Four Summoner’s Tales

by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss

  “You don’t really expect us to hand you a fortune because of your bit of mummery, do you?” said Mr. Langham.

  “If I do not have the money in twenty-four hours,” I said, “then one of this company will see what I can do, and the rest of you will pay quite willingly. It is truly that simple. I assure you, it is no trouble for me to bring a husband or a father back from the grave. A bit of digging, of course, but a life of poverty has the advantage of providing a man with a strong back and no fear of exertion. None of you have such things to fear, of course. All you need worry about is having someone else control the purse strings. If that is no matter to you, then so be it. I shall, sooner or later, find ladies willing to pay to keep what is theirs. And your examples shall prove a better advertisement than a notice taken out in The Gentleman’s Magazine.”

  Lady Caroline stood upon what I supposed to be unsteady legs. “I know not if this is trickery or truth, but either way, you are a scoundrel for bringing these threats to people you once counted as your friends.”

  “My friends who spurned me because I had not the money they believed,” I countered.

  “Your friends who spurned you because you lied to them,” she said, her lovely face now turning red with anger.

  “And if I had told the truth, they would not have been my friends at all,” I said. “You cared for me, Lady Caroline, and I for you. Yes, I own I was first drawn to your circle because I wanted money, but within that circle, I was drawn to you because of who you are. The belief that I had money made me a member of your set, but it did not change how you felt. I honor you too much to believe you would have loved me half as much if I had claimed to have half my fortune, or twice as much if I had doubled it. You cannot be so shallow. I cannot allow it possible.”

  Lady Caroline’s eyes narrowed. “Whatever I felt for you was an illusion fed by your lies. And now you come here to extort money of my friends. I do not wish for any special exemption, sir. Either you are a villain or you are not. I am not your accomplice or your partner in any venture. What you do to my friends, you do to me.”

  “I should never harm you, Lady Caroline,” I said.

  “That is your concern,” she said, “but it shall not be on my account. I shall hate you forever for what you do this day, and regardless of the consequences, I could not hate you more.”

  “You do not mean that,” I said, feeling that seed of anger blossoming within me. “If I were to vent my anger upon you, you would wish you had been kinder to me.”

  “Nothing you could do to me would be worth the price of treating you as anything but a rascal!” she snapped back.

  I opened my mouth to offer a reply but thought better of it. The dog was now awake and alert once more, and had begun yapping. The room had descended into cacophony and chaos. I should accomplish no more by continuing to press my point. My words meant nothing. My actions would show them.

  Determined to make Lady Caroline regret her harsh words, I bowed once more and departed, leaving the once-dead dog to their care.

  * * *

  My readers will not be surprised to learn that none of them offered payment. They all believed or hoped that it had been a trick, and they chose to gamble that it was so. They also likely hoped that if it were not a trick, it would be another of their number who would be used as the example. Perhaps the widows believed Mr. Langham would pay the price. It would have been far better if he had, for the senior Mr. Langham had been a successful factor of little note. He might have returned from the grave and escaped attention as any man might hope, causing no one but his own son any grief, and then the widows would have paid. How different things would have been if I had chosen to pursue that course.

  I did not like Mr. Langham, it was true, but when I left the house in Golden Square, my animosity was reserved especially for Lady Caroline. It was an irrational anger, but one born of love, and so it was a kind of madness. Her fury and contempt, which I told myself were a sign that she valued money above all else, tapped into my desire for revenge. I called it justice, but my vengeful nature had me in its grip. I sat in my rooms in the Rules of the Fleet and awaited word from one of Lady Caroline’s circle that my demands would be met. I told myself if one of them, it mattered not who, bowed to my wishes, it would be enough to assuage my anger. None of them did. They all defied me, and so they would be made to pay. But Lady Caroline, who hated me because I had been born poor, who allowed that poverty to eclipse all of the things she had once loved about me—she would pay the most, and she would pay first.

  That night I went to the churchyard at St. Anne’s, where I knew Lady Caroline’s husband, Sir Albert, to be buried. Spade in hand, and fearful of being arrested for grave-robbery, I was nevertheless resolute. I stood over the grave where the vile Sir Albert had been buried only two years before, and I considered carefully what I was about to do. Once I revived him, Lady Caroline might well regret her actions, but there would be little I could do then—I had already lost her forever. But I also wanted someone to pay as a grand gesture for all I had suffered in my life . . . for what all the poor continued to suffer. I wanted there to be a reckoning for the world’s unfairness, and while I knew bringing Sir Albert back to life would not change anything, I nevertheless believed it would bring me no small measure of satisfaction.

  I raised my spade, and when its blade took its first bite of the cold earth, I was committed. There was no turning back. I did not see that I could stop at any moment. I pressed forward, each little mound of earth a blow for righteousness, each drop of cold sweat that fell upon the ground a sign of my determination. I dug and I dug and I dug, and I did not stop until I struck the wood of his casket, and then I pried it open and set myself to my task.

  * * *

  I had come prepared. I did not want to interact with Sir Albert, but I did not want to leave him to wander about the city in ragged clothes, with no money. I knew that anyone claiming to be a two-years-dead baronet would not get very far in this world, and so I purchased an appropriate set of clothes, used but not terribly shabby, from a ragman. Generous soul that I am, I also left Sir Albert six shillings in a purse. He would have enough to make his way home, and perhaps buy some oysters for the journey. It could be the dead are hungry when they are revived. I imagine I would be if I had not eaten in two years. Perhaps he would wish to buy his wife a present, though from what I had heard of him, I very much doubted it.

  Birds and dogs are one thing, but a man, with the gift of speech and thought and reflection, is quite another, and part of me did not believe the process would work upon the most noble of beings. I completed the ritual, attempting to set my doubts aside, and when it was completed, I was rewarded with the sight of this long-decayed pile of bones beginning to grow new flesh that knitted together with rapidity and purpose, like a great swarm of ants traveling across a discarded apple.

  I leapt from the grave and took shelter behind a tree, surprised and delighted and not a little terrified by what I had done. I had restored human life, and not the best human life to be found either.

  From my sheltered vantage point I watched him struggle from his own grave and stagger upon the earth. He wore only the tattered remnants of his funerary garb, but he clutched the clothes I had left him in his hand. Perhaps, I thought, he would now sniff the air like a beast, and I would see I had brought back not a man but a diabolical revenant. But no. He merely looked up at the stars, let out a laugh, and began to brush the dirt from his body. “By Jove!” he cried. “I am back.”

  It was as much as I needed to see. I did not wish to meet him or speak to him or become his aid and his confederate. He was Lady Caroline’s husband, and so he was my enemy. He was, nevertheless, what she had chosen over me, and so she would pay the price. I very much wanted to see it happen.

  I went to Lady Caroline’s house and to the back door, where I spoke with one of the kitchen girls, a sweet thing of fourteen whom I had always found charming and who had always seemed to regard me in the same light. I fo
und that for a few pennies she was willing to admit me to the kitchens and to lurk in the hallways, that I might observe events in the household. I did not inform her what those events would be. I only related that her household was about to undergo a most remarkable transformation, and she thanked me for the intelligence. She did not wish to miss it, and she knew she would be held in high esteem by the rest of the staff for being the first to spread the word.

  I did not see all that happened. Lurking in dark hallways has both advantages and disadvantages, but what I did not observe, I heard, and the details were later provided by eyewitnesses. Here is what I know: at approximately nine-of-the-clock that morning, the front bell rang and the handsome serving man answered the door. He inquired what business the gentleman visitor in the ill-fitting suit might have, and the gentleman visitor told him that this was his house and his business was none of the concern of a molly like himself. The serving man harrumphed and objected and assured the gentleman of many things, but the gentleman was not to be harrumphed or assured. He struck the serving man in the nose and shouldered past him.

  Sir Albert, I should point out, was a tall man, broad and generally built upon a larger frame than most mere mortals. Indeed, I could see, from my darkened hallway, that the suit I had provided was rather short in the breeches and sleeves, giving him a somewhat comical look—or a look that might have been comical had he not appeared so frightening. In life, the gentleman had been inclined to corpulence, or so word and portrait had led me to believe, but the process of reviving appeared to bring great vigor and health, and now he was nothing but lean and powerful. In the darkness of the graveyard, and in my haste to leave, I had not observed it. The return had not conferred youth upon him, for he was still an elderly man, but he was one in great health. He wore no wig, for I had not had one to spare, and his hair flowed wild and long. He reminded me, in his power and fury, of my father. The perceptive reader may now begin to suspect that I began to wonder whether love and anger and rejection had led me down an erroneous path.

  Sir Albert now made his way past other servants, who rushed forward upon hearing the ruckus. Some stared in wonder and, no doubt, servantish pleasure at the sight of this strange man storming his way into the house on the way to make a truly excellent story to tell at the tavern. Others, who had been in service longer, recognized this hulking creature, and swooned or dropped to their knees to seek the protection of Jesus. Lady Caroline, who was at breakfast, arose from her table and went out to the front hall to investigate the mayhem for herself, for she was no coward.

  Now this part I did witness myself. I lurked like a thief in the shadows while Lady Caroline strode out like a lady knight, ready to protect her home and those in her charge. She wore a gown of the purest white, and it flowed behind her as she took mighty and forceful stride, perhaps afraid but unwilling to show her fear. Yet when she stepped into the hallway and stood face-to-face with the horror of a husband she had buried two years previous, her resolve left her. Her knees buckled, and she reached out to the wall to steady herself with one hand. The other she pressed to her mouth.

  “Dear God,” she said.

  From my cowardly lookout, I saw her eyes fill with tears, and I felt my own moisten in kind. The enormity of what I had done now struck me with all its terrible force. I had truly forever lost the woman I loved. More than that, I had condemned her to her very own hell.

  In my misery and self-loathing, I must have made a noise, for Lady Caroline turned and spied me. My teary eyes met her own, and I expected to see all the rage and anger and resentment that was my due, but all I saw was concern for us both. She blinked away her tears, swallowed hard, and mouthed one word at me: Go. At that moment, she thought only of my safety. I understood then that, in her goodness, Lady Caroline might have been angry with me, and she might have felt betrayed, but she still loved me. If only I had spared her and her friends, if I had chosen other victims for my scheme, things might have gone very differently, but instead I cultivated resentment and pursued revenge. I had given in to my basest side, and even in knowing that, she did not wish to see me hurt.

  She looked once more at me. Run, she mouthed. And then she stepped forward to greet her husband, a man who made her existence a misery, whom I had brought back into her life.

  I retreated to the servants’ entrance and slinked out the back door. I made my way to the Rules and to my boardinghouse and to my rooms. I slammed the door shut and cursed my foolishness and my petty weakness for revenge. I did not leave my room for food. I did nothing but lie upon my bed and weep.

  The next day I received four separate packages of five thousand pounds each. Twenty thousand pounds. I was rich. I had enough to live in luxury the rest of my life.

  My troubles were just beginning.

  * * *

  I wasted no time, delivering for safekeeping the bulk of my money with a reputable goldsmith. I then proceeded to pay off all my debts; take a new house on Upper Brook Street, close enough to Grosvenor Square to be fashionable and close enough to Tyburn Lane to be a good value. I ordered several suits of new clothes, a few new wigs, and various items of personal and domestic furnishing, and began my life as a man of leisure.

  In a matter of days, I had gone from being worth less than nothing to having as much as I could desire. I was hardly the wealthiest man in the city, but a man of my sudden fortune would never need to work again. I would never want, never suffer, never lie and swindle and thieve for my next meal. I had achieved success beyond anything my father would have thought possible.

  This success was, admittedly, soured by the fact that it had come of a gift from my father and that I had consigned the woman I loved to misery, but I tried not to let those two things bother me. For the first, my father had possessed the book, but not the skills or wit to use it. I had therefore bested him quite fairly. As for Lady Caroline, I told myself that she had made her choice, she had rejected me, indeed had instructed me to do precisely what I had done. Perhaps that would have sustained me had she not seen me hiding in her house, had she not, in her moment of terror and sorrow, worried about me.

  * * *

  A noted baronet with political ties and influence had returned from the dead. How could I have believed such a thing would not cause a stir? I suppose I hadn’t thought that part through, but soon Sir Albert’s revival was the talk of London. I was no better than one of the curious, for having returned him to life gave me no particular intimacy with the man. Indeed, it was my hope that he would never find out who it was who revived him or that I had enjoyed a particular connection with his wife.

  So it happened that I had no choice but to learn what I could the same way every outsider did, from newspapers and chatter in coffeehouses. Sir Albert, it seems, was unable to tell the curious anything about what lay beyond this world. If he had gone to heaven or hell, he could not say, for none of his experiences had left an impression upon him. That he had been somewhere and doing something, he was certain, for he had hazy memories of other people and movement and places, dynamic shadows and strong feelings, but beyond that he could say little. As for the means of his return, he was similarly vague. He knew that he had been brought back by a person who had discovered a method of returning the dead, but he did not know who this person was. If he had learned of my scheme to extract money from his wife’s friends, he said nothing of that. I suspected he had not been told, and I was quite content that he should never learn.

  So while Sir Albert’s return was all Londoners wished to speak of, they knew nothing of my involvement. Indeed, the world had conspired to hide my presence well, for on every street corner there were now peddlers selling pamphlets that claimed to contain the secret method of restoring life. I purchased one of these and found it contained utter nonsense, just as I had supposed. I felt a moment of anger that dullards were profiting from my work, but I let it pass. I had profited enough.

  Some readers may suspect that a man such as I might grow greedy, demand more money from the wi
dows or seek out new victims to threaten. Anyone with whom I chose to share the secret that I was the city’s only true necromancer—and a quick demonstration with a dead creature would prove I was—and who did not want a husband or father returned would pay me what I wished. However, I was not greedy. I was not my father. I was not a man whose appetites could never be satisfied or a man incapable of keeping hold of his money. I now had all I required in the way of physical and material comforts, and I did not wish to tempt fate by seeking more. I was determined never to touch the book again unless some disaster should strike and I found myself in need.

  I joined a new club and made new friends, and though I was not out and about quite as much as I had been before, I was nevertheless seen in public. Once or twice, after some dramatic coughing, a gentleman might bring up the unfortunate subject of rumors that circulated about me. He might say that he heard I had been exposed as charlatan and an imposter, a man with no wealth and ample pretension. To such questions, I would blush and hang my head. I would say that it was true that I had misled the world about my family, because my father was a lout and a drunkard. Not only had I been ashamed of him, but I had been in fear of him, for I knew once he had discovered that I had made my fortune in trade, he would seek me out and demand that I make my wealth his own. I had hidden my origins not only from the world, but from my parent, and he had discovered me all the same.

  “As for the other matter,” I would say, “I can promise you I am upon a very sure footing. I invite you to speak to any merchant with whom I do business. You will only hear that I pay my bills promptly and with good cheer. I haven’t a debt in the world, and I know of many a gentleman, some with far more wealth than I, of whom the same cannot be said.”