No, not a panther. It was closer now, and Morris could see that this thing had a short tail, its fur long and s.h.a.ggy-looking. And it didn"t move with a cat"s fluid grace. Instead, it had the bouncing muscularity of a-dog?

That was all right. Morris could deal with dogs.

h.e.l.l of a big pooch, though, if that"s what it was. It looked to be the size of a bull calf.

Then he saw the eyes. They were looking right at him, and they were glowing like h.e.l.lfire.

Morris looked away instantly. Now he knew what he was dealing with.

Fortner had his grounds guarded by a Black Dog.

Those eyes were the creature"s princ.i.p.al weapons. Some of the legends Morris had read claimed that locking eyes with a Black Dog would freeze you in place instantly, a helpless, living statue until dawn. Other accounts said that its gaze could strike a man blind, or speechless, or drive him instantly insane.

But you have to stare into its eyes for any of those things to happen. All the stories were in agreement on that. And after all, who wouldn"t gape at such a horrific apparition?

Morris wouldn"t, for one.

He closed his eyes tightly, then reached into the side pocket of his jacket, moving as if he were under water. Black Dogs usually relied on their basilisk gaze for both attack and defense, but Morris didn"t want any sudden action of his to give this one an excuse to start acting like a real canine and tear his throat out.

He finally found what he wanted in his pocket. Morris removed the object carefully, then slowly went down on one knee. To make this work, he would need to be on the same level as the dog.

Morris could hear it now, drawing closer. He made himself wait, eyes still shut. He was only going to get one chance to make this work.

Now the thing was growling at him, softly, from a few yards away. It was preparing to attack.

In one smooth motion, Morris brought the small hand mirror up in front of his face, the reflective surface facing toward the Black Dog.

The creature"s attention would be drawn by the movement, and it was probably looking at Morris"s face now anyway, trying to work its mojo on him and wondering why he wasn"t screaming, or running away, or doing whatever its victims usually did.

But now the dog"s magical gaze was being turned back on itself by the mirror.

The growling stopped suddenly, as if cut off by a switch. There was a brief whimper, then-nothing.

Morris made himself wait for the length of ten breaths, then risked a look.

The dog was frozen in a crouch, as if it had been preparing to spring. The red and yellow light was gone from its eyes, and it made no sound as Morris stood and put the mirror away.

The Black Dog was now no more dangerous than any other lawn statue-at least until dawn.

He could have destroyed the thing, now that it was helpless, but that would have been petty. He was a professional, not some teenage vandal.

And anyway, if Morris were not out of there by sunrise, he would have bigger problems than Poochie to worry about.

A minute later, he was searching the house"s exterior for the best way in. He had studied the original architect"s plans, as well as photos taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. But Morris had a finely developed sense for these things that no image on paper could ever replace.

After a quick but cautious circuit of the place, he decided on the front door. Fortner might well expect any intruder to use a window or one of the auxiliary doors, and would thus concentrate more of his protective energies toward those access points.

Unless, of course, that"s what Fortner figured I"d think, in which case the front door is going to have all the heavy artillery trained on it. Which means I"ll be blued, screwed, and tattooed.

Morris shook his head impatiently at his own dithering. You could make yourself crazy trying to second-guess someone like Fortner. Sometimes you had to go with your instincts, and Morris"s were telling him that the front door was the best bet.

He checked the front steps for traps or tricks, and found none. Then he spent the better part of a minute regarding the door with affection and good will. It might not matter, but he wanted there to be a good karmic relationship between himself and the door before he touched it. It pays never to take inanimate objects for granted.

As doors go, it was nothing special, considering the ostentatious grandeur of the house. No gla.s.s in it, of course. Morris was never that lucky. Solid wood, walnut maybe, carved into a series of panels. The k.n.o.b was plain bra.s.s, and the lock was complicated-looking and intimidating-or it would be, to anyone with less experience than Quincey Morris.

He produced the almond-shaped gem again, and pa.s.sed it slowly over the doorframe, the door itself, and the lock. The stone did not glow red, which meant no magic was being used to protect the door.

Morris scratched his chin reflectively.

Did Fortner leave the door deliberately unguarded, so as to lull the unsuspecting intruder?

He just might, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You get through the door without breaking a sweat, then stroll inside humming to yourself, only to have an anvil dropped on your stupid head.

Or maybe...

Morris brought out a pencil flashlight and moved its narrow beam around the doorframe, very slowly.

And there it was-the faint bulge under the paint.

Just because Fortner had sorcery at his disposal didn"t mean he had to forgo more mundane protections. And now Morris had spotted the wire for the alarm system.

You open the door, you interrupt the circuit, and all h.e.l.l breaks loose. Morris didn"t know whether the alarm would set off a klaxon horn, ring up the nearest police station, or trigger one of Fortner"s nastier occult surprises. And he wasn"t interested in finding out.

With a sharp knife Morris gouged into the doorframe about a foot above the k.n.o.b, exposing the blue wire that he knew he would find there. Then, with a pair of insulated pliers, he clipped the wire, disabling the alarm.

The lock itself was relatively easy. Morris didn"t even need the magically charged lock picks that Libby had made for him.

He turned the k.n.o.b and, standing well off to one side of the entranceway, gently pushed the door open.

The darkness and silence within seemed to mock him.

He shined his light inside, revealing the long hallway that the blueprints said would be there. Several pieces of furniture were visible along the walls on either side-brittle-looking antiques in what appeared to be French Provincial. Fortner was said to be a connoisseur.

Spanish Mission architecture with French Provincial furniture. Some connoisseur.

Morris was three-quarters along the hallway when he felt a floorboard give imperceptibly under his foot. This was followed an instant later by the sound of wood moving against wood overhead.

Morris dropped at once to one knee, a posture that would allow him to run, dodge, or roll as needed. Then something flashed above his head from left to right, something long and black and sinuous that appeared to be suspended somehow from the ceiling. It struck the wall with a soft thud and rebounded, swinging back to the left.

When the dangling, wriggling shape bounced off the opposite wall, Morris was ready. He shot out a gloved hand, trying to grasp it a few inches from the end, just behind where the head would be, if his guess was right. Quincey Morris hated snakes.

Black Mamba venom on the gla.s.s shards outside. b.a.s.t.a.r.d Fortner has to get it from somewhere. The Black Mamba, deadliest snake in Africa, maybe in the whole world. Jesus Christ, better not miss- It was made of rubber.

Morris had held on to a few real snakes in his time, very reluctantly. The feel of a live reptile struggling against your grip, fighting to get free so that it can kill you, is something you don"t forget. This thing he was holding now was utterly inert. It was not alive, nor had it ever been.

He stood, and examined his prize in the flashlight"s narrow beam.

The black rubber snake, about three feet long, was suspended by a cord from a square hole that had opened in the ceiling. The floorboard must have been the trigger for the mechanism that would drop the toy reptile. Gravity and the length of the cord would send it swinging at eye level for a standing man of average height. The thing would be practically right in your face.

And what the h.e.l.l was the point of that?

The rubber snake would certainly startle an intruder-G.o.d knows it had startled the s.h.i.t out of Morris-but it wouldn"t stop one. n.o.body who had gotten this far would be likely to run away screaming just because of a toy on a string.

There had to be something more.

All right, you"re creeping down this hallway like a good little burglar, you trip the mechanism, the rubber snake drops down and d.a.m.n near scares you to death-then what do you do?

Your anger and residual adrenalin might cause you to yank the cord in frustration, intending to tear it loose and toss the snake as far as you can throw it.

Morris sent his flashlight beam up toward the opening in the ceiling where the cord was attached. He couldn"t see what the cord was tied to up there, but he thought there was a good chance that pulling hard on that length of twine might have very unpleasant consequences.

Note to self: leave the d.a.m.n cord alone.

But what if you weren"t the kind of person to let your temper get the better of you? What would Fortner have in store for you then?

If you didn"t have Morris"s presence of mind to drop down at the sound of the ceiling trap opening... then the next thing you"d know would be that there was a d.a.m.n snake right in front of your face. Instinct would be to do-what?

Dodge aside, either left or right.

There was furniture here, on both sides of the narrow hall-an antique writing desk on the left, and opposite, some kind of occasional table.

So you dodge aside, right into the furniture. And then what happens?

Morris took from a pocket a thin metal tube about six inches long. Then he grasped one end and pulled, and the tube stretched to a length of four feet, which is what car radio antennas are supposed to do. Morris wasn"t interested in receiving any radio signals, but he"d thought the device might have other uses.

Standing as far away as the extended aerial would allow him, Morris held one end and used the other to gently tap the side of the writing desk.

Nothing.

Morris frowned in the semi-darkness, then drew the aerial back and tapped a little harder.

Still nada.

He was probably just being paranoid. But he needed to know for sure, in case he had to come back this way in a hurry. It probably wouldn"t hurt to give the writing desk another, slightly more forceful tap-and ten razor-sharp blades slid out of hidden recesses in the desk, glinting in the thin beam of Morris"s pencil flash.

Morris went over for a closer look. The blades were only four inches long, but they gleamed wetly in the light, each one having been coated with some viscous liquid.

Trying to avoid the fake snake, you blunder into the furniture and get a shot of real snake venom for your trouble. Well, they said Fortner had a complicated mind.

Of course, there was no way to predict whether the unsuspecting intruder would dodge to the left or right. Which meant...

Morris gave the occasional table on the opposite wall a medium-hard rap with his aerial, and was utterly unamazed to see a similar set of blades spring out from their hiding places in the innocent-looking antique.

Note to self: don"t b.u.mp into the furniture, podner. It just ain"t healthy.

He continued down the hallway slowly, carefully, ready to react if another floorboard should move under his weight. But none did.

The hall formed a junction with a perpendicular corridor, and Morris knew enough to turn right, just as he knew the second room on the left was the one he wanted.

Fortner"s workroom, where all the fun took place.

The door to the chamber where Fortner performed his black magic rituals was open, and for about three-tenths of a second Morris was relieved about having one less lock to deal with. Then common sense rea.s.serted itself.

This was the most important room in the house. It didn"t matter if Fortner had a million bucks in cash and the Koh-i-noor diamond stashed in his bedroom-this was the place that really mattered to him.

Why wasn"t this room locked up tighter than Donald Trump"s piggy bank?

Fortner may have been running late when he left. After all, he"d had a plane to catch. Maybe the man just forgot.

He puts snake venom on his walls, conjures up a Black Dog to guard the grounds, b.o.o.by traps the hallway, then goes off and forgets to lock up the room that"s the main reason for it all?

A small smile appeared on Morris"s thin face. Not too likely, I reckon.

Morris produced the almond-shaped gem yet a third time. As soon as he held it within a foot of the doorway, the stone began to glow red as a stoplight-and for Morris, the message was the same: stop right there, if you know what"s good for you. The doorway had a spell on it.

Morris used his aerial to probe the floorboards in front of Fortner"s workroom. They were all completely solid. He carefully checked both the floor and the ceiling for the telltale edges of a trap door or deadfall. Nothing.

Standing off to one side, he gingerly broke the plane of the doorway with the aerial"s tip. No reaction. He waved the aerial around the doorway-slowly at first, then faster.

Zippo.

Could be the stone was responding to the general aura of black magic attached to the room, rather than to the entrance itself. Sure, that"s probably it.

Morris was about to walk through the doorway when a thought occurred to him.

He took a step back and brought out a small pocketknife. Pushing one sleeve back, he jabbed his forearm with the tip of the blade-just enough to produce a few drops of blood.

He smeared the blood over the rounded tip of the aerial, then slowly extended it toward the doorway again.

The instant the b.l.o.o.d.y tip crossed the threshold, there was a blur of movement in the doorway, a sharp crack, and the aerial was almost torn from Morris"s grip by the force of a blow that left his fingers tingling.

He withdrew the aerial and examined it in the beam of his flashlight. The metal tip had been sheared completely off, as cleanly as if cut by pliers.

Morris looked at the doorframe. A steel blade, about three inches wide and running the entire height of the doorway, was now imbedded in the right side of the frame.

He wondered if Fortner was thorough enough to cover his bets both ways. Morris drew a few more drops of blood from his arm and repeated the intrusion.

This time, a blade concealed in the bottom of the doorframe flashed upward, too fast for the eye to see, and buried itself in the top of the structure. Another two inches was gone from the end of the aerial.

Morris felt his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es retract involuntarily. If he had been stepping over the threshold at the moment that thing was set off...

Morris tried a third time. No reaction. He brought out the almond-shaped stone. No color change now.

He walked carefully into Fortner"s workroom, alert for any other protections the man might have installed, whether occult or mundane. His flashlight revealed the large pentagram drawn on the floor with squat unlit candles at each of the five points, the magical swords and rods in a rack on the wall, the tapestries covered with occult symbols. No surprises there.

The large sink against one wall was a bit unusual, in Morris"s experience. He shined his light in there, saw nothing except a lot of brown stains coating the porcelain. Fortner should get himself some scouring powder, or something.

There was a large worktable set against the wall opposite from the sink, covered with books and papers. Several tiers of shelves, bearing an a.s.sortment of jars, bottles, and vials, occupied the wall above it. Morris decided to start his search with the table.