Demon

by Shane Peacock

  “The devil has spells. He has black magic. He can make you do anything! He will kill us. He will kill us by simply looking at us! He said he could do it. He knows who you are, Edgar Brim, exactly who you are, and you fascinate him. You, the young knight of fear, the king of the hag phenomenon, you discombobulate him; you energize him! He is in your mind making you do what he wants! He wants to play with you more than anyone else! He wants you to come to him!”

  “Then that is what he will get.” Edgar is grinding his teeth.

  “This is not simply a creature, lad: this is Satan himself, alive in London!”

  Edgar Brim feels powerful. His brain is telling him that it is working better than ever before, his muscles are stronger, his quickness greater. He has ejected fear and the confidence that has replaced it is like a narcotic bursting inside him. At this moment, Edgar Brim is a genius and a superman.

  “Morley is reading about the monsters!” shouts Shakespeare in desperation. “He is reading and re-reading Dracula and Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde! He has been studying them! Ever since I told him about our missions, about you and the others! He reads Poe from day until night! He reads Inferno and Paradise Lost! And he reads the Bible! It infatuates him! He says he is IN it! He recognizes himself! Do you hear what I am saying! He says we have proven to him who he is!”

  Edgar keeps pulling Shakespeare forward, feeling more powerful with every word the little man shrieks.

  * * *

  —

  By the time they reach Thomas Street, he is almost dragging his companion behind him, the diminutive fellow digging his boot-heels into the pavement. They march past the building with the devil-worship room and up to the entrance of the residence next door. Edgar pins his prisoner to the wall with one arm on the scrawny chest and hammers on the door with his other fist. Shakespeare’s head wound has begun to clot.

  “You were here in this street before, weren’t you?”

  “I think so,” whimpers Shakespeare. “I may have come once…or twice. I do not know! Neither I nor you or anyone can resist his will!”

  No one appears for a while, but then there are noises inside, someone approaching.

  “Lord have mercy on our souls!” cries Shakespeare. “The saints in heaven preserve us now!”

  The door opens and an old woman appears. For an instant, Edgar thinks it is the hag. He staggers back. She is, however, an ordinary woman, with a broom in her hand and a stained white apron over her dark-blue cotton dress. Edgar releases Shakespeare.

  “May I ’elp you?”

  Edgar turns away from her to his companion and whispers, “Have you ever seen this woman before?”

  “No,” says Shakespeare in a shaky voice.

  “May I ’elp you?” asks the crone again.

  “I…I am looking for Alexander Morley,” says Edgar.

  “Alex Morley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, ’e isn’t ’ere.”

  “Then, where is he?”

  “That is up to the Lord our God.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You see, Mr. Morley is no longer with us. Atticus Cleaners ’as employed me to sort ’is residence. I will ’ave it ship-shape before the end of the day!”

  “That is impossible,” says Shakespeare.

  “No it ain’t!” replies the woman, losing her brief attempt at respectability. “I is among the best cleaners in the city of London, I is, and I will ’ave you know it can be done by the likes of me within the time allotted!”

  “That is not what he means,” says Edgar.

  The woman’s hands are on her hips and she is glaring at her interrogators.

  “Then ’e ’ad best explain ’isself.”

  “He means that Mr. Morley cannot have passed from this life.”

  “Alex Morley is as dead as a doornail, for a week now, in fact.”

  “OH!” cries Shakespeare.

  “Is there somethin’ wrong with this little man, somethin’ more than meets me eye?”

  “He has had personal contact with Morley within the past day or two and a note from him this morning.”

  “Now that, sir, is impossible. ’E was carted out of ’ere and taken to the dead ’ouse a good seven days back, and I know so because I was told it ’appened and instructed to begin cleanin’ ’is place before all the furniture was toted away and sold at auction.”

  “Oh!” cries Shakespeare again.

  “Is ’e goin’ to keep doin’ that?”

  “You are sure Mr. Morley is dead?”

  “As sure as I’m standin’ ’ere.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Don’t know for certain. There may have been some funny business. ’E was a strange one, Mr. Morley was, with ’is shaved ’ead and ’is black clothes and ’is ’orrible eyes. A weird one. Weird and smart as a whip. I’ve cleaned ’is hovel before, you know, a good dozen times or more. As I says, near everythin’ ’as been taken away as of this mornin’, but if you’d a seen it when ’e was livin’ ’ere you’d a known what I mean by strange. The whole place was black, the walls and the ceilin’, there was obscene little statues everywhere, knives all about the place, not a bed in sight. The police came ’ere to look around when I was doin’ the first of this last cleanin’. It ’as been a long job. I heard them talkin’. There was no burial, someone claimed ’is corpse and took it away when the ’thorities was done with it.”

  “What do you mean by funny business?”

  “I knows there was buckets of blood because there was still red all over the floors when I first came in and I knows blood stains and ’ow to remove ’em. No one did it to ’im, though, if you knows what I mean, not by the way those Bobbies was talkin’.”

  “Suicide?”

  Shakespeare turns to the wall and lowers his head as if he is about to be sick to his stomach.

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “Do you think there was a doctor, a coroner?”

  “Oh, ’parently they did it up right, took what he’d left of himself off to the hospital, before that someone came and claimed him.”

  “The London?”

  “Course. These coppers said he knew someone there, an old friend, one of them mind doctors.”

  “Berenice,” whispers Edgar, and a chill goes down his spine.

  “That’s it, that’s the name.”

  Edgar immediately turns and starts to walk briskly down Thomas Street toward the hospital.

  Shakespeare can barely keep up. He looks behind as he runs, his little legs moving as fast as he can make them go. He reaches out for Edgar several times, almost as if he wants to take him by the hand.

  “Edgar! EDGAR BRIM!” he cries. “Alex Morley was sending me messages when he was dead! He butchered himself and THEN he came to see me! This proves who he is!”

  “Nonsense!” shouts Edgar, not even looking back at him. “It proves precisely the opposite. The devil cannot die!”

  “He looked perfectly well yesterday, Edgar, perfectly well! Quite striking, actually.”

  They cross wide Whitechapel Road and enter the hospital. It is approaching mid-morning and both the street and the London are hot and bustling. The wilting matron is fanning herself. She stares at them and even calls out, but Edgar ignores her, crosses the crowded, noisy reception room and begins to climb the first set of stairs, his little companion huffing and puffing as he tries to stay close. As they approach Berenice’s door, Shakespeare throws himself at Edgar’s legs and slows him down.

  “Edgar Broom,” he whispers, “before you open that door to this woman, this mind doctor who is connected to the evil that pursues us, I must tell you something! It may make you come to your senses and flee with me! It is about a particular visit that the devil Morley made to the Crypto-Anthropology Society of the Queen’s Empire.”

>   Edgar sighs. “What is it? And quickly.”

  “One day…one day…one day…”

  “Out with it.”

  “He turned on an electric light.”

  “Why are you wasting my time?”

  “And…and he moved an inkwell across the table.”

  “This is ridic—”

  “He did not touch these items when he did these things.”

  “Shakespeare, you are a fool.”

  “He did not touch them, Edgar Broom. He turned on the light and moved the inkwell by simply looking at them. He used his powers. That was how he made me go to Master Jonathan, I am certain, and he somehow caused him to die. He many times told me that if I did not do the things he instructed me to do, tell him the things he wanted to know, he would take my soul with merely a look.”

  Edgar swallows and hopes it does not sound as loud to his little companion as it does to him. They are just a couple of steps from Berenice’s door. He turns to it. The blind is pulled down on its window. He doesn’t knock and enters without saying a word.

  The alienist has her back to them, on her knees against the bed as if in prayer, but with her hands held out to either side of her shoulders, palms open and downward, as if receiving some sort of spirit from below. She is naked from the waist up: her tight brown dress pulled down to her wide hips, her back slim but taut, an extraordinary network of fine muscles evident, as if her torso belongs to an athletic woman in her twenties. Her feet are bare too.

  “Dr. Berenice!” shouts Edgar. Shakespeare comes to a halt and gasps.

  The mind doctor does not move even one of her well-defined muscles. She remains motionless for a moment, then, still turned away from them, reaches behind her waist, her shoulders popping out and back into place, pulls up the top of her dress to cover herself and does up all the buttons, right to the bottom of her neck, her arms, wrists and fingers remarkably supple. Then she gets to her feet, seemingly without effort, and turns to her visitors, swinging her long black hair around so it falls over her back. Her exotic face betrays her age, perhaps approaching seventy or maybe older.

  “Oh, my Lord!” cries Shakespeare.

  “Good day, Edgar. Who is this little man?”

  “This is William Shakespeare.”

  “I see. Are you sure it isn’t Charles Dickens?”

  “It is what he calls himself.”

  “You…you look familiar, s-sound—” stutters Shakespeare.

  “I doubt that.”

  “H-how…” stutters Shakespeare again, pointing at her, “how do you do that?”

  “Do what?” asks Berenice.

  “Reach behind yourself like that. Be so supple, so…so…”

  “So young of body?” She stands towering over him, a perfect and strong hourglass shape. Something about her seems to terrify the little man.

  “Yes.”

  “It is an ancient Indian art, where one stretches the body daily. It is that and other things that keep my body young, but the mind retains all the true power. Its power is limitless. A great man taught me that. He showed me how to keep my body the way he liked it to be. He and I were experimenters in life and love and magic. He believed that your mind might have the power to allow you to live forever.”

  “Alex Morley,” says Edgar.

  Berenice’s eyes flare at the mention of the name. “Yes,” she finally says. “How did you know that, Edgar?”

  “I want to know more about him.”

  “Once you know a little, you will want to know a great deal.”

  “He is the devil incarnate!” says Shakespeare. “He is Satan in the flesh!”

  “You are mad, little man,” says Berenice.

  “Then I am too,” says Edgar.

  The alienist turns away. “You will not defame a dead man. You will not defame a man who took his own life…in such a horrible way.”

  “How do you know that he is dead?”

  “I saw his corpse, here at the hospital.” She keeps her back to them.

  “You claimed it and took it away too. Where is it?”

  “I did not. I did not have the right to do that.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps one of his insane followers.” Her voice sounds bitter.

  “I saw him alive, yesterday,” shrieks Shakespeare.

  Berenice whirls around. “That is impossible!”

  “He sent me a note this morning too!”

  “Do NOT say that!” cries Berenice.

  “Because it is true?” asks Edgar.

  “No, it is not true. He cannot defeat death. He was merely brilliant. Merely.” She sniffs. “He truly understood the secret abilities of human beings. His brilliance was too much for even the Order.” Shakespeare takes in his breath with a start. “He was under the impression that he could have taught me so much more.”

  “Perhaps his power comes from below,” says Edgar. “Perhaps he entranced you because he had more than mortal power.”

  “I could believe that,” says Berenice, gripping her arms with shaking hands and running them up and down as though to warm herself. “But I do not. You are not sane when you say these things, Edgar Brim. You need to send this little man to Bedlam and then lie on this sofa for me and tell me why you would believe that any man, or woman, is not mortal. You have said such things before.”

  Edgar steps back. “I will do nothing of the sort.”

  “I beg you to reconsider.” There is aggression in her voice.

  “Where is his body? I need to know that he is dead.”

  “I do not know.”

  Her mouth is a straight line, her face unreadable.

  “Where is Lawrence? I need to speak with him.”

  “I told you before, he isn’t here.”

  “But that was yesterday. He still hasn’t returned?”

  “He must have gone home.”

  “I went to his residence and there was not only no sign of him but his footman seemed perplexed as to his whereabouts.”

  Berenice turns her back on them again. “He has another home. In the country. A place he calls Lawrence Lodge. It is in Surrey, a few hours from London near the village of Hindhead on the road to Portsmouth, just past the Devil’s Punch Bowl.”

  “What is that?” asks Shakespeare, barely able to say it.

  “You will see.”

  “You speak of his estate and its location as if you have been there,” says Edgar.

  “I have not. He merely mentioned it during a session here. It is a place he is very fond of, a remarkable place, mysterious he called it, with a stunning view of the countryside.” She keeps her back to them.

  “Why did Lawrence need your help, Dr. Berenice?”

  She turns on him. Her face is red. “I have told you! One cannot reveal such things!”

  There is silence in the room for a moment.

  “We are not going there, Edgar Broom. We cannot trust him. We cannot trust anyone anymore. We are fleeing!”

  A whirlwind of thoughts invades Edgar’s mind. Where is Annabel? Is she with Lawrence? Is the countryside, safely away from things and with this rich man’s resources and protection, the best place to be? Or is Lawrence in league with our enemy and drawing me out there to finish things in a remote location where no one will see what happens? Edgar looks to Dr. Berenice and something makes him ask a strange question. It is as if he cannot resist saying it. “What would you do?” he asks her.

  She seems to be holding back a smile. “I…I cannot tell you what to do.” She takes several steps toward a window and looks out it. Edgar advances to her side and casts his gaze downward, in the direction she is looking. Sir Andrew Lawrence’s motorcar sits there, pulled up close to the side of the building where the carriages are sometimes left. It gleams in the midday sun. Edgar won
ders why Lawrence would not have taken it to his country estate, if indeed that is where he has gone. It occurs to him that the roads in the countryside might not be fit for such a conveyance…or that Lawrence may have had too many people with him to carry them in that slight machine. Does he have Lucy, Tiger and Annabel? Edgar knows that he cannot afford a hansom cab’s fare that far out into the countryside. Something also tells him that he must get to Lawrence as fast as he possibly can.

  * * *

  —

  Ten minutes later, when Edgar and Shakespeare arrive at the vehicle, the little man literally trying to dig his heels into the footpaths again to keep from being brought along, they notice that someone is sitting in the front passenger seat.

  “Hello, my boy,” says Allen Brim.

  “Hello, Father.”

  “He is here?” asks Shakespeare. “In which seat? I should not sit upon him.”

  “Take the rear bench,” says Edgar. “We have a long trip in front of us.”

  “Oh! I cannot actually ride in such an infernal machine! What is it, steam? Electric? Petrol powered?”

  “It is electric and quite safe,” Edgar lies.

  “ELECTRIC! Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my! Electric is evil, Edgar Broom. It has such power! Everyone knows that! It frightens me to my very soul!”

  “Get in or I will frighten you far past that.”

  The little man, seeing he has no option, steps up into the carriage and squeezes himself into the back and onto the tiny rear bench. “She spoke of the Order,” he says, barely above his breath.

  “I meant to ask about that,” says Edgar. “What did she mean?”

  “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.”

  A memory, a difficult one, comes back to Edgar from many years ago, when he was being reprimanded by the headmaster of the College on the Moors, the Reverend Spartan Griswold, a six-and-a-half-foot praying-mantis of a man with wicked ways. The old tyrant had mentioned this very same group, an offhand reference that had sent chills down Edgar’s spine. Edgar knew it was a secret society, that it had something to do with the occult and black magic and perhaps even evil. Its members had some sort of belief that invisible powers could, and perhaps did, run the world, the universe. Bram Stoker, creator of the blood-soaked Dracula, was a member. Now, it turned out, so was Alexander Morley. Edgar thinks of what Berenice had said about Morley’s involvement. “He truly understood the secret abilities of human beings,” she had said. “His brilliance was too much for even the Order.”