On the quiet street in New York’s Greenwich Village, several people glanced up at the tall brownstone with the round skylight and picked up the pace of their walking. No one said anything, no one avoided the building, but everyone walked just a bit faster to get past. They were quieter, too, as were the automobiles. No trucks seemed to come down this block. No one knew why and truck drivers, if they had been asked, would have said something about better routes or shorter distances. No street people hung out here, no dope pushers stood in doorways, no prostitutes sauntered. It was a quiet street, but those in the neighborhood had heard rumors.
Mrs. Hescox, in the house next door, said she felt very safe—strangely safe for one living in New York—though there had been a number of strange sounds in the night, odd lights, things seen in the sky; but it was best to let these things be.
Mr. Ellefson, across the street and south a bit, had a very sensitive nose and he often said the most peculiar odors came from that direction sometimes, usually at night. Incense, he said, but he couldn’t pin down the exact origin.
Seven blocks to the east, in a shabby apartment filled with nineteen TV sets, four microwave ovens, six radios, five hi-fi sets, three eight-track players and two videotape recorders, a burglar by the name of Morris Hoppe sat watching Casablanca with his hands in his lap. The hands were bandaged heavily and his girl friend had to punch the buttons on the VHS recorder for him.
Morris flexed his hands and groaned. It had been a full week since he had tried to get into that old brownstone and his hands still hurt. Funny thing, they weren’t burned, but they felt burned. Must have been some kind of electrical short. He’d gone in from the roof next door and had tried to force open the edge of the skylight. Next thing he knew he was two blocks away, on the street, running like mad with his hands on fire. Best to stay away from that place after this, he thought. Plenty of other spots to hit. Some fancy artsy-fartsy loft over on Second Avenue, maybe. Anything but that joint in the Village.
In that old brownstone Doctor Stephen Strange sat in the cross-legged lotus position and meditated. Wong, his Tibetan servant, drifted like smoke through the adjacent room, giving his master an expressionless glance. He carried the tray into the library and set it down near the robed figure of Clea. She looked up from the thick book she was studying and smiled at Wong.
“Thank you. Um, that coffee smells delicious, Wong.”
The servant bowed slightly and made no comment. He started to turn away but Clea stopped him. The beautiful young woman brushed back her silver hair and tugged the robe tighter. It was early morning and she had dressed only in the thick robe.
“Wong, when Stephen rejoins us, we’ll have breakfast here. I want to show him something.”
“Very well, Miss Clea.” The Oriental bowed and left. Clea reopened her book and picked up the cup of coffee.
The ancient script was hard to read and the thick parchment pages rustled when she turned them. Each page was illuminated or had a representational drawing, or both. The book was one of the four known copies of the Necronomicon and it had always amused her that there was a concentrated effort to make laymen believe the book did not exist, had never existed, and that if it had existed, all copies had been destroyed long ago by a witch-hunting church.
She sipped at the hot liquid and her brow furrowed in concentration. She had been studying with Stephen Strange for some years, but could never seem to catch up. That didn’t bother her, for Dr. Stephen Strange was the Sorcerer Supreme and she had no ambitions in that direction. But she did want to become proficient in the arts, and study was essential.
Correction, she thought, understanding was essential, whether there was study or not. Stephen, for example: he rarely consulted a book these days, but rather consulted himself. His daily meditations took him into unexplored territory, sometimes with surprising and innovative results. Trained as a medical doctor, Stephen Strange still approached the forces of magic in the same way he would have approached processes and technology in the physical world—systematically and scientifically. It left few pockets of knowledge unplumbed, few areas untested.
But in the past week or two she had felt a withdrawing, an enforced isolation. Clea did not take it personally. Although she was his lover as well as his student, she understood his responsibilities and the drives which made him act and search and respond to various psychic impulses. He sensed evil; she knew it, although he had said nothing. She, as a result, made no demands upon him, either as lover or student, and left him to pursue the faint wisp of warning that had somehow come to his attention.
He would return to her when it was time. He always had.
It was the only way to reach enough people these days. Television was the only way, the only way. You preach the same sermon to a hundred or two hundred in one church—three or four hundred if you are really lucky—and on television, that same identical sermon reaches thousands, millions.
His new church was designed around the television camera and he was right proud of it. There were no cameras lugged in and plopped down, with ugly black cables snaking around, tripping the parishioners. No, sir, not at the Temple of Light there wasn’t. This was the Age of Television and you might as well understand that.
No, sir, there were little rooms hidden away, with only small slits showing; built-in mikes; body mikes, too, so he could walk among the people. Shoot in any direction and you’d not see a single camera. The lighting he’d had put in by one of the gaffers from a major studio, the sound system by the best he could find. Everything went to a control room and was put on tape. Cassettes were duplicated and sent all over the world by a fast, well-organized group of well-paid professionals.
Of course, he didn’t stay in the Temple of Light all the time. He traveled, just like Billy Graham and Oral Roberts and all them others did. Madison Square Garden, the Superbowl, the Astrodome, the London Palladium, Riverfront Stadium. You needed more than just old-time religion these days. He told that quite freely to the reporters. You needed a gimmick, and the gimmicks had to change, move with the times.
He always laughed and said, “First you have to get their attention,” referring to the old joke about hitting the mule with the two-by-four. That’s why he’d skydived and scubaed and broadcast from a mile over the desert and from a hundred fathoms down—gimmicks, attention-getters.
Nine-oh-five.
He didn’t want to go to bed, yet . . . Yet . . . something drew him. There had been something frustrating about that dream. He’d come so close to God. He knew it was God. What else could it be?
Billie Joe Jacks shrugged and brought his attention back to the couple from South Gate who were talking about his beautiful laser light show the week before.
But still . . . if it wasn’t the Almighty calling, who—what—could it be? It was too bad the way people felt about television preachers these days. All those television shows about corrupt ministers, that disaster down in South America, the disrepute the ministry was falling into. And it wasn’t just the Protestant churches either. A bishop—a bishop!—of the Greek Orthodox Church had been discovered in a porn film! And the rumors in the Roman Church about an autopsy on Pope John Paul the First. People just weren’t taking things on faith, anymore.
Maybe that was a good idea for a sermon—the loss of faith in the electronic age. Maybe he could find something about moral corruption in Revelation and apply it to the present world. Have to get Zekley and Harris on that right away. They did some of his best corruption speeches.
Nine-ten.
He chewed at his lip. “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Armstrong, it was an expensive demonstration of laser technology, but it only shows the beauty of the Lord, don’t you think?”
Maybe if he had some coffee he’d not go to sleep so quickly. Or use those sleeping pills; knock himself out . . .
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Armstrong; this is indeed generous of you. Here, let me give you one of our Swords of Light. They’re reserved for our, um, special parishioners—and one for you, Mrs. Armstrong. No, it is we who thank you. Bless you, my children.”
Nine-eleven.
Joe Peerson lay face down on the tumbled bed. Booze and a good snort had put him out. A dissatisfied Beatrice Marx sat up smoking, occasionally giving the sleeping giant a hard look. Maybe after he sleeps it off a bit, she thought, maybe he’ll be interested again.
It was a new motel, yet the same—left-hand instead of right-hand room was the only difference. Bedspread golden instead of brown—only difference. He lived his life out in bland anonymous rooms, but it was all right. It was what he deserved. That and the money in the safe-deposit boxes in Kansas City, LA, Flushing, and Houston. After this job he’d open a box in Chicago. What name would he use?
Mark Evans was Houston. Evan Marx was Flushing. KC was E. Marks and LA was M.A. Kevans. Chicago . . . Mark E.—what? What street was he on? Croft? No, he might forget that. Mark E. What was he registered as here? Mark Evans? All right, Mark Evans, Junior. What difference did it make? As long as he could remember which name went where, and as long as he had ID to match. But identification was rarely a problem.
He stretched out in the bed. Odd dream last night. Don’t need any more like that. Not before a job.
The details of his assignment went through his head. Carolyn Kirby, age twenty-five, 1529 West Sapra, Los Angeles. Apartment Eight. Must look like an accident. He’d have to research her first. What would be a “logical” accident for her?
The why of it never bothered him. The why was $10,000, five in front, five after, all through Collado the contact. People were vermin, anyway. What difference did it make one more or less? Doing the overpopulated world a good turn. He vaguely wondered if she was good-looking; that always helped. Good-looking women had a lot of people sore at them, for one reason or another, or they committed suicide a lot. Maybe a rape-murder, but that was always tricky. Took time, too many chances of things going wrong. He didn’t get any kick out of it, anyway; never did—even paying for it. Or maybe especially paying for it. What did it matter, anyway . . . ?
. . . dumb dame getting herself in trouble with someone . . .
. . . stupid . . .
. . . gray walls . . .
. . . gray horse, galloping . . .
. . . man, man with long green cape . . .
. . . cape?
. . . no, not the same man, a different one, his face in shadow, shaggy, unkempt gray hair . . .
. . . only the eyes, burning eyes.
. . . long lance, burning tip—sparkling tip. A wand, like a damned fairy godmother, only—
. . . words . . .
. . . Words were coming through the gray mist, words puncturing his mind, driving into him like nails . . .
You will obey.
You will obey me.
I control you.
I control your dreams.
You must sleep, and when you sleep, I control you.
I control you when you are awake.
I.
I, the one who in your dimension they call . . .
. . . The word, the name blurred and drifted in the sleeper’s mind . . .
. . . Could the name have been Nightmare?
. . . gray . . .
. . . He controls . . .
. . . He is powerful, but he is not Death. Death wears a red cape, with—
DEATH!
The red-caped figure was there, a diabolic entity, the cape swirling in the wind. The gun bucked in the sleeper’s hand, the sound explosive and harsh. The blue clothing of Death impacted with the slugs, but the figure did not fall. He advanced.
The hit man ran screaming from the dream and found himself quivering in the corner of the motel room, the bedclothes dragged off, the black leather case knocked down.
The wide-eyed man lunged for the .357 Smith and Wesson in his suitcase, whipped it out and backed into the corner, where he slid to the floor, eyes staring.
Nightmare, it was all a nightmare.
No.
He nodded to himself. No, it was not a nightmare.
It was Nightmare.
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