The Dark on the Other Side Read online

  “My God…Linda, what is Briggs? I mean, what role does he play in relation to Gordon?”

  “I’ve wondered so often myself. Sometimes I think he’s just another victim, but a willing one. Sometimes I see him as the éminence grise behind Gordon’s latest activities. They’re hand in glove, anyway, never doubt that.”

  Her face was averted, her voice rapid. She could hardly speak of the man, her loathing was so great. Michael realized that the basis for her aversion was more than a spiritual rejection. Perhaps it had not been Briggs’s dabbling in questionable theology that had caused his expulsion, but rather his inability to conform to the basic tenets of the priestly orders. He wondered whether Gordon was aware of his colleague’s attitude toward his wife; and knew that, if Gordon was what they had conjectured him to be, this would only be another weapon in his hands.

  In the middle of the afternoon, Napoleon returned.

  Michael hadn’t noticed his long absence; he had too many other things to worry about. He was in the kitchen making another pot of coffee when the heavy body thudded down onto the counter; and then he remembered that Napoleon never missed coming home for breakfast.

  He reached out for the animal, expecting the usual snarl and rebuff. But Napoleon’s lackluster stare remained fixed on thin air and he did not move. Michael passed his hands over the cat’s body. He found no new wounds. Whatever else he had been doing, Napoleon had not been fighting. Which was in itself a sign of something wrong.

  Lifting the unresponsive bulk, he carried it into the bedroom.

  “He’s sick,” he said, sounding like a nervous parent.

  Linda looked up from the book she was not reading.

  “Let me see.”

  Michael dumped the cat onto her lap and Linda investigated.

  “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “He’s a mess-why don’t you chaperon him better?-but what’s left of his fur feels sleek enough. And his eyes look okay…”

  Returning her look owlishly, Napoleon made the rusty grinding noise that passed for a purr. When Michael reached out for him, he eluded his master’s hand with the old agility, and leaped down off the bed. Michael trailed along after him while Napoleon made a thorough inspection of the apartment, from bathroom to kitchen. Having arrived at his food dish, he squatted down in front of it and began to gulp with a ravenous intensity that relieved much of Michael’s worry.

  He wandered back into the bedroom.

  “He’s eating.”

  “I expect he’s all right, then. Michael…Would you think me ridiculous if I found his return reassuring?”

  “I never thought of that. Hell, honey, it’s illogical. Cats are supposed to fawn on demons.”

  She didn’t answer. Michael sat down wearily on the edge of the bed and put his hand on her ankles. He ran his finger under the thick silk, making sure it was not too tight.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “It’s stupid,” Michael burst out. “You can untie it yourself any time you want to.”

  “But it would take time. You’d have some warning.”

  “For God’s sake-”

  “What time is it?’”

  “About two.”

  “Don’t lie.”

  “All right! Three. Well, maybe three thirty…”

  “Another hour,” she said. “We must leave a wide margin.”

  “I’ll call Galen again.”

  “You’ve called twice in the last hour. They’ll give him your message.”

  “And if he doesn’t come by the time your deadline is up?”

  “I won’t stay here tonight.”

  “A hotel room won’t be any safer,” Michael said, deliberately misunderstanding her.

  “It’s not a hotel room I’m contemplating.”

  “Linda, you can’t do that! If you get yourself committed to some hospital, the only one who could possibly get you out is Gordon himself. I don’t even have the legal right to ask questions. You can’t lock yourself into a room and throw away the key.”

  “I will not stay here tonight.”

  “You’ll have to,” Michael said. “I won’t let you go.”

  She looked up at him, a pale ghost of humor in her face.

  “Funny. You’re driven to the same extremity I tried to force you to earlier. Yes, you can keep me here. Bound and gagged…Have you thought about how it would look, if someone forced his way in and found me like that?”

  “Constantly,” Michael said with a groan.

  “And you’d risk that?”

  Michael reached out for her, compulsively, but she fended him off with a strength that had panic behind it.

  “Don’t, don’t ever do that! You kissed me last night, before-”

  “You don’t mean…” Michael hesitated. He was surprised, and disgusted, to realize that his predominant emotion was jealousy.

  “There may be a connection,” she said. Her eyes refused to meet his. “I won’t…go into details. But there may be.”

  “I see.”

  “That would have to be one of the conditions we must agree to, if I do stay.”

  “I’m not that big a fool,” Michael said roughly. “Even if I do act like it most of the time. What other conditions?”

  “Have you got any sleeping pills?”

  “Never use the things. What makes you think they would help? I’d be inclined to suspect the reverse. The less control you have over your conscious mind…”

  “Since you don’t have any, there’s not much point in debating that.”

  “How true. Anything else?”

  “Find a key for that door. And barricade it.”

  “Honey, for the love of Mike-what if there’s a fire, or a burglar, or-something else? We can’t anticipate his moves; he might do anything. If I couldn’t get to you-”

  “It’s a risk we must take.” Her eyes were hard as stone; the eyes of a fanatic. “Another thing. I want you to search this place from top to bottom. Make sure Gordon hasn’t left any other little souvenirs, like the notebook.”

  “You think…?”Michael cogitated. “I wonder.”

  “I’m not thinking, I’m just grasping at straws. But according to some occult theories, there must be a physical connection between the spell and the person whom it is meant to affect-like the doll, which uses the victim’s own hair or nail clippings. Why not a physical connection, a focus, for the warlock’s spells? Gordon isn’t careless about his belongings. That notebook was left here deliberately.”

  “I agree. I’m sloppy, but not unconscious; the book was planted under a pile of material I wouldn’t ordinarily refer to. Wait a minute. If your theory is right, he must have planted something at Andrea’s house.”

  “He’s been there any number of times.”

  “He went there looking for you, before you came here the first time,” Michael said. “He admitted entering the house.”

  “So it’s possible. I’m not sure of this, Michael. I think it’s worth checking, though.”

  “I’m trying to figure out when he could have hidden the notebook.”

  “Hiding it wouldn’t take more than a few seconds. It must have been here for several days, Michael. Because the summoning that brought you to Andrea’s didn’t come from me. There’s only one person who could have sent it.”

  “The idea had occurred to me. But I can’t think of any reason why he should do such a thing.”

  “His reasons aren’t comprehensible to normal people. I can think of an analogy, though: the pathologically jealous husband who keeps accusing his wife of infidelity until finally, in sheer desperation, she goes out and acquires a lover.”

  “Yeah, I knew a guy like that. His wife finally left him, and he took it as proof that he’d been right about her all along. All right.” Michael stood up. “I’ll search the place. The fact that Briggs was so ostentatious about removing the notebook might have been a bluff, to conceal the existence of something else.”

  He was not willing to admit, even t
o himself, the flaw in his reasoning: that if Briggs had removed the notebook, it might be because Gordon no longer needed it. Once the link was established…

  When he had finished his search, the apartment was neater than it had been for months. He found nothing, but he was aware that the negative results were not conclusive. Unless he tore furniture and walls to pieces, he could not be sure that some small object was not still concealed.

  He searched the bedroom last, at Linda’s request; he knew that, as twilight closed in, she wanted him near by, where he could watch her. She seemed convinced of her theory of a physical link; Michael found it weaker and less convincing the longer he thought about it.

  Napoleon, fully restored to health and malevolence, was still with them. Curled up on the foot of the bed, he watched Michael suspiciously.

  Michael backed out of the interior of the wardrobe, carrying the pile of dirty shirts he had inspected several times before. He shook each one out, feeling in the pockets, and dropping them one by one to the floor as he finished. He viewed the untidy pile indecisively, and then shrugged and left it there.

  “Can you think of any place I missed?” he asked.

  “No.” Linda’s voice was strained. “Michael, it’s almost dark.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Yes. Now.” She held out her hands.

  When he had done it, Michael was shaking. It got worse every time he did it. Napoleon’s disapproval didn’t help matters. The cat protested so violently that Michael finally had to shut him in the bathroom.

  “All right,” he said, straightening up after he had tied the final knot. “That’s it. I’m not going to gag you, I don’t see the need for it; and anyhow, it is simply too goddamn much for me to stomach.”

  “Okay,” she said submissively.

  Michael had turned on the lights; the darkness outside was complete. The lamp by the bed cast a warm glow on Linda’s face, and he was outraged to see that she was smiling. Maybe she felt better this way. He sure as hell didn’t.

  He couldn’t look at her any longer. He couldn’t stand the thoughts that kept worming into his mind. Abruptly, he turned and blundered out of the room; when he was out of her sight he leaned up against the wall, his head resting on his arm. It was barely seven o’clock. How in the name of God was he going to get through the rest of the night?

  It was the hour of midnight he dreaded most. Superstition…but no more mad than any of the other things that had happened. He forced himself back to Linda and found, as people usually do, that he could stand it, and would stand it, because he had to.

  They talked, but no longer of theories and interpretations. They spoke of defense, like the decimated garrison of a beleaguered fortress. But the weapons they discussed were not in any modern arsenal.

  “I don’t happen to have any holy water on hand,” Michael said, driven to a fruitless sarcasm. “Ran out last week…It didn’t help Andrea, remember?”

  “Could you-could you pray?” she asked diffidently.

  “No.” Michael looked at her. “Yes. I could pray. If I knew What to pray to.”

  The idea came into both their minds at the same moment, or else she read his face with uncanny quickness.

  “You can’t do that,” she said.

  “Why not? If we’re right-or even if we’re wrong. Any kind of mental assurance, confidence-”

  “Not that kind, no-there’s a limit, Michael. It would be spiritual prostitution, unimaginably worse than any physical contamination. You couldn’t do it-not if you really believed. And if you didn’t, it would just be a dirty game.”

  Again Michael was reminded of the gulf between their minds. His idea of trying to fight Gordon on his own ground had been partly a counsel of desperation, partly an academic theory. There was nothing academic about Linda’s attitude; she looked sick with disgust.

  “Besides,” she went on; her voice was shaking. “Besides, you’d be a novice, a probationer. He’s studied these things for years. All you would do is weaken yourself, don’t you see? He could walk right into your mind and destroy it.”

  “Okay, okay. It was just an idea. Then what can we do?”

  Linda relaxed.

  “Do you love me?” she asked.

  The question was so unexpected that it caught Michael off guard.

  “Someone asked me that, once,” he said slowly.

  “Well?”

  “I said I didn’t know what the word meant. I still don’t. But I love you.”

  “Then love me. No-” His hand came toward her and she shook her head. “Don’t touch me, don’t think of touching me. Think of love. Not of desire; they aren’t the same. I don’t know what love means either. But most people confuse loving with being loved. Love isn’t reciprocal. It doesn’t ask, or expect, or demand. It isn’t an emotion, it’s a state of being. Love me, Michael.”

  “It sounds rather one-sided to me,” Michael said; for the life of him, he could not have kept the bitterness out of his voice. “And also rather esoteric. You aren’t talking to Saint Francis, you know.”

  “I noticed that… Oh, Michael, I’m sorry! I’m sorry you’re involved in this, I’m sorry for talking to you like a third-rate mystic, I’m sorriest of all for asking, demanding, and not offering you anything in return. I haven’t anything to give, not any longer. I did once; I think I did… But I lost it, somewhere along the way, when Gordon taught me his way of loving. He does love me, you know. He calls it that. And I’m almost as bad as he is now; the only difference is that I know that that insatiable demand is not love, but a perversion of it. That’s why I can’t fight him. But you can.”

  Without answering, Michael stood up and walked across the room. From Linda’s earnest confusion of half-digested philosophy he derived only despair. Even if they fought their way out of the present crisis, there was no future for him with a woman who was literally frightened to death of loving. She was sick, incurably sick, if she could believe what she said she believed. Like most theories, hers sounded fine on the surface; but if love was not reciprocal, only the saints could derive much satisfaction from it. A normal human being had only so much to give without getting something in return. Depletion was inevitable.

  And this present situation, which she had talked him into, was impossible. Linda was immobilized, defenseless. If she was wrong-and she had to be wrong!-about her idea of vulnerability through the lack of love, then he was as susceptible to mental invasion as she was. The logic of Gordon’s next move came to him so strongly that it was as if he had read the other’s mind. Even if Linda had not been bound, she would be no match for him; he was stronger and heavier. She could scream; and she would, as long as she had breath left with which to scream, long enough for the neighbors to call the police, who would not arrive in time… They would find him standing there, over the bloody thing on the bed. Gordon would keep control over him that long. Just that long. He would release the mental bonds in time for Michael to see, and comprehend, what he had done…

  Just in time, Michael realized what was happening. He flung himself around, grasping blindly at the first solid object that came within reach. Something rocked under the thrust of his body, something fell and crashed; and he found himself leaning against the big dresser, his arms grasping it as a drowning man would clutch an oar. A broken ashtray lay on the floor. His face was streaming with perspiration, and his heart pounded as if he had been running a race. Something else was pounding-an irate neighbor, from the floor below. The howls of Napoleon, imprisoned in the bathroom, were loud enough to wake the dead.

  “Michael! Michael-is something wrong?”

  How long had she been calling him? With an enormous effort, Michael removed his hands from the dresser and turned around.

  “It’s all right,” he said thickly; and then said it again, because his voice had been almost inaudible.

  He saw Linda staring at him. There was concern in her face, but no fear; apparently the meaning of his sudden movement had escaped her.

>   “What is it?” she repeated.

  “Liver, or something,” Michael said promptly. His voice and body were once again under his control. The mental grasp had left his mind, but he derived no comfort from his victory. This might have been only a preliminary, testing thrust. He knew that he did not dare tell Linda what had happened.

  “Hadn’t you better let Napoleon out?” she asked. “He’s beside himself.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah.”

  Michael opened the door warily, putting himself into a posture of defense. Napoleon’s shrieks stopped abruptly, but he did not appear; looking around the corner of the door, Michael saw him crouched in the farthest corner, behind the hamper.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “You can come out now.”

  The cat refused to move until Linda called him. He curled up on the foot of the bed.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” Michael mumbled, and fled without waiting for an answer.

  He got to the kitchen before his legs gave way, and collapsed into a chair, letting his head drop down onto the table. For a long time he sat and shook, while his mind raced desperately from one blank wall to another. He had thought, when he fought Linda for his life, that that was the worst thing that could happen. He knew now that he had yet to experience the worst. If he hurt Linda, Gordon wouldn’t have to take any further steps; he would sit screaming in a cell for the rest of his life, until he found some means of ending it. And even this might not be the ultimate disaster. Gordon had a fertility of imagination that was far beyond his own feeble concepts of evil…

  And the end of it all was that there was nothing he could do. He was boxed into a corner. Whatever he did now would be dangerous. He could lock himself in one room and Linda in another; but his controlled mind would find some means of breaking through any barricade he could construct. He could go out, and smash a window, or insult a cop, and maybe get thrown in jail-if he could find a cop willing to arrest him. That would leave Linda alone, at the mercy of whatever attack Gordon planned next. He could let the police take Linda-which would be just what Gordon wanted. If he untied her, and begged her to immobilize him, she would know what had happened, and with her susceptibility to suggestion-or mental control, call it what you liked-she would then become his Nemesis, instead of the reverse. There was no way out.