The Bestiarum Vocabulum (TRES LIBRORUM PROHIBITUM)

by Dean M. Drinkel

  “This one was Adam Keele,” he called back to Warder Will Fletch. He went to the next and recognised enough of Richard Priddy to be sure the man had stolen his last horse. Brewys identified seven, all told, but the last one he could not be sure of. It did not look like Scholler. “And yet,” he said to Fletch, “I cannot say it is unlike.” He rotated it with the toe of his boot and frowned at remaining shreds of flesh adhering to bone. Nose, lips, chin, eyes: all gone. Not a scrap of hair, nor morsel of skin; all gnawed away. He left the room, telling his minions, “Clear this and wash it down.”

  “And Scholler’s belongings?”

  “Pack the trunk with all that is his. I shall inform his cousin, Dr Dee, to collect it.”

  By evening, order was restored with an extra ration drawn to calm the lower cells. “Though the horse already bolted in that order,” Brewys was heard to say.

  Later, as darkness fell, an implacable unease crept through the place.

  Brewys stalked through dark passages lit frugally by whale oil lanterns that spread base fishy odours along with their sickly glimmer. Instinct told him that the matter was far from over. Prisoners remained missing. He did not believe all had been consumed by any natural creature, human or otherwise, and leave no trace. It seemed likely that some inmates had escaped – and on his watch. He knew the blame was not his, but he felt it keenly, none the less. He was convinced that some aspect of the affair was still to run its course within Newgate’s walls. He added men to the night watch. Not because he feared another uprising, but because it was disconcertingly quiet.

  “Some agency far darker than the Pit has them subdued, Will,” Brewys said.

  Fletch nodded. “Aye, sir. Gossip has it, demons and venomous wyrms are abroad.”

  “You believe that?”

  Fletch hesitated for the count of two full heart beats. “No sir. Though the sorcerer...of him, I’m not so certain.”

  Brewys glanced at his grim-faced lieutenant. “Nor I,” he grunted.

  They passed Scholler’s cell, cleared now of its macabre decoration, and descended to the lowest levels. Sentries, huddled around a small brazier of red charcoals in the warders’ snug, leapt to attention as Brewys walked by, but he paid them no heed.

  The passage ahead of him ended in a dead end. Five cell doors punctuated its length, each flanked by extra lanterns hastily added to give the warders a better view of any movement, any escape attempt.

  Brewys paused to peer through the door’s grille, holding his own lantern up close to highlight huddled figures crowded into the farthest corner, every man seeking succour in his neighbour’s warmth. A few faces lifted toward him, eyes glittering blue-green in the lantern beam, like wharf rats.

  “We have time for rest,” Brewys said. “Go home, Will Fletch.” Brewys watched him go, and then retired to the mute’s cell, opposite where the sorcerer had been held, and sat huddled in a blanket, sipping brandy, and waited for the unknown to show itself.

  ***

  I did not wake entirely as myself. Peering down along the length of my body I saw that my physical state was very similar to that which Adam Keele had witnessed when running from the Tavern. Though transition was swift, he could not have been certain of anything. Nevertheless, accusations of sorcery were rarely ignored. I fled the scene, but my arrest had come in my rooms just an hour later. There had been no opportunity to seek additional assistance from Cousin John. And he had not come to the prison to instruct me further.

  I shifted uncomfortably, aching in every joint, and bloated around in my gut. It was dark yet I was able to discern my surroundings with reasonable clarity. There was an arched tunnel, with the sound of running water close to hand – and the stench of raw sewerage. I had not been here before but it did not take close acquaintance to realise this was the gulley that emptied effluent into the open cesspit that was the river Fleet.

  I put a hand to my nose to filter the stench, but my fingers were so encrusted with muck that it made little difference. I winced as my nails scraped my cheek. I had not recalled them being so long. In the faint early morning glow that slanted through the grating above me, I became aware of the sickly pale hue of my nakedness. It made me think of a weevil grub, such as those I had seen unearthed in the vast orangery tubs on my father’s estate.

  I shuffled to the grating to give it a shake. It stood firm, its iron bars mortared deep into stone. There would be no easy escape that way. The ledge I knelt upon flanked the waste for as far as I could see into the gloom, for which I was grateful. I had no wish to wade through those fetid waters.

  I wrapped my arms around me, more for comfort than out of necessity. I felt no cold, as I knew I should; lack of warmth was not my concern – men were cold the country wide, but a naked man would most certainly draw attention. My priority was to clothe myself. I began walking, cautiously at first, afraid of slipping, but upon finding myself sure-footed as any goat, began to stride out with confidence. I could see well enough to distinguish path from stream, and continued with one hand trailing along the wall for added guidance. The ledge stopped by a doorway at a point where the water issued from a culvert. The door was not locked; it was probably there more to stop odours than prevent egress. I noticed a glimmer at the end of the passage beyond it, and I padded along its length, tensing against discovery at every moment.

  I soon found myself on a junction of stairway, corridor and alcove that led to a lit room. There was a well shaft, and clearly ancient judging by the wear in the stones. A handy bucket on a short length of frayed rope stood near the door, which I used it to dip for water and wash the worst of the culvert filth from me. That my ablutions polluted the clean waters of the well bothered me not at all. I had no intention of staying to drink from it.

  The water revived me. My senses remained sharp and yet at the same time distant, as though I had swilled wine too quickly. Not deep in the cups, only murky around the edges. I was not myself. Quite what I was I did not want to think, but I realised that I would need my notebooks and the details coded within their pages in order to deal with this instability until such time as I could reach Cousin John for more learned assistance.

  ***

  Warder Brewys kept watch from the empty cell opposite Scholler’s. He had accounted for all but a handful of prisoners. Three at least had plunged into the Fleet from an upper window. Brewys hoped they had not survived the jump. He was not a vindictive man but reports had already reached him of rape and thefts in farms surrounding Newgate, perpetrated by wild-eyed strangers. Brewys did not wish to think the prisoners who escaped on his watch were responsible.

  There was little Brewys could do about them. His attention and duty had to remain within these walls. One head remained unidentified in the sorcerer’s cell, and two men to whom it could belong: the sorcerer, Francis Scholler, or murderous thief, and Scholler’s accuser, Adam Keele. Keele was a violent, crazed creature more kindred to those rampaging beyond the walls. Brewys thought him quite capable of the atrocity that occurred in Scholler’s cell.

  Scholler was a mild, educated person, and yet Brewys considered that the most dangerous of men. He rubbed at his eyes as if to scour the images of the previous day from his memory. There may be some who fooled the magistrates with sleight of hand, disguising sorcery with so called philosophies and science, but none were stupid enough to leave evidence of that kind behind them. Brewys calculated Scholler would return to his cell for his books. A whisper of bare feet on stone flags carried to him readily through a door-less frame. He paused in the reading of his Common Prayer and snuffed out his solitary candle.

  ***

  Relatively clean, and oddly stronger, I made for the stairs. If I could find my books, and the vital information they contained, I was all but free. I crept up the stairway that led to my cell, making certain I could hear no footfall as I raced up the curving funnel, coming out on the landing breathing only slightly harder.

  The room reeked of vinegar and the floor was gritty beneath my feet wi
th scouring sand. The bed frame was there, without covers or paillasse. The chairs and table, broken in a wild fight, were gone. Next to the bed frame stood my oak chest. I scuttled across to open it, dragging out breeches and tunic to cover my nakedness. There were no boots; I had not the money to possess more than one pair. The soft slippers would have to do, perhaps even be preferred when they made little noise on stone flagging.

  I looked around me and shuddered. Memory of what had taken place here was hazy, but I retained enough clarity to shiver as it went through me like a frozen river. The human remains I had left behind – now removed – would not be readily identified. With luck the Warders thought me dead and would no longer be searching. The dais beneath the window drew my attention and John’s litany swelled in my mind with the memory of being there last night. My joints were pinched with the shards of vaguely remembered pain, and my senses shifted like a head filled with brandy.

  That place, that room’s residual aura, was distorting my focus and I knew that remaining there left me in serious risk of once more losing myself to the Hound. I rummaged in the chest and laid a hand on the leather-bound notebook. Relief rushed through me, and for a brief moment all of my senses shifted into sharper focus. A pain ran through my arms and I withdrew my hand from the chest. Looking at my throbbing limb I drew sudden breath. My hand was not a hand, not my hand, but part...something else. Hair-covered and elongated as before. Imagination? Residual glamour? Cousin John had assured me the affect was more sham than anything akin to reality. My vision shimmered again, and I returned to normality. I released air from my lungs in a grateful rush.

  Though the passageway was empty there were noises from the lower stairs. Voices. Footsteps. People. I felt an urgency to flee, not merely in my rational mind but in my blood, in my very bones.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pushing away John Dee’s words that were imprinted on my mind like a fiery brand.

  I opened my eyes slowly, and looked at my hands, and sighed. Pale, smooth fingers with carefully trimmed nails. When I glanced up again I was looking into the craggy face of Warder Brewys.

  “Master Scholler,” he said. “You have returned.”

  “Warder,” I looked behind him, seeking escape. He was alone, and I smiled. I had no wish to harm him, though I would have less compunction with some of his men. As it was I could be past him and gone in seconds, provided my newly realised alter ego was not distracted by his scent. Fear was a perfume that made my gums water.

  The warder raised his hand and let fly with a dagger, and in the same moment I dropped to my knees. I gasped for breath, the pain in my chest stilling to numbness. Heat then returned to my body and with it the pain in joints and muscles.

  My smile broadened as Brewys stepped back, though I dread to think how that smile appeared in a face I knew to be so altered. I leaped forward, muscling him aside, and bounded down the stairwell. This time my human senses remained with me to some degree. I remained sufficiently sentient to reason that the shouted orders from Warder Brewys made escape through the gates next to impossible. I loped back through the passageways along which I had travelled; back down toward the lower level, and the only place unlikely to be searched.

  I had reached the sewer passage door when it occurred to me that, in my current form, I would not be able to open it. So it was with initial relief that I arrived to find it sufficiently ajar to allow me to claw it open and slip into the deeper gloom beyond. It was logical that my altered state had affected my reasoning. But as I could recall nothing of my first transition to hound-form this was at least an improvement. I paused, scenting the fetid air and suppressing a sneeze. I drew breath through damp nostrils and savoured the mass of information that flooded my senses, filtering each separate scent as easily as a man might sort wheat from chaff.

  Man or more exactly, men. And in addition to their sweat of fear and lack of hygiene I detected their exertion. Muffled blows and suppressed curses carried clearly to me. I recognised the voices even if this world of scent was new to me.

  The voices were imprinted on my mind in human and canid form as associates to Adam Keele, howling my name and imploring his companions to “kill the sorcerer”. I had no doubt they’d intended to make a meal of me as they had the poor wretch in the other cell.

  I would have smiled had my jaws and lips been able, but all I could do was let my tongue loll and to pant quietly; the sensation of a gently swinging tail behind was oddly comforting.

  I trotted along the ledge, more sure-footed than when I had walked it before. I went in almost-silence, head low to take in the trail of my foe, though I hardly needed it. Outlined against a faint glow two men bent to the grill bars buried deep in the stone, with what first appeared to be bolster and chisel. Closer to, I realised it was a section of broken bar and a large stone.

  They didn’t hear me. They didn’t smell me, nor did they see me until my jaws were closing on the first throat. Blood rushed into my gullet and spilled across the floor. Skin and sinew squelched between my teeth and incisors scraped against bone. The first body was slumping into the foul water, dragging me with it. The second prey let out a scream and began to run. Dropping the corpse I took off after him, excitement of the chase tempted me to allow him time and prolong the thrill, but he was slithering too quickly toward the doorway, uttering shrill sounds of wordless panic.

  Lunging forward, I snapped at his ankle, separating the strings of his heel from bone. He fell, sliding into the stream, still bellowing like a pig. A second lunge took out his voice and the twitching body levelled out into the water to slowly bump and jerk toward his partner. I kept pace along the ledge, watching closely for any attempt to rise, but there were none. It came to rest against the bars and I watched both bodies oscillating in the water flow.

  With danger passed I felt myself shifting back to hairless human form. I would have shivered except that I did not feel the cold. I looked down at the broken end of a dagger blade lodged in my chest. Brewys was a fine bladesman to find my heart. I attempted to pick the steel from me but it was lodged fast through the breast bone. As I felt no pain there seemed little sense in bothering with it as yet. I moved forward and bent to turn the body. My hand passed through it and I fell back on my haunches in shock. Was I a shade?

  Fear pulsed through me and I was all of a sudden the hound once more. Instinct made me lash out at the nearest body, shaving a jaw full of meat from it and gulping it down and relishing the iron-tanged flavour. My stomach boiled for more but I stepped backwards, gazing at the damage I had inflicted on flesh that moments before I had been unable to touch.

  Half a shade only, then?

  Beyond the barred exit an outline of a small boat cruised past, oars creaking in the cups, stealthy as it must be at this hour. I willed myself back to human form and stalked up to the barrier, and stepped my incorporeal body through, walking across the surface of the water toward the far side of the fleet, and freedom...of a kind.

  C Is For Chupacraba

  Harold & Maude

  Martin Roberts

  Morning sickness.

  The number one search result coughed up moments after decorating the toilet with the half digested remains of a late-night supper.

  Utter rubbish. Never trust Dr. Google.

  Nurse Bing? Pathetic.

  The facts were simple. No sex life to speak of and a penis between his legs ruled out pregnancy as a cause of his symptoms.

  Harold rubs the crust from his chin and closes down the laptop, taking care not to cover it in vomit. Startled by the strident battle cry of the Time Team theme Harold places all bets on green and hits the answer button on his phone.

  “Harry, can you hear me?” His sister pauses, awaits acknowledgement.

  He pictures her counting backwards from ten down to zero. Silently mouthing digits, a childhood habit she never tires of repeating.

  Ten.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Six.
>
  Five. Four. Three. Two. And...

  “I’m not deaf Moo; I can hear you perfectly well.”

  Tucking the mobile device under his chin like a makeshift hands free kit, Harold fills a glass with cool water to rinse the taste of burial ground dirt from the shallow grave of his mouth. Maude’s almost spectral ability to second guess his actions never fails to amaze him. It also helps that her bedroom was located in the next room, divided by thin, paper- mâché walls.

  “Good, now tell me you’ve booked an appointment with a real doctor.”

  ***

  The waiting room was soulless. Modern. Harold checked in by hitting the bull’s eye on the touch screen monitor wedged as an afterthought beneath a poster proclaiming your child won’t talk about excrement and that some guy called Eric had set up a government sponsored organisation to help.

  With a quick survey of his surroundings, he chooses a seat at the furthest point from the annoying airport swoosh of automatic doors and tries to find comfort in plastic, seating provided to the largely sick clientele.

  “Vitmin B9, that nice Asian girl you know, one that works down at Tesco’s sayd it waz good.”

  The heavily pregnant woman continues flicking through something bound and glossy resting on her lap. Her friend pops chewing gum in response. An elderly gent sitting on the next chair over must have finally reached his decision to escape the chattering women. ‘Flat cap’ shuffles off to find solace in the men’s toilets, taking a gamble that time was on his side, and his name would not be announced via LED lights the colour of blood.