The black kiss
"I have reason to believe," Yamada went on very quietly, "that Morella
Godolfo, the woman from Alhambra, was not fully--human. She left no
issue. These things never have children--they cannot."
"What do you mean?" Dean had turned and was facing the Japanese, his
face a ghastly white, the shadows beneath his eyes hideously livid. He
repeated harshly, "What do you mean? You can't frighten me with your
tales--if that's what you're trying to do. You--my uncle wants me out
of this house, for some reason of his own. You're taking this means of
getting me out--aren't you? Eh?"
"You must leave this house," Yamada said. "Your uncle is coming,
but he may not be in time. Listen to me: these creatures--the
sea-dwellers--envy man. Sunlight, and warm fires, and the
fields of earth--things which the sea-dwellers cannot normally
possess. These things--and _love_. You remember what I said about
mind-transference--the possession of a brain by an alien intelligence.
That is the only way these things can attain that which they desire,
and know the love of man or woman. Sometimes--not very often--one of
these creatures succeeds in possessing itself of a human body. They
watch always. When there is a wreck, they go there, like vultures to
a feast. They can swim phenomenally fast. When a man is drowning, the
defenses of his mind are down, and sometimes the sea-dwellers can thus
acquire a human body. There have been tales of men saved from wrecks
who ever after were oddly changed.
"Morella Godolfo was one of these creatures! The Godolfos knew much
of the dark lore, but used it for evil purposes--the so-called black
magic. And it was, I think, through this that sea-dweller gained power
to usurp the brain and body of the woman. A transference took place.
The mind of the sea-dweller took possession of Morella Godolfo's
body, and the intelligence of the original Morella was forced into the
terrible form of that creature of the abyss. In time the human body of
the woman died, and the usurping mind returned to its original shell.
The intelligence of Morella Godolfo was then ejected from its temporary
prison, and left homeless. That is true death."
Dean shook his head slowly, as though in denial, but did not speak. And
inexorably Yamada kept on.
"For years, generations, since then she has dwelt in the sea, waiting.
Her power is strongest here, where she once lived. But, as I told you,
only under unusual circumstances can this--transference take place. The
tenants of this house might be troubled with dreams, but that would
be all. The evil being had no power to steal their bodies. Your uncle
knew that, or he would have insisted that the place be immediately
destroyed. He did not foresee that you would ever live here."
The little Japanese bent forward, and his eyes were twin points of
black light.
"You do not need to tell me what you have undergone in the past month.
I know. The sea-dweller has power over you. For one thing, there are
bonds of blood, even though you are not directly descended from her.
And your love for the ocean--your uncle spoke of that. You live here
alone with your paintings and your imaginative fancies; you see no one
else. You are an ideal victim, and it was easy for that sea horror to
become _en rapport_ with you. Even now you show the stigmata."
* * * * *
Dean was silent, his face a pale shadow amidst the darker ones in the
corners of the room. What was the man trying to tell him? What were
these hints leading up to?
"Remember what I have said." Doctor Yamada's voice was fanatically
earnest. "That creature wants you for your youth--your soul. She has
lured you in sleep, with visions of Poseidonis, the twilight grottoes
in the deep. She has sent you beguiling visions at first, to hide
what she was doing. She has drained your life forces, weakened your
resistance, waiting until she is strong enough to take possession of
your brain.
"I have told you what she wants--what all these hybrid horrors raven
for. She will reveal herself to you in time, and when her will is
strong upon you in slumber, you will do her bidding. She will take you
down into the deep, and show you the kraken-fouled gulfs where these
things bide. You will go willingly, and that will be your doom. She may
lure you to their feasts there--the feasts they hold upon the drowned
things they find floating from wrecked ships. And you will live such
madness in your sleep because she rules you. And then--then, when you
have become weak enough, she will have her desire. The sea-thing will
usurp your body and walk once more on earth. And you will go down into
the darkness where once you dwelt in dreams, for ever. Unless I am
mistaken, you have already seen enough to know that I speak truth. I
think that this terrible moment is not so far off, and I warn you that
alone you cannot hope to resist the evil. Only with the aid of your
uncle and me----"
Doctor Yamada stood up. He moved forward and confronted the dazed youth
face to face. In a low voice he asked, "In your dreams--_has the thing
kissed you_?"
For a heart-beat there was utter silence. Dean opened his mouth to
speak, and then a curious little warning note seemed to sound in his
brain. It rose, like the quiet roaring of a conch-shell, and a vague
nausea assailed him.
Almost without volition he heard himself saying, "No."
Dimly, as though from an incredibly far distance, he heard Yamada suck
in his breath, as if surprized. Then the Japanese said, "That is good.
Very good. Now listen: your uncle will be here soon. He has chartered a
special plane. Will you be my guest until he arrives?"
The room seemed to darken before Dean's eyes. The form of the Japanese
was receding, dwindling. Through the window the surf-sound came
crashing, and it rolled on in waves through Dean's brain. In its
thunder a thin, insistent whispering penetrated.
"Accept," it murmured. "Accept!" And Dean heard his own voice accept
Yamada's invitation.
He seemed incapable of coherent thought. That last dream haunted
him ... and now Doctor Yamada's disturbing story ... he was ill--that
was it!--very ill. He wanted very much to sleep, now. A flood of
darkness seemed to wash up and engulf him. Gratefully he allowed it
to sweep through his tired head. Nothing existed but the dark, and a
restless lapping of unquiet waters.
Yet he seemed to know, in an odd way, that he was still--some outer
part of him--conscious. He strangely realized that he and Doctor Yamada
had left the house, were entering a car, and driving a long way. He
was--with that strange, external other self--talking casually to the
doctor; entering his house in San Pedro; drinking; eating. And all the
while his soul, his real being, was buried in waves of blackness.
Finally a bed. From below, the surf seemed to blend into the blackness
that engulfed his brain. It spoke to him now, as he rose stealthily
and clambered out of the window. The fall jarred his outer self
considerably, but he was on the ground outside without injury. He kept
in the shadows as he crept away down to the beach--the black, hungry
shadows that were like the darkness surging through his soul.
_3. Three Dreadful Hours_
With a shock, he was himself once more--completely. The cold water had
done it; the water in which he found himself swimming. He was in the
ocean, borne on waves as silver as the lightning that occasionally
flashed overhead. He heard thunder, felt the sting of rain. Without
wondering about the sudden transition, he swam on, as though fully
aware of some planned destination. For the first time in over a month
he felt fully alive, actually himself. There was a surge of wild
elation in him that defied the facts; he no longer seemed to care about
his recent illness, the weird warnings of his uncle and Doctor Yamada,
and the unnatural darkness that had previously shadowed his mind.
In fact, he no longer had to think--it was as though he were being
_directed_ in all his movements.
He was swimming parallel with the beach now, and with curious
detachment he observed that the storm had subsided. A pale, fog-like
glow hovered over the lashing waters, and it seemed to beckon.
The air was chill, as was the water, and the waves high; yet Dean
experienced neither cold nor fatigue. And when he saw the things that
waited for him on the rocky beach just ahead, he lost all perception of
himself in a crescendo of mounting joy.
This was inexplicable, for they were the creatures of his last and
wildest nightmares. Even now he did not see them plainly as they
sported in the surf, but there were dim suggestions of past horror in
their tenebrous outlines. The things were like seals; great, fish-like,
bloated monsters with pulpy, shapeless heads. These heads rested on
columnar necks that undulated with serpentine ease, and he observed,
without any sensation other than curious familiarity, that the heads
and bodies of the creatures were a sea-bleached white.
Soon he was swimming in among them--swimming with peculiar and
disturbing ease. Inwardly he marveled, with a touch of his former
feeling, that he was not now horrified by the sea-beasts in the least.
Instead, it was almost with a feeling of kinship that he listened to
their strange low gruntings and cackles--listened _and understood_.
He _knew_ what they were saying, and he was not amazed. He was not
frightened by what he heard, though the words would have sent abysmal
horror through his soul in the previous dreams.
He knew where they were going and what they meant to do when the
entire group swam out into the water once more, yet he did not fear.
Instead, he felt a strange hunger at the thought of what was to come, a
hunger that impelled him to take the lead as the things, with undulant
swiftness, glided through the inky waters to the north. They swam with
incredible speed, yet it was hours before a sea-coast loomed up through
the murk, lit by a blinding flare of light from offshore.
Twilight deepened to true darkness over the water, but the offshore
light burned brightly. It seemed to come from a huge wreck in the waves
just off the coast, a great hulk floating on the waters like a crumpled
beast. There were boats gathered around it, and floating flares of
light that revealed the scene.
As though by instinct, Dean, with the pack behind him, headed for the
spot. Swiftly and silently they sped, their slimy heads blurred in
the shadows to which they clung as they circled the boats and swam in
toward the great crumpled shape. Now it was looming above him, and
he could see arms flailing desperately as man after man sank below
the surface. The colossal bulk from which they leaped was a wreck of
twisted girders in which he could trace the warped outline of a vaguely
familiar shape.
And now, with curious disinterest, he swam lazily about, avoiding
the lights bobbing over the water as he watched the actions of his
companions. They were hunting their prey. Leering muzzles gaped for the
drowning men, and lean talons raked bodies from the darkness. Whenever
a man was glimpsed in shadows not yet invaded by rescue-boats, one of
the sea-things craftily snared his victim.
In a little while they turned and slowly swam away. But now many of the
creatures clutched a grisly trophy at their squamous breasts. The pale
white limbs of drowning men trailed in the water as they were dragged
off into the darkness by their captors. To the accompaniment of low,
carrion laughter the beasts swam away, back down the coast.
Dean swam with the rest. His mind was again a blur of confusion. He
knew what that thing in the water was, and yet he could not name it.
He had watched those hateful horrors snare doomed men and drag them