SECTION 9
There is more to this place than we have as yet discovered, I decide. And curiosity can be a useful tool. Through the living room door we step, all six of us. I see instantly that the room is larger than I had thought, in fact, that it occupies most of the remaining upstairs space. Two doors—pale blue like the front door—lead to other rooms (I would guess a kitchen and a closet), and windows at the front and back of the house are blocked with heavy drapes. The light in the room is not bright, but neither is it strangely colored. Everything, in fact, looks quite normal.
An old brown sofa, well-worn but with no rips in evidence, rests along the near wall immediately to my left. Against the front window is a cheap stereo system that stands atop a closed record cabinet. Along the left half of the far wall are three chairs, one a leather-covered recliner, one a match for the sofa, the other a little older and a little more worn. The right side of the room is given over to dining room and study. An old round dining table, covered with magazines and books, sits to my immediate right, and visible around it are three chairs, each with differently colored flaking paint. A fourth chair is possible, because something has to be holding up the dish towels I see draped off the far end of the table, but I have no proof of its existence. Further on to the right, beside one of the doors, a bookcase crammed with volumes of various sizes rises to the right of an old but solid oak desk. The desk holds a typewriter and many, many papers.
As the others take up various positions around the room, more for comfort than for safety, I walk past the table towards the desk. The bookcase holds dozens of books on the occult, almost as many on literary theory, and an enormous number of novels of all kinds. Predominant, though, at least on first glance, are books of fantasy, and on a quick glance I can see no significant omissions. Growing a little bolder, I leaf through the paper on the desk, looking for some clue as to the kind of person I hope to deal with. Flipping over a thick stack of papers, I see what is apparently the title page of the final draft of a Ph.D. thesis. When I read it, I smile, because the topic is anything but a surprise:
Occult Theory and the Fantasy Novel
By Katyrina Emerson
A Dissertation in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree Doctor of Philosophy at York University, Toronto Of course. It fits so well with everything. Even the bit about York University. The stuffy old University of Toronto would obviously not allow so esoteric an idea. What’s also fitting is that the writer is a woman. Somehow I hadn’t expected that. Maybe because the person Merlin goes to see in Trumps of Doom is a man. Or maybe because of my years of conditioning. But what the hell: witches are every bit as terrifying as warlocks. Perhaps more so.
But where is she? She hasn’t yet shown herself, and one would think she’d be getting a little anxious. Surely the attack by her bodyguards wasn’t accidental, and I have trouble believing they thought of it themselves. Still, there are some doors I haven’t tried, one of which may lead to a hiding place or an open window. It’s time to stop reading and start doing.
As I suspected, the first door is a closet. Large and filled with coats, boots, and boxes, it smells musty and looks dirty. I uncover nothing in a quick snoop, except to note that the boxes are all filled with papers and books. Given Katyrina’s current scholastic activities, though, this is hardly a surprise.
Closing the closet, I move towards the other door. I reach for the doorknob and close my fingers on it. But just as I am about to turn it, a sudden bout of apprehension draws me back. Strange, that, since I have no concrete reason for feeling apprehensive, only the fact that my friend is nowhere in sight. But I’m fully expecting her to be in this last room, or not to be in the apartment at all, so that’s not what’s making me apprehensive. There’s something else about the door itself—or perhaps about the room behind—that has my hands shaking with sudden fright.
“Tom,” I whisper. “Come here.” At my request, Tom Samuelson nods and walks towards me, looking at the door as quizzically as I have been.
“Something strange about it, Derek,” he says. “I sensed that as soon as you got near it. I don’t know how to describe it.” Scratching the black beard that spills from his face, Tom stares at the door.
“So what do we do?” I question him softly.
After a moment’s thought, during which he pulls at his beard and nods, Tom looks at me, tilts his head, and says, “Well, boss, if you don’t like the feel of the doorknob, why not just break the door open? That way we won’t have to turn the knob at all.”
Despite the tension, I laugh. “But, Tom,” I respond with a smile, “it’s not only the door that gives me the willies. It’s the room behind it as well. Doesn’t that change your plan a little?”
After another silent moment, Tom replies, “I don’t think so. If the door is the problem, breaking it down may well be the answer. If the problem is the room itself, at least by breaking the door down we make the first move. Unless someone in that room has been listening to our conversation, it may even take them by surprise.” He smiles. “Fear and surprise, remember, are our two main weapons.”
An involuntary laugh escapes me. “Okay,” I agree. “Maybe you have a point. But the door makes me nervous, and I’m not sure kicking it in will help. Still, you’re right about one thing. We’ve got to do something.”
If Derek turns the doorknob, turn to Section 3.
If he chooses to break down the door, turn to Section 4.