Dead of Night

4. Thing of Darkness

The cab seemed to take forever to forge its way through streams of heavy traffic uptown, and all the while the sulphurous sky, turgid with thunderclouds, lowered threateningly, and tongues of lightning flickered in their dark masses. At any moment one such bolt might strike a power line, causing a brief but fatal—fatal to Don Sebastian, that is—cessation of electricity.

At length the cab pulled up before the imposing facade of the de Rivera residence on that quiet, tree-lined street of Park Avenue, and Zarnak emerged, hastily tossing a bill to the driver. His repeated ringing of the bell eventually elicited a response, in the lissome form of Dona Teresa. Her lustrous eyes widened at the sight of Doctor Zarnak; she opened the door swiftly.

“Is all well?” he demanded harshly. She nodded mutely, then explained that radio warnings of temporary power blackouts had driven her uncle into a frenzy of fear, and that he had the servants lighting scores of candles in his rooms against the possibility.

“Take me to your uncle at once, I implore you! I must take the black tablet with me, to neutralize it as best I can—”

They ascended the stairs and entered the rooms where Don Sebastian lived. Every tabletop held silver candelabra filled with lit tapers, and all electric lights were blazingly alit. The room fairly teemed with luminance, to such an extent that even the shadows in far corners were dispelled. Don Sebastian himself was in a frightful condition, hands shaking, spittle dribbling from the corners of his mouth. He seemed scarcely aware of Zamak’s presence, such was his agitation.

Carmelita and the other servants departed to seek additional candles in some storage space in the cellar, when Zarnak implored Don Sebastian to let him borrow the obsidian pectoral overnight; so distraught was the older man that he seemed scarcely to hear the words of his guest, and paid them little heed.

And then it was that it happened.

Suddenly, the electric lights waned and died. Don Sebastian screeched like a doomed soul and cowered in a corner. Dona Teresa ran to comfort him, while Zarnak sprang to the windows and tore asunder the heavy curtains to peer out. All up and down the street the lights in windows were dying, and the street lights faded into gloom. The threatened power blackout had occurred.

A great gust of icy, fetid air burst through the parted curtains, curiously sub-arctic in this sweltering temperature.

The candles blew out, all at once, as if simultaneously extinguished by a giant’s breath!

Zarnak sprang to his black case and snapped it open. He withdrew therefrom a curious object, like a magician’s wand. The handpiece was a tube of copper with a core of magnetized iron, and the rod was tipped with a curious talisman of gray-green stone, shapen like a five-pointed star. As the light died to densest gloom, a faint halo of greenish luminance flickered and shone about the star-shaped stone.

In one comer of the room, shadows swirled, clotted, thickened.

Cold perspiration bedewed Zarnak’s ascetic features. He brandished the star-tipped wand, whose luminance brightened, but when he thrust the wand towards the cloud of gathering shadows, the darkness drank the dim light and failed to disperse. Don Sebastian shrieked!

Zarnak looked desperately towards the open, undraped window. Fomalhaut leered like a dim eye above the horizon, barely visible through the sulphurous murk. He tried a last resort:

Three times he recited the uncouth vocables of this strange incantation, and all the while the dark thing thickened and grew ever more substantial in the far corner of the room, until it was veritably palpable.

Minute sparks of golden fire flickered into being, like a whirling cloud of fireflies. Their luminance did little to lighten the impenetrable gloom, but they warmed the air. There came a rustling as of gigantic, unseen wings—

Then the lights came on, dazzling, blinding!

The blackout had been very temporary, blessedly. The whirling cloud of pale golden sparks faded as Zarnak dismissed them. The heavy clot of darkness in the corner shrank; Zarnak advanced upon it, brandishing the star-stone rod. The massed darkness that was Zulchequon faded from view, leaving only icy fetid air behind.

Zarnak composed himself, turned to see Dona Teresa where she knelt in the opposite corner of the room, cradling her uncle’s still form in her arms, weeping. His face was white as milk, features distorted in a hideous grimace of sheer terror. Zarnak crossed the room in swift strides, knelt, examined the wasted form swiftly. No breath, no pulse, no heartbeat; the old man was dead.

The police came with an ambulance and a medical examiner. Zarnak took it upon himself to explain, in brief terms, that Don Sebastian had suffered from a neurotic fear of darkness. There were no signs of foul play. The medical examiner diagnosed the cause of death as a massive heart seizure. The police were satisfied. Ambulance workers in long white coats placed the corpse on a stretcher.

Observing the horrible expression of pure terror graven on the dead man’s features, the doctor murmured, “Looks like I should write up this one as ‘dead of fright.’”

Zarnak, who stood with his arm around the shaking, sobbing form of Dona Teresa, permitted himself a small, grim jest:

“No, doctor. I would say ‘dead of night,’ ” he muttered.