I shook my head slowly, from side to side.
“Snuff, that rascal who just left is planning to murder his stepdaughter on All Hallows’ Eve!”
I nodded.
“You countenance this behavior?”
I shook my head from side to side, then turned and walked away from him to a place where dust lay heavy upon the floorboards. With my paw I made four strokes in the dust: LT.
He followed me and watched. Then he said slowly, “Lawrence Talbot?”
I nodded.
“He plans to prevent the killing?”
I nodded again.
“Snuff, I know more about him than he realizes, and I have experimented with many sorts of drugs myself over the years. I know that his intent is to rescue Lynette on the night of the ceremony, but I do not believe that he has sufficiently refined the dosage which he feels will carry him past the moon madness of his affliction. And whatever the case, Vicar Roberts is aware that there is one of his sort involved, and he has melted down a piece of the rectory silverware to cast a bullet for a pistol he will be carrying with him that night.”
He paused and studied me. I believed him, but I did not know what to do.
“The only part I can see for myself in this entire affair would be to effect the girl’s rescue, should Mr. Talbot fail. To do this, I require something from you: I must know where the ceremony is to take place. Do you know?”
I nodded.
“Will you show me?”
I nodded again, and I looked toward the door.
For a second his hand twitched toward my head, then he lowered it and smiled. He moved to the door and slid it open. We stepped outside, where I looked in the direction of Dog’s Nest and barked once. Then I began walking. He followed.
October 30
There was not a great deal to do today. And tomorrow will likely be the same. Till night. Those of us who remain will gather atop the hill at midnight. We will bring kindling, and we will cooperate in the building of a big fire. It will serve as illumination, and into it will be cast all the bones, herbs, and other ingredients we have been preparing all month to give ourselves an edge and to confound our enemies. It may stink. It may smell wonderful. Forces will wrestle within it, play about it, giving to it a multicolored nimbus, and occasionally causing it to produce musical sounds and wailings amid its crackling and popping. Then we will position ourselves in an arc before the thing our divinations have shown us to be the Gateway, which we have already determined to be the stone bearing the inscription. The openers and their friends will stand at one end of the arc, the closers at the other. All will have brought the tools they intend to employ. Some of these are neutral, such as the ring, the pentacle, the icon, to take their character, of opening, or closing, from the hands of those who wield them; others, the two wands, one for opening, one for closing, will naturally be held by those of these persuasions. Jill holds the Opening Wand, my master the Closing Wand. The forces of the neutral objects will support the efforts of that side for which they are employed, which makes the outcome sound like a simple mathematical affair. But it isn’t. The strength of the individual counts for much; and these affairs seem to generate strange byplay as well, which contributes to overall dispositions of power. And then there is the matter of experience. Theoretically, everything should be conducted at a metaphysical level, but this is seldom really the case. Still, no matter how physical it may get, the reputation attached to Jack and his knife generally grants us considerable protection against mundane violence. We tend to maintain our positions in the arc once the ceremony has begun, and sometimes things happen to players during its course. There is a sort of psychic circuit established among us. It need not be disastrous to break the arc, though it may be a courting of mischance somewhere along the line. Preliminary rites will begin, as a matter of individual choice, often at odds with one another. The power will build and build. To back it in its shifting, psychic attacks may be shot back and forth. Disasters may follow. Players may fall, or go mad, catch fire, be transformed. The Gateway may begin to open at any time, or it may await the invitation of the Opening Wand. The resistance will begin immediately. The Closing Wand will be employed, and any ancillary forces that may feed it. Eventually, at the end of our exercises, which may take only a little while, though conceivably they could last until dawn (and in such a stalemated case, the closers would win by default), the matter will be decided. Bad things happen to the losers.