The Nimble Man m-1

by Christopher Golden

  It was darker now, as if the sun had decided to pack it in early. The red mist continued to swirl about him. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen a fog so unusual. It was kind of creepy. Gripping the tombstone, he pulled his powerful bulk up, the bones in his knees popping in protest. It was times like these that reminded him there might come a day when he wouldn't be able to do what his mother so desperately wanted him to stop, that he would be too old. Just thinking it was enough to stoke the fires of his urge. It was as if a switch had been flicked inside his head, and he knew what he wanted to do — what he had to do.

  It had been a little over two weeks since the desire was last satisfied. The memory of it flashed before his mind's eye. His mother was crying and carrying on, telling him that what he was doing was wrong, that he would go to jail, and who would take care of her then? She had been upstairs in the house they had shared since forever, changing the sheets on his bed, as she had every Tuesday for as long as he could remember. Dirty bedclothes in her arms, she had pushed past him, saying that he had left her no choice. She had to tell someone what he was doing, that it was all for his own good.

  Tom had never thought of her as one of them — the losers that wanted to hurt him, to keep him down, but for a brief moment she had become the enemy. As she prepared to descend the winding staircase, he had thought about how dangerous it could be for an old woman to be performing the duties of a household. One terrible fall, and that would be that.

  His left hand tingled with the memory of the act, and he brought it slowly up to his face, flexing his fingers. It had been the gentlest of pushes that sent the woman he had loved most in all the world tumbling down the wooden steps. She had landed in a twisted heap, her face covered with his dirty laundry.

  She had still been alive. He'd gently pulled back the sheet that covered her face and found her wide-eyed and gasping, her neck bent in a most unnatural way. But the look in her eyes told him that death would soon claim her. He had seen that look many times before, and when it finally did come, the first tears of mourning had fallen from his eyes.

  A horrible accident, the neighbors had whispered, and he had almost started to believe it was true.

  Almost.

  Tom wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his sports jacket and reached out to retrieve his empty flask. He slid it into a pocket, and told his mother that he would be back again tomorrow. The urge to kill was growing stronger. He placed a kiss upon his fingertips, and touched his mother's headstone.

  As he turned away from the grave he noticed movement in the fog. It was a woman, slowly walking amongst the graves. Tom squelched the murderous hunger that began to urge him on. This is not the time or place, yet he continued to watch the woman who moved stiffly toward him.

  And then he noticed the others. They were all heading toward him, walking through the strange, red mist. It was a strange sort of exodus from the cemetery and he wondered if there was anything was wrong. Puzzled, Tom fished through his pockets for the keys to his car and turned down the winding path that would take him to the parking lot.

  A grave at the left of the path exploded, and Tom stumbled backward, reeling, as cold muddy earth and pieces of rotten wood pelted his face. The heel of his shoe caught the edge of a marker, and he went down on the grass.

  The crowd was closer now and he prepared to yell to them, to ask for help. The words had almost left his mouth when he became distracted by motion in the darkness of the now open grave.

  There was something, somebody crawling up out of the dirt. He guessed that it had been a woman, but only because it wore the tattered remains of a navy blue dress, and he could see a string of pearls still adorning the dry, leathery-brown skin of her throat. The woman hauled herself up out of the hole, rose stiffly to her feet, and shambled toward him with a gaseous gurgle.

  He knew, then, of course. Knew exactly what he was looking at. But that did not stop his mind from attempting to rationalize. The poor woman had somehow been buried alive and had managed to free herself. That was the only explanation he would allow.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, as she lurched closer.

  The mist cleared. And he saw her.

  Her hands were covered in loose flesh like gloves two sizes too big. She had no eyes, just two empty sockets that squirmed with life uncomfortable being above the ground.

  Tom Stanley began to scream, just as his victims had done.

  All around him graves exploded and he scrambled to his feet, lashing out at the decaying woman who blocked his path. The animated remains of the woman fell sideways, her skull striking a stone marker and shattering. He did not want to see what was inside the corpse's head and was thankful that the red mist obscured it from his view.

  He screamed for help into the fog. There had to be other mourners nearby. From the corner of his eye he saw movement upon the ground. Hissing things clawed their way up from other graves and dragged what remained of them across the grass toward him.

  A powerful hand came down upon his shoulder, skeletal fingers digging into his flesh. He spun out of its grasp and turned to see that it was the woman he had first noticed in the red mist. He tried to flee, hopping over the things crawling on the ground in the swirling fog. But she grabbed him again and he was forced to push her away, to touch her.

  Her flesh was like wet clay.

  "Bitch," he snapped, stepping back as she reached for him. Savagely, he slapped her hand away as the others slowly emerged from the crimson fog, all of them decayed and covered with grave dirt.

  Part of him wanted to cry, to lie down upon the ground and curl up into a ball, begging for his mother's protection. But he knew he couldn't. He had to get away or they would get him for sure. It had to be the mist, something in the weird fog that made them come back from the dead.

  They surged toward him, the noises they made horrible. He turned to run, but the ground erupted beneath his feet and he felt his ankle clutched in a powerful grip. He fell hard to the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs in an explosive wheeze. Tom rolled over, gasping for air, trying to free himself from the grasp of the pale hand that had reached up through the dirt and grass.

  The dead were closer now. He could see their horrible faces and knew them all. They had come for him — all the losers he had killed over the years — and they had brought along friends. They shuffled closer, smiling, mocking him as they always had done.

  Tom lay back upon the moist earth, overwhelmed by their number, throwing his hands over his face, curling himself into a tight little ball. "Mommy!" he shrieked, his eyes clamped shut against the horrors bearing down on him, and he felt a cold, gentle caress upon his cheek. Opening his eyes, he saw that they still loomed above him. He knew them all, each and every one.

  But one he knew better than all the rest.

  She knelt at his side, her head bent oddly to the left as she smiled at him.

  "Mommy?" he asked, certain that his prayers had been answered and she had come to save him from the monsters that wanted to make him feel so small. He reached up and pulled her into his arms. "I missed you so much, Mommy," he said. He felt the cold flesh of her face press tightly against his cheek, and she moved her head to plant an affectionate kiss upon his lips.

  He tried to pull away but her lips pressed firmly against his, and her teeth, so incredibly sharp, had found his tongue. She tore it from his mouth. Tom could no longer speak.

  He couldn't even scream.

  Dr. Graves fought his way back into the world of the living, his spectral energies forcing through the membranous covering that separated the physical plain from the realm of the dead. Like being born again, he thought as he materialized in the room designated for him on the second floor of Conan Doyle's Beacon Hill townhouse. The insistent tug of the afterlife was severed by his manifestation in the material world.

  The room was filled with mementos of the many adventures he had undertaken during his life. Souvenirs were displayed about the room, multiple framed newspaper headlines a reminder of w
hat he had been to the world. His ghostly eyes scanned the objects and headlines, remembering the details of his achievements. It had been a good life — a full life — and a familiar, bitter question rose in his mind. Would it be so bad to let go? To finally succumb to the pull of the stream? Each time he visited the afterworld, it was harder to return, to fight against the current of the gate, and the reality of what lay beyond it. The ultimate mystery awaited him there, one that had baffled the human species since they had first walked erect, and one that he hungered to solve.

  But there was another more personal mystery that required his attentions first, before he could even think about giving himself to the stream. Graves' eyes fell upon a particular headline, and he felt the same insatiable rage, the same desire for justice that filled him each time he read it. "Dr. Graves Dead! Famed Adventurer Shot! Identity of Killer Still Unknown!"

  It was a comfort, surrounding himself with memories, and a tether to his past, but it also served to fuel the rage and frustration he still felt at his inability to solve the mystery of own murder. He would find the one who killed him, the one who stole away his life. But until that time came, Dr. Leonard Graves would do what he had always done: fight to keep the world safe from harm.

  The ghost returned his attentions to the case at hand. He had to speak to Conan Doyle. In his mind's eye, he again saw Yvette Darnell as she was pulled away by the soulstream. What was it she said about the fears of the dead, just before the gate drew her in?

  "Something calls to them, trying to drag them back… to their bodies."

  Graves was startled from his musings by a clamorous din. He presumed it was only Squire beginning yet another of his frequent home improvement projects, but this was hardly the best time for such endeavors. Walking was an affectation for a specter, of course, but still Graves preferred it when inside the house. He found it unsettling to simply propel his ectoplasmic form along by the force of his will, and he was certain others did as well. So though he did not bother with the door, passing instead right through the wall, he did so by striding from his room into the corridor as though he were an ordinary flesh-and-blood man.

  At the last moment, the oddness of the clamor he had heard troubled him further. What if that noise was not Squire's doing? As he emerged into the hall, he willed himself to be unseen.

  And then he froze. What he saw there in the corridor filled the ghost with dread.

  The enemy had invaded their headquarters.

  Coppery-skinned creatures moved about the hall, excitedly speaking to one another in a harsh, guttural tongue as they kicked open doors in a search for the townhouse's occupants. Corca Duibhne, he thought. Based upon Eve and Conan Doyle's description, these could only be the Night People. Graves watched as four of the leather-clad Night People emerged from the bedroom Conan Doyle always kept ready for Eve. The creatures had an article of her clothing, a silk blouse he'd seen her wear on more than one occasion, and were tearing into pieces, each taking a swatch, bringing it to their upturned, piggish noses and inhaling her scent.

  How is this possible? Graves wondered. The protective wards Conan Doyle had placed around the house should have been more than sufficient to prevent the infestation of these lowly creatures. But here they were, moving freely about the premises.

  The Corca Duibhne finished with Eve's scent, and began cautiously moving toward the door to Dr. Graves' own bedroom. They could neither see nor scent him, and so would pass right by him. He debated whether or not he should confront them, and decided that it would be wiser, for the moment, merely to observe. He had no idea, after all, how many of them there were, and whether or not his comrades were in the house, or if any of his friends had been injured.

  The obvious leader of the quartet motioned for his brethren to step back, preparing to kick open the door to his room.

  Bastards, Graves seethed. They don't even have the common courtesy to see if it's locked.

  Since meeting his death, Dr. Leonard Graves had grown more cautious, but it didn't mean that the reckless instincts of the adventurer were completely gone. He couldn't help himself. Still invisible to the creatures, he drifted up behind the Corca Duibhne and slid his spectral hand into the back of their leader, ghostly fingers plunging into the thing's flesh.

  The creature froze, a violent shudder passing through its thin body. Then the Corca Duibhne whipped around with a ferocious snarl, lashing out at its startled teammates, and they began to fight amongst themselves.

  Graves smiled, but his amusement was disrupted by the oddest sensation, like a tremor passing through the very fabric of the world.

  Magick.

  The heavy wooden door at the end of the hall, which hid the entrance to Faerie, exploded violently open, crashing into the wall behind it. Graves floated back, his spirit pummeled by powerful, magickal emanations flowing from the open door. The Corca Duibhne cowered.

  A woman of obvious Fey descent stepped from the doorway, supernatural discharge crackling about her statuesque form. She was dressed in black leather and moved with a casual predatory grace that informed Graves that here was the real enemy. Two men, also bearing the physical characteristics of Faerie, flanked her, listening intently to her every word.

  "That is the last of the passages to Faerie. With that path sealed, there will be no interference from the Fey," she announced, a smile slashing across her severe countenance. "I do so get a thrill when a plan comes together."

  Though he had no flesh to feel with, a chill went through Graves. He had no idea if this witch knew it, but Conan Doyle was in Faerie even now. If she'd closed all the doors between the worlds, Conan Doyle would be trapped there. This is not good, not good at all. He was debating what to do next when he noticed that the woman was staring in his direction. The Night People, still cowering in front of his bedroom door, dropped to their knees under her withering gaze.

  "What is that behind you?" she asked, eyes sparking with menace as she pointed a clawed finger in his direction.

  The Corca Duibhne leaped to their feet and spun around, unsuccessfully searching the air for his presence.

  Is it possible? Graves wondered. Can she see me?

  With a sound like grease on a hot pan, thick strings of magickal energy erupted from the woman's fingertips and Graves knew that the answer was yes. The putrid yellow tendrils tore through the Corca Duibhne in their path, leaving them squealing and writhing upon the floor.

  With the speed of thought, Graves shot up toward the ceiling, avoiding the attack. Though he was dead, ectoplasm did exude a kind of spirit energy. Somehow, this sorceress could see that energy. He made a mental note to ask Conan Doyle about the visual range of the Fey for future reference.

  "Come to Morrigan, little spirit," the Fey sorceress whispered, manipulating the tendrils of magickal power as an extension of her grasp.

  Morrigan. Graves was certain he had heard the name before, but he didn't have time to search his vast memory for all the facts. Best to simply get out of there, and try to find out what had happened to the others. He floated upward even further, beginning to pass through the ceiling. One of the mystic tendrils snagged his ankle, and pain the likes of which he had not imagined possible in the afterlife engulfed his lower leg and began to spread. The air around his captured limb began to shimmer and wave and he saw that where he had been touched by the witch's magick, he was becoming visible.

  "There you are," Morrigan hissed, manipulating more of the energies to take hold of him.

  Ghosts were insubstantial, often unable to influence the physical world at all. But the supernatural was something else entirely. Graves sometimes had trouble touching a human being, or anything of the human world, but monsters and magick… he could combat them. Unfortunately, this meant that he was vulnerable to their touch as well.

  Graves tried to block the pain, a trick he had mastered in life and never expected to need in death. He was tugged toward the floor. More tendrils converged upon him, sensing the air for his whereabouts, using
his gradually materializing foot for reference. He didn't have much time. For a moment, he ceased his struggles. The string of magick that gripped his ankle loosened, just slightly. With every ounce of his will, he tore himself away from its grasp, and darted down through the floor to the level below.

  The foyer swarmed with invading Corca Duibhne, and they began to panic as Morrigan shrieked from the floor above them. Graves flowed through the amassed Night People, who stumbled about the townhouse lobby, banging into one another in alarm. Then he was through the battered front door and out into the freedom of the night.

  The neighborhood was deathly quiet except for the wails of a dog howling in the distance. The animal was afraid, and Graves did not blame him in the least. Things had grown worse since his departure to the spirit realms. A thick, rolling fog, the color of dried blood, covered the ground and blotted out any light from the sky.

  The ghost rose above Louisburg Square, the pain pulsing through his leg just starting to fade. He hovered above the rooftops and gazed in awe at the city below him. The unnatural mist seemed to hold it captive, and shapes that even at this distance he could tell were not human, shambled upon the streets. He dove down toward them for a closer look and recoiled at the sight. Corpses in various stages of decomposition were making their way through the streets, all moving in the same direction, as if being drawn to something.

  Graves could sense the turmoil of the souls trapped within the moldering remains, and then he understood the final words of the psychic Yvette Darnall. Something had dragged the spirits back to their putrefying bodies, intent on using them for some insidious purpose that he had yet to fathom.

  Graves rose again into the air, watching the dead march down Beacon Street through the blood-red fog. Conan Doyle was gone. He knew he had to find his other allies, but first he needed to learn more about what was drawing the dead back from the afterworld. At the very least, he thought, as he watched them all streaming in the same direction, I want to find out where they're headed.