Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [214]
I listened to the wind and gazed at the constellations reflected in the pool’s glazed surface. “Chibbins,” I whispered. “Do you hear anything?”
“A physiognomist whispering,” he said.
Too weary to kill him, I got up, having decided we should go pay a surprise visit to the handyman. From a physiognomical standpoint, a technical examination of Rothac’s features in an attempt to conclude his potential for treachery was unnecessary. You couldn’t miss that fact that he was less of everything, ergo also less of morality and justice. Let’s be clear, he was, to my mind, part beast, and when Chibbins had sung his song about the monkey, beyond the fact that I wanted to gouge out his very eyes, I imagined Rothac as the monkey serving drinks and entertaining on the piano.
We’d not gone ten yards toward the handyman’s house when Chibbins leaped into the air and loosed a scream. I turned back to see him frantically dancing in place, his feet moving in a blur. Something was scuttling on the ground next to him. “It bit me,” he cried.
I raised the scalpel and moved toward him. “Lower the lantern,” I said, and I couldn’t believe he did as I’d actually requested. There was something there. As I got closer it appeared a snake rearing up to strike, but I knew it couldn’t be as there was still too much shadowed bulk beneath and behind it. Then I saw, the snake effect was caused by the long neck of a bird, whose feathers suddenly opened behind it. Even in the dim light I could apprehend its beauty. It let out a wail, exactly as we had heard, and I took a step back.
A voice came from behind me. “A peacock,” it said, and I turned to see Rothac with a cudgel in one hand and a lantern in the other. “The birds of the Summer Palace, they make a haunting sound, especially in winter.”
“I thought it was your ghost, the Sacrilege of Anonymity.”
“The Sanctity of Grace? You may see her yet tonight,” he said.
Chibbins had cornered the peacock and was petting its neck, purring like a cat.
“What, pray tell, brings you out at this time of night? I’m sure it wasn’t the cry of the Palace buzzard here. It wouldn’t have alarmed you.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Something’s about to happen, and I feel it’s not going to be good.”
“That statement could accurately have been made at any hour since my arrival. A sinister tedium, with dashes of the grotesque, yourself included.”
“Before this is over, Cley, you will need to imbibe the Beauty.”
“Think again, manikin. I . . .” The interruption was caused by a fearful noise coming from off in the distance. This too was a wail, but wholly different from that made by the bird. The very air seemed to vibrate from it.
“Look,” said Rothac and pointed.
I turned and saw it out amid the netted shadow of the willow branches. There was a green mist, floating above the ground, moving along at the pace of a funeral procession. It was headed toward us. Truthfully, I wanted to run but was stunned by the sight of it. The green fog, though continually disintegrating into nothing at its edges, appeared at times to be a thin sheet wound around a body so that certain features of physiognomy became momentarily clear beneath the insubstantial wrap.
It was on the path, twenty feet away from us. It wailed again, and I raised the scalpel. At the sound of the spirit, Chibbins sprang into action and dashed toward it. “Back, you idiot,” I yelled. Dropping the lantern, and making an arrowhead with his clasped hands in front of him, he dove into the miasma, still on his feet, and began laughing and flapping his arms as if to