Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes

by Kim Newman

  “Down on your luck, huh?”

  Her tones revealed her as a Brooklynite. Holmes affected not merely an American accent but a convincing Deep South drawl when he answered her.

  “Ma savings are all gone. Ma daughter’s college fund. Cain’t even afford a ticket home. What in the Lord’s name am I gonna do?”

  A look of understanding filled the woman’s red-rimmed eyes.

  “Try this place.”

  She handed him a card which read, The House of Good Fortune and gave an address, but nothing more.

  Holmes frowned. “Another casino?”

  “Nah, not a gaming house. A house of worship.”

  He squinted at her. “How’s that gonna help?”

  “If you join in…” and the woman’s lips pursed deviously, “it might just change your luck a little. Don’t take my word for it, son. Come and see for yourself. Directly after sundown, tonight.”

  She was gone from the stool the next instant, with a nimbleness that belied her age.

  Holmes was left with hours to kill. Ought he call in the police? If, as he had already decided, this city was laced with underground informants, then the sudden emergence of conventional law officers might give the game away. Forewarned, the perpetrators might escape. No, he had got this far by himself; so he would have to carry it the rest of the way.

  Holmes trudged along the Strip for a while, the bizarre sights around him melting to a tepid blur, the urgent sounds reduced to a static-like hissing in his ears. In his numerous decades on this Earth, he had seen society give up its quiet dignity in favour of spectacle, indulgence and excess, and it irritated him greatly sometimes.

  This was precisely one of those occasions when a seven percent solution of cocaine would give his mind the few hours of sharpened perspicacity and tightened focus that it needed. Unfortunately the laws had changed and his conscience would not let him break them while he was still taking the LVPD’s shilling.

  He finally wound up back in his room, sprawled out on the bed watching old reruns of Star Trek, one of the few genuinely good, worthwhile developments of this modern age.

  “It goes beyond the bounds of logic, Jim.”

  That was so beautifully succinct it almost made a tear well up.

  Sleep practically overtook him, and he emerged from it with a jerk. Through his hotel window, he could see the sky had darkened. The colored lighting on the street below glowed with a lurid brilliance.

  The entire town was being swallowed up in shadow. Holmes felt his heartbeat speeding up again. He was close to getting to the bottom of this whole affair — of that, he was certain. The same frisson which had to overcome a hunter had him in its clutches.

  He reminded himself that adrenalin was also a drug, just as potent and confounding as the gambling addiction he had seen so often in this city. So he forced himself to slow down and think clearly. He was just one man, and headed into possible grave danger. He could not be killed, certainly, but he could be overpowered, imprisoned, even hurt. He could still remember, with agonising clarity, every bone-crunching knock he’d taken on his descent down the Reichenbach Falls, and had no wish to suffer anything like that again if it could be avoided.

  How many congregants might be gathered at this ‘house of worship’? His gaze drifted towards his trusty revolver on the nightstand.

  Then it turned away, because he might need more than just five shots. In his time here in America, Holmes had purchased several brand-new items of equipment. So he vaulted off the bed to where his bags were stored.

  To blazes with his trusty revolver. Where the devil were his trusty Glocks?

  Holmes re-studied the small card that he’d been given on the way out. House of Good Fortune. The name described nothing, and was perfectly anonymous in its own way. In a city of this kind, it could be a small casino or a Chinese restaurant. It was in this manner that the people he was on the search for stayed below the radar.

  By this time, he was quite convinced that he was dealing with a cult. He had encountered them before. They were more dangerous than any purely criminal organization, since their members were fanatical and hell-bent on their goals.

  A hot breeze skirled on the evening air around him. Holmes was dressed as he had been earlier, but had put on a light raincoat. Not that he expected rain, but the garment served to cover up the pair of sidearms, both which had extended clips.

  The address he was headed to was several blocks behind the old part of the Strip. The clientele at these casinos were hardier than their uptown counterparts. There were vagrants in evidence, even on the main drag. The avenues further back had an ugly reputation, but Holmes had known streets of this kind in Victorian London, and he pressed on, undeterred.

  He came, finally, to the building in question. His brow creased with mild shock. It was derelict, as he had already supposed, but he had not expected to find any place of worship in a closed-down porno theatre.

  So far as he could make out, there was nobody guarding the exterior of the place. The front doorways were covered up with rusty corrugated iron. Holmes noticed immediately that one of them was badly bent. He went over to it. Sure enough, it pulled back easily, sufficient to allow him through.

  He went cautiously into the theatre. The lobby was empty and perfectly dark, its air stagnant with the odor of decay, but from the double doors that led into the cinema, he could hear low chanting. There were chinks of colored light.

  Feigning the manner of a man lost and bewildered, he ventured through … to be confronted by a very deeply curious sight.

  Up at the front of the auditorium, fires were blazing in large earthenware pots. The flames being cast out were not yellow. They were a startling crimson, giving the whole place a haematic aspect. The smoke from them rolled towards the ceiling, forming a miasma which let out a sickly stench.

  There were perhaps a hundred congregants in here, far more than Holmes had expected. They stood between the rows of rotting seats, and did not even notice him enter. All were of the same kind he had remarked on earlier, blighted, shabby souls enthralled by the failed promise of the gaming tables. Men and women, young and old. Holmes went gently down the aisle, and found a place beside the same grey-haired individual who’d invited him this afternoon.

  She realized he’d arrived. Greeted him with a tight smile and a brief nod, and then returned her attention to the front of the theatre, and did not look away again.

  None of these folk did. The Oriental-looking woman had their complete attention.

  She was standing at the centre of the open space out front, shaking a pair of large, crude rattles. Her face was tipped forwards and her eyes were closed. She was yelling out some kind of chant, a fevered caterwauling in a language that Holmes did not recognise.

  To one side of her stood some sort of altar, hewn from a large block of stone. How it had been brought in here was anyone’s guess. On top of it was ranked a row of goblets of dully-gleaming metal. It sickened one to think of their use.

  The woman was dressed as before, except that now, the collar of the blouse had been fully unbuttoned. Her neck and throat and the top portion of her breastbone were revealed.

  Holmes squinted in the sickly light. Was it just a trick of shadow, or were those narrow scars on the side of her neck, cut in deliberate patterns? He’d thought that he had caught the briefest glimpse of scar tissue before, but hadn’t guessed at anything like this display.

  Despite his parlous circumstances, Holmes allowed himself a knowing smile. He was beginning to understand.

  From the darkened theatre wings, a gurney was wheeled out by four assistants, and his smile disappeared.

  The man strapped to it was perfectly healthy. All that he had suffered so far was the indignity of being stripped down to his underwear. His mouth was gagged. He was struggling mightily, but to no avail. He might have been a taller, rather more muscular version of Fred Bonner.

  This was without any shade of a doubt somebody else who had done well at so
me game of chance. It struck Holmes how badly all these congregants would like the opportunity to do the same.

  But what was taking place here? How could capturing and killing such a man achieve…?

  The woman’s chanting stopped. Her face came up. The heat from the fires had caused some of her make-up to be sluiced away, and the true nature of her features was becoming apparent. Her cheekbones were more angular, and her eyes looked wider than they’d done when he had first encountered her. Yes, he had thought that was the case!

  She laid the rattles to one side, then stooped over her victim, grinning hideously. Save for the crackling of the flames, the room had fallen silent.

  “Be still now. You have what we want,” Holmes thought he heard her mutter.

  And she had to have some kind of mastery of hypnosis herself. Either that or what she had said served to freeze the unfortunate man with incomprehension and terror. He became completely motionless, his widened eyeballs following her when she moved away.

  She stepped over to the altar, picked up one of the goblets and something else that Holmes could not make out, and then returned to her prey. Set the cup beside him on the gurney, and then turned her attention to the fellow’s wrist. He gave a muffled gasp of pain. Holmes realized what she had been carrying in her other hand. It was a thick, crude needle with a length of rubber tubing running from it.

  She pierced one of the man’s veins. The tube was dangled into the goblet. Blood began to fill it. It looked black in this strange light.

  Holmes knew the time for action was almost at hand, but his limbs felt very stiff. His mind was whirring. He ought to have been expecting something like this after all the evidence he’d been presented with — he knew that. What this woman and her followers hoped to gain by actions of this nature was impossible to fathom.

  Next moment, though, he got an awful demonstration of it. The woman suddenly pinched off the tube, stopping the flow of gore. She picked up the goblet with both hands, raised it into the air in some form of supplication.

  And then — to the detective’s horror — put it to her lips and drank.

  Even worse was to follow. The cup was passed on to the assistants who’d wheeled the man out. They each took a sip. Then the goblet was handed over to the people standing in the rows of seats, who began to follow suit.

  It was as repulsive a sight as Holmes had ever witnessed. Behavior so degraded it was barely human. Were these the depths to which this miserable rabble had been reduced? Did they genuinely believe that if they drank the fluids of a victor at the tables they would become winners too?

  It defied credulity, but equally, it made no sense.

  They might try this one time, out of utter desperation, but it surely would make not the slightest difference to their fortunes, except that the grey-haired lady beside him was obviously a regular here. So were many others — it was beyond question. What on earth made them keep coming back?

  It was of no real importance, he decided. There was no accounting for the demented behavior to which addicts stooped. The woman up front was preparing to drain her victim a second time. Holmes knew he had to put a stop to this.

  He stepped back out into the aisle, drawing both his weapons, aiming one at the crowd, and the other at the black-clad figure.

  And then shouted, in his sternest voice, “You are not what you would appear to be; are you, madam? I would suggest that you adopt an Oriental disguise to make yourself seem unremarkable and harmless. Who would be suspicious of a female hailing from the Buddhist lands, or even remember much about her save that single detail? If that is your reasoning then you’re a true student of human nature, and for that I give you credit.”

  All movement stopped. Every eye turned towards him. Only the flickering red light of the flames continued as it had before.

  “On closer inspection,” Holmes went on, “you’re a Native American. Had you gone to the casinos unmade-up, people would have noticed right away, recalled you instantly and in close detail. By the ritualistic scarring on your neck, you are some kind of shaman, and by your very behavior, not a benign sort, no. You are a practitioner of the dark arts!”

  The woman’s face screwed up with fury, and she jabbed a pointed fingernail at him.

  “Get him!” she screamed to the others. “Rip the unbeliever limb from limb!”

  Some of those nearest him began to shuffle forward, but it was hardly a determined effort. These were people in the throes of a devouring mental sickness, after all. Two swift shots above their heads and they drew back.

  The detective allowed a smile to tug at the corners of his mouth, swinging his attention back towards the gurney.

  “I would not rely on ravaged souls like these to fetch my morning paper, much less save my hide. If this is your best defence, madam, then Death Row awaits you.”

  The witch woman, however, seemed uncowed.

  “You think that you are very clever, yes? You think you have this all worked out?”

  A touch of recognition sprang into her dark eyes, her head tipping slightly to one side.

  “I know who you are. That so-smart Englishman, who relies on logic and who laughs at death.” Her own lips curled, more fiercely than his. “Well laugh at this! Where is your logic now?”

  She pointed again, but this time above her. Suspecting some kind of trick, Holmes refused to raise his head at first, but then he realized the quality of light in the whole room was changing. From the direction of the ceiling, he could hear some kind of rumbling noise.

  When his gaze lifted towards it, he was rendered utterly numb. His heart seemed to freeze up in his chest. His limbs became like marble. He could scarcely breathe. He had lived by deduction and science his whole life. So … how could this be?

  The heavy smoke had formed a loosely rolling ball over the altar. As Holmes watched, it began to change shape. A massive face appeared within its contours. It had pointed ears. Its mouth had fangs. Its eyes, each as large as a man’s fist, had slitted pupils and they glowed a baleful shade of carmine. Its expression was a twisted one of absolute malevolence.

  At first, Holmes’ mind simply could not accept it. His thoughts darted around like some agitated hive of instincts. He was trying to explain this in a logical, sane fashion, and could not. This was not some trick of the light. Nor could he make out any hint of a special gadget or projector.

  He had to accept it, finally. At least it explained why the congregants kept coming back.

  “An evil spirit,” he concluded out loud, “called in these parts, so I believe, a Manitou. I should imagine it has wandered into Vegas from the bleak, surrounding desert, finding new believers here, and sustenance.”

  He hated being forced to descend to this level of intellect, but had little choice. His eyesight was not lying to him. The true solution to this case was paranormal, not material. The creature had set up home in this abandoned building. The woman was either its servant or familiar. The congregants gathered here, there was a sacrifice, and human blood was consumed. By means of their Master’s otherworldly influence, these people would return to the casinos and finally win at the tables. Not an awful lot, Holmes supposed, or else they’d leave this city, but just enough to keep them solvent. Just enough to keep them hooked on this abominable practice.

  Their needs were being partially fulfilled, and so were the monster’s. It had an audience of supplicants, and there were fear and pain and blood and dying, which had to be like meat and drink to the foul thing.

  All of this the great detective realized in a flash, but there was no triumph accompanying the knowledge, rather, it filled him with a terrible dread.

  The witch woman was grinning at him openly.

  “Those are pretty impressive guns you’ve got there, but they do not impress him. Go on, try your hand! He laughs at bullets!”

  He was being mocked. Holmes knew it, but common sense told him that he at least ought to try. He pointed both Glocks at the creature and let loose a fusillade of shots
.

  The rounds passed through, doing no damage. The thing began to grow larger, swelling against the background of the mildewed ceiling.

  “You’ve had your chance!” the woman was chuckling. “Now, it’s his turn to strike back!”

  Holmes did not know what she meant at first, but then he saw that it was not merely the head expanding. A neck and shoulders appeared. Then muscular arms, ending in broad hands tipped with savage claws.

  In another few seconds, this monstrous entity would reach down and shred him like a sheet of tissue paper. It would not be a normal physical assault. It would be on a paranormal level. Could even he survive something like that?

  Holmes wavered, uncertain what to do. He knew no spells. He had no knowledge of the magic arts. So how could he defeat this beast?

  There was a humming noise as the air parted. The Manitou had lashed out. Holmes was forced to jump away; just in time. If he’d still been standing on the spot, he would have been ripped in two.

  The beast continued growing. At this rate, it would become so large there would be no escaping it.

  Desperately, Holmes glanced back at the woman. She was braying with laughter, quite unable to control herself. The insistent pressure on her lungs had doubled her forward; she was clutching at her belly. Then he noticed something else.

  At the Paris casino yesterday, he had believed there was some item of jewelry hidden underneath her blouse. Now it had fallen clear, and he could see it. It was a pendant, a large, tulip-shaped gemstone on a silver chain and setting.

  The translucent stone was the exact same color as the Manitou’s eyes, and had the same unearthly lustre. Were they somehow linked?

  If he discharged a weapon at it, though, he’d kill the woman too. Even under such dire circumstances, he rebelled at the idea of shooting a member of the fairer sex.

  The creature took another swipe at him. Again, he narrowly avoided it. Half a row of seating was disintegrated by the blow. Holmes stumbled back.