Clay Read online

  “Ashur", his soft, persistent voice murmured. “But, of course! I knew I’d heard that name!" That odd, brilliant interest blinked in his eyes again. "You must be Claude Ashur’s brother...."

  For years no one had referred to me in that manner. The loathesome phrase whispered in my head maliciously. Claude Ashur’s brother. The sound of it seemed to throw open some tremendous portal within me; all the ancient deliberately forgotten terror swelled in my chest like a rising, slimy tide. “Yes," I said thickly. “That’s right...."

  It seemed to me that Boniface's gaze narrowed, biting into my face. His tone was light, diffident, but mercilessly probing. "I suppose you haven’t heard from Claude in some time? No. I daresay not. Well, in that case, I have a bit of news for you...”

  I wanted to tell him to shut up, to quit opening old cancerous sores with his rotten chatter. I only stared at him.

  “Yes... The fact is, I heard about Claude while I was in the Indies. Amazing. He was always a most amazing fellow. I knew him quite well while he was at Miskatonic. He was in one of my art classes. Said he wanted to learn to paint so that he could do some sort of portrait..."

  Cold beads of perspiration coated my palms. The worm-eaten monstrosity of Pickham Square reeled evilly in my brain. Henry Boniface droned on.

  “But, to get back to the Indies. The blacks there told me of a white man who was living in the back-country among their witch-doctors, studying voodoo. Seems he’d wormed his, way into their confidence. He’d been admitted into the cult and took part in all those repulsive doings at the humfort They... ah... They said his name was Claude Ashur...." Boniface shook his tiny head slowly. “Amazing. Extraordinary fellow, indeed. What strikes me is how he can go on living there in immunity. He was never what you’d call robust, was he? And there are all sorts of horribly fatal diseases in the back-country... It’s a miracle he’s alive..."

  I felt a hard smile curl the stiffness of my lips. “Don’t' worry about Claude," I said bitterly. "He has a tremendous will to live. Nothing will kill him...”

  The words fell flat and cold between us, and after a' moment of awkward silence, I excused myself, leaving Henry Boniface to stare after me with those bird-bright, curious eyes. I never saw him again, but more than once in the horror-ridden years, that followed, my mind reached back through limitless dark to the night I uttered that damnable prophecy. “Nothing will kill him." Had I realized then the corrupt truth of those words, I might have saved Gratia Thane and myself. I might have destroyed Claude Ashur before he was beyond destruction.

  Early in October, 1926, I returned once more to the monastic quiet of Inneswich Priory, intending to pass the winter there, and complete the last chapters of my second book. After so extended a period of freedom from my brother’s influence, the Priory had to all intents and purposes reverted to kind. It had become again the sequestered, peaceful home I had known in early childhood. Settled down to work, living comfortably but simply, I was almost happy. My second novel was never finished. Less than a month after my arrival at the Priory, I received the letter:

  My dear Richard:

  I know that you had hoped never to hear from me again. I’m indeed sorry to disappoint you. But, the fact is, the prodigal has grown weary of wandering, and is ready to come home. And, much as you might dislike the idea, you can’t deny your devoted brother his right, to live in the ancestral, manse, can you? Be so good as to prepare one of the better bedchambers, Richard. The blue one in the West Wing would be ideal. For, you see, I’m not returning as I left— alone. I’m bringing, home my bride.

  V

  IN THE week that followed the arrival of Claude’s letter, the news had spread with, awesome rapidity, and fear had flowered anew in the shadows of Inneswich, blooming like some malignant cancer whose growth had been hidden for a while, but never checked: Wild conjecture muttered from street to street. Who was this creature Claude Ashur had married. What could she be like? There were predictions that murmured of a woman of strange and evil beauty; there were hints at reincarnation of, the hell-spawned witch Jabez Dreisen had burned at the stake more than a century ago. Long before they had ever seen her, the people of Inneswich were haunted by an abject fear of my brother’s life. I too was growing strangely fearful of the nameless woman who was Claude’s bride. I had finished the sixth brandy before I sprang to my feet at the sound of a car turning into the Priory drive.

  Memories of that night have always returned to me in fitful, nightmarish segments, haunting impressions, that flash brilliantly in some secret crevice of the brain then fade once more into the cloying yellow mist of remembered horror. I hear again the metallic summons of the wrought-iron knocker echoing through the darkened halls of the Priory. I recall a faint rustle of clothes and the housekeeper’s awed murmur: "Mister Richard is in the library." I remember turning to face the door. Then, Claude Ashur stood on the threshold. He had changed. He seemed taller than when last I’d seen him. The aquiline face was paler and more emaciated, and yet it had taken on a certain regularity of feature that made it handsome in a striking, sardonic way. Claude, as I remembered him, had always been pointedly negligent of his attire. Now, his expensive, well-cut tweeds, soft-collared shirt and knitted tie were in the best of taste. He moved easily across the room toward me; his hand in mine was abnormally cold. He smiled.

  “Richard, old man! It’s been a long time!"

  The casual heartiness of his tone gave me a start. In that moment, I decided that, if Claude had lived in the hideous back-country of the Indies, he had also spent some time in Europe. For that sibilantly powerful voice had taken on a very definite Continental cadence. He spoke with a faintly Germanic accent.

  “Sorry we’re so late. The trains, you know. They’re always so..." He must have seen that I wasn’t listening; my gaze had gone beyond him to the library doorway. His face vaguely puzzled, he turned, and then smiled again. "Ah... Gratia, my dear...."

  I had never seen anyone like Gratia Thane. Her face was a softly squared oval

  framed by wind-blown, auburn hair that emphasized the soft whiteness of her skin. A hesitant smile touched the corners of full, perfectly-rouged lips, and as she came nearer, I saw that the rather wide-set eyes were, sloe-black and strangely docile. The traveling tweeds she wore couldn’t conceal the exquisite grace of her carriage. She stood only a few feet from me, now. Her eyes had not left my face for a moment. As though from a great distance, I heard Claude’s quiet laughter.

  “Well, my dear? Aren’t you going to say ‘hello’ to Richard?"

  As the dark eyes swung slowly to meet Claude’s, they underwent a remarkably subtle change. In the flickering amber glow of the fire, they seemed to grow suddenly warmer; they caressed Claude’s face with a kind of hypnotic, voiceless adoration. Only when my brother had given her a barely perceptible nod of assent, did Gratia turn back to me. I took her extended hand in mine. When she spoke, her voice was throaty and beautifully modulated, but she said the words with the diffident air of a little girl who has learned her lesson well.

  "I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Richard...."

  I cannot recall my mumbled reply. I know that the moment those warm, soft fingers touched mine an unwonted, boyish confusion swelled in my throat. For a time, I only stared at the loveliness of Gratia Thane, and then, suddenly realizing that I had held her hand too long, I let it go. I think I flushed. I was conscious of Claude’s steady scrutiny of my face, and when I looked at him, I saw the tight, malicious curl of his lips. All the old, corrupt malevolence was in that smile. I knew, then, that despite his Continental manner, Claude Ashur hadn’t really changed.

  The dinner was not a success. I was frightened. It was strange, selfless fear that turned cold inside me, as I sat, pretending to eat, and studied Gratia Thane. Time and again, I saw that childlike devotion soften her lovely face; she never failed to smile when Claude chanced to look her way. It was a gentle, worshipping smile, and still, the longer I watched it, the more convinced I was
that it was a mask —a mask that could not quite hide the mute, unutterable weariness that crept into her eyes in unguarded moments. I was no longer afraid of my brother’s wife; I was afraid for her. I was haunted by the feeling that, somehow, the subtle, cancerous evil that had followed Claude Ashur since birth was reaching out its vile, slime-coated tentacles to claim this girl, to destroy her as it had destroyed everything it ever touched. And, quite suddenly, I knew I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want anything to happen to Gratia. She was the loveliest woman I had ever known.

  After Claude and Gratia had climbed the wide staircase, disappearing into the gloom of the upper hallway I didn’t retire immediately, I went back to the cold hearth and poured myself a stiff drink from the decanter. The liquor didn’t warm me. I felt tired and confused, but I knew that if I went to bed, I wouldn’t sleep. I don’t know how long I sat slumped in the chair by the lifeless grate. I lost count of the drinks I poured. I lost touch with everything but the pale, frightened image that floated before my closed eyes —the image of Gratia Thane.

  *

  THE shadow-shrouded corners of the room closed in upon me, and through the French casements seething, icy fog swirled as though no earthy barrier could stop it. Terror clutched at my chest as, slowly, out of the blinding, jaundiced mist there emerged two wavering figures. Horror warped Gratia’s face, wrenching all beauty from it. Her lips parted as though she would scream, but, no sound came. Madly she stumbled through the scum-coated labyrinths of outer darkness, and at her heels, its saturnine laughter shrieking in her ears, ran the swollen, slime-dripping thing that was Claude Ashur. The running feet thrummed rhythmically, like the sacrificial drums of some demon-worshipping tribe. Nearer, they beat. Nearer. Nearer.

  I thought I was still dreaming. Cold sweat-beads crawled from the hair in my armpits along the sides of my body. My hands trembled. My eyes were open. Gradually, the familiar, shadowy objects of the library came into focus. But, the hellish throbbing of those ceremonial drums did not stop! For one horrible moment, I doubted my own sanity. Then, slowly, painfully, my numbed limbs obeyed the orders of my brain. I stumbled unsteadily to the darkened threshold of the library, and, clutching at the door for support, I knew that what I heard was no product of a diseased imagination. No one could deny the ghastly reality of the rhythmic sound that swelled like some obscene heartbeat in the blackness of the stairwell.

  It came from the chamber in the East Wing. Even before my uncertain legs had carried me up the endless hill of the stair, I knew where I was going. With each step the demoniac thrumming grew louder, crashing madly against the walls of the high, narrow corridor that led to the East Wing. My lips were dry; breath made a rasping sound in my throat. For an incalculable moment, I stood staring at the rust coated padlock that hung open on the latch of that hateful, carven portal. The doorknob was cold in my clammy grasp. The heathen tattoo of the drums, exploded like thunder against my eardrums, as the door swung inward without a sound.

  My brother, seated cross-legged on the floor with his back to the door, was swathed in the folds of a scarlet cloak. It was his bloodless hands, stretched outward, to the slimy skins of weirdly-painted native tomtoms, that beat out that hypnotic rhythm of the damned. In an ancient sacrificial brazier which stood between him and Gratia, glowed the blue-white flame that was the only light in the room; with each turgid heart-throb of the drums, the tongue of fire hissed and flared to unholy brightness. And, in that eerie, pulsating luminescence, I saw the change that had come over Claude’s bride.

  The pallid face that seemed to float in a phosphorescent nimbus was no longer that of Gratia Thane. The soft oval had grown suddenly angular; wan, dry skin stretched tautly over high cheek-bones. The eyes I remembered as wide and innocent had sunken into shadow-tinged sockets and turned oddly bright and crafty. Her mouth was a thin, bloodless gash that curled bitterly at the corners. It was a face that tainted the virginal loveliness of her white-gowned body. And, even as I watched, the horrible change grew more and more profound. At every thud of the tom-toms, wiser, subtler evil gleamed from those wary eyes.

  Gradually, almost imperceptibly, while I stood horror-frozen in the doorway, the erotic thrumming had been muted. Now, above the distant rumbling, there rose a thin, godless wail that was more animal than human. Alien syllables, tumbling from Claude Ashur’s parted lips, burst in the gloom like poisonous tropical flowers; the unholy tones of his incantation flowed through the stagnant air like pus that drained from a lanced abscess.

  I saw the face that had been Gratia’s grow tense. A caustic, horribly familiar grin warped the lips, and slowly, as a snake, weaves to the mesmeric rhythm of the charmer’s pipe, the firm white body swayed, in time with the ghastly threnody Claude Ashur chanted. Then, abruptly, the shrill wild voice rose, and strangely accented but recognizable words trembled in the putrescent shadows of the room.

  “Be gone, O will more frail than mine! Be gone, and leave me room! Gratia Thane is cast out, and this flesh belongs to me! Through these eyes shall I see; through these fingertips shall I feel. Through these lips I shall speak! Speak! Speak!”

  The furious command whined coldly above the drums. The flame in the brazier snapped and leapt high. And, staring into its blue-white depths, Gratia was suddenly still. Only pale lips moved in the expressionless mask of her face. The voice that came was calm and sibilant; it was the soft voice of a man who spoke with just the hint of a Germanic accent!

  “This body is mine. Henceforth, this flesh is the house of my spirit. Claude Ashur. I am Claude Ashur! I am! I...”

  “Gratia!” Her name was an anguished cry in my fear-dried throat.

  “Claude...” The bewildered murmur trembled on Gratia’s lips. The hideous gauntness, the unhealthy eye-shadows had faded from her face, leaving it flushed and gentle. Her gaze moved slowly from Claude to me, and the frightened puzzlement behind her warm, dark eyes was that of a child awakened in a strange room. “Richard... Where are we? What’s happened? I feel so weak. I...”

  Her voice trailed off in a husky sigh; the tenseness drained from her body. The filmy white gown rustled faintly as she slid forward to the floor and lay still. I was the first to reach her. Her hand was icy in mine and coated with a clammy dew. I think I whispered her name and cradled her in my arms. Then, I became conscious of the shadow that was Claude Ashur looming over us.

  “I’ll take care of my wife, Richard.” The familiar, stony calm had returned to his voice. I stared up into the colorless mask that was his face. In the glow of the guttering brazier-flame, it seemed to me that his pallid skin was spotted with faint, brownish blotches. I said thickly:

  “We’d better get a doctor...”

  “She’ll be all right...”

  “But...”

  “She’s only fainted,” Claude said levelly. “She needs rest. I’ll take her to her room...”

  *

  AS HE passed me, the cool whiteness of Gratia’s gown whispered against my hand. I listened to the funereal murmur of his tread moving away down the corridor. Bewildered fear shuddered within me at each breath I drew. I wanted a drink. I stood staring into the phosphorescent glow of the brazier. A confused impulse to get to a telephone and call Dr. Ellerby swelled in me and died. I didn’t move. Somewhere, in the seething tenebrosity of that chamber a hateful echo grew suddenly shrill and distinct. I heard again the sibilant, accented voice that had spoken with Gratia Thane’s lips. “...This flesh is the house of my spirit. Claude Ashur. I am Claude Ashur.”

  I started violently at the sound of his laughter. Turning, I saw him standing once more on the threshold of that loathsome chamber. The tawny facial stains I had noted before were very pronounced, now; his face was scarcely more than a skull enshrouded by dry, unpigmented skin, and he seemed to breathe with difficulty. But, his rage had subsided into bland secrecy again. The old, cat-like smile had come back. The brilliant eyes laughed mirthlessly.

  “Poor Richard. Really, you must learn not to intrude if you�
��re going to continue being your old squeamish self...” There was an undercurrent of warning in the bantering tone. It stirred boiling coals of anger that seared across the chilled numbness of my terror. I had a fleeting vision of Gratia’s weary, child-like face. Fury made my voice harsh.

  “What are you doing to her, Claude?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. He sank into the chair Gratia had occupied, and, for a long moment, did nothing but stare into the white-hot heart of the dancing flame. I saw the smile rebend his lips; an obscene light flickered in the shadowed depths of his eye-sockets.

  “She’s really quite exquisite, isn’t she?” he said softly.

  I said: “She’s decent. She’s a fine person and you’re doing something to her. I want to know what’s behind all this rotten display...”

  “Do you?” The seering gaze flashed up to meet mine. “Do you really, Richard? Are you sure you want to know? Are you sure it wouldn’t offend your tender sensibilities?”

  “The lovely lady has inspired you, my dear Richard. She’s made you a knight in shining armor.” Abruptly, the lips drew into a taut line. “If I were you, I’d give up the notion of ‘rescuing’ the lady Gratia. You see, what you so vulgarly refer to as a ‘rotten display’ is really, a scientific experiment. Gratia is my assistant. I’ve no intention of giving her up. She’s the perfect subject. Perhaps that’s because she’s so completely in love with me...”

  Claude must have sensed the revulsion that shuddered through me at the foul suggestiveness of his tone. The taunting smile returned and he nodded slowly.

  “Yes. My wife is quite devoted, Richard. That’s why my experiments have been so successful. You see, I believe that, under proper conditions, a will that is powerful enough can take over the body of another person—transplanting its dominant personality in fresh soil, as it were—forcing the other person to exchange bodies with it. It requires only concentration and a suitable subject; one that is highly susceptible to the will of the experimenter..." Claude’s eyes had grown maniacally bright as he spoke. Now, he breathed each word as though it were some heathen incantation. "I’ve found that subject...”