infant’s
blood, and a knife held to his genitals—it was understandable that
Fanshawe had completely lost his sexual responses. In only moments,
however, Evanore’s arcane concoction succeeded in arousing him.

“There now!”

Fanshawe was sick to death. Nothing in his
mind was sexually aware, yet his erection throbbed, if anything,
larger than ever. Evanore’s grin turned greedy when she squatted
down and impaled herself on it. All the while, Rood’s hand clamped
to Fanshawe’s throat, fingers pliered around the adam’s apple.

Licking her lips, Evanore began to ride
Fanshawe up and down.

Slick sounds rose; Fanshawe’s eyes crossed
at the abominable act.
She’s raping me…
Her breasts bounced
with each hard impact of her groin to his. She began to moan and
even drool.

“Now, Rood! Lend some
spark
to his
spirit!” she panted.

Fanshawe’s tongue shot out of his mouth the
noose was put back around his neck; Rood gave it a twist. The sight
seemed to rile Evanore—her groans began to blend with muted
shrieks, and in the carnal delirium, her finger reached out. First
she made the sign of an upside-down cross in the blood on
Fanshawe’s forehead, then a pentagram on his scarlet chest. She
rode him harder and harder.

Rood gave the noose’s knot another
twist.

Almost no air got into Fanshawe’s lungs. He
felt worse now than when he was being hanged. His face expanded;
his neck beat. When he started to gag again, Evanore touched a
fingertip to the top of a tiny bottle. “My moment’s nearly beside
me!” came more words through more panting.

The slick sounds drew on with the lewd
motion. Fanshawe’s vision was dimming but he was able to see the
glimmer of a drop of fluid on Evanore’s fingertip. “Yes, yes!” and
then she drew her finger along the inside of his lower lip.
Instantly, he felt a tingle.

He thought of shooting his thumbs backward,
to target Rood’s eyes, but he couldn’t raise his hands off the
floor. A harder thought, then: grabbing Evanore’s white,
sweat-sheened throat and
wringing
it till a vertebra
snapped, but, still…

He couldn’t move at all.

Then he began to convulse.

“The potion’s
so vital!
” Evanore
seethed.

Fanshawe’s convulsions came like
electrocution. His body began to flop beneath Evanore’s weight,
causing his pelvis to lurch repeatedly up. Evidently, this was the
effect she wanted. She wanted to be penetrated violently, by the
throes that just preceded death…

“Just the tiniest bit of spike-fish poison
can kill a man,” she drooled in glee, “but
half
that? It
makes a man flop and flip quite a fish out of water!”

Fanshawe’s body bucked hard now, and as if
on cue, Rood tightened the noose further. Evanore’s bosom heaved in
and out as her climax drew near. “Yea, to the very
brink
he
must be brought!”