"I don't know how you got away with it," Tate whispered. "You're broadcasting bloodl.u.s.t on every wavelength of the TP band. He's here. Alone. No servants. Only two bodyguards provided by Maria. @kins was right. He's dangerously sick..."

"To h.e.l.l with that. I'll cure him. Where is he?"

"Go through the west arch. Turn right. Up stairs. Through overpa.s.s. Turn right. Picture Gallery. Door between paintings of the Rape of Lucrece and the Rape of the Sabine Women..."

"Sounds typical."

"Open the door. Up a flight of steps to an anteroom. Two guards in the anteroom. D'Courtney's inside. It's the old wedding suite her grandfather built."

"By G.o.d! I'll use that suite again. I'll marry him to murder. And I'll get away with it, little Gus. Don't think I won't."

The Gilt Corpse began to clamor for attention. Flushed and shining with perspiration, standing in the glare of a pink light on the dais between the two fountains, Maria clapped her hands for silence. Her moist palms beat together, and the echoes roared in Reich's ears: Death. Death. Death.

"Darlings! Darlings! Darlings!" she cried. "We're going to have so much fun tonight. We're going to provide our own entertainment." A subdued groan went up from the guests and a drunken voice shouted: "I'm just one of the tourists."

Through the laughter, Maria said: "Naughty lovers, don't be disappointed. We're going to play a wonderful old game; and we're going to play it in the dark."

The company cheered up as the overhead lights began to dim and disappear. The dais still blazed, and in the light, Maria produced a tattered volume. Reich's gift.

Tension...

Maria turned the pages slowly, blinking at the unaccustomed print.

Apprehension...

"It's a game," Maria cried, "called 'Sardine.' Isn't that too adorable?"

She took the bait. She's on the hook. In three minutes I'll be invisible. Reich felt his pockets. The gun. The Rhodopsin. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.

"One player," Maria read, "is selected to be It. That's going to be me. All the lights are extinguished and the It hides anywhere in the house." As Maria struggled through the directions, the great hall was reduced to pitch darkness with the exception of the single pink beam on the stage.

"Successively each player finding the Sardine joins them until all are hidden in one place, and the last player, who is the loser, is left to wander alone in the dark." Maria closed the book. "And darlings, we're all going to feel sorry for the loser because we're going to play this funny old game in a darling new way."

As the last light on the dais melted away, Maria stripped off her gown and displayed the astonishing nude body that was a miracle of pneumatic surgery. "We're going to play Sardine like this!" she cried. The last light biinked out. There was a roar of exultant laughter and applause, followed by a multiple whisper of cloth drawn across skin. Occasionally there came the sound of a rip, then muttered exclamations and more laughter.

Reich was invisible at last. He had half an hour to slip up into the house, find and kill D'Courtney, and then return to the game. Tate was committed to pinning the peeper secretaries out of the line of his attack. It was safe. It was foolproof except for the Chervil boy. He had to take that chance.

He crossed the main hall and jostled into bodies at the west arch. He went through the arch into the music room and turned right, groping for the stairs.

At the foot of the stairs he was forced to climb over a barrier of bodies with octopus arms that tried to pull him down. He ascended the stairs, seventeen eternal steps, and felt his way through a close tunnel overpa.s.s papered with velour. Suddenly he was seized and a woman crushed herself against him.

"h.e.l.lo, Sardine," she whispered in his ear. Then her skin became aware of his clothes. "Owww!" she exclaimed, and felt the hard outlines of the gun in his breast pocket. "What's that?" He slapped her hand away. "Clever-up, Sardine," she giggled. "Get out of the can."

He divested himself of her and bruised his nose against the dead-end of the overpa.s.s. He turned right, opened a door and found himself in a vaulted gallery over fifty feet long. The lights were extinguished here too, but the luminescent paintings, glowing under ultra-violet spotlights, filled the gallery with a virulent glow. It was empty.

Between a livid Lucrece and a horde of Sabine Women was a flush door of polished bronze. Reich stopped before it, removed the tiny Rhodopsin Ionizer from bis back pocket and attempted to poise the copper cube between his thumbnail and forefinger. His hands were trembling violently. Rage and hatred boiled inside him, and his death-l.u.s.t shot image after image of an agonized D'Courtney through his mind's eye.

"Christ!" he cried. "He'd do it to me. He's tearing at my throat. I'm fighting for survival." He made his orisons in fanatical multiples of three and nine.

"Stand by me, dear Christ! Today, tomorrow, and yesterday. Stand by me! Stand by me! Stand by me!"

His fingers steadied. He poised the Rhodospin cap, then thrust open the bronze door, revealing nine steps mounting to an anteroom. Reich snapped his thumb-nail against the copper cube as though he were trying to flip a penny to the moon. As the Rhodopsin cap flew up into the anteroom, Reich averted his eyes.

There was a cold purplish flash. Reich leaped up the stairs like a tiger. The two Beaumont House guards were seated on the bench where he had caught them. Their faces were sagging, their vision destroyed, their time sense abolished.

If anyone entered and found the guards before he was finished, he was on the road to Demolition. If the guards revived before he was finished, he was on the road to Demolition. No matter what happened, it was a final gamble with Demolition. Leaving the last of his sanity behind him, Reich pushed open a jewelled door and entered the wedding suite.

CHAPTER 5

Reich found himself in a spherical room designed as the heart of a giant orchid. The walls were curling orchid petals, the floor was a golden calyx; the chairs, tables and couches were orchid and gold. But the room was old. The petals were faded and peeling; the golden tile floor was ancient and the tesselations were splitting. There was an old man lying on the couch, musty and wilted, like a dried weed. It was D'Courtney, stretched out like a corpse.

Reich slammed the door in rage. "You're not dead already, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he exploded. "You can't be dead."

The faded man started up, stared, then arose painfully from the couch, his face breaking into a smile.

"Still alive," Reich cried exultantly.

D'Courtney stepped toward Reich, smiling, his arms outstretched as though welcoming a prodigal son.

Alarmed again, Reich growled: "Are you deaf?"

The old man shook his head.

"You speak English," Reich shouted. "You can hear me. You can't understand me. I'm Reich. Ben Reich of Monarch."

D'Courtney nodded, still smiling. His mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes glistened with sudden tears.

"What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you? I'm Ben Reich! Ben Reich! Do you know me? Answer me."

D'Courtney shook his head and tapped his throat. His mouth worked again. Rusty sounds came; then words as faint as dust: "Ben... Dear Ben... Waited so long. Now... Can't talk. My throat... Can't talk." Again he attempted to embrace Reich.

"Arrgh! Keep off, you crazy idiot." Bristling, Reich stepped around D'Courtney like an animal, his hackles raised, the murder boiling in his blood.

D'Courtney's mouth formed the words: "Dear Ben..."

"You know why I'm here. What are you trying to do? Make love to me?" Reich laughed. "You crafty old pimp. Am I supposed to turn soft for your chewing?" His hand lashed out. The old man reeled back from the slap and fell into an orchid chair that looked like a wound.

"Listen to me---" Reich followed D'Courtney and stood over him. He began to shout incoherently. "This payoff's been on the fire for years. And you want to rob me with a Judas kiss. Does murder turn the other cheek? If it does, embrace me, brother killer. Kiss death! Teach death love. Teach G.o.dliness and shame and blood and---No. Wait. I---" He stopped short and shook his head like a bull trying to cast off a halter of delirum.

"Ben," D'Courtney whispered in horror. "Listen, Ben..."

"You've been at my throat for ten years. There was room enough for both of us. Monarch and D'Courtney. All the room in time and s.p.a.ce, but you wanted my blood, eh? My heart. My guts in your lousy hands. The Man With No Face!"

D'Courtney shook his head in bewilderment. "No, Ben. No..."

"Don't call me Ben. I'm no friend of yours. Last week I gave you one more chance to wash in decency. Me. Ben Reich. I asked for armistice. Begged for peace. Merger. I begged like a screaming woman. My father would spit on me if he were alive. Every fighting Reich would blacken my face with contempt. But I asked for peace, didn't I? Eh? Didn't I?" Reich prodded D'Courtney savagely. "Answer me."

D'Courtney's face was blanched and staring. Finally he whispered: "Yes. You asked... I accepted."

"You what?"

"Accepted. Waiting for years. Accepted."

"Accepted!"

D'Courtney nodded. His lips formed the letters: "WWHG."

"What? WWHG? Acceptance?"

The old man nodded again.

Reich shrieked with laughter. "You clumsy old liar. That's refusal. Denial. Rejection. War."

"No, Ben. No..."

Reich reached down and yanked D'Courtney to his feet. The old man was frail and light, but his weight burned Reich's arm, and the touch of the old skin burned Reich's fingers.

"So it's to be war, is it? Death?"

D'Courtney shook his head and tried to make signs.

"No merger. No peace. Death. That's the choice, eh?"

"Ben... No."

"Will you surrender?"

"Yes," D'Courtney whispered. "Yes, Ben. Yes."

"Liar. Clumsy old liar." Reich laughed. "But you're dangerous. I can see it. Protective mimicry. That's your trick. You imitate the idiots and trap us at your leisure. But not me. Never."

"I'm not... your enemy, Ben."

"No," Reich spat. "You're not because you're dead. You've been dead ever since I came into this orchid coffin. Man With No Face! Can you hear me screaming for the last time? You're finished forever!"

Reich tore the gun out of his breast pocket. He touched the stud and it opened like a red steel flower. A faint groan escaped from D'Courtney when he saw the weapon. He backed away in horror. Reich caught him and held him fast. D'Courtney twisted in Reich's grasp, his face pleading his eyes glazed and rheumy. Reich transferred his grasp to the back of D'Courtney's thin neck and wrenched the head toward him. He had to fire through the open mouth for the trick to work.

At that instant, one of the orchid petals swung open, and a half-dressed girl burst into the room. In a blaze of surprise, Reich saw the corridor behind her, a bedroom door standing open at the far end; the girl, nude under a frost silk gown hastily thrown on, yellow hair flying, dark eyes wide in alarm... A lightning flash of wild beauty.

"Father!" she screamed. "For G.o.d's sake! Father!"

She ran toward D'Courtney. Reich swung quickly between them, never relaxing his hold on the old man. The girl stopped short, backed away, then darted to the left around Reich screaming. Reich pivoted and cut viciously at her with the stiletto. She eluded him but was driven back on the couch. Reich thrust the point of the stiletto between the old man's teeth and forced his jaws open.

"No!" she cried. "No! For the love of Christ! Father!"

She stumbled around the couch and ran toward her father again. Reich thrust the gun muzzle into D'Courtney's mouth and pulled the trigger. There was a m.u.f.fled explosion and a gout of blood spurted from the back of D'Courtney's head. Reich let the body drop and leaped for the girl. He caught her while she fought and screamed.

Reich and the girl were screaming together. Reich shook with galvanic spasms that forced him to release the girl. The girl fell forward to her knees and crawled to the body. She moaned in pain as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the gun from the mouth where it still hung. Then she crouched over the twitching body, silent, fixed, staring into the waxen face.

Reich gasped for breath and beat his knuckles together painfully. When the roaring in his ears subsided, he propelled himself toward the girl, trying to arrange his thoughts and make split second alterations in his plans. He had never counted on a witness. No one mentioned a daughter. G.o.d d.a.m.n Tate! He would have to kill the girl. He--- She turned again and shot a terror-stricken glance over her shoulder. Again that lightning flash of yellow hair, dark eyes, dark brows, wild beauty. She leaped to her feet, darted out of his sodden grasp, ran to the jewelled door, flung it open and ran into the anteroom. As the door slowly closed, Reich had a glimpse of the guards still slumped on the bench and the girl running silently down the stairs with the gun in her hands... with Demolition in her hands.

Reich started. The clogged blood began pounding through his veins again. He reached the door in three strides, ran through and tore down the steps to the picture gallery. It was empty but the door to the overpa.s.s was just closing. And still no sound from her. Still no alarm. How long before she started screaming the house down?

He raced down the gallery and entered the overpa.s.s. It was still pitch dark. He blundered through, reached the head of the stairs that led down to the music room and paused again. Still no sound. No alarm.

He went down the steps. The dark silence was terrifying. Why didn't she scream? Where was she? Reich crossed toward the west arch and knew he was at the edge of the main hall by the quiet splash of the fountains. Where was the girl? In all that black silence, where was she? And the gun! Christ! The tricked gun!

A hand touched his arm. Reich jerked in alarm. Tate whispered: "I've been standing by. It took you exactly---"

"You son of a b.i.t.c.h!" Reich burst out. "There was a daughter. Why didn't you---"

"Be quiet," Tate snapped. "Let me peep it." After fifteen seconds of burning silence, he began to tremble. In a terrified voice he whined: "My G.o.d. Oh, my G.o.d..."

His terror was the catalyst. Reich's control returned. He began thinking again. "Shut up," he growled. "It isn't Demolition yet."

"You'll have to kill her too, Reich. You'll---"

"Shut up. Find her, first. Cover the house. You got her pattern from me. Locate her. I'll be waiting at the fountain. Jet!"

He flung Tate from him and staggered to the fountain. At the jasper rim he bent and bathed his burning face. It was burgundy. Reich wiped his face and ignored the m.u.f.fled sounds that came from the other side of the basin. Evidently some other person or persons unknown were bathing in wine.

He considered swiftly. The girl must be located and killed. If she still had the gun when Tate found her, the gun would be used. If she didn't? What? Strangle her? No... The fountain. She was naked under that silk gown. It could be stripped off. She could be found drowned in the fountain... just another guest who had bathed in the wine too long. But it had to be soon... soon... soon... Before this d.a.m.ned Sardine game was ended. Where was Tate? Where was the girl?

Tate came blundering up through the darkness, his breath wheezing.

"Well?"

"She's gone."

"You weren't gone long enough to find a louse. If this is a double-cross---"

"Who could I cross? I'm on the same road you are. I tell you her pattern's nowhere in the house. She's gone."

"Anyone notice her leave?"

"No."

"Christ! Out of the house!"

"We'd better leave too."