Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [73]
Finally, a stout blow to my forehead tore me loose. I was hurled back into the ether, where I tumbled for an instant, insensate, before landing with a bone-jarring impact on the floor of my laboratory.
I lay there for perhaps a minute, stunned. My skin was cold. I felt frost on my eyelashes. The chill seemed to penetrate right to my bones. But for the hammering of my heart, I might have been frozen solid.
Then the sound of smashing glass stirred me from my delirium.
I sat up, feeling her eyes upon me: Abiha’s dark eyes, devoid of pity, demonically invisible. I staggered to my feet and stared wildly about the laboratory.
One of my glass bells chose that moment to shatter. It exploded into a thousand crystalline pieces, struck powerfully by an invisible hand, and I gasped in alarm. What cruel sabotage was this? Denying me her secrets was punishment enough, surely. Why destroy my greatest work as well? If I died in error, wasn’t that my own business?
A third bell disintegrated. I picked up a spirit level and went on a rampage of my own, striking at the empty air in an attempt to catch one of my spectral tormentors off-guard—to no avail, of course, although I raged and swore. I begged. My cries went unheard beneath the shattering of the bells. The ground was soon covered in tiny shards, as though an artificial snow had fallen from the roof. My feet crunched at every step.
Soon just one glass bell remained, and I lunged for it, determined to save it at least from the slaughter. When I was barely a hand span away, it shattered in my face, and I thought I heard someone laughing.
I threw the spirit level at the empty air and roared my frustration. And still I could feel her, in the laboratory, all around me, mocking my impotence in silence.
A hand touched my shoulder.
I spun around with fists upraised, ready to do battle with the devil himself.
Margaret fell back, white-faced. “Darling! I heard the noise and came down to see. What in God’s name are you doing?”
I dropped my hands and fell back, imagining how this must look to her. To her senses, the laboratory was empty apart from me, and she must surely have witnessed me lunging at that last bell with spirit level in hand. She would of course imagine me the architect of this disaster. But what would she think had occurred in my mind to make such actions possible? What possession, what madness?
In that moment of self-realization, I understood everything.
“My darling,” I said to Margaret, striving my utmost to keep my tone level and my expression one of sincerest sanity, “do not be alarmed. I know how this must seem to you. Be assured that the reality is not as it seems. Our visitor—well, as you can see the haunting has got entirely out of hand, and we must leave immediately. It is not too late.”
She looked at me without understanding, but with recognition. She knew me and trusted me. She would have left with me—I know it. She was my wife, and I had never before done anything to harm our happiness.
It was then, Michaels, that the most terrible thing of all occurred. Margaret made a soft cry, like a child, and staggered forward. I supported her before she could fall to the ground and cradled her in my arms. Her head lolled backwards, and I felt a vile rush of blood over my hands. Struck a fatal blow from behind, she was dead before I caught her.
Only when I smelled smoke did I begin to fear for my own life.
A SECOND TIME, Doctor Gordon broke down, but this time he forswore all forms of chemical relief. He declared that he would finish or be damned—for damned he already seemed to be. The demons from the other world, he said, had set about demolishing his reputation as well as his work, and in that he acknowledged they had totally succeeded.
The rest of the story differs little from eyewitness testimony. Firemen attending the scene found him lying in the lane at the back of his library, spared