I shook my head, smiling as I watched the girl run back to her sisters. The three sisters danced in a circle, throwing the ball back and forth between them in some curious game of their own invention. Just as I turned to resume my walk home, the girls began to sing to the rhythmic motions of their whirling game.
“One, two, three, and four, catch a thief at the door. Loop the noose, kick the stand, steal away the dead man’s hand!”
I was taken aback. What a morbid chorus for little girls to sing! But, like many such nursery rhymes, the meaning was not as important as the rhythm. And yet their words troubled me for some time afterwards.
The overcast day passed into the deepening darkness of evening and I fell fast to sleep, waking the next morning after a fitful night of confused and muddled dreams. Although I could not recall much from the dream, I remembered seeing the girls from the park once again. They were much older, however—not children now but aged crones—yet I knew them to be one and the same, for they sang the same morbid nursery rhyme as they worked the prodigious wheels and spinning threads of a marvelous silver loom.
I felt as though there was something else from the dream that I desperately needed to remember—something dark and terrible, hovering at the edge of memory and taunting me, just out of reach, beyond the umbrageous veil of sleep.
Confounded, I ran the girl’s song through my head again and again, hoping to recall whatever mysterious revelation had been illuminated in my slumber. Why was a thief the subject of their rhyme? Why have him hanged? Why take his hand? Then it struck me. Just as the old nursery rhyme “Oranges and Lemons” had its roots entangled with the grim folklore of centuries past, so too did this rhyme about the dead man’s hand. Whether they knew it or not, the girls had alluded to nothing less than that most ghastly of sorcerous charms—the dreaded Hand of Glory.
I was not always a superstitious man, but neither was I a fool. Indeed, my father had employed considerable knowledge of the occult sciences in devising the Ouroboros Lock—knowledge that may have been the very instrument of his own destruction. Although every rational fiber of my being protested, I had to acknowledge the supernatural as an integral element of our physical reality. Far too many stories abounded of strange and unnatural occurrences, accounts of witchcraft and sorceries, and all the myriad tales of werewolves, vampires, and specters of the night. Even in our great city, far from rural country where pagan lore still pervades, such things cannot be ignored. Yes, I had become a superstitious man. And rightly so.
The Hand of Glory was a fabulous and terrible charm, said to undo any lock and allow thieves to commit their burglaries utterly undetected. Even so, I possessed little notion of how to fashion such a grim talisman. The Ingoldsby Legends, a work I had found in my father’s collection, made referenced to the charm, but the book proved somewhat less than instructional. However, in the margin of that same tale I found a note from my father that simply read “Petit Albert.” After searching through his stacks, I discovered one book titled Secrets Merveilleux de la Magie Naturelle et Cabalistique du Petit Albert. Unfortunately, I was ignorant of French and thus incapable of learning what secrets it contained.
Over the next week, I worked my way through boxes of other books, but came no closer to finding an answer. I had just given up, shutting in frustration the last book that held promise, when a loose receipt fell from its back page. The receipt read: “D.I. 1826 edition, Collin de Plancy. £16. On Order.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was an exceedingly high price for any book, even a rare one. The receipt was from the Oriental Emporium, owned by one Severin Mortimer. Mortimer cultivated his furtive reputation as a warlock, and it was a fair bet that my father had procured many of his occult texts from the fiend. If anyone could assist me in making or obtaining such a charm, then he was surely the one.
It was a gloomy Thursday afternoon and I waited until the heavy rain abated before heading into the city. The storm had moved east, but the sky remained as black and threatening as ever, and despite the generous lining of my wool overcoat, the moisture and bitter chill of the unseasonable weather worked its way through. The barren tree branches protested the wind, and the chortle of crows rang from some distant graveyard. I entered under the weather-stained bricks of the Gatekeeper Arch and wended my way through the plebian throngs of Queen Anne’s Market. The rich scents of busy bakeries and crowded pubs hung thick in the air, mixing incongruously with the stench of rot and waste emanating from back alley gutters and sewers beneath the street. The moss-splotched colossus of Michael the Archangel loomed ominously above the barren courtyard of Saint Anterus, the ancient cathedral a baroque morass of tapering spires, leering gargoyles, and buttresses like the ribs of a giant’s corpse. If God is good, I wondered, why does his house invoke such dread?
Shivering, I continued on, soon losing sight of the terrible basilica as I made my way down store-cluttered Maywell Street to the base of Coronach Hill. At the bend in the road stood Mortimer’s shop, whose oil-stained windows displayed rolls of rich silks and carpets, statuettes of ivory and alabaster, and curious artifacts of every shape, size, and form.
I reached to open the door, but my confidence wavered. The cold rain began to fall again, working its way through my hair and running down my nose to my lips. I trembled, yet I knew I could delay no longer.
The small bell on the door jingled as I entered. The proprietor smiled, setting down the jade figurine he had been studying. Severin Mortimer was a tall man, confident and sure, with flat blond hair and eyes that shone with the luster of duplicitous intellect. I appeared to be his only customer.
“Good day, sir,” he greeted in a firm and almost resonating voice. “How might I be of service?”
An awkward silence fell upon me, yet Mortimer’s smile never waned as he awaited my response. At last I summoned the words, “You may have known my father, Avery Guissant. He has patronized your shop before.”
“Ah!” Mortimer exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Then you must be Mister Corbin Guissant. My condolences on your loss. Avery was a true genius whose passing lessens us all.”
“Thank you,” I said. I reached into my pocket and produced the receipt I had found. “Going through my father’s collection, I found this receipt for a book on order.” I showed him the slip of paper. “A book by Collin de Plancy...”
Mortimer nodded. “Yes, of course. Your father placed the order over a year and a half ago and had already paid for it in full. One moment, if you would.”
Mortimer disappeared upstairs. I stood nervously awaiting his return. Inevitably, my eyes began to wander the store’s shelves and displays, admiring the opulent variety of imported Ottoman and Indian goods. Among the delicate porcelain China and jade statues from Japan were magnificent rugs, rich silk clothing, and exotic jewelry. I stood mesmerized by the sheer splendor of it all, overwhelmed by the intoxicating smells of rare herbs, smoldering incenses, and the wafting scents of pungent spices. But the sound of Mortimer’s footsteps snapped me from my enthrallment.
“J’espère que vous pouvez lire Français,” he said, returning to the shop’s main room.
I frowned, having only a vague notion of what he had said. “I cannot read French, if that is what you are asking.”
“More is the pity, given your family name,” he said, placing the book on the counter.
The text was bound in fine black leather, without a hint of title or author. The cover felt cold to the touch, and the sensation of icy bristles prickling just beneath my skin crawled up my fingers as I traced the book’s ribbed spine. An unwelcome trepidation swam over me and I drew in a short breath, wondering what mysteries waited beneath the black book’s cover.
Unable to resist, I flipped the book open to an arbitrary page.
My stomach wrenched. Before me sneered the perverse woodcut of a grotesque, three-headed beast riding on the back of a smoke-bellowing half-lion, half-dragon chimera.
“W-what is this?” I demanded in breathless hor
ror.
Mortimer grinned. “Asmodeus,” he said without inflection.
I blinked. “The Devil?”
Mortimer gave a sigh and rolled his eyes. Apparently, he thought very little of my prosaic assumptions. “This is the 1826 edition of the Dictionnaire Infernal, complete with the laws of sorcery and a collection of charms and spells for all occasions. Rest assured, your father had little interest in the illustrated demonology. He purchased this book for its compendium of charms, sigils, and magical lore. The illustrations are mere garnish for connoisseurs of the grotesque and perverse, neither of which describe your father.”
I shut the book. “Does it... does it give instruction for fashioning a Hand of Glory?”
Mortimer’s persistent smile widened. “Often overlooked considering its absence from other editions, the procedure given in the 1826 edition is the most accurate and complete in any occult work. I can understand your father’s interest in such a charm. He, being a locksmith, no doubt wished to understand every tool of burglary, whether mechanical or magical.”
“I have need for such a thing,” I said in a low whisper. “Something dear to me has been stolen. Stolen, I believe, by Lord Voger. I must get it back!”
Mortimer arched an eyebrow. “Truly? Well, that’s no business of mine. I must presume the police were of no help. After all, Lord Voger holds great sway in this city. But if I understand you correctly, you seek to steal your property back, and for that you require the aid of a Main-de-Gloire?”
I nodded. “Can you make one for me? I... I will pay you...”
Mortimer scoffed, waving his hand. “It would be of no use to you. The Main-de-Gloire must be crafted by a thief, or one who has such aspirations in their heart, and I am but a humble shopkeeper. I will transcribe the necessary rituals and set down the spell needed to invoke the Main-de-Gloire’s power.”
“What must be done?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“You shall learn soon enough,” Mortimer answered, giving a wide grin. “The spell will be ready tomorrow. You may return in the afternoon.”
I left Mortimer’s shop and returned home, my head still thick with questions. Knowing it would be impossible to sleep, I stayed up until morning reading The Ingoldsby Legends as I tried to piece together what the terrible spell might require of me. If even half of what the legend hinted at was true, then the procedure would be a grisly affair indeed. How would I find a hanged thief when criminal executions were no longer carried out in public? Must his corpse be fresh or could it be exhumed from a graveyard? And what of other criminals such as murderers and cutthroats? Would they work just as well for the purposes of this dread spell? The poem in The Ingoldsby Legends suggested it was so, but according to Mortimer, the Dictionnaire Infernal was the only true authority on such matters.
It was just past noon the following day when I headed back into town. I was distracted for most of the walk—disheartened by my failing nerves and a thousand questions burning in my mind—I entered Mortimer’s shop just as his only other customer was leaving.
Mortimer smiled and motioned for me to approach the counter. “I have your spell,” he said, placing the Dictionnaire Infernal on the table along with a sheet of parchment.
I took the paper and looked it over. Mortimer was a fine calligrapher, and yet those sinister words written in such exquisite pen cut like an icy blade down my spine. I closed my eyes, unable to finish reading. “This is murder,” I whispered. “Murder and blasphemy!”
“Murder?” the warlock laughed. His was a hollow and unsettling laugh. “Is it murder to bring justice to a criminal? And of what blasphemy do you speak? This spell invokes neither devil nor demon. It is natural magic—pure and sublime. Besides, it has often been said that the Fates smile upon the thief who from thieves steals.”
I shook the parchment. “I cannot do this! I will not commit such a heinous act!”
“Nonsense. You will not be caught. No one cares about a dead thief. And if you fear for your soul, then allow me to quote Exodus twenty-two, verse two: If a thief be found breaking in, and he is smitten so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.”
I bowed my head in grim resignation. There was truth in his words. Although my stomach seemed to twist up inside of me, some small degree of tension had mercifully subsided. With the book and parchment in hand, I departed from Mortimer’s shop.
For the next few days I studied the procedure the warlock had transcribed and went about devising a plan to capture my quarry. As I would have to catch a thief in the act of robbery, I set out every evening to prowl the more affluent neighborhoods and wealthier estates. I wore a mask to hide my features, with a black shirt and black pants to conceal myself in the dark night. In my belt was a knife and the custom revolver that had once belonged to Mister Macey, while my pack held the hood, noose, and hatchet I required to finish the grim deed.
It was another black and rainy April night when I set out in search of my larcenous quarry. I was lurking about the hills near several prominent manors, not far from Lord Voger’s estate, when I heard two gunshots in the distance.
At first, I mistook the sound for thunder, but when another gunshot rang out there was no mistaking the sound. My heart beat faster with rising anticipation. A streak of lightning cut across the sky. I saw a man slipping and stumbling down the muddy hillside, his pursuer not far behind. Another gunshot cracked through the night and the pursuer called through the pelting rain: “Thief! Fates curse you, you wretched thief!”
What luck! The thief had not yet seen me and I raced along the base of the hill, skirting the hedges to head him off. Another flicker lit the sky and an angry rumble boomed as though from every direction at once. The veil of night closed in again and the rain fell with rising vigor. Seeing the culprit not thirty yards away, I drew my pistol and took aim at his legs. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger, but the hammer fell with a dull click against a faulty percussion cap.
“Blasted!” I swore. I struggled to pull back the hammer, but the cylinder was jammed. “Blasted hell!”
The crack-bang of a pistol rang aloud, and the biting whistle of a bullet sliced inches from my ear. A second passed before I realized that the thief had just shot at me, but the chase was already over. Distracted by taking his shot, the burglar stumbled on a root and crashed to the ground. He was still moving, arms and legs flailing about as I threw myself upon him. An elbow struck me in the chest, but it was a weak and random blow. Unthinking, I fumbled for a rock, found one, and brought it over my head.
What was I doing? I realized in wide-eyed horror. How could I kill a man?
Jove split the sky to the north. Blinded by the flash, I dashed the rock against the man’s skull. I lifted and struck again, but I was trembling with such nauseating dread that the stone slipped from my fingers before I could deliver a third blow.
The thief lay still, and his pursuer was nowhere to be seen. I panted for air, my breath rasping with every shallow exhale. I rolled the man over, but in the darkness of the stormy night I saw only the barest outline of his bloodied face. His ribs moved and I felt the frantic rhythm of his beating heart. He was alive! That was good. Both The Ingoldsby Legends and the Dictionnaire Infernal agreed that the thief must be hanged to death for the Hand of Glory to be properly fashioned from his corpse. After fumbling for the rope and hood in my bag, I cut a short length of cord to bind his hands and feet, then gagged his mouth and drew the hood over his head. Relieved though I was, the most difficult part of my task was yet to come.
I took the thief’s gun—a fine double-barrel percussion pistol with elegant engravings, and a coal-black polish that sparkled even in the darkness. The maker’s mark read ‘A. C. & L.’, and although I had never heard of such a gunsmith, their work was clearly superb. I tossed my own faulty revolver aside and tucked the new pistol into my belt, then hoisted my captive off the ground.
The tree I had chosen was a sturdy old oak in a secluded part of the woods half a mile to the
northeast. The going was slow, and the semi-conscious thief walked like a drunkard, dazed and disoriented by the blows to his skull and unable to see through the hood covering his head. The hour was well past two in the morning when we arrived at the tree, and the rain had thankfully abated.
With little ceremony, I threw the noose over a thick branch about ten feet up, finished the knot so that it reached eight feet above the ground, and tied the other end off at the base of the tree. I then set the stool in place, which I had hidden in the bushes a few days before, and then forced the thief to stand on top of it. Although I had difficulty keeping him steady, I managed to loop the noose around his neck, tighten it, and secure the bindings on his feet so that he had no hope of escape.
It was then that the thief moaned through his hood and began to struggle, likely realizing the nature of his predicament as he regained his senses. Death would not be quick for him, but there was nothing to be done for it. I had neither access to proper gallows nor the means to drop him from the distance necessary to snap his neck. My heart pounded in my chest, my guts clenching with dread. Knowing that I had to act before my better scruples returned, I kicked the stand out from under him. He dropped a foot and the rope snapped taut. The body thrashed frantically about, and after a few excruciating minutes, his convulsions at last subsided.
I staggered back and collapsed on the ground, the taste of black bile rising sickly from my stomach. What had I done? I lowered my head and waited until I caught the rank stench of defecation from the dangling corpse.
Taking my hatchet, I walked to the tree and cut the rope to let the body drop. It fell with a dull thump and flopped lifeless to the ground. I found a bit of wood to serve as my cutting board and I placed the thief’s left hand, the sinister hand, across the plank. I swallowed, looked away, then swung the hatchet down.
Bone cracked, but I had not swung hard enough to cut all the way through the skin and tendons. Cringing, I hacked again, splitting through more skin and bones of the wrist. Blood was everywhere. Trembling, I cut through the remaining flesh and tendons with my knife, then wrapped the severed hand in a bundle of black pall.
The Ouroboros Lock Page 2