Casino Infernale

by Simon R. Green

  “The monks could have left through the Fae Gate,” said Molly, “if they thought their enemies were closing in on them.”

  “Some of my ancestors explored that possibility,” I said. “They were quite positive no one had activated the Gate in years. Trammell Island has a long history of dark secrets, and sudden disappearances. People came here to do things they didn’t want the rest of the world to know about.”

  “I escaped through the Fae Gate,” said Molly. “It opened onto the wild woods, and then closed again, so I could be safe.”

  “What?” I said. “Escaped? Escaped from what, Molly?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, frowning. She looked suddenly confused, disoriented. “I don’t remember. And I didn’t even realise there was anything to remember, until just now.”

  She shuddered heavily, and not from the cold. Her eyes were fey and distant, her mouth pulled into a tight grimace.

  “The others will be here soon,” I said. Just to be saying something.

  “Let’s get inside the house,” said Molly. “I don’t like it out here. This whole island gives me the creeps.”

  • • •

  We headed towards Monkton Manse, Molly clinging tightly to my arm again. I was disturbed, because it wasn’t like Molly to be scared of anyone or anything. More usually, it was the other way round. The huge manor house loomed over us as we approached—dark and foreboding. Evening was falling fast on Trammell Island, and there were no lights on anywhere in the house. The dark windows seemed to study us like so many thoughtful eyes, planning and plotting. At least there weren’t any gargoyles. I’ve never liked gargoyles. We stopped before the massive oak door, which was, of course, very firmly closed and locked.

  “I suppose you know all about the house, as well?” said Molly, trying to keep her voice light.

  “Of course,” I said. “And no—there isn’t a key under the flowerpot. Why don’t you do a quick search for security spells, and hidden defences, while I regale you with the horrible history of Monkton Manse?”

  “Way ahead of you,” said Molly, rubbing her chin with a single gloved knuckle as she concentrated.

  “Monkton Manse was built on the ruins of the abandoned monastery building, in 1924,” I said. “Hence the name. By the first and last Lord of Trammell; otherwise known as Herbert Gregory Walliams. War profiteer, quite obscenely rich, and an utterly appalling person by all accounts. He bought Trammell Island so he could set it up as his very own independent kingdom, with him as its self-appointed lord, so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes. They were still fighting that one out in the courts when he died.”

  “Suddenly and violently and horribly, I trust?” said Molly. “And no, I’m not picking up any defences, of any kind.”

  “Once again, it’s hard to be sure what happened to him,” I said. “He held huge parties here, in his big new home away from home. Celebrations for the rich and famous, the idle and the eccentric, and celebrities of all kinds. There were quite a lot of all of those, back in the Roaring Twenties. Desperate to show they were still having a good time, even as the world closed in on them. Sex and drugs and really hot jazz—often for days or even weeks on end. There were scandals and atrocities, murders and suicides, and abominations of all kinds. It was all building up to a really nasty exposé, involving big names from politics and business as well as high and low society . . . when once again, it all went suddenly very quiet. A boatful of policemen and journalists, and certain other interested parties, arrived at the Island to discover everyone in Monkton Manse was dead. There were signs to suggest it all happened quite recently, over one very long night. They used guns and knives and blunt instruments, and finished the slaughter with their bare hands. There were signs some of the killers had paused to feast on the flesh of the victims before continuing their bloody business. The authorities found the first and last Lord of Trammell scattered all over the house; bits and pieces of him in every room.”

  “I can’t find a single defence, protection, or booby-trap anywhere,” said Molly. “Which is . . . odd. So, why did they all kill each other?”

  “No one knows,” I said. “Again, my ancestors investigated very thoroughly, and found nothing. Not a single answer, not even the smallest clue. I suppose it is possible the jaded partygoers went a little too far in their dabbling with the black arts . . . ventured into areas best left alone, and attracted the attention of . . . Something. Perhaps the same Something that came for the missing monks . . .

  “Monkton Manse was emptied out, cleaned up, and then sealed. Left to rot and fall apart, far and far from the civilised world. Trammell Island was declared off-limits, to everyone.” I looked at Molly. “And this is the place your parents brought you to? How old were you then?”

  “Fifteen,” said Molly. “And don’t you dare judge them. It’s not like they had much of a choice. It’s not easy finding places in this world that the Droods can’t see into. But . . . I don’t remember this as a bad place. I don’t remember anything but happy times here.”

  “In this house?” I said.

  We studied the closed, locked door. “You’ve got a key, haven’t you?” said Molly.

  “Of a sort,” I said.

  I subvocalised the activating Words, and Drood armour slipped out of the golden collar around my neck, and ran down my right arm to form a golden glove around my hand. I pressed one gleaming finger against the heavy brass lock, and golden filaments extended from my fingertip, filling the lock and forming into just the right key. I turned the key in the lock, pulled my armour back into my torc, and pushed the door open. It swung slowly inwards, revealing a dark, shadowed hallway. The hinges groaned loudly.

  “How very traditional,” said Molly.

  “Be fair,” I said. “No one’s oiled those hinges in years. You have to make allowances.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Molly. “In fact, I am famous for not making allowances. However . . . that is a very dark hallway.”

  I peered into the gloom. It was hard to make out anything much. “I haven’t been inside yet, and already I don’t like this place,” I said steadily. “It feels . . . unpleasant.”

  “Given that this island is still hidden from the eyes of the world by its mystical null, and thus the perfect place to hide from prying eyes, I’m surprised no one else has made use of it,” said Molly.

  “People have tried, down the years,” I said. “No one ever stays. Trammell Island has always had a really bad reputation, and I can understand why. This house is supposed to be haunted, you know.”

  “Who by?” said Molly.

  “Take your pick,” I said. “The missing monks, any number of dead partygoers, all the bits and pieces of the first and last Lord of Trammell . . .” I paused for a moment, before looking at Molly. “I have to ask—did the old White Horse Faction do . . . something bad here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Molly. “I don’t remember! But I do think that whatever happened here . . . the echoes still remain. I didn’t realise how much I’d forgotten about my time here. . . .”

  “Could this memory loss be connected to the death of your parents?” I said carefully. “Emotional trauma, perhaps?”

  “I don’t see why,” Molly said immediately. “It’s not like I was there, when it happened. No . . . no. This is the last place I remember being really happy. I was so happy here, with my parents.”

  “Aren’t you happy with me?” I asked.

  She shot me a quick smile. “You know I am. Stop fishing for compliments. This . . . was different.”

  “You had a happy childhood,” I said. “I’m glad one of us did.”

  “It didn’t last,” said Molly. “Your family killed my family.”

  “You know I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Yes. I know. My love . . .”

  She took hold of my hand, and held it tight. And together we wa
lked through the open doorway, and into the long dark hall of Monkton Manse.

  • • •

  We didn’t go far. We stopped just inside the door, and waited for our eyes to adjust to the gloom. Neither of us liked the feel of the place. The long hallway stretched away before us, its ending lost in dust-swirled air and shadows deep as the night. The silence had a heavy, oppressive quality. I called out to announce our presence, just in case, and the brooding presence of the place seemed to just swallow up my voice. There were no echoes, and nobody answered me. My vision quickly adjusted, and dim shadowy figures lining the length of the hall were revealed as suits of medieval armour. Set standing at irregular intervals, in unnatural, inhuman stances. Someone had daubed unpleasant mystical symbols on the dully gleaming steel in what looked very much like old dried blood. The steel helmets were all missing, replaced with sculpted heads of giant insects and alien monstrosities.

  Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, like an attic no one had visited in years. Some light fell in muddy streams through the smeared windows, but it made little progress into the stubborn shadows. I could smell damp on the air, and musk, and mushrooms. I decided very firmly that I wasn’t going to touch anything. I moved slowly forward, down the hall, with Molly moving quietly beside me. It felt like moving into enemy territory, with the threat of imminent attack from any number of unseen hiding places. Except, there was nobody home. I could tell. Just the house watching our every movement like a cat with a mouse.

  Rows of portraits lined both walls, painted in any number of styles; mostly head-and-shoulder portraits of the famous names who’d visited Monkton Manse, back in the twenties. None of them were smiling. And in many of them, the paint seemed to have . . . slipped, or melted, so that the famous faces seemed strange and monstrous. Perhaps that was how they’d looked after one too many parties in this awful place. There’s no hell so savage as the one we make for ourselves.

  “This isn’t how I remembered the house,” said Molly. Her voice sounded small, and lost. “I remember it as being full of light, and life, and laughter. I don’t remember any of this.”

  “You want me to take you out of here?” I said.

  “Hell with that!” she said immediately. “I never ran from a fight in my life, and I’m not about to start now. Though whether it’s a fight with this house, or my memories . . . this is weird, Shaman. I don’t remember anything of this.”

  We pressed on. The portraits changed, to show all the pretty people doing things of an increasingly nasty nature . . . including sex with things that weren’t in any way people. After a while I stopped looking. You can’t keep on being shocked; it wears you out. I couldn’t shake off a vague but definite feeling of being watched by nearby, unseen eyes. Molly stopped abruptly, and I stopped with her. She looked up at the heavy brass chandeliers overhead, still stuffed with the stumps of old candles. She snapped her fingers smartly, and all the candle stubs burst alight at once, shedding a comforting butter-yellow light down the length of the hallway. The light pressed back the shadows, but couldn’t dispel them. Or do much to improve the general uncomfortable atmosphere.

  Molly cried out suddenly, and pointed a shaking hand at a mirror mounted on the left-hand wall. I moved quickly forward to stand between her and whatever had alarmed her, and it was a measure of how unnerved she was that she let me do it. I glared about me, but couldn’t see anything immediately threatening. I looked at Molly, and she pointed again at the mirror on the wall. I strode over to stand before it, Molly sticking close to my side. I was becoming increasingly worried about Molly. This wasn’t like her. I studied the mirror carefully, ready to smash it to bits if necessary and to hell with the seven years bad luck, but nothing looked back at us except our own reflections.

  It doesn’t matter whether I’m being Eddie Drood or Shaman Bond, I always look like an ordinary, everyday kind of guy. Just another face in the crowd—no one you’d look at twice. Average height, average weight, the kind of nondescript features you’d forget in a moment. Best kind of look for a secret agent. It takes a lot of training, and a lot of practice, to look this forgettable, like no one in particular.

  Molly looked like a china doll with big bosoms, bobbed black hair, dark eyes in a sharply defined face, and a rosebud mouth red as sin itself. Normally, Molly took pride in appearing arrogant and assured enough to stare Medusa in the eye, and ask who the hell the Gorgon thought she was looking at. Molly Metcalf was a fighter and a brawler, ready to take on the whole damned world at a moment’s notice. Only . . . not here, not in this place that wasn’t at all what she remembered. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide, and in the mirror’s reflection she looked like a frightened little girl. I didn’t like that.

  What had really happened to Molly here, all those years ago?

  “What is it?” I said quietly. “What did you see in the mirror?”

  “A face,” she said, forcing the words out. “A great white face. Not human. Looking at me.”

  “Nothing there now but us,” I said, carefully. “It’s not like you to be . . . jumpy, Molly.”

  “No,” she said. “It isn’t.” She stood up a little straighter, gathering some of her old arrogance around her like familiar armour. “Eddie . . . yes, I know, I should say Shaman, but there’s no one else here, I can tell. . . . Can you see ghosts, through your armoured mask?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I can See pretty much anything when I’m in my armour. If there’s anything to be seen. You think there’s ghosts here?”

  “There’s something here,” Molly said flatly. “Do me a favour. Armour up and take a good look around. Tell me what this place looks like when it’s caught with its underwear down.”

  I called my armour out of my torc again, and it slipped over me from head to toe in a moment, like a second skin. I could see myself in the mirror, looking like an old-fashioned knight in armour, gleaming gold and glorious. My face mask was blank and featureless, not even any eyeholes; the better to scare the crap out of my enemies. But from inside, I could See everything. I always feel stronger, faster, sharper, when I’m in my armour. I can hear a mouse fart, or the wind change direction, and I can see infrared and ultraviolet. I can also See all kinds of things that are fortunately hidden from the everyday people of the everyday world. If people could See what they really share this world with, they’d shit themselves.

  But when I looked carefully up and down the hallway, I couldn’t See a single thing out of the ordinary. No ghostly figures, no stone tape memories repeating old actions in sealed loops, like an insect caught in amber. Nothing moved in the shadows or walked through the walls, and all I could hear were the slow shifting sounds of an old house settling itself. I armoured down, looked at Molly, and shook my head helplessly.

  “For a place where so many really bad things have happened, it’s actually very quiet here,” I said. “I still don’t care for the feel of the place, but I think that’s more down to atmosphere, history, and rising damp, than to anything supernatural.”

  “Then why is this house affecting me so badly?” said Molly. “All I have are good memories of my time here before. I actually looked forward to coming back here again!”

  “I think we need to phone home,” I said. “Check in with the man in charge; see if perhaps there’s something he didn’t get around to telling us about Monkton Manse.”

  I moved over to a nearby side table, reached into my pocket, and retrieved my computer laptop from my pocket dimension. I keep all kinds of useful items there. I wiped a thick coating of dust from the tabletop with my coat sleeve, and then set down the laptop and fired it up. I sent my armour back down my arm again, and delicate golden filaments surged into the laptop. Which is a bit like introducing nitrous oxide into the engine of a family car. The laptop danced about for a moment, like I’d goosed it when it wasn’t looking, and then settled down, its screen glowing bright. I tapped in the necessary start-up commands wi
th two fingers. One of these days I’m going to have to learn to type properly.

  “You really think you can reach anyone with that?” said Molly. “In the middle of a mystical null zone?”

  “I’d bet Drood armour against any kind of null zone, any day,” I said cheerfully. “The whole point of strange matter is that it trumps magic and science. . . . There! We have contact!”

  A pleasant, smiling face appeared on the screen, nodding politely to Molly and me. It wasn’t real; just a simulacrum set in place to take messages. The face looked just human enough to be subtly disturbing when it started to speak. The mouth movements were too stylised, and the eyes were just dead.

  “Hello. You have reached the Department of the Uncanny. Please state your name, and the office you wish to be connected with.”

  “This is Eddie Drood, on Trammell Island,” I said. “Put me through to the Regent.”

  “Please wait. Please be patient. Your call is important to us.”

  The face continued to smile, while the eyes remained lifeless. Orchestrated versions of old Britpop classics played remorselessly in the background.

  “This is what happens when you go to work for the Establishment,” I said. “Every chance they get, they do their best to bland you to death.”

  “Are you still happy you did the right thing in leaving the Droods for the Department?” said Molly.

  “Yes,” I said. “My family lied to me one time too often. Not least about the Regent of Shadows. They should have told me my grandfather was still alive. Hell, they should have told me my parents were still alive! I’m not sure how much trust I put in the Regent, or the Department, they’re both too close to the Government for my liking . . . but I need to put some space between my family and me. And how could I turn down a chance to work with my parents, and my grandfather?”

  “Very good,” said Molly. “Now try saying all that like you mean it.”

  I had to laugh. “Let us look on this . . . as an extended vacation. Getting away from it all in favour of cases that actually mean something to us. Are you happy to be working alongside me, Molly?”