Monstrous Devices

by Damien Love

  A single lamp glowed weakly, making the gloom around it even darker. Morecambe stood in the shadowy corner looking back and forth from the back door to the closed doorway beside it. Sweat glistened greasily on his forehead.

  “It must have been him,” he said, speaking to himself. His hands worked wetly at the shotgun. Pulling at the bowtie around his neck, he seemed equally scared and excited.

  “Stupid boy,” he said, voice suddenly sharp. “What were you thinking? Burying it in the snow? You think this is a child’s game? A treasure hunt? I could . . . We could have had it to ourselves.”

  “What?” Alex felt stung. He had never been so tired, but on the far edge of his fatigue, something was dimly nagging at him, if he only had the energy to focus on it. Morecambe’s actions threw him. In all the effort it had taken to get here, he hadn’t tried to imagine what Harry might be like. But he would never have pictured this. The man had a perplexing coldness. Alex’s grief over his grandfather was hot, constant, but the old man’s friend had barely flinched at the news. He was far more concerned about the tin robot. Then again, Alex knew the toy was part of something bigger. Maybe Morecambe had his reasons.

  “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left it out there. I didn’t know what—” Alex sagged, legs failing. He collapsed onto a chair. “I don’t feel well. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what’s happening.”

  “No,” Morecambe rubbed his nose itchily with the back of his wrist. “You don’t. Well, you’ll see soon enough. He’ll be here soon, I suppose.”

  “Shouldn’t we go?” Alex said, half rising. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?”

  “No.” Morecambe raised the gun, almost pointing it at Alex. “Stupid boy. You stay. We stay.”

  Confused, angry in a weary way, Alex bent forward, putting his forehead to the table. He felt dreadful. Various pools of pain and fear ran together, spreading to ache in his joints. It was fully dark outside now.

  “He told me a little,” Alex said, without lifting his head. “Grandad. Well, he started to. About the golem. In Prague.”

  “Oh yes?” Morecambe peered dimly from across the room. “And what did he tell you?”

  “Well, nothing much. He started telling me about the guy who made it, the golem, I mean. That was about it. I really think we should get out of here.”

  He said the last part almost reluctantly. He wanted to talk about the toy robot, even if he didn’t know what he was talking about. He felt sure Morecambe had more to tell him. And the idea of waiting and seeing it again, even in the tall man’s hands, even after everything . . . He realized with shame it felt strangely good. Maybe he and Morecambe could get it back. They had the gun.

  “No,” Morecambe said. “We wait. So now. Did your grandfather tell you how the golem was given life?” He leaned intently across the table.

  “Uh, no. I mean, magic, wasn’t it? It’s just a story.”

  Morecambe straightened, tutting a disgusted noise.

  “Tch. Magic. Stories. Typical. He is a child, your grandfather . . . Sorry. I should say was, shouldn’t I? A silly man, everything a game, an adventure. He left you unprepared. Unaware. He didn’t tell you about the name of God?”

  “What? No . . . the what?”

  “The name of God. This is how the master Rabbi Loew gave his golem life, by using the holy and awesome seventy-two-part name.”

  Alex blinked stupidly at him. Morecambe hissed another impatient sound. The dim lamp buzzed in the ever-darkening kitchen. Vague snow flurried at the window, white streaks fleeting against black.

  “Tchhhh. The seventy-two-part name of God,” Morecambe repeated. “A secret name. The true name.”

  “God’s . . . name?” Alex ventured, trying to follow. “I thought he was just called, you know, God.”

  “This is pointless talking with you,” Morecambe spat.

  “Yeah, okay. God’s got a secret name, great. So what is it? Barry?”

  “You,” Morecambe hissed, “are blind and deaf and don’t even know it. The most powerful name. The name revealed to Moses at the burning bush! The name used to part the Red Sea! Were I to try and say the seventy-two-part name, you would see me destroyed before you. Struck down. Consumed by fire. But for those who have studied truly and wisely, who have prepared themselves in body and mind—to them, all power. The power to create with a word! To destroy with a wor—”

  He stopped abruptly, turning his head, listening hard.

  “What—” Alex began.

  Morecambe hushed him furiously.

  The lamp buzzed in the silence.

  “There!” Morecambe whispered. “Did you hear?”

  Alex shook his head.

  “Ach.”

  Morecambe’s hands fretted at his gun. He suddenly raised it to Alex again, wide eyes wild in the weak light.

  “You must have heard that!”

  “I didn’t hear anything!” Alex whispered. The shadows seemed to move. Thoughts of the secret name of God, of being consumed by fire, swam around the room. Another thought struck him, bubbling up out of his exhaustion.

  “Why would the tall man come back here? I mean, if he’s got it . . .”

  “Ach.” Morecambe glanced fearfully at the unlit corridor leading out of the kitchen. He shook his gun at Alex. “Stay here, you.”

  “No!” Alex looked at the murk beyond the doorway, suddenly terrified at what was out there. “Don’t go.”

  “Shhh,” Morecambe spat. Gun before him, he started stalking warily toward the corridor, walking out of the light. He paused at the threshold, looked back at Alex, nervously licking his lips, a pale face floating in the gloom. Then he turned and went on, swallowed utterly by darkness.

  Silence. The lamp buzzed.

  Alex strained to squint after him. All he saw was the empty black hole of the corridor.

  The lamp buzzed. Seconds crawled past, one after the other. The devouring black doorway loomed on the edge of the room like an open grave. He couldn’t move.

  The lamp buzzed.

  Then: a loud, flat bang.

  A scuffle and scrape.

  Silence. New, sharper silence. Long, desolate seconds of it.

  A faint, despairing groan.

  The lamp buzzed.

  A slow, dragging shuffle and scrape.

  This shuffling dragged slowly closer. Alex gaped in horror at the gaping black corridor. Something began to resolve there in the gloom, slowly taking pale shape, shambling nearer.

  Eventually, the shape became Morecambe, dragging his feet, staggering weakly out of the darkness, clutching oddly at himself with one hand. The other reached out to Alex, groping terribly for help in the empty air.

  Morecambe’s eyes bulged, staring horribly at Alex without seeing him. His mouth opened and closed noiselessly. A few steps into the kitchen, he pitched forward, collapsed face-first to the floor, lay unmoving in the half-light.

  Alex sat rooted to the spot. It was all he could do to lift his gaze from Morecambe’s prone body back to the corridor.

  Nothing there but black silence.

  The lamp buzzed.

  Then: a small stirring in the black.

  Blinking, Alex could now faintly see a small, dim amber-colored spot. A tiny orangey glow, hovering silently down there in the dark, floating a little above eye level. It seemed to stare at him.

  It moved oddly. It vanished. It came back, burning brighter, nearer.

  Alex sat paralyzed, unable to think or move or feel anything beyond fear as he watched the little glow bobbing toward him. There and then not there, and then there again, winking in and out of existence.

  Closer it came, closer again.

  At the point where he felt he couldn’t take it any longer, a voice spoke from the darkness.

  “Sorry, Alex.”
/>   A tall gray figure stepped from the corridor into the light, disheveled but elegant. He carried the shotgun loosely balanced in the crook of one arm. A battered cane hung from his other hand. A cigarette burned between his lips, glowing as he puffed at it.

  “I seem to have started smoking again.”

  “Grandad!” Alex cried.

  He felt all the sickness and fear drain out of him as he pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet. And then he must have fainted, because he didn’t feel anything else.

  XV.

  A CATCH-UP AND SCRAMBLED EGGS

  A SOUND OF voices from another room woke him.

  Alex found himself on a bed in a darkened room, a blanket over him. A weak angle of light leaked in through the doorway. Throwing back the covers, he saw his scratched hands had been cleaned and dressed. He followed the light, down a curving staircase, along a corridor, back into the now brightly lit kitchen.

  His grandfather stood by the stove in his shirtsleeves, stirring a huge pan of scrambled eggs.

  “Ah!” he said, looking up, a dusty bruise on his forehead. “Perfect. Just in time.”

  Alex blinked dumbly, trying to make sense of the scene. Behind his grandfather, Morecambe sat morosely at the table, head in hands. Alex’s rucksack lay open on a chair. A few things from inside were spread on the table around the robot’s bright, empty old box.

  “I—” Alex began. He broke off as the door in the corner opened, making him start back in fright.

  A man he had never seen emerged, gazing down at something in his hand. He was around his grandfather’s age, thickset, with short gray-blond hair. Looking up, he smiled at Alex, one eye screwed around a jeweler’s eyeglass.

  “Evenin’, son,” this stranger chirped in a Cockney accent. “Gawd,” he continued, turning to Alex’s grandfather and nodding at Alex, “lookit the size of ’im. Not seen you since you were a nipper, Alex. Tiny-wee you was. Knee-’igh to a baby grass’opper.”

  Alex said nothing, staring at what he held.

  The robot.

  “What,” Alex tried. “Who—”

  Gripping Alex gently by the shoulders, his grandfather steered him to the table. The unknown man pulled out a chair and sat beside him.

  “First things first,” Alex’s grandfather said. “What you need is some scrambled eggs.” He paused, considering. “Or should that be ‘are some scrambled eggs’? Harry?”

  “Beats me,” the man replied, bending to squint through his eyeglass at the robot. He pulled a small lamp at his elbow closer. “Grammar was never my strong suit.”

  “Alex,” his grandfather said, “meet my good friend Harry Morecambe, whose beautiful home this is.”

  The man removed his eyeglass and held out a big hand. Alex shook it in distant bewilderment.

  “Lovely to see you again, son,” Harry said. “Though you won’t remember the last time.” He smiled and stretched to Alex’s things on the table. “But this takes me back.” He tapped the photograph of Alex’s mum and dad, lying on top of the pile.

  “No watercress.” Alex’s grandfather sighed as he placed plates of eggs and toast before them. “But needs must.” He sat, rubbed his hands together, and started eating with gusto.

  “Quite superb,” he mumbled happily through his mouthful. “Y’know, I can never get my eggs like this back home. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the butter. Or maybe it’s just the eggs? What do they feed French chickens, Harry?”

  “Ach.” The man Alex had previously known as Morecambe muttered in bleak exasperation and slumped forward, putting his forehead to the table.

  “But I thought,” Alex began, then stopped, trying to work out what he had thought. His grandfather leaned over and placed a fork in his hand.

  “Eat something,” the old man said gently but firmly. “Probably don’t have much time.”

  Alex had been following everything his grandfather did in a trance, amazed to see him doing anything. Now, though, he snapped out of it as he remembered how frustrating the old man could be. Scowling, he huffily scooped up some eggs and began a petulant display of chewing. After half a second, however, he realized his grandfather was right: these eggs were wonderful, and eating them was indeed the most important thing in the world right now.

  “Should’ve made double helpings,” his grandfather said when they had almost done. He mopped a last buttery corner of toast around his plate with sad satisfaction before pushing it away. “Ah, well.”

  “Less is more,” the man Alex now knew to be Harry Morecambe said, still scrutinizing the toy.

  “In architecture, yes. In other areas of design, often, if not always,” Alex’s grandfather said, dabbing his mouth with a napkin. “When it comes to a good plateful of scrambled eggs, though, I think you’ll find there are definite camps of opinion.”

  The other man gently banged his forehead on the table.

  “Now,” Alex’s grandfather said. “Questions.”

  Alex grabbed the first he could get hold of. “Who,” he said, pointing his toast at the mysterious man who wasn’t Harry, “is that?”

  “Ah,” his grandfather said. “Alex, this is Colonel the Baron von Sudenfeld. Known to his friends, of which there are few, as Willy.”

  The man glared up at Alex. “Charmed,” he muttered with a queasy sarcastic smile. He lowered his head to the table again.

  “You remember, when we were talking about the robot before?” Alex’s grandfather went on. “I told you Loewy had made three copies, and two were in the hands of collectors? Well, Old Willy the Colonel the Baron here is one of them. Always been a solitary soul, has Willy, but lately it would seem he’s thrown in with, eh, you know, the fellow who has been causing us so much trouble.”

  “I thought he was Harry.”

  “Yes, well, that’s through no fault of your own, Alex. You find Harry’s house, you find a man in it, he tells you he’s Harry, and what are you supposed to think? Although—and no offense here, Willy.”

  “Oh, but none taken, I’m sure,” von Sudenfeld muttered without lifting his head.

  “But I would like to think you would have begun to realize before too long that he’s not exactly the splendid sort of fellow I would have as one of my very closest friends.”

  “Aw, shucks.” Harry beamed.

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “I had wondered. He’s not very nice.”

  “Don’t mind me,” von Sudenfeld said. “Just you all go right along with your conversations as though I’m not even here.”

  “I think you’ve been let off lightly as it is,” Alex’s grandfather snapped back, glowering. The old man turned to Alex with a smile, leaning in conspiratorially. “Piece of advice, Alex. Always be wary of a man who chooses to wear a bow tie. If there’s only one thing I can teach you in life, let it be that. Now, you see that door there?” He nodded to the corner. “Leads to the cellar. Where, actually, among other things, there are some rather fine wines, I seem to remember, Harry. Don’t suppose you fancy a quick little glass of something?”

  “Thought you’d never ask,” Harry said, disappearing eagerly.

  “That’s where Harry was,” Alex’s grandfather went on. “Tied to a chair down there, gagged.”

  Alex nodded numbly. Something cold and hot and urgent welled inside him.

  “I thought you’d died! I saw you fall!”

  The old man leaned quickly over, put an arm around his shoulder.

  “Here, now. It’s okay. I’m okay, I’m here. See?” He squeezed Alex tight. “This is me. Still kicking.”

  “But I saw you fall . . .”

  “Oh yes,” the old man said, letting go. “I fell all right, went skidding down the roof. Knocked out for a second, I think. Came to just as I was coming to the edge and managed to catch hold. So there I was— Ah, thanks, Harry,” he said as Harry reappeared, handing him a large glas
s of red wine.

  “Mmm. Oh, very passable, Harry, well done. So, there I was, hanging there, thinking about the thing to do, when I felt this tugging at my legs. Life-sizers. Two of them, standing on the balcony below, one on the other’s shoulders. Well, it got hold of me, pulled me away from the roof—I thought we were all going to go toppling to the street. But they got me down, then gave me a quick punch—bloodied my nose, actually.”

  He pulled at his red-smeared shirt collar.

  “Shirt’s ruined. Next thing I know, I’m waking bundled up inside what turns out to be the case for a double bass. I can feel myself being dragged along, then we stop and I’m dropped. I get ready to spring out and have at them when they open it—but nothing happens. Just some curious noises.

  “They had some damned fiendish lock on the case, so I couldn’t get it open at first, but I managed to budge the lid enough to peek out. They’d taken me off along some lonely part of the Métro line, an abandoned tunnel. And what do I see but two life-sizers, fighting each other. One seemed to have gone haywire, but it was still putting up a decent effort.”

  “But that was me!” Alex interrupted. He quickly relayed his adventures since he had seen his grandfather last.

  “My word,” the old man murmured at length, tapping a finger at his lip. “Good show, Alex. You’ve done yourself proud. And me.”

  “They don’t fall far from the tree,” Harry chipped in, beaming, then stopped abruptly. He exchanged a serious glance with Alex’s grandfather, then bent back to the robot, tapping softly at its chest with a tiny screwdriver.

  “Anyway,” the old man continued, “the other machine finished off the damaged one soon enough. By that time, I had just about managed to wrestle myself out of the case, and it was coming at me, but it didn’t have much fight left. Probably running out of juice. They need, ah, charging up, every now and then.

  “But as we’re fighting, we’re joined by the villain of the piece and his two shaven-headed goons. There are hidden entrances from the Métro leading into the Catacombs, the old burial tunnels under Paris, and I suspect our friend has set up a lair down there where he planned to invite me to join him for some uninterrupted interrogation about where I might have hidden our robot. He has rather a dramatic bent, all very Phantom of the Opera. So, as you can probably imagine, there was some escaping and chasing, all the usual rigmarole. I kept them busy for a few hours, until I finally managed to give them the slip. Then I headed down here.