Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel

by Mike Mignola Christopher Golden

  Hawthorne’s ghost tilted its head and regarded him with love and sympathy, and Mr. Church felt something grind inside his chest again. The mechanism clanked several times, and the spasms made him jerk against the leather chair—once, twice, a third time. His left arm did not seem to want to respond to his brain’s commands. It would not reach to put the fallen pipe onto the desk. His right hand shook badly as he tried to move it from the open drawer, jerking side to side.

  “Not yet,” Mr. Church whispered. “Not yet, my old friends.”

  Warm tears touched his lips, and this time, when he tasted them, they were pure oil. He imagined his face must be streaked with black, and though he could not seem to look down, he knew the oil would be staining his jacket even now.

  Mr. Church forced himself to stand, hearing the grinding inside the way he heard his own voice when he spoke. A part of him.

  He averted his gaze from the gray specters looming in the shadowed corners. If he looked into their eyes, he feared he would know why they had come, and the answer to that question held terror for him.

  “I see you,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry, old friends, but you frighten me. Spiritual hands have stepped in to alter the course of my life more than once, to offer guidance and even gifts, but both blood and oil run cold in me this evening. I believe I know why you’ve come, for better or for worse, and there is something I must do.”

  Church, whispered the ghost of Dr. Nigel Hawthorne. You have given Death an admirable fight.

  “Hush!” Mr. Church said, his hands shaking. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his chest as he staggered across the room toward the bookshelves that held his rarest and most precious volumes.

  Church, whispered dead Thomas Cranham, the third man who had performed Hawthorne’s functions after the doctor’s death. Do you remember this?

  “No,” Mr. Church said as his knees buckled. He slammed into the shelves, and books tumbled out. The yellowed skull of an ancient Chaldean chemist hit the floor and shattered to dust.

  Simon, please, look at it, Cranham’s ghost pleaded.

  Mr. Church closed his eyes, sorrow filling up all of the empty places that his long years had left inside of him. He had never realized how hollow he had allowed himself to become until now, as anguish filled him up.

  “Not yet, damn you,” he rasped.

  Immediately, he regretted it. He had loved these men while they lived, each and every one of them. During the time when they had been his companions, not one of them had ever betrayed him. Some had been better detectives than others, smarter and more diligent, and some had simply been better company, quicker to laugh, with a gift for lightening his haunted heart.

  He chuckled to himself at the thought, but even the chuckle made his chest clench with fresh pain. The grinding inside him grew louder in his ears.

  Please, Simon, for your own sake, whispered another voice that he knew so well. This time he could not help glancing over at the ephemeral figure standing in the shadows. Arthur Kenneally had been forcibly drowned in the Thames by a brutal killer in the filthy Shadwell district of London—a killer who would have spared his life if Kenneally had just told him where to find Simon Church.

  Mr. Church closed his eyes and leaned against the bookshelf, his forehead pressed against the smooth leather bindings of his most precious books. Grief and terror bubbled inside of him like a scream he would not be able to hold inside forever. In his century as a detective, he had seen ghosts before, spirits lurking in dark houses and on rocky ocean bluffs, places of regret and disappointment and forlorn love. But only once had he seen the shade of someone he had known in his own life.

  Yet now they were all here, all of the men who had stepped into the role of best friend and confidant, who had faced danger with him and endured his arrogance and his intensity, the cold focus that he often employed to the dismissal of all else. Hawthorne, who had known him best of all, and known the best of him, when the vigor of youth still inspired him … and Kenneally, who had given his own life rather than betray and endanger the great detective Simon Church.

  And he would not face them?

  Grimacing against his pain, against the screaming clutch of muscle and the grind of broken gears inside him, Mr. Church forced himself upright. Lifting his chin, he turned toward the specters of his past who had come from the shadows—who had perhaps always lurked nearby, just out of reach—and opened his eyes. He stared at the ghosts and wished for his pipe.

  Do you remember this? Hawthorne asked, though now Mr. Church saw that his lips did not move, that the ghost’s voice sounded like the whisper of the breeze fluttering long drapes. His phantom figure fading in and out, Hawthorne pointed at a small rosewood box that sat unobtrusively on a waist-level shelf.

  Mr. Church swallowed hard, tasting oil. His mouth felt dry.

  “Of course I do,” he said.

  Inside the box was a single opal, a red stone shot through with veins of black. If he were to test the box, he knew he would find that its contents also included detritus from a hundred-year-old bay leaf that had once been wrapped around the stone.

  “How could I forget?” he said, though now he spoke in a whisper meant only for himself.

  Old guilt slipped its arms around him like an illicit lover, comfortable and shameful all at once. He had kept the box as a reminder, but as the decades had passed, it had become just one more souvenir in a home filled with them. As he glanced around the study, he knew what he would see—a broken calabash pipe, a fountain pen, a sikh’s dagger, a tiny runic tablet, a silent bell, a cracked goblet, and dozens of other artifacts from the crimes he had solved and the tragedies he had averted throughout his life.

  Morris knew the risks, Thomas Cranham’s ghost said.

  Mr. Church nodded, flinching at a new knot of pain in his side. He searched the diaphanous faces of the spirits who gathered in his study, but he already knew that he would not see Morris Sowerberry among them. Guilt clutched at his failing heart that he had not noticed immediately. Sowerberry had not been the most stalwart or the most amiable or the most competent of his associates through the years, nor had he been the only one to die during the course of an investigation. But his death had certainly been the most unsettling … if one could even call it “death.”

  Tasked by Scotland Yard with helping them track down the Knightsbridge Strangler, Mr. Church had solved the puzzle of the killer’s identity, only to be captured by the Strangler himself. The killer had known he had reached the end game and intended to work out his frustrations over the course of long days of brutality, making Church’s pain linger before snuffing out his life. Sowerberry had known of Church’s conclusions but had no evidence to present to Scotland Yard. More than once, he had tried to follow the killer without being noticed, but somehow the man always seemed to sense and elude him, until at last Sowerberry had decided that the only way he could trail the killer back to where Church was being held would be if he himself were invisible.

  Amongst Mr. Church’s collection of arcane artifacts and lore had been the Pasha’s Opal, a souvenir from a previous case. Wrapped in a fresh bay leaf, it was purported to render whoever held it in his hand invisible. For Sowerberry, it had worked all too well. Invisible to the naked eye, he had followed the killer until, at last, the man had led him to the old tailor shop where Mr. Church had been imprisoned in the basement. He had assaulted the killer, still invisible, and grappled with him, but during the struggle he had dropped the opal and it had slipped from its bay leaf wrapping.

  Though already invisible, in that moment Sowerberry had vanished. The Knightsbridge Strangler had already been knocked unconscious and Mr. Church had managed to work himself free of his bonds in time, but of Sowerberry there was never any sign. Never able to become visible again, he had slipped away from the world, flesh and bone, and his spirit would never rest. He could not have been here among the other ghosts, for he was neither physical nor spiritual, no longer alive but never entirely dead.


  Simon, the ghost of Nigel Hawthorne said. His voice seemed a chill breath whispering in Mr. Church’s ear, though the spirit still lurked in the gloomy recesses of the room with the rest. Cranham is right. Sowerberry knew the risk he took. He had read the file on the Pasha’s Opal and the warnings therein.

  “I know,” Mr. Church said, staring for the first time at the translucent eyes of the first partner he had ever taken on in his investigations, dead for more than sixty-five years. “But he took the risk, Hawthorne. In this line of work, we hurl ourselves into danger over and over, without reservation, knowing that we do so for the greater good.”

  But Morris did it for you, Cranham observed, his voice so faraway, a sound like rustling paper.

  “I know that!” Mr. Church said, instantly regretting that he had snapped at Cranham. He was not entirely certain why the specters had come, but he felt sure it had not been so that they could be upbraided by him.

  At last, Hawthorne’s gray shade slipped from the shadows. In the deep gloom streaming through the window, a mix of oncoming evening and ominous storm outside, he was little more than a silhouette formed of smoke.

  Morris Sowerberry earned his rest, Hawthorne whispered. His parents await him for eternity. The woman he loved and never married wonders when his spirit will finally slip the bonds of the physical world and join hers. But that is simply not to be. Sowerberry will never have his rest, Simon. This is no fault of yours, despite the guilt you carry in your heart, but if you could step back through time, armed with the knowledge of events before they occur, wouldn’t you stop him from taking the opal? Wouldn’t you want Sowerberry to have the rest he had earned?

  Mr. Church leaned against the bookcase. A dreadful weight had formed in his chest and grew heavier by the moment, all of the oil and blood pooling there, and the slowing mechanisms no longer able to provide enough strength for him to bear their burden. He smelled the smoke from inside him and tasted oily tears on his lips again.

  “Of course,” he rasped, his voice no louder than the whispers of the ghosts. “You know that I would.”

  In his long years, he had seen terrifying specters, bloodthirsty ghosts of madmen, and hate-filled apparitions. He had seen lost, mournful phantoms, bare echoes of lonely lives, afraid to enter what they feared would be an even lonelier afterlife. Though it chilled him, now, to be surrounded by the spirits of long-dead friends, he felt no fear. If anything, he felt safe. Certainly, he did not feel alone, and for that his own ghost would be grateful forever and beyond.

  But he wished they had not come, for it made what he had to do next all the harder.

  You must leave Joe as he is, Cranham’s ghost said. Let his spirit rest. He’s earned that.

  Church knew that he owed Hawthorne and the others his attention. For all of the times he had been so focused on some riddle or enigma, distracted by a case, that he had ignored the input they offered, he would not ignore them now. The pain crippled him. His breath came in thin, reedy sips, and his left hand had begun to tremble uncontrollably, but he listened to every word. He only wished he could comply.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hearing the slur in his voice. Not a single part of him worked properly anymore. “There is more to be done.”

  Mr. Church caught a look of disappointment on the face of Hawthorne’s ghost. Despite the gossamer insubstantiality of the spirit, the way even the wan light in the room passed through, and the hollow void of his eyes, still the specter’s gaze held all the nuances of emotion. Flickering in and out, the ghost of Nigel Hawthorne loomed closer, vanishing and reappearing several times until they were near enough to each other to whisper secrets without the others hearing.

  I don’t like seeing you in pain, Simon, Hawthorne’s ghost said, his features more the hint of a face in coalescing smoke now. I will ease your burden, if I can. But you must listen.

  “I told you—” Mr. Church began.

  You must, Hawthorne’s ghost said, even more firmly.

  The specter reached out a wispy, transparent hand and pressed it to Mr. Church’s chest. The pain seemed to abate, and Mr. Church exhaled. And yet he knew that this was no cure, only a brief respite. The spark of some strange vitality ignited inside him, and he understood that Hawthorne had given part of his own spirit, part of himself, to offer blessed relief.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Church rasped.

  But the ghost did not withdraw his hand from Mr. Church’s chest. Instead, he spoke a single word. Remember.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It is another era, years past. Church sits at the desk in his study. A jazz record plays, its soft notes dancing through the room. The drapes are tied back and moonlight streams in, splashing across the faded, once-lovely carpet. Dust motes swirl, a languid storm of neglect floating in the pale yellow light. If not for Church’s presence, one might think the room had been abandoned for months or more. He remains so entirely still that he might as well be part of the furnishings.

  Church takes a deep, hitching breath, disturbing some of the dust that floats around him. He stares at the peculiar mechanism on the desk before him, its once-gleaming metal now dingy with oil and imbued with magic. It looks like something he has taken from among the mechanical organs he has built for himself, but this apparatus of tiny iron pumps and sealed iron chambers is so much more than that.

  Once the implantation is completed, and his useless, dying organ has been removed, this will be his heart.

  It weighs very little, considering the metal involved, and yet his desk seems to sag under its burden. Mr. Church massages his temples, staring at the mechanism staining the desktop. In no mood for his pipe, he draws a Turkish cigarette from a mahogany box and lights it with a wooden match, which he blows out and drops into an ashtray. Thin wisps of smoke, the ghosts of the extinguished flame, rise from the dead match, and he watches then dissipate.

  The record’s music fills the room, but Mr. Church cannot feel it within him. It does nothing to lift his spirits, seeming instead to speak to the part of him that longs for an end to all music. An end to blood and oil and cigarettes and the life he has spent accumulating the things in his study, the remnants of times past, the markers on his road. He smokes awhile, feeling the tightness in his chest. He can feel the gears moving in there, hear the workings of the other mechanisms he installed over time so that he could hold on to life. The mad contraption he has made, this new and impossible heart, will give him many years still, even decades, if he wants them.

  But is that the purpose of a heart? he wonders. Often in his long life he has thought that perhaps the purpose of the human heart is to break. He has found and lost love many times. He has embraced friends who were profoundly loyal and loved them almost as deeply. One by one they died, some violently or tragically, and others merely succumbing to the slow unraveling of age. Church has been alone often in his life, but he has never felt so alone as this.

  He smokes and he spins the heart apparatus in idle circles on the desk. In time he lifts it and holds it in his palm, testing its weight, and he thinks of the crimes that he has solved and the lives he has saved. He remembers the ghosts he has banished and the curses he has broken. His work keeps people safe, and it has been his passion since boyhood, but all of the loss and loneliness wear on him now, and he thinks perhaps the time has come to stop putting himself back together when his body wants to give in to nature and fall apart.

  Someday he will have to die. Why not today? The world will spin without him, until one day it doesn’t. How many people will really notice if he is gone?

  Church gazes at the shaft of moonlight that touches the edge of his desktop. He takes a puff of his cigarette and blows it toward the light, watching the smoke mix with the motes of dust and then drift upward into the dark. His chest has ached for days, but he has lived long enough to construct a new heart and to perform the incantations that will make the impossible possible. Yet now that it is done, he no longer wants it. No longer needs it.

  No more, he think
s.

  The cigarette has burned nearly to his fingers now, but Church takes another deep pull of its spicy sweet smoke into his lungs and leans back in the creaking leather chair, closing his eyes. He holds the smoke inside, letting it languish, and only when he must breathe—when the apparatus that replaced his lungs years ago demands air—does he breathe the smoke out.

  His eyes remain closed. He can feel the edges of the cigarette begin to burn between his fingers.

  Is this enough? he asks without speaking, and without knowing precisely who it is that he is asking.

  He hears a sound as if in answer, a kind of sifting, sprinkling noise. Church frowns, wondering if he has heard correctly, or if he has rats in his walls again and it is the scratch of their claws he’s heard. But after a moment there comes a louder noise from the same direction, just off to his right.

  He opens his eyes and turns in search of the source of that sound. Nothing seems out of place. The books are on their shelves along with the artifacts of his career, both occult and mundane. A large globe rests on its stand. The most prominent thing in that corner of the room is the huge stone figure of the golem that watches him with a statue’s eyes.

  Just at the edge of the moonlight’s reach, Church can see a half-crumbled piece of stone on the floor at the golem’s feet, surrounded by a sprinkle of clay. Curious, he puts down the heart apparatus and stubs out his cigarette, only then noticing how badly he’d allowed his fingers to burn. They sting, and he blows warm breath between his fingers, cooling the burns, as he rises from his chair and walks over to get a better look at the debris that seems to have fallen from the golem. He cocks his head, regarding the stone figure carefully.