The Djinn by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page B

to seal
it
    There was a
heavy iron bar resting across the width of the entire door, held in place
against the doorjambs by steel bolts. Brown sealing wax had been smeared into
every crack and- cranny around the door itself, and every few inches there was
a massive, impressed seal with brown tapes embedded in it I peered closely at
the seals; they seemed to have been made with an ancient Arabic dye. There was
Arabic lettering all over them, and a picture of a flying horse without a head.
There was even Arabic writing scratched on the, iron bar.
    “What do you
make of this?” I asked Anna. “We’re going to need a crowbar to get in.”
    She came up and
looked at the seals. Her lips moved silently as she tried to read what they
said.
    “It’s in very
ancient language,” she said. “There’s something about holding down the winds or
it could be spirits. The two words are very similar.”
    “You mean this
is supposed to be sorcery? This room has been sealed off with magic spells?”
    “Oh, there’s no
doubt about that,” said Anna, running her fingers along the heavy iron bar.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before, in the mountain country of Hassan i
Sabah. Whenever a man died of possession by evil spirits, they sealed off his
tomb in much the same way. Max Greaves has obviously tried to keep the jinni
trapped in the turret by enchantment. I expect the windows are sealed, too.”
    “This is
ridiculous,” I said. “Here’s poor old Marjorie getting herself into a state of
hysteria just because her late and very bad-tempered husband decided to play
ancient Arab magician with a jar. I’ll go downstairs and get a flashlight and a
crowbar. We’ll get this thing open if it kills us.”
    “Harry,” said
Anna anxiously. “I don’t think we ought to. Not until the
morning, anyway.”
    “Don’t be so
superstitious. Look, there’s a lot about the occult I really believe in. I’ve
seen it for myself. But I don’t believe in this jar. All you have to do is wait here, and I’ll be back in two minutes with a
flashlight. If any mysterious Arabs try to pester you, just give me a shout.”
    Anna didn’t
look overjoyed at being left alone in the creepiest house she’d ever been in,
but it wasn’t going to help her morale or mine to let her come with me. She had
to see for herself there were no ghoulies or ghosties or long-legged beasties
at Winter Sails, and the sooner she did, the sooner we could amicably dispose
of the jar. I walked back along the long upstairs corridor, past the open door
of Max Greaves’ study, and down the narrow flight of wooden stairs to the dim
black-and-white hallway.
    Oddly, there
were no lights on downstairs, even though the blue gloom of evening was now
clogging every room. Perhaps Marjorie was sitting in the dark, having the
silent weep that she’d been bottling up in herself all day.
    “Marjorie?” I
said as I went into the drawing room and reached for the light switch. That one
didn’t work either, and the room remained in darkness. A fuse had probably
blown, and I expected that Marjorie was fixing it.
    I strained my
eyes, trying to see where she was. It looked as if there was someone sitting
quietly in one of the broken-down settees, or maybe it was just a coat that
someone had casually thrown down. A moment later, the coat or the person seemed
to have vanished. It was just a delusion of the dusk.
    Feeling my way,
I crossed the room toward the dining room door. It was half-open, and when I
peered through, I could see the faint gleam of evening light on the dining
table and the twinkle of glasses and decanters on the sideboard. I also had the
feeling that someone in a hood or a robe was sitting at the far end of the
table, his head lowered, but it was so dark I couldn’t quite make it out.
    “Marjorie?” I
called. “Is that you, Marjorie? It’s Harry.”
    I opened the
door and the room was empty. But I had the strangest sensation that someone had
just walked out of the other