“Well, souls,” he said, “what now? The unholy three will be back sometime. You could go now. There is the wide black night to wander in.”
“No,” Big Bill said. “Now that you’re in this, give us your help, Saint. We need you.”
“Just what, then,” Simon asked, “are we trying to prevent, or accomplish?”
“Selden Appopoulis must not get his hands on the opal or Dawn. He wants both. He’ll stop at nothing to get them.”
“I believe you mentioned a curse breathed on this gewgaw by some Oriental character.”
Dawn Winter’s voice once more tangled itself in Simon’s heart. As long as he could remember that quality — of far-off bells at dusk, of cellos on a midnight hill — time would never again pass slowly enough.
“Death shall swoop on him,” she chanted, “who holds this ancient gem from its true possessor, but all manner of things shall plague him before that dark dread angel shall come to rest at his shoulder. His nights shall be sleepless with terror, and hurts shall dog his accursed steps by day. Beauty shall bring an end to the vandal.”
The mood of her strange incantation, far more than the actual words, seemed to linger on the air after she had finished, so that in spite of all rationality the Saint felt spectral fingers on his spine. He shook off the spell with conscious resolution.
“It sounds very impressive,” he murmured, “in a gruesome sort of way. Reminds me of one of those zombie pictures. But where, may I ask, does this place me in the scheme of dire events? I have the jewel.”
“You,” Big Bill Holbrook said, “will die, as I must, and as Trailer Mac and Jimmy must. They stole it from Dawn; I stole it from them.”