The List Of Seven Read Online Free PDF Page A

crude, impersonal lens.
    In it, a young boy lay curled up at the base of a tree. He wore short pants, a loose tunic, stockings, no shoes. His
    hands and feet were tightly bound with rope. The first glance suggested sleep, but closer examination showed the chest heaving, coughing, or sobbing—it was difficult to determine, until the ghostly and unmistakable sound of a child's pathetic, heartsick cries filtered into the chamber.
    "God in heaven, it's him, it's him," Lady Nicholson moaned. The sight leveled her, not into despondency but a rapt, febrile alertness.
    More details of the unearthly daguerreotype emerged: A small stream ran through the forest bed a few feet from where the boy was lying on a frost-tinged carpet of leaves. The rope that held the boy's wrists extended to a low-lying branch of the adjacent tree. The woods thickened behind him, clustering, evergreens. An object lay on the ground near the boy's feet: small, square, man-made: a can, bearing the letters ... GUI...
    "Willie!" she cried.
    "Where is he? Where is he?" the brother demanded, his attempt to generate outrage mitigated by dumbstruck astonishment.
    Lost inwardly, the medium offered no response.
    "Tell us!" the brother demanded, and he meant to speak further, but the air in the room was rent by a shattering, discordant blast of trumpets, an insane trilling, bound by no discernible harmony or rhythm. Doyle felt stunned, assaulted, pinned down by the oppressive weight of the vibrations.
    "The horn of Gabriel!" shrieked the man to Doyle's left.
    Now something black and odious crept into the edge of the image suspended above them: A shadow felt more than seen, oiled, foul and malignant, gathering mass without seeming to coalesce, the presence insinuated itself into the vision, seeping through the spectral wood, advancing toward the helpless child.
    An inescapable conviction that he had witnessed this entity the night before in the hall outside his door left Doyle groping vainly for some rational causation. His mind snouted at him: This means not Death but Annihilation.
    The cacophonous nightmare grew deafening. A long brass horn appeared in the air, opposite the picture, bobbing erratically. Now that's their first mistake—Doyle seized purchase
    on the thought. Could he detect a telltale flash of filament at the trumpet's bell?
    Drawing itself into a hungry spiral around the boy, the phantom sucked the last bit of light from the vision, swallowing the sound of his cries, on the verge of consuming him whole. Lady Nicholson screamed.
    Doyle sprang to his feet and yanked his hands free. He picked up his chair and hurled it at the image; it shattered like liquid glass, dispersing and sputtering into emptiness. Its suspending cables severed; the brass trumpet clattered noisily onto the table.
    Rolling to avoid the blow he knew was coming, Doyle felt the fist of the man to his left connect sharply below his shoulder blade. In one swift move, Doyle snatched the trumpet from the table and swung it viciously up and around, catching the man square on the side of the face. Blood spurted from a gash as he stumbled and fell to his knees.
    "Villains!" Doyle shouted, galvanized. He reached into his pocket for the revolver when a heavy blow landed on the right side of his neck, paralyzing his searching hand and arm. He turned to see the Dark Man lift a leaded truncheon to strike again and raised his left arm to fend it off.
    "Fool!" The voice issued from the medium. Grinning maliciously, eyes blazing, she swiftly rose straight up into the air above the table. Distracted, the Dark Man turned to face her, truncheon still raised. Doyle felt the hands of the wounded man grab him roughly from behind.
    "You fancy yourself a seeker of truth?" the medium mocked him.
    She held out her palms, the skin roiled and rippled with hideous subcutaneous congestion. When she opened her mouth, a flowing volume of gray aqueous vapor billowed forth from both mouth and hands. Suspended in the