Read And The Devil Will Drag You Under (1979) for Free Online

So the arrangement is to integrate you with someone here, in this case that girl. I'm going to slip you in, so to speak, so you'll be inside her head, in full control of her mind and body."
    That thought was unsettling. "Then what becomes of her?" Jill asked.
    "Oh, she'll be there, just pushed way back into the unconscious. Her personality, that is. You'll have lim-ited access to her memory, which will include the basics like language. Occasional flashes of her past might come to you, along with certain knowledge, but it's not controllable. The moment you have the jewel in your hand, just wish yourself back to me. Saying my name would do it. That will restore her to normal, and, I assure you, both of them will be well rewarded for it."
    He paused a moment. "But time is pressing. Our Mr. Walters is on a slightly different time frame, but I better get to him soon or he could have some prob-lems where he is."
    With that Mogart left her side and walked to the area between the boy and girl, on the table, in fact. As he did so, she noticed for the first time a series of small cubes of onyx on the table-two dozen at least. Mogart stared down at the randomly scattered cubes and seemed to concentrate.
    The low fire in the back suddenly flared up, and a sudden gust of wind seemed to rush through the room. Both the boy and the girl suddenly looked at each other. The girl seemed scared.
    Then the cubes started moving, each appearing to take on a life of its own and to slide and form a pattern on the table. One end remained open, but Jill could already tell what the small cubes had formed.
    A pentagram.
    "Du grimp zworken ka mugu," the boy told his female partner.
    She remained frozen, staring into the center of the pentagram, the small opening in it right in front of her now. She didn't, couldn't, move.
    Jill McCulloch sympathized. This ritual was eerie enough when she could see Mogart, know who was doing it, and know at least a little of the man behind the magic. They couldn't-they saw only the flare and the wind and the cubes form the shape. It would scare the hell out of anybody.
    "The wind and fire flare are caused by the interac-tion of our existence, out of phase with theirs, coming in a bit," the wizard or demon or exiled professor or whatever he was told Jill matter-of-factly. He turned and faced the stricken girl and sighed. "Hmmm ... Well, I hate to do this, but . . ."
    With that he reached into that body-pouch of his and brought out the jewel itself. He held it out in front of him, stooped down, and placed it right in front of the girl's frightened eyes.
    "Rise!" he commanded. "Dugou!"
    The girl got up. She stood limply, blankly, as if she were an animated corpse, her eyes on the jewel Jill was sure she could not see. It was unsettling to watch such power being wielded, yet there was some reas-surance as well. Each jewel amplified the ones before by a factor of ten, Mogart had said. Six might well deflect an asteroid.
    "Enter the pentagram!" Mogart ordered, stepping back to the far limit of its small border to accommo-date her. The girl stepped forward, up onto the table, close to him and inside the figure.
    The cubes did not close behind her.
    Mogart turned to Jill. "Your turn," he called softly. "Enter by the opening. I think we'll all fit."
    She found herself walking to the table, walking up onto the hard surface, as if she had no will of her own.
    The onyx cubes closed behind her, forming a tight fit. Jill felt a little more herself now, although she found, just by trying to step back a bit, that she could not escape the pentagram. It was like a brick wall.
    She looked down and saw that the boy still sat, watching the whole thing with interest but no fear.
    Then Mogart stepped literally into the girl, so that both were occupying the same space. It was a weird sight, to say the least, to see the two together, yet not merging, as if they were some strange three-dimensional double exposure.
    The girl's mouth opened and uttered