casket; the chair where Harry had sat, the Calvados bottle beside it; the mirror above the fireplace showing the room its secret self.
Valentin was already moving across to the casket, and Harry heard him sigh as he set eyes on his old master. He wasted little time, but immediately set to lifting the lower half of the casket lid. It defeated his single arm however and Harry went to his assistance, eager to get the job done and be away. Touching the solid wood of the casket brought his nightmare back with breath-snatching force: the Pit opening beneath him, the illusionist rising from his bed like a sleeper unwillingly woken. There was no such spectacle now, however. Indeed a little life in the corpse might have made the job easier. Swann was a big man, and his limp body was uncooperative to a fault. The simple act of lifting him from his casket took all their breath and attention. He came at last, though reluctantly, his long limbs flopping about.
'Now . . .' said Valentin '. . . downstairs.' As they moved to the door something in the street ignited, or so it seemed, for the interior suddenly brightened. The light was not kind to their burden. It revealed the crudity of the cosmetics applied to Swann's face, and the burgeoning putrescence beneath. Harry had an instant only to appreciate these felicities, and then the light brightened again, and he realised that it wasn't outside, but in.
He looked up at Valentin, and almost despaired. The luminescence was even less charitable to servant than to master; it seemed to strip the flesh from Valentin's face. Harry caught only a glimpse of what it revealed beneath - events stole his attention an instant later - but he saw enough to know that had Valentin not been his
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accomplice in this venture he might well have run from him.
'Get him out of here!' Valentin yelled.
He let go of Swann's legs, leaving Harry to steer Swann single-handed. The corpse proved recalcitrant however. Harry had only made two cursing steps towards the exit when things took a turn for the cataclysmic.
He heard Valentin unloose an oath, and looked up to see that the mirror had given up all pretence to reflection, and that something was moving up from its liquid depths, bringing the light with it.
'What is it?' Harry breathed.
'The Castrate,' came the reply. 'Will you go?' There was no time to obey Valentin's panicked instruction however, before the hidden thing broke the plane of the mirror and invaded the room. Harry had been wrong. It did not carry the light with it as it came: it was the light. Or rather, some holocaust blazed in its bowels, the glare of which escaped through the creature's body by whatever route it could. It had once been human; a mountain of a man with the belly and the breasts of a neolithic Venus. But the fire in its body had twisted it out of true, breaking out through its palms and its navel, burning its mouth and nostrils into one ragged hole. It had, as its name implied, been unsexed; from that hole too, light spilled. By it, the decay of the flowers speeded into seconds. The blossoms withered and died. The room was filled in moments with the stench of rotting vegetable matter.
Harry heard Valentin call his name, once, and again. Only then did he remember the body in his arms. He dragged his eyes from the hovering Castrato, and carried Swann another yard. The door was at his back, and open. He dragged his burden out into the landing as the Castrato kicked over the casket. He heard the din,
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and then shouts from Valentin. There followed another terrible commotion, and the high-pitched voice of the Castrate, talking through that hole in its face. 'Die and be happy,' it said, and a hail of furniture was flung against the wall with such force chairs embedded themselves in the plaster. Valentin had escaped the assault however, or so it seemed, for an instant later Harry heard the Castrato shriek. It was an appalling sound: pitiful and revolting. He would have stopped his ears, but he had his hands full.
He had almost reached the top of the stairs. Dragging Swann a few steps further he laid the body down. The Castrate's light was not dimmed, despite its complaints; it still flickered on the bedroom wall like a midsummer thunderstorm. For the third time tonight - once on 83rd Street, and again on the stairs of the Bernstein place - Harry hesitated. If he went back to help Valentin perhaps there would be worse sights to see than ever Wyckoff Street had offered. But there could be no retreat this time. Without Valentin he was lost. He raced back down the landing and flung open the door. The air was thick; the lamps rocking. In the middle oi the room hung the Castrato, still defying gravity. It had hold of Valentin by his hair. Its other hand was poised, first and middle fingers spread like twin horns, about to stab out its captive's eyes.
Harry pulled his .38 from his pocket, aimed, and fired. He had always been a bad shot when given more than a moment to take aim, but in extremis, when instinct governed rational thought, he was not half bad. This was such an occasion. The bullet found the Castrate's neck, and opened another wound. More in surprise than pain perhaps, it let Valentin go. There was a leakage of light from the hole in its neck, and it put its hand to the place.
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Valentin was quickly on his feet.
'Again,' he called to Harry. 'Fire again!'
Harry obeyed the instruction. His second bullet pierced the creature's chest, his third its belly. This last wound seemed particularly traumatic; the distended flesh, ripe for bursting, broke - and the trickle of light that spilled from the wound rapidly became a flood as the abdomen split.
Again the Castrate howled, this time in panic, and lost all control of its flight. It reeled like a pricked balloon towards the ceiling, its fat hands desperately attempting to stem the mutiny in its substance. But it had reached critical mass; there was no making good the damage done. Lumps of its flesh began to break from it. Valentin, either too stunned or too fascinated, stood staring up at the disintegration while rains of cooked meat fell around him. Harry took hold of him and hauled him back towards the door.
The Castrate was finally earning its name, unloosing a desolate ear-piercing note. Harry didn't wait to watch its demise, but slammed the bedroom door as the voice reached an awesome pitch, and the windows smashed
Valentin was grinning.
'Do you know what we did?' he said.
'Never mind. Let's just get the fuck out of here.'
The sight of Swann's corpse at the top of the stairs seemed to chasten Valentin. Harry instructed him to assist, and he did so as efficiently as his dazed condition allowed. Together they began to escort the illusionist down the stairs. As they reached the front door there was a final shriek from above, as the Castrate came apart at the seams. Then silence.
The commotion had not gone unnoticed. Revellers had appeared from the house opposite, a crowd of
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late-night pedestrians had assembled on the sidewalk. 'Some party,' one of them said as the trio emerged. Harry had half expected the cab to have deserted them, but he had reckoned without the driver's curiosity. The man was out of his vehicle and staring up at the first floor window.
'Does he need a hospital?' he asked as they bundled Swann into the back of the cab.
'No,' Harry returned. 'He's about as good as he's going to get.'
'Will you drive?' said Valentin.
'Sure. Just tell me where to.'
'Anywhere,' came the weary reply. 'Just get out of here.''
'Hold it a minute,' the driver said, 'I don't want any trouble.'
'Then you'd better move,' said Valentin. The driver met his passenger's gaze. Whatever he saw there, his next words were:
'I'm driving,' and they took off along East 61st like the proverbial bat out of hell.
'We did it, Harry,' Valentin said when they'd been travelling for a few minutes. 'We got him back.'
'And that thing? Tell me about it.'
'The Castrato? What's to tell? Butterfield must have left it as a watchdog, until he could bring in a technician to decode Swann's defence mechanisms. We were lucky. It was in need of milking. That makes them unstable.'
'How do you know so much about all of this?' 'It's a long story,' said Valentin. 'And not for a cab ride.'
'So what now? We can't drive round in circles all night.'
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Valentin looked across at the body that sat between them, prey to every whim of the cab's suspension and road-menders' craft. Gently, he put Swann's hands on his lap.
'You're right of course,' he said. 'We have to make arrangements for the cremation, as swiftly as possible.'
The cab bounced across a pot-hole. Valentin's face tightened.
'Are you in pain?' Harry asked him.
'I've been in worse.'
'We could go back to my apartment, and rest there.'
Valentin shook his head. 'Not very clever,' he said, 'it's the first place they'll look.'
'My offices, then -'
'The second place.'
'Well, Jesus, this cab's going to run out of gas eventually.'
At this point the driver intervened.
'Say, did you people mention cremation?'
'Maybe,' Valentin replied.
'Only my brother-in-law's got a funeral business out in Queens.'
'Is that so?' said Harry.
'Very reasonable rates. I can recommend him. No shit.'
'Could you contact him now? Valentin said.
'It's two in the morning.'
'We're in a hurry.'
The driver reached up and adjusted his mirror; he was looking at Swann.
'You don't mind me asking, do you?' he said. 'But is that a body you got back there?'
'It is,' said Harry. 'And he's getting impatient.'
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The driver made a whooping sound. 'Shit!' he said. 'I've had a woman drop twins in that seat; I've had whores do business; I even had an alligator back there one time. But this beats them all!' He pondered for a moment, then said: 'You kill him, did you?'
'No,' said Harry.
'Guess we'd be heading for the East River if you had, eh?'
'That's right. We just want a decent cremation. And quickly.'
That's understandable.'
'What's your name?' Harry asked him.
'Winston Jowitt. But everybody calls me Byron. I'm a poet, see? Leastways, I am at weekends.'
'Byron.'
'See, any other driver would be freaked out, right? Finding two guys with a body in the back seat. But the way I see it, it's all material.'
'For the poems.'
'Right,' said Byron. 'The Muse is a fickle mistress. You have to take it where you find it, you know? Speaking of which, you gentlemen got any idea where you want to go?'
'Make it your offices,' Valentin told Harry. 'And he can call his brother-in-law.'
'Good,' said Harry. Then, to Byron:
'Head west along 45th Street to 8th.'
'You got it,' said Byron, and the cab's speed doubled in the space of twenty yards. 'Say,' he said, 'you fellows fancy a poem?'
'Now?' said Harry.
'I like to improvise,' Byron replied. 'Pick a subject. Any subject.'
Valentin hugged his wounded arm close. Quietly, he said: 'How about the end of the world?'
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'Good subject,' the poet replied, 'just give me a minute or two.'
'So soon?' said Valentin.
