by Mike Mignola
“Go on,” she said, continuing to move her arms and legs.
He finally started to see the effects of what she was doing, and did the same.
His friend carefully climbed to her feet so as not to disturb what she had made. She reached for him, pulling him up effortlessly from the where he lay.
“Look,” she said pointing out what they had made.
The shapes of two angels in the snow.
“We made angels,” he said, feeling a smile spreading across the numbness of his face.
“Yes, we did,” she answered, reaching down to take his hand in hers.
“I’m very tired,” Bentley said, leaning against his friend.
“Then you should probably rest,” she said, putting her arm around his trembling shoulders.
“Yes.”
“You could lie down right here.”
“In the snow?” he asked.
“Why not?” she answered with the cutest of giggles. “It’s just like fluffy feathers.”
“Fluffy feathers,” he repeated, and chuckled as well as he stared at the white around them.
“Would you like me to lie down with you?” she asked him.
He looked at her then, at her delicate face, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen anything quite so beautiful. If he had, he certainly couldn’t remember it.
“I would like that very much,” he said.
She helped him down, the deepening snow accepting them as they lay upon the ground.
“Comfortable?” she asked, putting her arm around him and pulling him against her.
“Yes,” he answered, feeling his eyes grow incredibly heavy.
“Good,” she said, her mouth very close to his ear. “You should be comfortable when…”
Her voice stopped, and he was about to ask her what she meant, what he should be comfortable for. But before he could form the words, he had already fallen deeply into the embrace of sleep atop a bed of the whitest of feathers that continued to drift down from the sky.
Covering him in their downy splendor.
Chapter Eleven
Bentley thought the dust might kill him.
He flipped back the lid on the old steamer trunk, holding his breath as the dust of the huge attic space swirled about him like smoke. Taking a handkerchief from his back pocket, he held it up against his face to filter out the offending particles, as he began to rummage through the nearly overflowing contents of the chest.
His father had loved the masquerade.
Bentley had glorious memories of the costume parties his father would throw at Hawthorne house, everybody in attendance masked and pretending to be somebody or something else. The costumes were spectacular, but his father always showed them all up.
His father always had the best costumes.
The image of a man, clad in layered robes of scarlet, slowly making his entrance into the grand ballroom, filled Bentley’s mind, freezing him in the midst of his task.
Bentley remembered how it at all stopped with the man’s entrance, the reverie of the guests going eerily silent.
The Red Death, from Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tale. It was as if Death himself had paid the party a visit.
He saw it all against the backdrop of his memories: the striking and fearful figure standing in the center of the dance floor, waiting—watching to see if all eyes were upon him—and when it was so …
The figure’s hand shot up, the red-gloved hand tearing away the bloodred mask that covered his features to reveal …
“What in the name of all that’s holy are you doing up here?” Pym asked, his head poking up through the attic’s trapdoor like some sort of angry mole.
A mole that scared Bentley half to death.
“Pym,” he said, taking in a lungful of the dusty air and immediately beginning to choke.
“I was beginning to think we had a problem with rodents,” his manservant said. He climbed up into the attic and stood looking around at the vast space, a look of disgust on his face. “One of these days I must put a few months aside to come up here and clean.”
Bentley managed to get his coughing under control and continued his search, removing costume after costume from the large trunk.
“Dare I inquire what it is that you are doing?” Pym asked, brushing cobwebs from the sleeves of his black jacket.
“I’m looking for something,” Bentley replied, pulling what appeared to be a rolled pirate captain’s coat from within the great box. He remembered a particular party with a Pirates of Penzance theme and smiled, momentarily distracted.
“Should I bother asking about the particulars?” Pym asked, interrupting the memory.
“Something that will help me in my latest investigation,” Bentley explained as he continued his search. He didn’t even have to look up from the chest to see the expression of disapproval on the butler’s face. He could practically feel it trying to burn through his back.
“What is it, Pym?” he asked, pulling up a yellowed petticoat and laying it gently upon the floor. It had been part of one of his mother’s costumes.
“Nothing, sir,” Pym answered, the disapproval now clear in his tone.
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re absolutely terrible at disguising your true feelings?”
“Whatever are you implying, sir?”
“Your disdain,” Bentley answered, pausing in his search. “Your total disapproval of my new purpose.”
“Hmmm,” Pym said, carefully navigating the packed space to look out the dust-covered circular window.
“I’ve explained everything to you, yet still you don’t seem to grasp the importance of my task.”
“I understand its importance to you, sir,” Pym said. He reached out and wiped away a portion of the filth so that he could see the world outside. “I’m just concerned about your well-being, whatever your purpose may be.”
“Do we have to have the ‘I’m not insane’ talk again?”
“Not unless you’re planning on telling me something I haven’t yet heard.”
“Good,” Bentley said. “I’m tired of that discussion.”
“Very good, sir,” Pym said, clasping his hands behind his back as he continued to look through the space he had wiped clean on the window.
“A woman has been murdered,” Bentley began to elaborate as he leaned deeper into the crate. “Her supposed murderer has confessed to the crime, been tried and sentenced to death.”
Pym turned from the window.
“So what is your purpose, then?” the butler asked. “You’ve said your function is to bring to justice those who have committed heinous acts of murder, but if the murderer is already awaiting execution…?”
Bentley had practically crawled inside the large trunk.
“And that is where the problem lies,” he answered, his voice muffled. “The restless spirit of the woman whose life has been taken … for some reason yet to be revealed to me … believes in her lover’s innocence.”
Pym strode closer. “But you did say that he confessed.”
“Exactly, Pym,” Bentley said. “So you understand my quandary.”
“I suppose,” Pym answered. “You think that something up here will help you solve that quandary?”
“Yes,” Bentley said. “I need to speak to the murderer, William Tuttle.”
“Speak to him,” Pym repeated.
“Yes,” Bentley answered, searching all the more frantically now that he was reaching the bottom of the box.
“In prison.”
“Yes.”
“On death row.”
“Yes, Pym,” Bentley answered growing more exasperated by the second. “But in order for me to do that, I must first find—”
Bentley let out a sudden cry of delight.
“Huzzah!” He pulled his find up from the near bottom of the chest.
“I’m guessing you found what you were looking for?” Pym asked, coming around to see.
Bentley held up the scarlet cassock and pl
aced it against himself. “I knew my father had dressed as a man of the cloth,” the young man told his manservant. “I remember it as part of a literary masquerade. I believe he was Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers.”
“And how will this aid you in determining if this William Tuttle is a murderer or not?” Pym asked.
“It won’t exactly,” Bentley said, looking for the accessories that went with the costume. “But it should help get me through the door in order to speak with him.”
“You’re going to pretend to be a priest?”
“Exactly,” Bentley said smiling at his butler. “And would you mind driving me to the prison? What high ranking man of the cloth drives himself anywhere?”
“But of course,” Pym said dryly.
* * *
The warden’s name was Delocroix, and he stank of whiskey and salami.
“William Tuttle,” the fat man with watery, red eyes and a pink, sweaty complexion said as he stared at the open file upon his desk. “A waste of tax payers’ dollars, is what I say.”
Bentley, playing the part of Cardinal Dickenson, smiled beatifically and tilted his head. “I’m not quite sure I understand, Warden,” he said.
“Well, Father,” the fat man said, leaning back. His chair shrieked in protest as it bent toward the wall. “Trying a man for murder is an expensive endeavor.” The warden smiled, and Bentley felt his skin crawl beneath his costume. “And Blackmore Prison is just filled with those serving twenty to life who swore they were innocent right up until sentencing. A trial by a jury of their own peers was needed to determine their guilt.”
Bentley folded one hand atop the other and attempted to look holy. Whatever that meant.
“Yes?”
Warden Delocroix came forward in his chair, elbows landing hard upon the desktop.
“Tuttle said that he’d done it the minute he was arrested,” the loathsome man said. “He never denied it. A complete waste of the judicial process and all that it entails.”
“Ah, I understand now,” Bentley said, nodding ever so slowly. He hoped that his request would soon be granted so he could get on with his questioning of William Tuttle and be away from this man. “But he is still one of God’s creatures,” Bentley continued, playing the part of a very holy man. He was doing his best to remember all the portrayals of priests he’d ever read, and hoped he was at least doing a relatively convincing job. “One of His flock. And a chance to unburden his soul might—”
“Yes, his soul,” the fat man grumbled, again picking up the file and thumbing through the information. “I’m not sure that someone like Tuttle even has one.”
The fat man looked up, his eyes bulging so much from his large, flabby face that Bentley thought they might shoot out at him.
“Do you know what this friend of your family did?” the warden asked, making reference to Bentley’s lie that Tuttle was the friend of a dear cousin on his father’s side of the family.
“I’m guessing you’re about to tell me.” Bentley tried not to sigh, having already heard more than enough from this disgusting individual.
“He killed the woman he supposedly loved with his bare hands,” the warden said, holding up his own pudgy hands and pretending to wrap them around something. “According to eyewitnesses, they were holding hands and laughing it up, having a good time at the circus where they both worked, and then less than ten minutes later she was dead.”
Delocroix glanced down at the papers in the file again, then fixed Bentley with his beady, bloodshot eyes. “Tianna Hoops was dead,” he said. “Strangled … her throat crushed by her lover.”
He leaned back again, and the joints and springs in the chair screamed even louder.
“Honestly, would somebody with a soul do something like that, Father?” he asked, waiting for Bentley to reply. “Kill the woman he supposedly loved in cold blood?”
“It’s obvious that the man is troubled,” Bentley said. “His soul is burdened with sin.”
“When asked why he did it, he couldn’t even give a reason,” the warden said with a scowl. “This one is a real animal that deserves to be put down.”
Bentley forced a smile onto his face.
“I would imagine it must be difficult to remain compassionate in a place like this,” he said.
“After you’ve seen what I’ve seen over the years, the word barely even exists anymore,” Warden Delocroix said.
“Understandable,” Bentley said as he pushed out his chair and stood up before the warden’s desk.
“I would like to see William now,” he said.
“Still think that you can save him?” the warden asked, leaning forward, his girth flowing onto the desktop.
“One can only try,” Bentley said.
“Huh. Fitzgerald!” he bellowed.
The door opened, and a prison guard in full uniform stepped in.
“Take Cardinal Dickenson to one of the visitor rooms, and then bring in Tuttle.”
“Yes, sir, Warden.”
“The cardinal here thinks he’s going to save Tuttle’s immortal soul. What do you think of that, Fitzgerald?”
The prison screw started to laugh. “Good luck with that,” he said, looking to his boss.
“Exactly.” The warden stared at Bentley. “Good luck with that, Father,” the foul man repeated, and smiled grotesquely.
“Right this way, Father,” Fitzgerald said, gesturing toward the door. As he was escorted from the office, Bentley could hear Warden Delocroix chuckling to himself.
* * *
The prison was old and filled with so, so many ghosts.
Bentley followed the guard down the long corridor through the center of the multitiered facility, able to capture glimpses of cells and their imprisoned inhabitants.
And the ghosts that haunted them.
Bentley could see the spirits of those whose lives had been touched, or taken, by the prisoners. One man sat slumped in his cell, surrounded by the victims of his murderous acts. They bore down upon him, and their presence obviously felt—oppressive.
Bentley felt eyes upon him and looked up to a cell in the higher tier. A thin man with dark, cruel eyes watched him as he passed. The specter of a woman appeared from behind the man, reaching out with long, spidery fingers to flick the lobe of his right ear. The man jumped suddenly, swearing aloud as he swatted at the air around him.
A long, tormented life was due them all before Death allowed them their freedom.
“Are you coming, Father?” the guard asked, holding open a heavy metal door. Bentley hadn’t realized that he had stopped.
“Of course,” he said, hurrying to catch up. “So sorry.”
The guard held the door for him, allowing him to pass through first.
“Right down here,” Fitzgerald said, going around him to the end of a semidarkened hall. He removed keys from inside his uniform pocket and unlocked the door.
He opened the door, and Bentley stepped inside.
“You can have a seat, and I’ll be right back with Tuttle.”
Bentley thanked him with a smile and sat down at one side of the table as the guard closed the door behind him.
Bentley could feel it in the air inside the room, like a cold draft from a broken window. Death was a presence here. It lived here, waiting to collect its charges.
He wondered if William Tuttle would be one of those taken shortly, or if there would perhaps be a change in plans. Bentley waited, anticipating Tuttle’s arrival, nearly jumping from his seat when he heard the door open.
Turning in his seat, he watched Fitzgerald escort the large, shackled man into the room. Bentley first noticed the man’s size. There was a powerful air about him, but he could also sense an incredible sadness.
“Who’s this?” Tuttle asked, looking at the guard.
“Somebody who wants to talk to you,” Fitzgerald answered, bringing his prisoner around to the other side of the table and shackling him in place. “He wants to try to save your soul.”
/> “What if I don’t want it to be saved?” Tuttle asked as he sat down heavily in the wooden chair.
“That’s probably up to you,” the guard said, making sure the prisoner was shackled properly.
“You’ve got fifteen minutes, Father,” the screw said as he left the room, closing the door behind him.
Bentley stared across the table at the big man; Tuttle stared back, studying him.
“Is this something you priests do before somebody gets executed?” William Tuttle asked. “Thought it was all taken care of on the day, right after my last meal.” He smiled sadly. “I ain’t dying for another week … unless they moved it up.” He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Fine with me if they did.”
Bentley continued to study the man, unfamiliar with the vibe he was getting from him. Tuttle was unlike any other murderers he’d encountered since becoming an avatar of Death.
“What did you do, William?” Bentley asked, watching the man’s reaction.
His blocky face screwed up in a strange mixture of sadness and rage.
“I killed the best thing that ever happened to me, that’s what I did,” he growled, pulling on his restraints.
The ghost of Tianna Hoops materialized beside the man, staring at him with sad, loving eyes. Bentley watched her, fascinated that such love could be felt for the man who had killed her.
“Did you, William?” Bentley asked. “Did you kill her?”
Tuttle’s face went red, and he surged up in his chair, pulling on the chains that held him there. Bentley half expected the links to snap and the man to come at him, but Tianna’s ghost had floated in closer to Tuttle, stroking his sweating brow and gently kissing the side of his angry face.
His expression softened, and he sat back down in his chair, tears now streaming from his eyes.
“Tell me, William,” Bentley asked. “Tell me what happened that evening.”
The man was sobbing now, the ghost stroking his face adoringly.
“She was all that I could have asked for,” he said. “There was nobody more beautiful than her.”
“Take me through what you remember,” Bentley told him.
“It was all that I needed, just spending time with her,” he said. “I had the day off, and I’d waited around until after the last show … for when she was free for the night.”