The combatants were some twelve or thirteen yards away and I rushed to close the gap between us, cursing myself for leaving my pistol—which I rarely carried in those days—at my hotel. Though the distance wasn’t great, I had little hope of beating the Chinese-speaking pair to their target and within a moment, the larger attacker had reached his intended victim. The targeted man, having no place to run, concentrated on keeping whatever goods he held in his satchel out of the other man’s grasp, apparently valuing it more than his own safety as he ducked and wove beneath blows and avoided outstretched fingers quite admirably. Despite his agility, however, the space was limited and with two sets of arms to his one, the result was inevitable.
Until I crashed headlong into the larger man, grappling him about the waist and tackling him to the dirt with me!
I don’t consider myself a brawler, but I was in quite good shape as a youth and the fact that none of the others in the alley had noticed my presence gave me the element of surprise. That advantage did not last long, however, against a man obviously used to hand-to-hand combat. My opponent neatly twisted around in my grip, sprung to his feet and answered my clumsy attack with a short, fast jab from a heavy fist that found the point of my chin and sent me sprawling backwards.
There was a split second of blackness, punctuated by growled, unintelligible words that nonetheless clearly expressed both surprise and anger at my intrusion. I blindly scrabbled backwards until I came up against a wall and used it to pull myself to my feet, just as my vision began to clear. There was no respite, though, as the man was now coming at me full-out, his original quarry temporarily forgotten as he sought to punish my interference.
Remembering the crashing weight of those fists, however, I readied myself this time and at the very last instant, spun to the side, ducked low and swung upwards to plant a fist of my own in my attacker’s solar plexus. He grunted, but lost no momentum and threw a left hook that took me in the shoulder, sending waves of dull pain throbbing through my entire right side.
The blow was enough to take my breath, but I had no time to regain it, for my attacker’s momentum had also impelled him forward and past me into an off-balance stance that gave me a clear opportunity. I balled up the fist of my uninjured arm and, swinging from the waist, lobbed as powerful a blow as I could directly at the unprotected side of the man’s neck!
This time, his own breath caught as he gasped, choked and then went to his knees, clutching at his throat. I swung again, punching him full in the face with as much strength as I had left—but even that didn’t knock the big man unconscious, merely dumped him onto the seat of his pants, leaving him gasping for breath with a trickle of blood running from his nose.
“Please don’t get back up,” I said, truly hoping he’d heed my request.
My battle had been brief, but fortunes can change in an instant. I hoped the young man I’d sought to help had fared as well as I—hope that was dashed when my eyes landed on the far end of the alley.
The second Chinese man had the young Indian on the ground, straddling the prone man’s chest and using his knees to pin both his victim’s arms in place. The young man thrashed impotently and, unable to dislodge the other’s weight or overcome his strength, he could do nothing but scream, “No! Please, stop this! You’ve no idea what you’re doing!”
I moved quickly, but stopped in my tracks as, once again, the wisps of the Outer Circle that I had earlier seen about the pair of attackers began to make themselves known. As the man stretched out his hand towards the leather sack that had fallen nearby, tendrils of unwholesome energy flared up and snaked out towards the object, seeking it out ahead of his fingers, like plant-shoots striving towards the sun.
By what process this man had been imbued with the literal touch of the supernatural I had no inkling, nor of what was in the bag, but I knew he must not be allowed to reach it. Even as I ran, my fingers began to make the fourth sign of the Saaamaaa ritual—but to no avail. Before I’d completed more than a few glyphs, the dark energy stretching from the man’s hand made contact with the bag and everything came to a standstill.
It was as if time had been stolen away from me. It lasted no more than an instant, but in that lost moment, the tableau before me had shifted completely; the Indian and I were alone in the alley, both attackers and cargo gone without a trace.
Slightly dumbstruck, I looked towards the young man, who still lay on the ground where his attacker had left him, only now propped up on one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other.
“Are you all right?” I asked, extending a hand to help him up.
My unnamed companion’s eyes rose to meet mine, filled with a mixture of suspicion and confusion but, after only slight hesitation, he took the proffered assistance, allowing me to pull him to his feet.
“Thank you,” he said, in a voice that, stripped of the urgency and volume from earlier, was rich and mellow. He was also not as young as I’d first guessed. Closer up, I judged him to be several years older than myself.
Still clasping my hand, the man gave it a short, firm shake, adding, “You’re very kind to help a stranger in need, friend, but if you’ll excuse me now—”
I shook my head, without releasing my grasp to ensure he heard me. “I mean no offense, but after what I saw, I can’t let you go chasing off on your own after those two.”
“You’re British.”
I took the non sequitur in stride. “I prefer ‘English’, actually. Thomas Carnacki. And I’ll be blunt: I’m no initiate when it comes to the arcane and what I’ve just seen here…” I released the man’s hand before continuing. “Well, it piqued my interest, let’s say. But more than that, I can recognize danger when it presents itself. And forgive my presumption, but I’ve already set my foot into this so I’d like to help.”
The other man looked past me, towards the only exit, before his eyes met mine again. He gave me a long look and then simply nodded. “All right, Mr. Carnacki. My name’s Caleb Annawan and I’m grateful for the help you’ve already given. If you say you want to keep helping, I suppose I’m in no position decline.” While he spoke, the man stooped and began to trace a symbol unfamiliar to me into the dirt. “I’m not going to explain what’s going on right now, because we’ve already lost time, so just follow my lead.”
Having said this, Annawan’s demeanor changed, settling into the calm efficiency of a practiced professional. He quickly finished sketching the symbol on the ground between us then drew from his coat pocket a tiny pouch. From this, he removed several sprigs of some dried plant that resembled cannabis, but smelled like the grave. Murmuring softly in a sing-song language, he tossed the plant-bits into the air, high above where he’d drawn his glyph. Most of these simply fell to the ground, but a few did not, beginning instead to glow and sparkle before dashing off through the swiftly-darkening night, out of the alley in the direction I’d originally come from.
“Follow!” Annawan commanded, rushing after the already-fading luminescent trail.
We ran, following the speeding pin-points of brilliance through the boulevards and backstreets of Boston’s oldest quarter, just as organic and labyrinthine and twisted as London’s, reinforcing in my mind the true depth and age of the city.
But I had no chance for nocturnal sightseeing. We quickly arrived at our destination, rounding the final corner only moments after our chase had begun. The thieves had not gone far, but it was far enough to be an obstacle—the area we came upon was so steeped in psychic energy that entering it struck like a physical blow.
“This… this is not natural,” I said, two fingers pressed to my forehead as if that could soothe the pain.
Annawan shook his head. “Unfortunately it’s only too natural in this sort of place.”
I followed his gaze towards a ramshackle building of crumbling brick and rotting wood just ahead of us where sickly yellow light, so different from the sparkling brilliance that had lead us there, seeped from the partially-open doorway. More than that, out d
rifted a certain scent…
“An opium den!” My cry carried shock that was not lost on my new friend.
Annawan shook his head. “Seems like every big city has at least a couple these days, Mr. Carnacki.” He strode towards the building, determination clearly evident in each step. “But I should have guessed from the start that this is where we were heading.”
The door of the building was unlocked and attended inside only by an elderly, painfully-slim man seated at a low table. He mumbled something unintelligible and held out his hand. Into this, Annawan placed a few coins and the man produced in exchange a short pipe and a tiny cloth bag, handed them to Annawan and then waved us towards a short flight of well-trod-upon stairs nearby.
“C’mon,” my companion said to me, his expression grim as he pocketed the items.
We descended into a long, low room made heavy with brown, sickly-sweet-smelling smoke and the psychic residue of those who suffered in ignorant, blissful pipe-dreams. The room was lit only at irregular intervals by sputtering oil-lamps and through this gloom we wove and wended our way, around a myriad of tightly-packed bodies, reclining against the walls or each other, some outright prone, and often twisted into strange positions no sober man’s body could withstand without discomfort. Here and there, an addict remained wakeful and I was startled by the first set of blackly-glistening eyes that I caught staring towards me from out of the gloom, seeming soulless and lost in a void of their own making. Annawan seemed able to ignore entirely the misery, the sheer wrongness that was all around us but I am not afraid to tell you that it shook me deeply. I have seen many strange and horrible things in my life-time, but few supernatural terrors can equal what man is willing to do to himself.
At the farthest end of the sizeable room, we came at last to a door, guarded by a burly, sallow-skinned man seated on a low, three-legged stool. Even some feet away, even in the gloom, I could see the man possessed the hard gaze of a professional thug and that he was sizing us up for trouble as we approached his station. Anyone with a handful of coins could enter this building, it seemed, but the inner chambers were off-limits. Doubtless neither Annawan nor I looked like the typical “client” the doorman was used to dealing with and that made him wary. He stood, his head nearly reaching the low ceiling.
I readied myself for trouble, looking towards Annawan and prepared to follow his lead, as promised, but he only held up a hand and said to the doorman, “I’m bruised enough for one day, so how about you just let me see Neok Wu?”
The big man sneered and from his deep chest rumbled something in Cantonese. Interlacing his fingers and making his knuckles crack and pop menacingly, he took a step towards us. Whether through youthful exuberance or sheer foolishness, my already-tense body reacted and I leapt forward, swinging a fist that the other man easily caught in one massive palm and latched on, twisting it and my wrist painfully. He laughed, wrapping his other arm around the crook of my throat while looking to my friend as if issuing a challenge.
Annawan grimaced. “Damn it, Carnacki!” he said, reaching into the same coat pocket from which he’d earlier drawn his mystery herbs, but was halted mid-action as the nearby door creaked open and a fourth player entered our little drama.
A face I recognized, that of the man who had wrenched the leather satchel from Annawan only a short time ago, appeared in the doorway and said, “Neok Wu will talk.”
The thug grimaced, but nodded. He released my throat, but did not let go of me entirely, instead shifting one hand’s grip to my upper arm and gesturing for Annawan to precede him through the door. The second man, the one who had accosted Annawan before, lead the way deeper into the building down a short corridor. The room we arrived in, though as dimly-lit as the opium den, was extravagantly outfitted with a mixture of Eastern and Western artwork and furnishings. Clearly, Neok Wu’s business was flourishing—and so were whatever supernatural endeavors he was involved in, for the area was saturated with arcane energy. It was so strong that I no longer wondered how the man’s hirelings had picked up their unusual auras; nothing could last long in such an environment without becoming twisted.
At the rear of the room, seated in an ornate, lacquered chair, was our host and I was surprised to see that Neok Wu had neither the sinister cast of an illicit narcotics dealer nor the otherworldly mien of an Eastern practitioner of magic. In fact, he looked very much like any other well-to-do merchant you might find on either side of the Atlantic. He was dressed in a well-tailored business suit, his hair coiffed in a fashionable style, and perched upon the bridge of his nose was a pince-nez that glimmered when it caught the light. The man’s one concession to stereotype was the long-stemmed, Chinese-style pipe he held in the palm of his left hand.
From this, Neok Wu took a hefty draught then locked eyes with Annawan as he released the smoke. “Caleb Annawan. I don’t remember issuing you an invitation, but I am glad you have come nonetheless.” Unlike his subordinates, the man’s English was perfect and held nary a hint of Eastern accent. His gaze flicked in my direction and he added, “But who, may I ask, is your friend?”
“Thomas Carnacki,” I answered simply.
The opium-lord smiled slyly, as if we shared some private joke. “You are a long way from home, Mr. Carnacki.” He gestured with his pipe. “Release him.” The pressure on my arm was lifted, though the looming presence behind me remained.
Neok Wu turned his attention back towards Annawan, who’d remained quiet so far. “Listen to me, Caleb Annawan. I want no quarrel with you and I had none until you tried to keep from me what is rightfully mine. You will understand why such a thing would arouse my anger.” He paused for a drag from his pipe.
While Neok Wu spoke, it was clear that Annawan was less listening than he was waiting to speak. While the words washed over him, my friend’s body had grown tense, his fists clenching and unclenching as a vein began to throb visibly at his temple.
Neok Wu blew smoke and continued, “Now that the relict is in my possession, though, this matter is closed.”
“The hell it is!” Annawan exploded, stepping forward, his balled fist preceding him and causing Neok Wu’s attendant—the one who had already proved himself more than a match for the young Indian—to step between his master and his “guest”. “That knife belongs to my grandfather! It was never Eddie’s to offer and it will never be yours! This won’t be settled until I have it back!”
Neok Wu took the outburst in stride. He waved his attendant back and spoke calmly. “Your grandfather, ‘Swimming Turtle’, is long gone—this I know for a fact. And while I don’t know the inheritance arrangements of your family, I do know that your brother has offered me the spirit knife as payment for debts owed. Legal debts, I should add.” This last part was said for my benefit, I gathered. “I never asked for anything but the money I was due, but there are things I yet wish to accomplish in this city—in this world—for which I have need of the energies an object such as this may channel and so I accepted.” Neok Wu smiled slowly, adding, “I am appreciative of tradition, history and filial piety, Mr. Annawan. After all, I am trying to follow my own grandfather’s legacy in the ‘arts’ you and I share an interest in. But, as they say, a deal is a deal. You understand me?”
Annawan gritted his teeth and shook his head. “No. It’s you who don’t understand. This isn’t just a matter of some valuable old heirloom, it’s—”
“Do you think me a fool?” Neok Wu snapped, his annoyance finally plain, if only for an instant.
“Yes!” the younger man tossed back. “That thing is just a trinket, but it belongs to Him, and He won’t allow you to have it. I’m not here for my sake or my brother’s, but for yours, you damned fool! It doesn’t belong in any hands, but—”
“Enough!” The narcotics dealer’s hand cut through the air, sending sparks flying from the bowl of his pipe. “I weary of this prattle!” With two fingers he gestured in our direction and commanded, “Jie! Yan! Remove these fools and convince them not to trouble me again.”
>
In front of us advanced the man who had stood at Neok Wu’s side, the one answering to Jie, and still behind me was the muscled thug I’d already, unsuccessfully clashed with. I could see just beneath my vision, somewhere in my mind’s eye, those fragments of the Other beginning to curl and swirl around the man before me, but the one behind me—Yan—was the more immediate threat. I whirled and, remembering what I’d experienced before, swore aloud that I’d chosen that day to wander unarmed. However, even knowing I was sorely outmatched, I raised my fists, determined to put up as good a fight as I could muster.
But it proved unnecessary.
As Yan moved to the attack, Annawan turned, reached out fluidly, almost casually, and grasped the other man’s wrist, much as the man had mine—then tossed him through the air back down the hallway from which we’d come! The motion was so swift there was barely time to register it before Annawan turned back towards the far side of the room where Neok Wu sat on the edge of his chair, clutching its arms in amazement.
At the sight of his flying compatriot, Jie stood rooted in place, and made no move to stop Annawan as the Indian stalked towards the merchant, saying, “Yes, you are a fool. It’s the curse of your species.” But the voice was neither young nor truly a man’s, reverberating deeply, unnaturally, and carrying with it the gravity of untold age. Along with the words, something flashed in Caleb Annawan’s eyes, like the light you will occasionally see in a cat’s eyes—as if something else is peeking out, providing a tiny glimpse at the inner worlds to which we humans were never meant to be privy.
“Neok Wu.” The changed Annawan shook his head slowly. “You are as bad as the white man in your way. You come here from other lands with your knowledge and your tradition and your magic and you think that because yours is ancient there is no other as great or as powerful. Worse, you think that gives you rights that you have not earned. You, who knows less than these boys,” he gestured towards me, “and use it far less wisely.”
The Castle-Town Tragedy and Other Tales of Carnacki, the Ghost-finder Page 11