24 - The Dark Other
It was early in the evening, not yet eight
o'clock, when Pat saw the car of Nicholas Devine draw up before the house. She
had already been watching half an hour, sitting cross-legged in the deep window
seat, like her jade Buddha. That equivocal poem of his had disturbed her, lent
an added strength to the moods and doubts already implanted by Magda's mystical
tale, and it was with a feeling of trepidation that she watched him emerge
wearily from his vehicle and stare in indecision first at her window and then
at the Horker residence. The waning daylight was still sufficient to delineate
his worn features; she could see them, pale, harried, but indubitably the mild
features of her own Nick.
While he hesitated, she darted to the door and out
upon the porch. He gave her a wan smile of greeting, advanced to the foot of
the steps, and halted there.
"The Doctor's not home yet," she called
to him. He stood motionless below her.
"Come up on the porch," she invited, as
he made no move. She uttered the words with a curious feeling of apprehension;
for even as she ached for his presence, the uncertain state of affairs was
frightening. She thought fearfully that what had happened before might happen
again. Still, there on the open porch, in practically full daylight, and for so
brief a time—Dr. Carl would be coming very shortly, she reasoned.
"I can't," said Nick, staring wistfully
at her. "You know I can't."
"Why not?"
"I promised. You remember—I promised Dr.
Horker I'd not see you except in his presence."
"So you did," said Pat doubtfully. The
promise offered escape from a distressing situation, she thought, and
yet—somehow, seeing Nick standing pathetically there, she couldn't imagine
anything harmful emanating from him. There had been many and many evenings in
his company that had passed delightfully, enjoyably, safely. She felt a wave of
pity for him; after all, the affliction was his, most of the suffering was his.
"We needn't take it so literally," she
said almost reluctantly. "He'll be home very soon now."
"I know," said Nick soberly, "but
it was a promise, and besides, I'm afraid."
"Never mind, Honey," she said, after a
momentary hesitation. "Come up and sit here on the steps, then—here beside
me. We can talk just as well as there on the settee."
He climbed the steps and seated himself, watching
Pat with longing eyes. He made no move to touch her, nor did she suggest a
kiss.
"I read your poem, Honey," she said
finally. "It worried me."
"I'm sorry, Pat. I couldn't sleep. I kept
wandering around the house, and at last I wrote it and took it out and mailed
it. It was a vent, a relief from the things I'd been thinking."
"What things, Honey?"
"A way, mostly," he answered gloomily,
"of removing myself from your life. A permanent way."
"Nick!"
"I didn't, as you see, Pat. I was too
cowardly, I suppose. Or perhaps it was because of this forlorn hope of ours.
There's always hope, Pat; even the condemned man with his foot on the step to
the gallows feels it."
"Nick dear!" she cried, her voice
quavering in pity. "Nick, you mustn't think of those things! It might
weaken you—make it easier for him!"
"It can't. If it frightens him, I'm
glad."
"Honey," she said soothingly,
"we'll give Dr. Carl a chance. Promise me you'll let him try, won't
you?"
"Of course I will. Is there anything I'd
refuse to promise you, Pat? Even," he added bitterly, "when reason
tells me it's a futile promise."
"Don't say it!" she urged fiercely.
"We've got to help him. We've got to believe—There he comes!" she
finished with sudden relief.
The Doctor's car turned up the driveway beyond his
residence. Pat saw his face regarding them as he disappeared behind the
building.
"Come on, Honey," she said. "Let's
get at the business."
They moved slowly over to the Doctor's door,
waiting there until his ponderous footsteps sounded. A light flashed in the
hall, and his broad shadow filled the door for a moment before it opened.
"Come in," he rumbled jovially.
"Fine evening we're spoiling, isn't it?"
"It could be," said Pat as they followed
him into the library, "only it'll probably rain some more."
"Hah!" snorted the Doctor, frowning at
the mention of rain. "The course was soft. Couldn't get any distance, and
it added six strokes to my score. At least six!"
Pat chuckled commiseratingly. "You ought to
lay out a course in Greenland," she suggested. "They say anyone can
drive a ball a quarter of a mile on smooth ice."
"Humph!" The Doctor waved toward a
great, low chair. "Suppose you sit over there, young man, and we'll get
about our business. And don't look so woe-begone about it."
Nick settled himself nervously in the designated
chair; the Doctor seated himself at a little distance to the side, and Pat sat
tensely in her usual place beside the hearth. She waited in strained impatience
for the black magic of psychoanalysis to commence.
"Now," said Horker, "I want you to
keep quiet, Pat—if possible. And you, young man, are to relax, compose
yourself, get yourself into as passive a state as possible. Do you
understand?"
"Yes, sir," The youth leaned back in the
great chair, closing his eyes.
"So! Now, think back to your childhood, your
earliest memories. Let your thoughts wander at random, and speak whatever comes
to your mind."
Nick sat a moment in silence. "That's hard to
do, sir," he said finally.
"Yes. It will take practice, weeks of it,
perhaps. You'll have to acquire the knack of it, but to do that, we'll have to
start."
"Yes, sir." He sat with closed eyes.
"My mother," he murmured, "was kind. I remember her a little,
just a little. She was very gentle, not apt to blame me. She could understand.
Made excuses to my father. He was hard, not cruel—strict. Couldn't understand.
Blamed me when I wasn't to blame. Other did it. I wasn't mischievous, but got
the blame. Couldn't explain, he wouldn't believe me." He paused
uncertainly.
"Go on," said Horker quietly, while Pat
strained her ears to listen.
"Mrs. Stevens," he continued.
"Governess after Mother died. Strict like Father, got punished when I
wasn't to blame. Just as bad after Father died. Always blamed. Couldn't
explain, nobody believed me. Other threw cat in window, I had to go to bed. Put
salt in bird seed, broke leg of chair to make it fall. Punished—I couldn't
explain." His voice droned into silence; he opened his eyes. "That
all," he said nervously.
"Good enough for the first time," said
the Doctor briskly. "Wait a few weeks; we'll have your life's history out
of you. It takes practice."
"Is that all?" queried Pat in
astonishment.
"All for the first time. Later we'll let him
talk half an hour at a stretch, but it takes practice, as I've mentioned. You
run along home now," he said to Nick.
"But it's early!" objected Pat.
"Early or not," said the Doctor,
"I'm tired, and you two aren't to see each other except here. You remember
that."
Nick rose from his seat in the depths of the great
chair. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I don't know why, but I feel
easier in your presence. The—the struggle disappears while I'm here."
"Well," said Horker with a smile,
"I like patients with confidence in me. Good night."
At the door Nick paused, turning wistful eyes on
Pat. "Good night," he said, leaning to give her a light kiss. A rush
of some emotion twisted his features; he stared strangely at the girl.
"I'd better go," he said abruptly, and vanished through the door.
"Well?" said Pat questioningly, turning
to the Doctor. "Did you learn anything from that?"
"Not much," the other admitted, yawning.
"However, the results bear out my theory."
"How?"
"Did you notice how he harped on the
undeserved punishment theme? He was punished for another's mischief?"
"Yes. What of that?"
"Well, picture him as a timid, sensitive
child, rather afraid of being punished. Afraid, say, of being locked up in a
dark closet. Now, when he inadvertently commits a mischief, as all children do,
he tries desperately to divert the blame from himself. But there's no one else
to blame! So what does he do?"
"What?"
"He invents this other, the mischievous one,
and blames him. And now the other has grown to the proportions of a delusion,
haunting him, driving him to commit acts apart from his normal inclinations.
Understand? Because I'm off to bed whether you do or not."
"I understand all right," murmured Pat
uncertainly as she moved to the door. "But somehow, it doesn't sound
reasonable."
"It will," said the Doctor. "Good
night."
Pat wandered slowly down the steps and through the
break in the hedge, musing over Doctor Horker's expression of opinion. Then,
according to him, the devil was nothing more than an invention of Nick's mind,
the trick of a cowardly child to evade just punishment. She shook her head; it
didn't sound like Nick at all. For all his gentleness and sensitivity, he
wasn't the one to hide behind a fabrication. He wasn't a coward; she was
certain of that. And she was as sure as she could ever be that he hated,
feared, loathed this personality that afflicted him; he couldn't have created
it.
She sighed, mounted the steps, and fumbled for her
key. The sound of a movement behind her brought a faint gasp of astonishment.
She turned to see a figure materializing from the shadows of the porch. The
light from the hall fell across its features, and she drew back as she
recognized Nicholas Devine—not the being she had just kissed good night, but in
the guise of her tormentor, the red-eyed demon!
25 - The Demon Lover
Pat drew back, leaning against the door, and her
key tinkled on the concrete of the porch. She was startled, shocked, but not as
completely terrified as she might have expected. After all, she thought
rapidly, they were standing in full view of a public street, and Dr. Carl's
residence was but a few feet distant. She could summon his help by screaming.
"Well!" she exclaimed, eyeing the figure
inimically. "Your appearances and disappearances are beginning to remind
me of the Cheshire Cat."
"Except for the grin," said the other in
his cold tones.
"What do you want?" snapped Pat.
"You know what I want."
"You'll not get it," said the girl
angrily. "You—you're doomed to extinction, anyway! Go away!"
"Suppose," said the other with a
strange, cold, twisted smile, "it were he that's doomed to extinction—what
then?"
"It isn't!" cried Pat. "It
isn't!" she repeated, while a quiver of uncertainty shook her. "He's
the stronger," she said defiantly.
"Then where is he now?"
"Dr. Carl will help us!"
"Doctor!" sneered the other. "He
and his clever theory! Am I an illusion?" he queried sardonically,
thrusting his red-glinting eyes toward her. "Am I the product of his
puerile, vacillating nature? Bah! I gave you the clue, and your Doctor hasn't
the intelligence to follow it!"
"Go away!" murmured Pat faintly. The
approach of his face had unnerved her, and she felt terror beginning to stir
within her. "Go away!" she said again. "Why do you have to
torment me? Any one would serve your purpose—any woman!"
"You have an aesthetic appeal, as I've told
you before," replied the other in that toneless voice of his. "There
is a pleasure in the defacement of black hair and pale skin, and your body is
seductive, most seductive. Another might afford me less enjoyment, and besides,
you hate me. Don't you hate me?" He peered evilly at her.
"Oh, God—yes!" The girl was shuddering.
"Say it, then! Say you hate me!"
"I hate you!" the girl cried vehemently.
"Will you go away now?"
"With you!"
"I'll scream if you come any closer. You
don't dare touch me; I'll call Dr. Horker."
"You'll only damage him—your lover."
"Then I'll do it! He'll understand."
"Yes," said the other reflectively.
"He's fool enough to forgive you. He'll forgive you anything—the
weakling!"
"Go away! Get away from here!"
The other stared at her out of blood-shot eyes.
"Very well," he said in his flat tones. "This time the victory
is yours."
He backed slowly toward the steps. Pat watched him
as he moved, feeling a surge of profound relief. As his shadow shifted, her key
gleamed silver at her feet, and she stooped to retrieve it.
There was a rush of motion as her eyes left the
form of her antagonist. A hand was clamped violently over her mouth, an arm
passed with steel-like rigidity about her body. Nicholas Devine was dragging
her toward the steps; she was half-way down before she recovered her wits
enough to struggle.
She writhed and twisted in his grasp. She drove
her elbow into his body with all her power, and kicked with the strength of
desperation at his legs. She bit into the palm across her mouth—and suddenly,
with a subdued grunt of pain, he released her so abruptly that her own
struggles sent her spinning blindly into the bushes of the hedge.
She turned gasping, unable for the moment to
summon sufficient breath to scream. The other stood facing her with his eyes
gleaming terribly into her own; then they ranged slowly from her diminutive
feet to the rumpled ebony of her hair that she was brushing back with her hands
from her pallid, frightened face.
"Obstinate," he observed, rubbing his
injured palm.
"Obstinate and unbroken—but worth the
trouble. Well worth it!" He reached out a swift hand, seizing her wrist as
she backed against the bushes.
Pat twisted around, gazing frantically at Doctor
Horker's house, where a light had only now flashed on in the upper windows. Her
breath flowed back into her lungs with a strengthening rush.
"Dr. Carl!" she screamed. "Dr.
Carl! Help me!"
The other spun her violently about. She had a
momentary glimpse of a horribly evil countenance, then he drew back his arm and
shot a clenched fist to her chin.
The world reeled into a blaze of spinning lights
that faded quickly to darkness. She felt her knees buckling beneath her, and
realized that she was crumpling forward toward the figure before her. Then for
a moment she was aware of nothing.
She didn't quite lose consciousness, or at least
for no more than a moment. She was suddenly aware that she was gazing down at a
moving pavement, at her own arms dangling helplessly toward it. She perceived
that she was lying limply across Nicholas Devine's shoulder with his arms
clenched about her knees. And then, still unable to make the slightest
resistance, she was bundled roughly into the seat of his coupe; he was beside
her, and the car was purring into motion.
She summoned what remained of her strength. She
drew herself erect, fumbling at the handle of the door with a frantic idea of
casting herself out of the car to the street. The creature beside her jerked
her violently back; as she reeled into the seat, he struck her again with the
side of his fist. It was a random blow, delivered with scarcely a glance at
her; it caught her on the forehead, snapping her head with an audible thump
against the wall of the vehicle. She swayed for a moment with closing eyes,
then collapsed limply against him, this time in complete unconsciousness.
That lapse too must have been brief. She opened
dazed eyes on a vista of moving street lights; they were still in the car,
passing now along some unrecognized thoroughfare lined with dark old homes. She
lay for some moments uncomprehending; she was completely unaware of her
situation.
It dawned on her slowly. She moaned, struggled
away from the shoulder against which she had been leaning, and huddled
miserably in the far corner of the seat. Nicholas Devine gave her a single
glance with his unpleasant eyes, and turned them again on the street.
The girl was helpless, unable to put forth the
strength even for another attempt to open the door. She was still only half
aware of her position, and realized only that something appalling was occurring
to her. She lay in passive misery against the cushions of the seat as the other
turned suddenly up a dark driveway and into the open door of a small garage. He
snapped off the engine, extinguished the headlights, and left them in a
horrible, smothering, silent darkness.
She heard him open the door on his side; after an
apparently interminable interval, she heard the creak of the hinges on her own
side. She huddled terrified, voiceless, and immobile.
He reached in, fumbling against her in the
darkness. He found her arm, and dragged her from the car. Again, as on that
other occasion, she found herself reeling helplessly behind him through the
dark as he tugged at her wrist. He paused at a door in the building adjacent to
the garage, searching in his pocket with his free hand.
"I won't go in there!" she muttered
dazedly. The other made no reply, but inserted a key in the lock, turned it,
and swung open the door.
He stepped through it, dragging her after him.
With a sudden access of desperate strength, she caught the frame of the door,
jerked violently on her prisoned wrist, and was unexpectedly free. She reeled
away, turned toward the street, and took a few faltering steps down the
driveway.
Almost instantly her tormentor was upon her, and
his hand closed again on her arm. Pat had no further strength; she sank to the
pavement and crouched there, disregarding the insistent tugging on her arm.
"Come on," he growled. "You only
delay the inevitable. Must I drag you?"
She made no reply. He tugged violently at her
wrist, dragging her a few inches along the pavement. Then he stooped over her,
raised her in his arms, and bore her toward the dark opening of the door. He
crowded her roughly through it, disregarding the painful bumping of her
shoulders and knees. She heard the slam of the door as he kicked it closed, and
she realized that they were mounting a flight of stairs, moving somewhere into
the oppressive threatening darkness.
Then they were moving along a level floor, and her
arm was bruised against another door. There was a moment of stillness, and then
she was released, dropped indifferently to the surface of a bed or couch. A
moment later a light flashed on.
The girl was conscious at first only of the gaze
of the red eyes. They held her own in a fascinating, unbreakable, trance-like
spell. Then, in a wave of dizziness, she closed her own eyes.
"Where are we?" she murmured. "In
Hell?"
"You should call it Heaven," came the
sardonic voice. "It's the home of your sweetheart. His home—and
mine!"
26 - The Depths
"Heaven and Hell always were the same
place," said Nicholas Devine, his red eyes glaring down at the girl.
"We'll demonstrate the fact."
Pat shifted wearily, and sat erect, passing her
hand dazedly across her face. She brushed the tangled strands of black hair
from before her eyes, and stared dully at the room in which she found herself.
It had some of the aspects of a study, and some of
a laboratory, or perhaps a doctor's office. There was a case of dusty books on
the wall opposite, and another crystal-fronted cabinet containing glassware,
bottles, little round boxes suggestive of drugs or pharmaceuticals. There was a
paper-littered table too; she gave a convulsive shudder at the sight of a bald,
varnished death's head, its lower jar articulated, that reposed on a pile of
papers and grinned at her.
"Where—" she began faintly.
"This was the room of your sweetheart's
father," said the other. "His and my mutual father. He was an
experimenter, a researcher, and so, in another sense, am I!" He leered
evilly at her. "He used this chamber to further his experiments, and I for
mine—the carrying on of a noble family tradition!"
The girl scarcely heard his words; the
expressionless tone carried no meaning to the chaos which was her mind. She
felt only an inchoate horror and a vague but all-encompassing fear, and her
head was aching from the blows he had dealt her.
"What do you want?" she asked dully.
"Why, there is an unfinished experiment. You
must remember our interrupted proceedings of a week ago! Have you already
forgotten the early steps of our experiment in evil?"
Pat cringed at the cold, sardonic tones of the
other. "Let me go," she whimpered. "Please!" she appealed.
"Let me go!"
"In due time," he responded. "You
lack gratitude," he continued. "Last time, out of the kindness that
is my soul, I permitted you to dull your senses with alcohol, but you failed,
apparently, to appreciate my indulgence. But this time"—His eyes lit up
queerly—"this time you approach the consummation of our experiment with
undimmed mind!"
He approached her. She drew her knees up, huddling
back on the couch, and summoned the final vestiges of her strength.
"I'll kick you!" she muttered
desperately. "Keep back from me!"
He paused just beyond her reach. "I had
hoped," he said ironically, "if not for your cooperation, at least
for no further active resistance. It's quite useless; I told you days ago that
this time would come."
He advanced cautiously; Pat thrust out her foot,
driving it with all her power. Instantly he drew back, catching her ankle in
his hand. He jerked her leg sharply upwards, and she was precipitated violently
to the couch. Again he advanced.
The girl writhed away from him. She slipped from
the foot of the couch and darted in a circle around him, turning in an attempt
to gain the room's single exit—the door by which they had entered. He moved
quickly to intercept her; he closed the door as she backed despairingly away,
retreating to the far end of the room. Once more he faced her, his malicious
eyes gleaming, and moved deliberately toward her.
She drew back until the table halted her; she
pressed herself against it as if to force her way still further. The other
moved at unaltered pace. Suddenly her hand pressed over some smooth, round,
hard object; she grasped it and flung the grinning skull at the more terrible
face that approached her. He dodged; there was a crash of glass as the gruesome
missile shattered the pane of the cabinet of drugs. And inexorably, Nicholas Devine
approached once more.
She moved along the edge of the table, squeezed
herself between it and the wall. Behind her was one of the room's two windows,
curtainless, with drawn shades. She found the cord, jerked it, and let the
blind coil upward with an abrupt snap.
"I'll throw myself through the window!"
she announced with a sort of desperate calm. "Don't dare move a step
closer!"
The demon paused once more in his deliberate
advance. "You will, of course," he said as if considering.
"Given the opportunity. Your body torn and broken, spotted with blood—that
might be a pleasure second only to that I plan."
"You'll suffer for it!" said the girl
hysterically. "I'll be glad to do it, knowing you'll suffer!"
"Not I—your sweetheart."
"I don't care! I can't stand it!"
The other smiled his demoniac smile, and resumed
his advance. She watched him in terror that had now reached the ultimate
degree; her mind could bear no more. She turned suddenly, raised her arm, and
beat her fist against the pane of the window.
With the surprising resistance glass sometimes
displays, it shook at her blow but did not shatter. She drew back for a second
attempt, and her upraised arm was caught in a rigid grip, and she was dragged
backward to the center of the room, thrown heavily to the floor. She sat
dazedly looking up at the form standing over her.
"Must I render you helpless again?"
queried the flat voice of the other. "Are you not yet broken, convinced of
the uselessness of this struggle?"
She made no answer, staring dully at his immobile
features.
"Are you going to fight me further?" As
she was still silent, he repeated, "Are you?"
She shook her head vaguely. "No," she
muttered. She had reached the point of utter indifference; nothing at all was
important enough now to struggle for.
"Stand up!" ordered the being above her.
She pulled herself wearily to her feet, leaning
against the wall. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them dully as
the other moved.
"What—are you—are you going to do?" she
murmured.
"First," said the demon coldly, "I
shall disrobe you somewhat more completely than on our other occasion.
Thereafter we will proceed to the consummation of our experiment."
She watched him indifferently, uncomprehendingly,
as he crooked a thin finger in the neck of her frock. She felt the pressure as
he pulled, heard the rip of the fabric, and the pop of buttons, but she was
conscious of no particular sensation as the garment cascaded into a black and
red pool at her feet. She stood passive as he hooked his finger in the strap of
her vest, and that too joined the little mound of cloth. She shivered slightly
as she stood bared to the waist, but gave no other sign.
Again the thin hand moved toward her; from
somewhere in her tormented spirit a final shred of resistance arose, and she
pushed the questing member feebly to one side. She heard a low, sardonic laugh
from her oppressor.
"Look at me!" he commanded.
She raised her eyes wearily; she drew her arm
about her in a forlorn gesture of concealment. Her eyes met the strange orbs of
the other, and a faint thrill of horror stirred; other than this, she felt
nothing. Then his eyes were approaching her; she was conscious of the illusion
that they were expanding, filling all the space in front of her. Their weird glow
filled the world, dominated everything.
"Will you yield?" he queried.
The eyes commanded. "Yes," she said
dully.
She felt his hands icy cold on her bare shoulders.
They traveled like a shudder about her body, and suddenly she was pressed close
to him.
"Are you mine?" he demanded. For the
first time there was a tinge of expression in the toneless voice, a trace of
eagerness. She made no answer; her eyes, held by his, stared like the eyes of a
person in a trance, unwinking, fascinated.
"Are you mine?" he repeated, his breath
hissing on her cheek.
"Yes." She heard her own voice in
automatic reply to his question.
"Mine—for the delights of evil?"
"Yours!" she murmured. The eyes had
blotted out everything.
"And do you hate me?"
"No."
The arms about her tightened into crushing bands.
The pressure stopped her breath; her very bones seemed to give under their
fierce compression.
"Do you hate me?" he muttered.
"Yes!" she gasped. "Yes! I hate
you!"
"Ah!" He twisted his hand in her black
hair, wrenching it roughly back. "Are you ready now for the consummation?
To look upon the face of evil?"
She made no reply. Her eyes, as glassy as those of
a sleep-walker, stared into his.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes," she said.
He pressed his mouth to hers. The fierceness of
the kiss bruised her lips, the pull of his hand in her hair was a searing pain,
the pressure of his arm about her body was a suffocation. Yet—somehow—there was
again the dawning of that unholy pleasure—the same degraded delight that had
risen in her on that other occasion, in the room of the red-checked table
cloth. Through some hellish alchemy, the leaden pain was transmuting itself
into the garish gold of a horrible, abnormal pleasure. She found her crushed
lips attempting a feeble, painful response.
At her movement, she felt herself swung abruptly
from her feet. With his lips still crushing hers, he raised her in his arms;
she felt herself borne across the room. He paused; there was a sudden release,
and she crashed to the hard surface of the couch, whose rough covering
scratched the bare flesh of her back. Nicholas Devine bent over her; she saw
his hand stretch toward her single remaining garment. And again, from somewhere
in her harassed soul, a spark of resistance flashed.
"Nick!" she moaned. "Oh, Nick! Help
me!"
"Call him!" said the other, a sneer on
his face. "Call him! He hears; it adds to his torment!"
She covered her eyes with her hands. She felt his
hand slip coldly between her skin and the elastic about her waist.
"Nick!" she moaned again. "Nick!
Oh, my God! Nick!"
