He froze in horror and a sudden rage flamed in the thing's eyes. It thrust out its neck and an angry hiss issued from its mottled beak. Emmet Telquist was galvanized into action. He knew what the thing wanted--life blood. Raising the knife, he advanced and was about to plunge it downward into the sheep when a new horror seized him. The ewe was already dead. The unspeakable presence which squatted beside it had already claimed it. It had died of fright. Its eyes were glazed and there was no indication that it still breathed. Remembering Theophilis Wenn's warning, "beware lest the beaste be dead", Emmet Telquist stood like a stone statue with the knife still upraised in his hand. Then he dropped it and ran. Darting between two menhirs, he plunged down the knoll and raced toward the swamp trail. Lifting its scaly neck, the presence on the slab looked after him and finally, hissing in fury, bounded off the stone and leaped in pursuit. One terrible shriek rang out and presently the thing hopped back onto the slab, holding in its bloody beak a dangling lifeless form, a fitting sacrifice. KILLER CAT It had occurred to him quite suddenly and he had acted on the impulse before there was time to ponder the matter. He had the little paper open and was slipping the barbital powder into a glass when the idea first came to him. For a half minute he just stood there while his heart beat faster. Then he dumped in three more of the powders and walked to the bedroom where his Aunt Martha lay softly moaning. She swallowed the drug without even opening her eyes and one hour later she was dead. It was as simple as that. Dr. Myerbron assured him that her heart had given out, showed no surprise and even hinted that he had expected her demise long before. Dennis Stonegate was no calloused murderer. Far from it. After the funeral when he had finally moved into his aunt's house for good, he assured himself on that point. He had, he told himself, acted through mercy. His aunt was suffering; Dr. Myerbron had tacitly admitted more than once that she would not recover; and certainly a few weeks or even months could make little difference to the semi-conscious invalid. Better to relieve her of suffering rather than permit her to linger and perhaps undergo worse tortures later on when her last powers of resistance were spent. He repeated this to himself so often he finally came to believe it. But secretly he knew otherwise. Some small insistent chamber in his brain kept whispering the truth. The truth was he had grown tired of waiting.