Beyond the Pale Read Online Free PDF

people were bound to ask where he was going, and he had promised Jack. With a sigh he began hoofing it down the street. The Magician’s Attic was only a mile away: He could manage the walk. It was just nine o’clock, but the town’s lone traffic light already winked like an amber cat’s-eye in the dark. He tried not to think about Deputy Windom’s
delgeth
story. Once already that day he had let his imagination run away with him, and that had been enough.
    Travis moved up onto the boardwalk. He passed by the door of the darkened hardware store, then paused and pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose. There it was again—the same odd symbol that had been scratched on the saloon’s door. He continued down Elk Street and saw other doors marked in similar fashion. Travis shivered and quickened his pace.
    To his relief, fifteen minutes later, he found himself in front of the Magician’s Attic. The antique shop occupied the ground floor of a rambling Victorian on the west edge of Castle City, and Jack reserved the upper stories for his living space. The house was lightless and quiet, from the tower that reminded Travis of a castle’s turret to the velvet-curtained parlor windows that stared outward like heavy-lidded eyes. Was Jack even still here? Travis ascended the steps of the front porch and reached out to knock, but the door flew open before his hand touched it.
    “Wotan’s Beard! It’s about time you arrived, Travis.”
    Travis lurched through the doorway into the cluttered foyer beyond and barely managed to keep from falling. Jackshut the door. He carried a tin hurricane lamp, its speckled golden light the only illumination in the place.
    Jack Graystone appeared to be about sixty years old, although Travis couldn’t remember him ever looking any different in the seven years they had been friends. He was a striking man, with a Roman nose and eyes of sky blue. His iron-gray beard was neatly trimmed, in contrast to his thinning hair of the same color, which had a tendency to fly rather madly about his head. He was dressed in an old-fashioned but elegant suit of English wool over a starched white shirt and a flannel waistcoat of hunter’s green. Travis had never seen him wear anything else.
    “I’m sorry I took so long, Jack.” Travis tried to catch his breath. “My truck wouldn’t start, so I had to walk here.”
    “You
walked
here?” Jack fixed him with a grave look. “That wasn’t a terribly good idea, you know, not on a night like this.”
    Travis ran a hand through his sand-colored hair. “Jack, what is going on? I didn’t know what to think after the phone went dead.”
    “Oh, that. Do forgive me, Travis, I’m afraid that was all my fault. You see, I thought I heard a noise in the parlor while we were talking. I turned around and accidentally cut the phone cord with a sword I was holding.”
    Travis gaped at him. “A sword?”
    “Yes, a sword. It’s like a large knife often used by knights in—”
    “I
know
what a sword is.”
    Jack gave him a sharp look. “Then why did you ask?”
    Travis drew in an exasperated breath. As much as he liked Jack, talking with him could be a challenge. “Jack, would you please tell me why you asked me to come here?”
    Jack regarded Travis with perfect seriousness. “A darkness is coming.”
    With that he turned and disappeared into the dim labyrinth of the antique shop. There was nothing for Travis to do but follow. The gloom all around was filled with the flotsam and jetsam of history—chests of drawers with porcelain knobs, lead-backed mirrors, lion-clawed andirons, velvet chaises, and weather-faded circus posters. Jack never restedin his hunt for curious and wonderful antiques. That was how he and Travis had become friends.
    One day, not long after Travis started working at the Mine Shaft, Jack Graystone had stepped through the door of the saloon, incongruous in his old-fashioned attire, yet not uncomfortably so. He had asked if he might be allowed