Weird Heroes, Book 1: Hairy Shanks

by Josh Reynolds

bricks around the hole seemed to bulge, and dry mortar powdered the floor. He gestured, tracing a sacred shape from the Third Ritual of Hloh in the air with two fingers. He was tempted to open his third eye, but he knew that that was simply inviting trouble. The spirit-eye, his old mentor Carnacki had called it. It could show one what lurked behind the veil of reality. Often, that was not pleasant, or conducive to continued sanity. Both Stanhook and Gallowglass had weapons out. He waved them back.

  "They left Shanks in an old Roman well when they weren't baiting him. Then, one day, some bright spark decided that seeing the poor beast maul dogs wasn't unpleasant enough. They blinded him and whipped him, five or six men, standing around him, whipping him. And he couldn't escape, because of his chain, so he was forced to defend himself, in ways only a bear can." He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice as he spoke.

  He shook his head and sucked in a lungful of smoke. "The story says men died. More men than ought, because Shanks was a powerful brute. He broke his chain and slammed into the crowd, tearing and biting..."

  "Good for him," Gallowglass muttered.

  "No, not as it turned out." St. Cyprian flicked away the dog-end of his cigarette. "Hairy Shanks was uncontrollable after that. Blinded and driven mad, it was all that his keepers could do to get him back in his kennel. He seemed possessed of the devil's fury, or so the accounts said. Arrows could not bring him down. So they entombed him. Blind and mad, the poor brute was left to starve in the dark," St. Cyprian said softly. "Or so the story goes." He stared at the hole, considering. Then, he stepped towards it.

  "Sir, are you sure you should..." Stanhook began. He still had his pistol out.

  "Not in the least. But we won't know what we're dealing with until we see." He glanced at them. "You remember that affair in Bank Station last year? That unruly manifestation we sealed up?" Gallowglass nodded grimly, and Stanhook paled. "That was a thing made out of pain and horror and fear, and left to ferment in the darkness, until it endangered the living. A darkness just like this..." He gestured to the hole. "But, it might also be something else. So, we must do due diligence, and investigate."

  "Maybe I should do it," Gallowglass said doubtfully. She eyed the hole warily. "What happens if it eats you?"

  "Then you'll be the Royal Occultist and free to do as you like. Wall it up, toss a stick of dynamite in, keep it as a pet...whatever takes your fancy," he said, smiling with a confidence he didn't quite feel. "Now...Stanhook, if you would, keep that light of yours shining into the chamber there. Wish me luck!" And with that, he straightened his tie, smiled blandly, and stepped into the darkness.

  Almost immediately, he was enveloped in an animal stink. He could smell blood as well, and the sickly-sweet rot of death. Something rolled beneath his feet, and he looked down to see an ancient chain, laying in thick dust. He froze. His eyes followed the chain, tracing its serpentine length deeper into the dark. It was broken, mid-link, and had not been moved for some time to judge by the build-up of filth on it. There was water dripping somewhere, trickling down the bricks, and he could almost smell the Thames.

  "Keep that light steady, chaps," he called out, over his shoulder. Bending low, he followed the chain back, to a rusty manacle and a great, shaggy mass that lurked deep in the dark, huddled against the far wall of the well. The chamber wasn't very large, and the image of a great bear, hunched and crouched in a space far too small for it, was suddenly, sadly, all too vivid. The mass was mostly dust and dirt, packed down like a grimy shroud over a mouldering heap of what he knew, even without looking closely, to be bones. One got a certain sense for such things in this line.

  This was no longer a well but an oubliette, and these bones were all that remained of its inhabitant. At least, as far as the physical was concerned. They had fallen askew when the workmen had cracked the wall open. Tch. Disturbing the last resting place of an angry ghost. Never ends well, he thought. It hadn't been their fault, obviously. But ghosts tended not to wait for explanations.

  As he knelt, the air stirred and the pile shifted again, loose bones rattling across stone. And in the dark, something growled. He heard the clatter of chains, though the one connected to the bones hadn't moved. Ghosts wear ghost-chains, he thought, as the animal stink grew stronger and the growl sounded again, turning his blood to ice. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing from every brick and stone, growing louder the more he tried and failed to pinpoint its source of origin.

  The first blow caught him across the back. For a moment, he thought the wall had caved in. He heard cloth tear and felt as if someone had hit him between the shoulders with a hammer. He was knocked from his feet. As he tried to roll onto his back, something sharp, but unseen, caught his trouser-leg and dragged him across the floor. There was a roaring in his ears, and he could only just barely make out Gallowglass and Stanhook shouting. He lifted his arm and the sleeve of his coat grew damp before it tore, and pain flared through his forearm. With his free hand, he desperately made the Hloh gestures, and the pressure on his arm faded, as whatever it was released him.

  Breathing heavily, he heard something large circle him in the dark. A blow caught him in the belly, sending him rolling into the wall. The darkness seemed to lunge forward, as he tried to stand. It had no shape, no weight, but he felt every blow and gagged as its rank breath rolled across his face. No matter which way he ducked, it was there, ready to swat him down. And through it all, the roaring and the rattle of unseen chains.

  He made the Hloh gestures again and again, but the pain did not cease and the sound did not diminish. The protective gestures were all that were keeping him from being masticated as Stanhook's man had been, but he'd underestimated the strength of the thing. It was strong, far stronger than any elemental of poltergeist, fully capable of battering him to death, if he let it. The Hloh signs only served to make it hesitate. They could not stop it. He had to escape, get clear of the chamber, out of reach.

  St. Cyprian shoved himself away from the wall, and heard what sounded like claws scrape the brick where his head had been. He lunged towards the light, his hands seeking the edges of the aperture. He caught it, even as something caught him by the leg, and he yelped. Hands grabbed his wrists, and he found himself caught in a tug of war. But only for a moment. The cuff of his trousers tore away and he tumbled forward, into the arms of his assistant. Gallowglass fell back beneath his weight, landing on her rear. He followed her down, winding up in her lap.

  "Are you in one piece?" she said, glaring down at him.

  "I—ah—I believe so," he rasped, looking up at her.

  "Good. Idiot." She shoved him off of her lap. "I told you it was going to try and eat you," she snapped as she got her feet under her.

  "Yes, well, such is life. Stanhook," St. Cyprian coughed. He shrugged out of his torn coat as Gallowglass knelt to inspect the slashes in his back and arms. "Be a pal and send one of your men out, we need some things—supplies. A choice cut of meat...still bloody if possible, and something to cut a chain with."

  "What are you planning?" Stanhook asked, bewildered. "We should just wall it back up, like you did the Bank Station bogey."

  "That thing was not a ghost," St. Cyprian grunted. "It was something much worse." He looked at the aperture and his face became sad. The sound of its roars still echoed in his head and he recognized them for what they were, even as it had done its level best to kill him. They had been the cries of a frightened animal, trapped and starving. "But that, in there, is the soul of an animal in torment. It's dangerous, and it will become more dangerous so long as it's held here." He smiled weakly. "Think of it like pus in an infected wound." He pointed a shaking hand. "That is such a wound, and it needs to be drained, the sooner the better." He glanced over his shoulder. "How bad?"

  "You're lucky," Gallowglass said bluntly. "Your coat and shirt, however..."

  "Bugger. I just bought it," he sighed. He looked at Stanhook. "Ghosts are funny things. Some of them are just...imprints on the world. Footsteps in the sand,
to borrow a phrase. But others, well, they don't even know they're dead."

  He looked back at the aperture, and began to roll up what was left of his sleeves. "Hairy Shanks is still trapped in there, still chained, even though he's dead. And I'll be damned if I'm going to leave the poor brute in there."

  It didn't take long for Stanhook's men to procure the meat, and a set of heavy duty bolt-cutters. The LTA were nothing if not efficient, even when it came to the unusual or esoteric. As St. Cyprian hefted the latter and gave them an experimental snap, Gallowglass held the cut of cheap beef and eyed it curiously. "The bolt-cutters I get," she said. "But this?" She held up the meat.

  "I should have thought it'd be obvious," St. Cyprian said. "He's been walled up in there for more than a century. Poor blighter is probably hungry, what?" He looked at her. "Toss it in. While he's distracted—"

  "If he's distracted," she said.

  "While he's distracted," he continued, "I shall cut the chain."

  "And then?" Stanhook asked.

  St. Cyprian made a face. "Well...obviously, he'll be free."

  "What if he's still angry?"

  St. Cyprian laid the bolt-cutters across his shoulder. "We'll cross the bridge when we come to it. Now, would one of you be so kind as to give that