Image of the Beast and Blown (24 page)

Near the bed, a section of wall stood open. Whether
Magda had taken this or Igescu had opened it to see
if she had taken it, Childe could not know. But he
could not linger long here; his route of escape was sud-
denly no longer a matter of choice. Voices announced
the return of the others. He might have had time to slip
back through the door and up the hallway, but he did
not dare chance it. He went through the opening in the
wall.

Before he had taken a dozen steps, he was seized.
He groaned with a despairing ecstasy and braced him-
self with both hands against the walls while he spouted
and shook. Afterward, he cursed, but he could do noth-
ing about his condition. He walked on. His penis still
stuck straight out and slightly at an upward angle, like
the bowsprit of a ship. The cone was working within him.
God knew how long its effect lasted, how long it would
take to melt entirely away.

Almost, he decided to hide in the passageway near
the still open panel and eavesdrop. But every second he
was in this house meant recapture and death, and he was
frightened because of what had happened to Glam and of
what the others had said about Magda. Frightened was
not strong enough. He was close to panic. And this was
strange, because the terror should have taken from him
any sexual stimulation whatsoever. Under these circum-
stances, he should have been unable to retain an erection.

But there it was, independent of his other feelings, as if a
switch had been thrown to place his genitals on a sepa-
rate circuit. The cone, whatever it was, must not only
be the prime mover of his state, it must also be the prime
feeder. It had to be furnishing the energy to keep man-
ufacturing all this spermatic fluid at such an extraordi-
nary rate of speed. Generally, when unusually stimulated,
when first in love, or sometimes when the marijuana hit
him just right, he could have three or four orgasms
within several hours. But, usually, one or two in an hour,
and he was done for four or five hours. He had some-
times twitted himself with being the most undersexed
private eye in history, without, of course, really believing
his self-deprecation. But now, he seemed to be a foun-
tain with a never-ending reservoir. And, of course, he
would
be so in a situation where it was the last thing he
wanted.

Thus, when he thought he was far enough away from
the paneling, he turned on the flashlight. And he saw
the white figure of Dolores - coming toward him. Her
arms were open and she was smiling. Her eyes were
half-lidded but bright, and two patches of wetness shone
on her thighs. It seemed to be his misfortune to encounter
overlubricating women. However, after a century and a
half of enforced abstinence, she could not be blamed.

She barred his way. She was solid flesh enough, no
man knew that better than he, yet he hesitated to attack
her. The fate of Magda was warning enough. Moreover,
there was the chance that if he did what she wanted, he
might work off the effect of the cone. It was just possible.
And he thought that he probably had no choice, anyway.
So he put down his purse, turned off the flashlight, and
dropped his pants. She pulled him down on her and he
put his penis in swiftly and began to thrust without pre-
liminaries of any kind. He had hoped that he would come
at once, but even though he now had her soft wet flesh
around his penis, and though the pleasure was somewhat
heightened, he was unable to disengage himself from the
automatic effects of the cone.

At length he came and then, when he tried to pull
himself away, he found himself unable to. Her arms
looked feminine and soft enough and felt so, but she had
the strength of a python in each.

Thinking of pythons made him think of Magda, and
he became even more alarmed. If she came upon them
now, she would have him helpless … those coils …
Glam … He shuddered even as he began to pump again.
His skin had turned cold and his hairs felt as if they
were bristling in the static of terror. His anus was a dot
of ice, a bull's eye for Magda if she crawled up behind
him and raised her head to unloose a hammer stroke.

He groaned and muttered, "I must be out of my mind,
I'm really believing that crap!" and then he groaned
again, this time because he was coming once more.

It was no use. Lying with Dolores was not canceling
or even diminishing the effects of the cone. And he was
certainly not stupid enough to bang away at her for the
sheer pleasure of it while his life was in danger. Especially
since he had had enough of this "pleasure" to last him
for a long time.

He tried to break loose. Her arms did not tighten, but
they also did not relax. He was not going to get out until
he had satisfied her or was unable to keep an erection,
and she was not going to be satisfied for a long time and
he did not know how long he would last, but he suspected
that it would be for hours and hours.

Remembering what he had done to Mrs. Grasatchow
during the fight, he bit down upon Dolores' nipple. His
bite did not take the nipple off, but it was painful enough
to cause her to open her arms and to scream. He was out
of her embrace and had jumped away to where she could
not reach him, pulled up his pants, stooped to pick up
the flashlight and purse, and was running down the pas-
sageway, before she had stopped screaming.

The noise, of course, would be heard in Magda's room
if the paneling were still open, and they would be in-
vestigating. His flashlight beam bounced up and down
and then went off into darkness at a corner. He stopped
and probed around. Apparently, he was at a dead end,
but he did not believe it. Shouts behind him sent him
into a frenzy of tapping and poking against the wall to
activate whatever mechanism moved this section. He felt
somebody brush his shoulder, somebody spoke in Span-
ish, and a white arm reached past him and touched a
cornice. Another arm pushed in on another cornice. The
blank wall became a blank darkness in which the thin

beam was lost. A hand pushed him on through—he
seemed to be paralyzed for a few seconds—and then he
turned just in time to see the section swing back into
place. Beyond, the beam from a large flashlight flicked
into existence.

A band, still sticky from playing with his penis, slipped
into his and the white figure led him down a passageway
and up a flight of steps. The dust was thick here; he
sneezed resoundingly several times. Igescu would have
no trouble following them because of their newly made
footprints. They had to get out of the secret ways, for a
while, anyway.

Dolores, whose footprints were as clear as his, seemed
to realize that they betrayed them. She stopped before
a wall, unfastened several latches and slid back the
section. They stepped into a room with gray-and-white
marble walls, red marble ceiling, black-and-red marble
floor, and furniture of white or black marble. The chan-
delier was a mobile composed of thin curved pieces of
colored marble with sockets for candles.

Dolores led him across the room. She had dropped his
hand and her right hand was pressed against her breast,
which must hurt very much. Her face was expressionless,
but the hot black eyes seemed to promise him revenge.
If she had wanted it, she could have abandoned him in
the passageway, he thought. Perhaps she wanted to take
revenge personally.

He caught a glimpse of them as they passed a tall mirror. They looked like two lovers who had been
interrupted in bed and who were fleeing a jealous hus-
band. She was naked, and his penis, still wet and tipped
with a globule of spermatic fluid, was projecting from his
fly. They looked comical enough; the purse added an
incongruous, doubtful, touch.

There was nothing comical about the pack behind
them. He crowded on Dolores' heels and urged her to
go faster. She said something and half-ran through the
door and down a luxurious hall with thick carpeting.
Near the end of the hall, by a curving stairway with
marble steps and a carved mahogany handrail, she
pushed open another door. There was a suite of four
rooms done in opulent Edwardian style. The bedroom
contained the entrance to the intramural passageway; a

bookcase slid aside to reveal an iron gate of two sections
secured by a combination lock. Dolores turned the dial
swiftly as if she had much practice with it. The two sec-
tions of gate were pushed aside. When they were on the
other side, she pushed them together and spun the com-
bination dial on this side. Apparently, this action acti-
vated a mechanism, because the bookcase slid back
into place. The light through the opening had shown
him that they were not in a passageway but in a small
room. Cool air moved past him. Dolores turned on a
lamp. He saw several chairs, a bed, a TV set, a bar, a
dresser with mirror, books, and cabinets. The cabinets
held cans of food and delicacies; one cabinet was the
door to a well-stocked refrigerator. A door off the room
led to a bathroom and a closet full of clothes. Igescu
could hide here for a long time if he wished.

Dolores spoke in Spanish, slowly. He understood the
simple sentence. "Here we are safe for a while."

"About my biting you, Dolores," he said. "I had to.
I must get out of here."

She paid him no attention. She looked at her breast in
the mirror and murmured something. Teethmarks and
a red aureole ringed the nipple. She turned and shook
her finger at him and then smiled, and he understood that
she was gently reprimanding him for being overpassion-
ate. He must not bite her again. After which warning,
she took his hand and pulled him toward the bed.

He lunged away, tearing loose from her grip, and said,
"Nothing doing! Show me the way out of here!
Vámanos!
Pronto!"

He began to inspect the walls. She spoke slowly be-
hind him. Her words were clear and simple enough. If
he would stay for a little, he would be shown the way
out. But no more biting.

"No more nothing," he said. He found the control, a
piece of corner carving which could be moved on a pivot.
The dresser moved out on one side. He went through
while Dolores yelled at him from the room. She sounded
so much like Sybil giving him hell, although he under-
stood not a word, that he was able to ignore her. He car-
ried a sharp-edged rapier, one of a set on the wall, in
one hand and the flashlight in the other. The handle of
the purse was over his left shoulder. The sword gave

him confidence. He did not feel so helpless now. In fact,
if he got a chance, he would leave the passageway and
walk out the front door and if they got in his way, they
would get the blade where it would do them the least
good and him the most.

The way out did not come easily, however. The pas-
sageway ran into a stairway which led steeply upward
into the shadows. He backtracked to look for one-way
windows or entrances to rooms but could find no unlock-
ing controls. He returned to the stairway, which he walked
up with as little weight on his feet as possible. He stuck
the sword through his belt and held the flashlight in his
teeth while he braced his arms against the walls. If the
stairway straightened out, it would not drop him down
a chutey-chute.

The stairs held, and he was on a narrow landing. The
door was easily opened by a conventional knob. He
stepped cautiously out into a curving-wailed room with
a great window lit by the moon, a dim pale eye in the
haze. Looking through the window, he saw the yard and
trees and driveway at the front of the central portion.
He was in the cupola on the left wing, just beside the
original Spanish building. It contained three rooms, two
of which were empty. The door to the third was part way
open, and light streamed through it. He crouched by it
and slowly extended his head, then had to withdraw it
while he shook and spurted and clenched his teeth and
clamped his lips to keep from groaning.

Afterward, he looked through the doorway again. The
baron's great-grandmother was sitting on a high stool
before a high table with a sloping top, such as old-time
bookkeepers (Bob Cratchit) used when they wrote ac-
counts (for Ebenezer Scrooge). He could not see what
was on the table except that it was a large paper of some
sort. Her jaws were moving, and now and then he could
hear something but could not tell if the words were
English or not. The only light was from a single
lamp suspended from the ceiling directly overhead, ft
dimly showed walls with large, thick, black painted sym-
bols, none of which he recognized; a long table with
racks of bottles containing fluids; a globe of Earth with
all sorts of curlicues painted in thin lines over it, sitting
at the end of the table; a large birdcage on a stand in
one corner with a raven, its head stuck under a wing;
and a robe hanging on a hook on the wall.

After a few minutes of muttering, the baroness got
down off the stool. Her bones snapped and creaked,
and he did not think she would make it to the robe, she
shuffled so slowly and shakily. But she got the robe down
and put it on with some difficulty and then proceeded
with one foot dragging after the other toward the long
table. She stooped, groaning, and straightened up with
more creakings and with an enormous book in her arms
which she had taken off a shelf beneath the table.

It did not seem likely that she could get far with this
additional burden, but she made it, huffing and creaking
and even lifted the book above her head to slide it over
the front of the tilted-top table. The book slid down until
stopped by a strip of wood fixed horizontally halfway up
the top. Another strip at the lower edge of the top kept
the paper from falling off. He could see that it was a
map of the Los Angeles area, just like the maps service
stations give to their customers.

His view of it was blocked by the baroness, who
climbed back upon the stool, swaying so that he once
started to go after her to catch her. She did not fall, and