Image of the Beast

If Igescu had not been forced to do so, he would never have quitthe search for Dolores and Childe. Why, then; had he not made sure that he wouldnot be vulnerable? He knew that both Dolores and Childe were in the intramural passageways.

Childe felt colder than before except for a hot spot between hisshoulder blades, the focus of something hidden somewhere and staring at hisback.

He looked swiftly around the room, at the ceiling, where theshadows clungabove the beams, under the oaken frame of the bed, although he hadlooked there once, and behind the few chairs. There was nothing.

The bathroom was empty. So was the room beyond the thick roughoaken door on the west wall. Nothing living was there, but a massive mahoganycoffin with goldtrimming and gold-plated handles stood in one corner.

Childe raised the lid, fully expecting to find a body. It wasempty. Eitherit had housed a daylight sleeper at one time or it was to be used insome emergency by the baron. Childe pulled up the satin lining and foundearth beneath it.

He went back to the oaken room. Nothing had visibly changed. Yetthe silence seemed to creak. It was as if intrusion of another had hauled in the slack of the atmosphere, had hauled it in too tightly. The shadows abruptlyseemed darker; the green light of the candles was heavier and, in some way, even more sinister.

He stood in the doorway, sword ready, motionless, repressing hisbreathingso he could listen better.

Something had come into this room, either from the passageway entrance or through the door at the west wall. He doubted that it had used thepassagewayentrance, because any guard stationed there would have challenged himbefore he could get into the room.

It had to have been in the other room, and it must have beenwatching himthrough some aperture which Childe could not see. It had not movedagainst himimmediately because he had not tried to harm the baron.

Perhaps the feeling was only too-strained nerves. He could seenothing, nothing at all to alarm him.

But the baron would not have left himself unguarded.

CHAPTER 19

Childe took one step forward. There was still no sound exceptthat which his mental ear heard. It was a crackling, as if the intrusion of a newmass had bent a magnetic field. The lines of force had been pushed out.

The rapier held point up, he advanced toward the enormous log onthe bed. The noiseless crackling became louder. He stooped and looked underthe frame. There was nothing there.

Something heavy struck him on his back and drove him face down. He screamed and rolled over. Fire tore at his back and his hips and the back ofhis thighs, but he was up and away, while something snarled and spat behind him. He rounded the bed and whirled, the sword still in his hand although he had nomemory ofconsciously clinging to it or of even thinking of it. But if hisspirit hadunclenched for a moment, his fist had not.

The thing was a beauty and terror of white and black rosettedfur, and tautyellow-green eyes which seemed to reflect the ghastly light of thecandles, andthin black lips, and sharp yellow teeth. It was small for a leopardbut largeenough to scare him even after most of the fright of the unexpectedand unknown had left him. It had hidden in the cavity of the log, crouchingflattened on topof Igescu until Childe had come close to it.

Now it crouched again and snarled, eyes spurting ferocity, clawsunsheathed.

Now it launched itself over the bed and the coffin. Childe, leaning over thebaron's body, thrust outward. The cat was spitted on the blade, whichdrove through the neck. A paw flashed before his eyes, but the tips of theclaws were not quite close enough. Childe went over backward, and the rapier wastorn from his hand. When he got up, he saw that the leopard, a female, was kicking itslast. It lay on its right side, mouth open, the life in its eyesflying away bitby bit, like a flock of bright birds leaving a branch one by one asthey startedsouth to avoid the coming of winter.

Childe was panting and shaking, and his heart was threatening tobutt through his ribs. He pulled the sword out, shoving with his footagainst thebody, and then climbed upon the oaken frame. He raised the swordbefore him bythe hilt with both hands. Its point was downward, parallel with hisbody. Heheld it as if he were a monk holding a cross up to ward off evil, which, in away, he was. He brought the blade down savagely with all his weightand drove it through the skin and heart and, judging from the resistance and mutedcrackingsound, some bones.

The body moved with the impact, and the head turned a little toone side. That was all. There was no sighing or rattling of breath. No bloodspurted fromaround the wound or even seeped out.

The instrument of execution was steel, not wood, but the hiltformed a cross. He hoped that the symbol was more important than the material. Perhapsneither meant anything. It might be false lore which said that avampire, to betruly killed, must be pierced through the heart with a stake or thatthe undead feared the cross with an unholy dread and were deprived of force inits presence.

Also, he remembered from his reading of Dracula, many years ago, somethingabout the head having to be removed.

He felt that probably there were many things said about thiscreature that were not true and also there were many things unknown. Whether thelore was superstition or not, he had done his best, was going to do his bestto ensure that it died a permanent death.

As for the leopard, it might be just that--a leopard. Hesuspected that itwas Ngima or Mrs. Pocyotl because it was so small. It did not seemlikely thatPocyotl, who was Mexican, some of whose ancestors undoubtedly spokeone form or another of Nahuatl, would be a wereleopard. A werejaguar, yes. No, itmust be, if not a genuine leopard, Ngima or the Chinaman Pao.

Whatever it was, it showed no sign of changing after death. Perhaps itreally was not a metamorph but a pet trained to guard Igescu.

What am I thinking of? he thought. Of course, it is. There are nosuch creatures as werewolves and wereleopard's and vampires. Maybe thereare vampires, psychological vampires, psychotics who think they are vampires. But anactual metamorphosis! What kind of mechanism would be involved, whatmechanism could effect a change like that? Bones become fluid, change shapeeven in the cellular structure, and harden again? Well, maybe the bones are notour kind of bones. But what about the energy involved? And even if the body couldshift shape, the brain surely couldn't! The brain would have to retain itshuman size and shape.

He looked at the leopard and he remembered the wolves. Theirheads were wolf-sized, their brains were small.

He should forget this nonsense. He had been drugged; the rest wassuggestion.

Not until then did he become aware that the leopard, when it hadbeen fastened to him for such a short time, had done more than he hadthought. It hadtorn off his shirt and pants and belt, and his hand, feeling his backand hipsand legs, was wet with blood. He hurt, and he was alarmed, but acloser examination convinced him that the leopard had done more harm to hisclothes than to him. The wounds were superficial or seemed so.

He went into the next room, which was a small study, and pickedup an armfulof newspapers and magazines. Returning to the huge room, he wadded upthe papersand-ripped out pages and stacked a pile on each side of the baron'sneck. After dripping some lighter fluid on the two piles and over the baron'shair and chest, he touched off the fluid.

Childe then opened the large windows and built another fire belowthe central plank. A third pile below the left side of the frameworkblazed up. In afew minutes, he added a wooden chair to that fire. After a while, theoak of the frame and the plank were blazing, and the log was blackening andsmoking. Thestench of burned hair and flesh rose from the baron.