The Haunting of H. G. Wells

by Robert Masello

The face above him—fleshy and broad, topped by a smooth beaver hat—was grinning with unconcealed pleasure.

  He struggled to loosen the grip, but the man was simply too strong, and too determined. His lungs bursting, Wells dug his nails into Schell’s thick fingers, trying without success to pry even one away, when the beaver hat unexpectedly sprang off his head . . . and the fingers slackened their hold.

  Wells gasped for a breath, and saw the face rear back, stunned, a bloody gash now smearing the temple. Before he could make sense of it, there was a blur as the truncheon struck again, and this time Schell slumped to one side. Wells gulped at the air, as the body toppled over.

  “H. G., are you all right?” Rebecca said, dropping to her knees, the weapon still in her hand.

  He couldn’t speak yet, but nodded instead.

  “Just try to catch your breath.”

  “What about . . . Graf?” was all he could get out.

  “I don’t know,” she said, quickly casting a wary look around the morbid environs. “I don’t see him anywhere.”

  “But he’s here,” Wells wheezed, painfully raising himself on one elbow, and inching away from the prostrate Schell. “He has to be . . . and he’s not done yet.”

  In confirmation, a shot rang out, the blast echoing off the Portland stone of the walls, off the gleaming porphyry and red granite of the mighty caskets lying in state. Rebecca, who had been crouching low, slumped over in a heap.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Graf’s heart leapt with joy the second after he’d pulled the trigger. Judging from the way the girl fell over, Graf had scored a direct hit—even though it was Wells he had been aiming at. But good enough—his target practice at the arcade had paid off.

  By the time he managed to get off a second round, however, Wells had rolled on top of her, and was dragging her toward the alcove where Schell had stashed the dead watchman.

  Graf realized he could stay and fight—part of him would have liked to—but the gunfire would only bring down other guards and he could wind up trapped in this cellar. If that happened, his grand scheme would be utterly thwarted and the final death toll would hardly register—even with the celebrated H. G. Wells among them. The great massacre he had planned would have devolved into a minor skirmish, hardly worth a mention in the papers the next day. No, there was only one course open to him—he had to make his way out of the crypt, and up to his planned destination, before it was too late. Already, he could hear the distant echo of the bishop’s amplified voice from the pulpit, reciting some biblical passage as part of the service.

  Keeping low, the viola case pressed to his chest and one eye on the alcove, he ran past Schell’s body—his fallen Goliath, the blond hair matted with blood—then onto the steps. Halfway up, he bumped into another watchman coming down, who said, “Who’re you?”

  “A musician,” he replied, “with the choir.”

  “What was that noise down here?”

  “Oh, that,” Graf said, slipping one hand back into the pocket of his overcoat and firing the revolver directly through it and into the man’s gut. The watchman crumpled over, groaning, then slid down the steps as Graf climbed the rest of the way up. Just before he emerged into the hall, he composed himself, straightened his collar, and stepped out, holding the viola case by its handle now. Everyone’s attention was focused on the pulpit, but a young man in a blue navy uniform, confined to a wheelchair at the end of an aisle, looked at him curiously. Graf smiled and nodded an acknowledgment, before walking with slow deliberation around the south transept and the baptismal font, then ducking into the stairway that led up to the library, the Whispering Gallery, and the massive dome that towered over not only the bulk of the cathedral, but the entire city of London itself.

  His destination was only a few hundred feet up, and with no further interruptions, he should be able to reach it in a matter of minutes. At that point, he anticipated nothing but the memorable crescendo to Operation Ottershaw.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  “Were you hit?” Rebecca whispered in the darkness of the alcove.

  “No, were you?”

  “No,” though the moment she had felt the first bullet whiz within an inch of her cheek, she had dropped to the floor. The second shot had ricocheted off the wall.

  “Do you think he’s gone?” H. G. murmured.

  “I heard footsteps on the stairs, and another shot.”

  Wells said, “You stay here,” and of course she refused. When, she wondered, would he ever take her true measure?

  He poked his head out of the archway, then ventured a few feet into the crypt. Rebecca followed, but slowly and unsteadily. The cut on her foot felt as if it were on fire, and her head was hot and feverish. Whatever she had sliced her foot on in Graf’s laboratory, it had infected her, just as Wells had suspected. Swinging the truncheon had taken every ounce of strength she had left; now she could barely stay upright.

  Wells had stepped over Schell’s body, and made his way to the staircase, where she now saw that another body—in the brown uniform of the St. Paul’s watchmen—lay crumpled. Wells had turned him over and was feeling for a pulse, in the wrist and then the neck. Looking up at her, he shook his head.

  “H. G., you have to go after Graf.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I can manage,” she said, with as much false conviction as she could muster. “Just hurry! I’ll raise the alarm.”

  As Wells slipped the standard-issue nightstick loose from the dead man’s belt and disappeared up the winding staircase, Rebecca suddenly felt her legs give out under her and she folded to her knees. Her hands tingled from the force of the blows she’d administered, and there were spatters of blood on the sleeve of her overcoat. She’d killed a man. The body was lying only feet away, as motionless as a statue. He was certainly someone who deserved to die, she’d had no choice, and even now felt no regrets. But a man was dead, nonetheless, and she—Cicily Fairfield—had done it. It was a thought that she would have found almost impossible to accept under the best of circumstances. But here, at this moment, in the crypt of St. Paul’s, on Ash Wednesday, with a fever smoldering inside her, it was all but incomprehensible. She felt as if her head would burst at the seams.

  Unable to remain erect at all, she lay flat, pressing her cheek to the cold, hard stone. The sensation was so blissful, she could not contain a sigh. As if holding a seashell to her ear, she could hear the faraway echo of the great cathedral, like a living thing, its breath rising and falling, all around her. Rising, and falling. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned an ancient dragon, slumbering in its cave. “But you must wake,” she was urging the dragon. “You must fight!” And it was then that she lost consciousness altogether.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  The winding stone steps were smooth and worn from centuries of use, and Anton Graf had to navigate them more slowly than he’d have liked. He didn’t want to risk slipping, or colliding unexpectedly with yet another watchman. He disliked killing on an individual scale—it was entirely too personal. And this was not personal. This was war.

  Schell was only its most recent casualty—and that had been to some extent his own fault. The sight of Wells being strangled was so riveting that he’d neglected to keep an eye on the ever-resourceful Rebecca West. When she’d swung that club at Schell’s skull, he’d been grudgingly impressed by her initiative . . . until he realized it had left him with little recourse but to take the revolver from his pocket and start shooting. He’d hoped to avoid such a noisy overture to the grand symphony that was to come.

  From the pulpit, he could still hear some sort of exhortation to the faithful, the empty, indecipherable words echoing around the immense chamber, lulling the multitude into an artificial sense of security. Well, let it be. Let them rise, with prayers on their lips, toward heaven; he would help them along.

  Rounding the second landing, he came to the library door, where he knocked, waited, then knocked again. Turning the handle, he found it un
locked, and slipped inside. The windows were concealed by blackout curtains, with a single gas lamp illuminating the tiered shelves of dark wood, packed with theological tomes. The chimney breast was adorned with a portrait of some bewigged church functionary, and a marble bust of Sir Christopher Wren, the size of a loaf of bread, presided over the main librarian’s desk. He locked the door behind him.

  This, he thought, was as good a place as any. He turned up the lamp, then, clearing away an open book of psalms, laid the viola case atop the desk, putting it down as gently as if he were consigning a baby to its cradle. Undoing the clasp, he opened the case and gazed at his makeshift bomb. A thing of beauty it was not, with one end blunt and one pointed, and a portion of the Guinness label still adhering to one of its tin panels, but it would more than do the job. It was a pity that, like a bee undone by wielding its stinger, the weapon itself would expire in the cataclysm. He would have to fashion an exact facsimile one day, for the kaiser’s private Wunderkammer.

  “Oh, so you must be the new verger?” he heard, and his head shot up in astonishment. An old man, bent nearly double, emerged from the towering shelves, with a heavy leather volume under his arm.

  The new what? Graf kicked himself—how could he have blundered like this? “Yes,” he said, buying time, “I’m the new one.”

  “What was that?” the old man said, cupping a hand behind one ear. “I didn’t expect you during services, for goodness’ sake.”

  No wonder he hadn’t heard him knocking, Graf thought, as he carefully closed the case again. The man was nearly deaf.

  “I decided to come in tonight.”

  The old man was coming closer, inching forward like a crab, and Graf did not dare to fire the gun again—not here. Looking around, his eye alighted on the bust of Wren.

  “I’m Spenser, though I’m sure you know that,” he said, plopping the book on the desk and extending a palsied hand. “Head librarian, lo these thirty years.”

  Graf shook it, but did not give a name.

  “What’s this?” Spenser said, regarding the viola case. “You are also a musician?”

  Graf could not brook any further delay. It was unfortunate, but time was of the essence, and as the old librarian bent to open the viola case, he took hold of the bust of Wren, and brought it down hard on the back of the man’s head. Stunned, the old man dropped to his knees, but remained upright. It took another swipe before he toppled over, but even then, to Graf’s surprise, his fingers grasped at the cuff of Graf’s trousers and held on.

  “Let go of that,” Graf said, shaking his leg and trying to jerk away, but in so doing his hip jarred the desk, the leather-bound book bumped against an inkstand, and then that, too, fell over, sending a sea of black ink spilling toward the viola case. Graf tried to stanch the flow with his sleeve, his arm inadvertently banging up against a brass desk lamp, which went crashing to the floor. What else could go wrong?

  “Gott in Himmel!” he muttered, ink dripping from his sleeve.

  And deaf old Spenser, against all odds, was still hanging on, as if to a lifeline. Graf delivered a swift kick to his head and the wind finally went out of the old fool’s sails.

  Good God, when would these nuisances stop? Graf thought. There was work to be done.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  When Wells had come up into the cathedral again, he’d looked in every direction, but the place was full, and there was no sign of Graf anywhere. The raised pulpit was straight before him, the minister delivering the close of his sermon—“And in this time of war, let us use the season of Lent to reflect upon the many hardships and sacrifices made by those who protect our kingdom from afar”—while Wells surveyed the choir stalls to his right, packed with young boys in black and white, holding their scores. Past them stood the high altar and the elaborate baldachin that sheltered it.

  But no, he thought, Graf could not have run there, not in full view of the choir and congregation. Wells turned the other way, back around the south transept, where the baptismal font stood. As he did so, his head swiveling anxiously to catch any sign of Graf, he saw a navy man, in a wheelchair, waving a hand to catch his eye. The man cocked his head and made the motion of someone sawing away at a violin.

  “Yes,” Wells mouthed, nodding his head vigorously. That’s the man I’m looking for. The sailor pointed at the arched doorway, with a brass plaque marking it as the staircase to the library. This was also the doorway to the renowned Whispering Gallery, constructed so cleverly that if someone whispered something to the wall at one end, his utterance could be heard perfectly by someone holding an ear against the wall anywhere else along its circumference. Wells charged to the door, threw it open, but saw no one ahead. He started up the winding steps, and at the second landing, had to pause, winded, clutching the banister. A door to his right was marked “Library Archives,” and he might have gone right by it, if it weren’t for the fact that behind it he heard what sounded like a tussle and a lamp crashing to the floor.

  He tried the handle, but the door was locked. He knocked forcefully, and all sound abruptly stopped. A moment later, the small sliver of light that had emanated from the threshold went out.

  “Graf, I know you’re in there!” Wells said, raising his voice to be heard above the first striking chords from the cathedral’s massive pipe organ. “Whatever you were planning, it’s over now!”

  The organ swelled, the full diapason from its mighty pipes rising up through the walls and floor, and Wells used the cover from the noise to bash the old door handle with his truncheon. Three quick blows and the antique brass fixture crumpled to pieces. Wells shoved the door open with his shoulder, but in the light spilling from the gas lamp on the landing, he saw no one. A lamp and a marble bust lay on the floor beside the main desk. Nothing moved inside the book-lined room.

  “I know you’re in here,” Wells announced. He kept himself low and to one side of the door, to make himself less of a target. “No point in running now.” Out of the corner of his eye, he now glimpsed an old man, absolutely still—dead?—sprawled behind the desk, in a pool of blood. Or could it be . . . ink?

  Cautiously, he stepped a few paces into the room, trying to stay in the shadows of the towering shelves, which stood in rows as orderly as soldiers on parade. “Game’s over,” he said.

  “Hardly, Mr. Wells.”

  His ears pricked up. Where precisely had the voice come from?

  “Though I had not expected you, of all people, to interfere.”

  “You know me?” Wells advanced slowly, trying to pinpoint the sound.

  “In a war of civilizations, the most technologically developed will prevail.”

  What was he talking about? Only one of his books came immediately to mind. “Not in The War of the Worlds, it didn’t,” he retorted.

  A chuckle, but from where? The man was weaving among the shelves.

  “Only because you introduced a deus ex machina. Germs.”

  His adversary’s stock in trade, Wells thought.

  “I thank you for the inspiration,” Graf said, now strangely close. Clutching the club, Wells surveyed the shelves looming all around him—the confessions of St. Augustine, the lives of the early church fathers—trying to peer between the hidebound volumes to see into the next aisle.

  “The humblest bacteria—” Graf murmured.

  Wells whirled around, the voice sounding now as if it had outflanked him.

  “—defeating the alien horde.”

  As if to taunt him, a single volume slid from an upper shelf, pushed by a finger, and splatted open to the floor behind him. Graf was plainly moving about.

  “That was just a story,” Wells said.

  “No. That was a manual.”

  “For what?” Wells simply wanted to keep him talking, to figure out where he was and perhaps get close enough to grapple with him.

  “It is a shame we have to finish now,” Graf said, “but I am on a rigorous schedule,” and Wells, hearing the click of the revolver a foot or tw
o away, leveled his arms and shoved a couple dozen books into the opposite aisle, ducking down just as the shot ripped through the space where they had been. He caught a glimpse of Graf’s narrow face, spectacles glittering, before it flitted away. Wells crawled into the next aisle, and squatted there, perfectly still, heart pounding.

  “If that one didn’t hit you,” Graf called out, his voice growing farther away, “the next one will.”

  But the next one did not come.

  Wells played dead until he heard the footsteps receding, then the door slamming shut, closing off all the light from the hall and leaving him in total darkness. He groped for an upper shelf to raise himself by, and then, praying that he had oriented himself correctly, moved toward the front of the library, feeling his way, elbows out, among the bookcases. He was desperate not to lose any more time in the pursuit . . . especially now that he had a much better—and more horrifying—idea of Graf’s plan.

  One that his own book had inspired.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  At first, the sensation was comforting. Warm. Embracing. Rebecca welcomed it, and although she knew that she had to get up and do something—raise an alarm?—she wanted to linger just as she was, the cool, grainy surface of the stone against her cheek, the languid arm across her shoulders. Her limbs felt as if they had no strength of their own, and her mind was foggy and uncertain.

  “Jaguar,” she murmured, imagining the arm to belong to her lover.

  But there was no reply. Only a hot breath on the back of her neck. Hot and foul.

  Something was wrong.

  The arm pressed down, and the bulk of a body seemed to be joining it. There was something damp on her skin. Spittle. She squirmed.

  “Sie schlagen mich.”

  Even her rudimentary German could translate that. You hit me.

  He lay almost entirely on top of her now, a dead weight like an elephant.

  She tried to wriggle away, but it was almost impossible to move at all. Even to breathe.