Page 25 (1/2)

The Sight of Victor&039;s lake house will always be with h, physically But on a deeper level, it was foul, rotten It seethed with negative energy, anger and pride and lust Especially lust Lust for wealth, lust for power, s that weren&039;t wholly real, onlyto the walls, the rain gutters, the porch, the sills, glutting they left over fro that there was a lot of it He didn&039;t strike me as someone ould be able to y-efficient

I liht revealed no alar Victor Shadowman too much credit He was as powerful as a full-bloizard, but he didn&039;t have the education Muscle, not brains, that was Victor Shadowman I had to keep that in mind

I tried the front door, just for the hell of it

It opened

I blinked But I didn&039;t question the good fortune, or the overconfidence that had seen to it that Victor left his front door standing unlocked Instead, I took a breath, gathered up ill I had, and pressed inside

I forget how the house was furnished or decorated All I reht showed me More of the sas clung everywhere, things with silent, glittering eyes and hungry expressions Some reptilian, some more like rats, some insectoid All of them were unpleasant, hostile, and shied away froy I held in readiness around s I would never have heard with ht enco, dark hallway coated with the things I advanced slowly, quietly, and they oozed and crept and slithered froic, that I had seen frohter I could hear nized it as the sa on the CD player at the Madison in Tommy Tomm&039;s suite when Murphy had asked me there on Thursday Slow, sensuous music, steady rhyth I heard sounds A quiet whisper, being repeated over and over, aa spell in readiness for release That would be Victor I heard soft sighs of pleasure from a woman The Beckitts? I could only assuh the soles ofvoice took on an edge of vicious, spiteful satisfaction, and continued the incantation

I gathered up what energy I had and stepped around the corner, out of the hallway, into a spacious rooht of the house without interruption, yards of open air The roo room A spiral staircase wound its way up to what looked like a kitchen and dining room on a sort of platform or balcony above the rest of the room The elevated deck on the back of the house must be accessible from the platform

There was no one in the h, came from the platform above The CD player was down in the roo froe of fire and dozens of bloated, disgusting creature for on the music as it came out I could see the influence of thefrom the platfor many base elements coordinated by the central wizard, Victor Tricky No wonder it was so effective It ure it out

I glanced up at the platfor as far away as I could fro any noise, and dozens upon dozens of slis oozed from my path Rain increased to a dull, steady rhythainst the s

There were boxes stacked all around me, plastic cases and cartons and cardboard boxes and wooden crates I opened the nearest one, and saw, inside, at least a hundred slender vials like the ones I had seen before, full of the liquid ThreeEye Beneath the vision of ht, it looked different, thick and cloudy with possibility, potential disaster lurking in every vial Faces, twisted in horror and torht be

I looked at the other boxes In one, ancient liquor bottles full of an alreen liquid Absinthe? I leaned closer, sniffing, and could almost taste the madness that swam latent in the liquid I leaned back fro I checked the other boxes, quickly Ammonia, reminiscent of hospitals and mental wards Peyote mushrooms in plastic Tupperware - I was familiar with them Alum, white and powdery Antifreeze Glitter in a hundred s, deeper in the shadows, that I didn&039;t take the tiured out what all the articles were for

Potions

Ingredients for potions This was how Victor wasI did when I y he stole from other places, other people He used absinthe as the base, andwhat aical poison, one that probably re with their emotions and desires That would explain why I hadn&039;t noticed anything about it, before It wouldn&039;t have been obvious to a cursory exaht, and that wasn&039;t so I did very often

I closedme too much That was always the probleredients, the cases of the finished drug, and catch flash i could be caused There was too et disoriented

Thunder caain, more sharply, and aboveaudible He was chanting in an ancient language Egyptian? Babylonian? It didn&039;t really matter I could understand the sense of the words clearly enough They ords of hate, malevolence They ords that wereht? The presence of sowith me?

No I was si place under the platfor horde that was draped over everything in sight I could feel his strength fro the very air with a sort of hateful certainty I was afraid with the sary dog, or with the neighborhood bully, the kind of fear that paralyzes, makes you want to make excuses and hide

But there was no ti No tiht closed and gathered e as best I could

Thunder roared outside and there was a flash of lightning, the two happening close together The lights flickered, and the music skipped a track Victor screamed out the incantation in a kind of ecstasy above me The woman&039;s voice, presumably Mrs Beckitt&039;s, rose to a fevered pitch