Final Reckonings by Robert Bloch Read Free Book Online Page A

can't — it's biologically impossible. It defies the laws of reality!"
    Behind the bulging spectacles, Barsac's eyes gleamed oddly.
    "What is reality and who makes its laws?" he mocked. "Come, and see for yourself the success of my experiments."
    He led the way across the chamber, down the hall, and up the great circular staircase. They reached the second floor on which Jerome's room lay, but did not pause. Selecting a panel switch from the open box on the wall, Barsac threw it and illumined the upper stairs. They began to climb again.
    And all the while Barsac was talking, talking. "You have seen the gods of ancient Egypt?" he said. "The anthropomorphic stone figures with the bodies of men and the heads of animals? You have heard the legend of the werewolf, of lycanthropic changes whereby man becomes beast and beast becomes man?
    "Fables, all fables. And yet behind the fables lurked a truth. The truth lurks no longer, for I have found it. The seat of evolution lies in the soul, and in the soul's human instrument of expression, the brain. We have grafted cellular structures of one body onto another—why not graft portions of one soul to another? Hypnosis is the key to transference, as I have said.
    "All this I have learned by much thought, much experimentation. I have worked for nine years, perfecting techniques and methodology. Many times I failed. To my laboratory I had brought animals, hundreds of animals. Many of them died. I procured others, working endlessly toward one goal. I have paid the price, myself, dying a thousand mental deaths with the failure of each mistaken attempt. Even a physical price I have paid. A monkey— sale cochon ! — took from me my finger. So."
    Barsac paused and held up his left hand in a dramatic gesture to reveal the stump where his left thumb was missing.
    Then he smiled. "But it is not my wounds of battle I wish to display to you — it is the fruits of victory. Come."
    They had reached the topmost tower at last. Doctor Jerome gazed down the dizzying spiral of the stairs they had ascended, then turned his head forward as Barsac unlocked the paneled door of his laboratory and gestured him inside.
    The click of a wall switch heralded the coming of light. Doctor Jerome entered and stood dazzled in the doorway.
    Set in the moldering tower of the old castle was a spacious, white-tiled, completely modern laboratory unit. A great outer room, filled with electrical equipment, was displayed before him. All of the appurtenances necessary to microbiology were ranged on shelves and cabinets.
    "Does it please you, Jerome?" asked Barsac. "It was not easy to assemble this, no. The very tiles were transported up the steep mountain passways to the castle, and the shipping of each bit of equipment was costly. But behold — is it not a perfect spot in which to work?"
    Doctor Jerome nodded, absently. His inward thoughts were tinged with definite envy. Barsac here was squandering his genius and his wealth on this crazy dabbling, and he had every scientific luxury at his command, while he, Jerome, a capable scientist with a sound outlook, had nothing; no job, no future, nothing to work with. It wasn't right, it wasn't just. And yet —
    "Even an electrical plant," Barsac was exclaiming. "We manufacture our own power here, you see. Look around. All is of the finest! Or perhaps you are eager to see what I promised to show you?"
    Doctor Jerome nodded again. He couldn't stand the sight of this spotless laboratory because of the jealousy it aroused. He wanted to get it over with, get out of here.
    Now Barsac opened the door of a second room, beyond. It was nearly as large as the first, but the walls were untiled. The original castle stones lent startling contrast to the great gleaming metal cabinet which dominated the center of the chamber.
    "This room I had not the heart to change," Barsac explained. "It is here, according to family tradition, that my great-great-grandfather conducted his experiments in alchemy.