dense, deep blue cloud seemed to gather around. The cloud became a fog. There came an unearthly scream and the room was suddenly filled with an appalling stench like that of a corrupt, cremated soul.
Through the cloud, Dryer saw the headless body crumble. One moment it was there, the next it just seemed to disintegrate. The cloud dissipated. And in that instant, there was an almost tangible reduction in air pressure and he knew that the power of the magic circle had also gone. All that remained of Smith was now a heap of slightly glowing embers. Resting atop them was one of the fused, molten, bronze heads.
There was no sign of the efreeti.
“What? What happened?” asked Dryer, eyes staring wildly from his head. Everything seemed so terribly fantastic, nightmarish. There was a whirling, raging chaos within his brain that threatened to pull him apart. He grasped his head in his hands and with wooden steps staggered from the circle.
“Be not alarmed.”
Dryer and Harris turned. The voice had come from Smith’s severed head, which now lay in the centre of a pool of dark blood, which had stained the thick carpet. There was a bright blue intensity in the eyes.
“The efreeti is bound once more. By permitting the djinn to possess me I have been able to contain it, force it back to the realm from which such beings come. Alas, I can feel my power waning. Farewell, Doctor Harris, my friend...and goodbye to you too, Inspector.” The bright sparkle in the eyes dwindled and then went out as though extinguished.
“I...I don’t—” Dryer stumbled to one side, managed to support himself on a cabinet.
Harris reached into his pocket and removed the one remaining Pazuzu head. He hesitated for a moment, examining it once more as though noting something strange about it. It was as he was doing so that it began to melt, the bronze flowing like super-heated wax despite the fact that it emitted no heat. The liquid bronze became rivulets that ran between his fingers before dripping to the carpet and disappearing, signalling that the thirty-year curse was finally over.
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