Cat Magic by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page A

effectively dead, although completely undamaged. As time passed, of course, cells would begin to deteriorate. Enough time and the deterioration would become irreversible. But before then the animal could be restarted by turning off the field and shocking its heart back into action.
    The system was potentially safer than anesthesia, and the suspension of critical body functions opened up undreamed-of surgical possibilities. George felt that his work was important even beyond Constance’s wish to use it in the ancient ritual of initiation. If things went right, he had a chance at immortality here. He dreamed of a Nobel, a chair at MIT, himself strolling the byways of Cambridge in a ratty tweed suit, ripe in age and honor.
    The witch ritual was the most important thing right now, though. He loved the craft, its spirit and its aims. And the danger and drama of true initiation, the walk in the world of me dead: that was the greatest possible human adventure, and he was excited to be a part of it.
    The ancient ritual now persisted in the West only at the Covenstead. Animists such as American Indians had stopped practicing it. Among the Apache, to become a shaman it had once been necessary to throw oneself off a cliff. Those who lived passed the initiation. Those who died, died.
    George listened to the humming of the apparatus It sounded fine. “What kind of readings, Clark?”
    “Looks like we’re okay. No unusual power drains, no sign of damage.”
    George returned to the main lab. He put his hand on Clark’s shoulder. “That was a brave thing to do, staying in here.”
    “A calculated risk. I thought perhaps they wouldn’t have the technical skill to hook a bomb into this system even if they wanted to.”
    Clark powered down the field. The lights flickered again, and the cage made a faint crackling noise. A sharp stench of ozone filled the air. George pressed the floor switch that turned on the ventilators. He realized that he was shaking. He was surprised that there hadn’t been any damage to the equipment.
    Suddenly he was weeping. Most men would have looked away, embarrassed. True to the custom of the witches, though, Clark threw his arms around George and comforted him.
    “You know,” he said softly, “no matter how hard this is, we’ve got to keep going. I don’t want to be maudlin, but frankly, an awful lot of people will be helped by our work. We have a mission, and that can’t be forgotten.”
    Bonnie came in and put her hand on his shoulder. “George, we’re with you, I’m with you.”
    He wished she had been the one hugging him. But when Clark let him go, she judged the moment ended and also walked into the animal room.
    This was followed by silence: it was not pleasant to know they were under siege. As it penetrated, this hard truth deepened their upset even more. “What I don’t get is, Pierce takes the exact frog we were working on,” George said. “How did he known which one?”
    “The isolate terrarium,” Clark replied. “It’s separate from the rest.”
    “I guess. I hope we’ve seen the last of him.”
    Clark stopped working. For a moment he appeared reluctant to speak. Then he seemed to gather some internal force to himself. “Frankly, George, this Brother Pierce is a lot more powerful around here even than you realize. Oh, I admit he’s been having his attendance problems lately, at least if you believe the paper. But the man has more charisma in his big toe than your average fire-breathing demagogue does in his whole corpus delicti . You oughta see this campus on a Sunday morning when Brother Pierce is working some big issue. Empty. And people are not sleeping it off, they are down at the Tabernacle for the Sunday Student Worship. Even the drug scene at Bixter’s is getting noticeably smaller. We’re becoming a Bible college.”
    “That’s what we get for admitting all these Jersey rednecks. We ought to recruit out of state.”
    “My point is, we’re surrounded by the guy.