Grizzly came home.
I hid above the doorway. Grizzly sighed as he crossed the threshold, and I bit back my laughter. The door swung shut. Grizzly stooped and tossed a thick log onto the dying embers. He grinned as it crackled aflame.
I pushed off hard and dove from the ceiling. My claws ripped through grizzly hide and then into human hide. Grizzly bucked awfully, even tried to smash me against the hearth, but the heat only gave me power and as my legs burned into his stomach Grizzly screamed. I drove my claws into a shivering bulge of muscle and brought him to his knees.
The metal rings came next. I pinned them into his neck: one, two, three, four.
After I had supped, I sat the hollow man in the rocker and whispered to him as we looked through the veined window. A storm was rising in the west. We watched it come for a long time. Soon, a fresh dusting of snow covered the husk of man lying out on the ridge.
I told Grizzly that he had been my favorite. I told him that he would last a long time.
RETURN OF THE SHROUD
Professor Jacob Hearthstone listened to Dr. Taoka’s words, mentally translating them with a slight bit of difficulty. Though the Japanese language was second nature to Hearthstone, he still had trouble deciphering terms not used in everyday conversation, and such was the case with the surgeon’s medical jargon. But Hearthstone realized that words were not the important thing here. Anyone familiar with the niceties of Japanese culture could ignore the words, concentrate only on Taoka’s body language, and easily recognize the true intent of the surgeon’s visit.
Dr. Taoka was here to beg forgiveness.
Hearthstone closed his eyes and let Taoka’s quiet words engulf him. Cloaked in the surgeon’s explanations were effusive excuses beyond number. The professor sighed mightily, and Taoka began to speak faster.
The true hell of it was that the surgeon’s explanations made perfect sense. After all, Dr. Taoka had come to Hearthstone with high recommendations and an excellent reputation among the most conservative elements of the Tokyo medical community. But Hearthstone, unfettered from the chains of logic and reason during his bride’s long illness, had an increasingly difficult time processing information that should have made perfect sense.
The old man fought his suspicions, watching the surgeon’s lips twist as he stumbled over a particularly difficult explanation. Dr. Taoka was not a butcher, he told himself. The surgeon could not be an avenging murderer. He was exactly who, and what, he claimed to be.
And yet…
Taoka was skilled in the use of blades. Hearthstone had watched him from the gallery above the surgery, had seen him take the scalpel from the towel-covered tray, the tray that, covered, existed in shadow. With his own eyes Hearthstone had watched the surgeon put blade to flesh — the flesh of Hearthstone’s bride — and he had noted the familiar intensity that burned in the man’s eyes.
If man he was.
Hearthstone fought against his powerful memory, but a memory that cataloged even the most minor impression could not be dammed. Everything came flooding back. The blade. Taoka’s eyes. The cotton mask that had covered the surgeon’s mouth. Hearthstone had watched the thin material puff out with an exhalation; he’d seen it draw back with Taoka’s next breath.
The mask had drawn tight against a lurid grin. Of that, Hearthstone was certain. And at that moment, standing alone in the gallery, the sibilant hint of a Beethoven sonata issuing from stereo speakers below, Hearthstone had remembered another blade and another woman.
And the same grin.
At that moment, the surgeon made the first deep incision.
At that moment, screaming violins sliced the silence.
And now the surgeon spoke of infection and fever. The diagnosis was poor. Hopeless, really, but Taoka was trying desperately not to say that.
Trying desperately, Hearthstone thought, not to smile.
“Thank you, Doctor Taoka,” the old man said, his Japanese impeccable, his accent perfect. “This is awful news, of course, and I find myself terribly saddened by it. But I would like you to put the best face on your report. A happy face, if you please.”
“Professor Hearthstone… I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”
Hearthstone bent forward. “Sir, I would appreciate it very much if you would smile for me.”
Doctor Taoka was confused. Perhaps this was an American custom with which he was unfamiliar. He made to protest. But as his mind searched for a tactic that would not offend, his lips twisted unbidden into a perplexed grin.
Hearthstone thanked the surgeon and promptly shot him dead.
The first time they met, long before Hearthstone had ever seen Japan, the professor asked, “Are you demon or angel?”
“I am… The Shroud.” The answer came in a purring whisper. “I come for those who are evil. Those who are evil must suffer, then die.”
Hearthstone shivered, embarrassed to be frightened by such base melodrama. Silly to have come here, to headquarters, alone. The stranger had been waiting for him, had slipped from the shadows and whispered that he was an avenger, a ghost.
Don’t surrender to the fear, Hearthstone warned himself. Keep the madman talking until someone comes to check on you. Listen to his insane babbling, and kill him when the odds are in your favor.
Hearthstone turned to the window. Below, the San Francisco streets swam with fog, but it was a low fog. Across the street, it hung far below a theatre marquee bathed in the white glow of overhead lamps, a stark illumination that transformed the reaching gray tendrils into cottony puffs that resembled the cloudy floor of some Hollywood heaven.
Black letters on the marquee. Frankenstein double-billed with Dracula.
Ah, true melodrama. Hearthstone chuckled at that. “Sir, if it’s evil you’ve come for, I believe you’ve come to the wrong place. Messieurs Lugosi and Karloff are across the street.”
Silence.
“A small joke,” Hearthstone began, his throat constricting involuntarily as the stranger advanced, quiet as the evening fog. And then words spilled unbidden from the professor’s thin lips, driven by a pure, instinctive terror that he had never experienced previously. “A small joke… from a small, unimportant man. I deal only in narcotics, synthesized through methods I discovered while employed by some of our more adventurous captains of industry. Mere entertainments for the bored and the jaded, those who find no solace in the pleasures approved by modern society… I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you, sir… Perhaps you would like — ”
Laughter echoed from the velvet draperies that hung about the window. The inhuman sound forced Hearthstone to shrink away from the room’s lone source of light.
“Please understand,” Hearthstone begged, stumbling toward his desk, his eyes searching the room, “I am not a rich man, but if it’s money you want… ”
Mellow shadows pooled on the pine floor as The Shroud — now silhouetted in the gray glow of the window — moved forward. Planks complained as if punished by a heavy tread, but the self-proclaimed avenger was drifting toward Hearthstone like the wispy shadow of something floating outside on the night fog. The thing — Hearthstone’s instinctive fear told him that this could not be a man — came closer, its harsh laughter rising.
“A shadowshow for you, Professor. Without fee…”
Another sound. The swish of a cape on the hardwood floor. “Mister Lugosi,” the voice whispered, suddenly tinged with a familiar accent.
Red eyes burned in the darkness. Hearthstone reached out. fingers scrabbling across the stained blotter, and flicked on the desk lamp. The bulb flared, then exploded, and the brief instant of brightness momentarily blinded the professor.
The scent of ozone flooded the stuffy room. Hearthstone caught the sizzle of lightning and the slightest glimpse of a scarred neck spiked with twin bolts. “Mr. Karloff,” the voice enthused.
No longer the sound of a sweeping cape. Now heavy boots beat a slow rhythm across the pine floorboards.
Spots swam before Hearth
stone’s eyes. He rubbed at them, blinking away tears. The spots danced, rotated, all but a single black globe that stared him down and made him sob.
“Anyone,” the voice whispered.
A black slit spread across the ebony circle and split into a grin.
“Anywhere… ”
Puddled against the wall.
“Anytime… ”
Slipped toward the window.
“Good night, Jacob Hearthstone,” said The Shroud. “And remember — next comes suffering.”
“Damn,” Professor Hearthstone said. “Double damn.”
He stared at Taoka’s face. The surgeon’s corpse didn’t grin. Rather it frowned, its thin lips blemished by a gout of blood that was already drying. And though the room was flooded with light, as were all the rooms within the professor’s compound, Hearthstone searched desperately for a single shadow.
None near Taoka’s bloody mouth. None in the corners of the room. None behind the satin draperies, nor beneath the lacquered desk, nor behind the rice-paper doors of the closet.
His bride had often asked him, “Why do we need all this light? You’ve already killed him, haven’t you?”
Always he corrected her without drawing attention to the correction, and always he pretended that yes, indeed, he was certain that he had killed the thing. ”It was a demon, and I am too much the cynic to believe that this world is cursed with the presence of only one demon. There may be others far more powerful than The Shroud.”
No, he would not remember. The path of memory was dangerous. Possibly fatal.
Hearthstone clapped his hands. Pulled himself into the present moment.
He stared at the dead surgeon. At the caked blood on his lips. At the corners of the room.
At the complete absence of shadows.
In the lore of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the incident was know as The Night Of The Axes. It was Professor Hearthstone’s finest moment. He had maintained a low profile for several months, partially due to worry over the strange nocturnal visit that had occurred at his headquarters, partially because his next move required careful planning.
Hearthstone had long coveted the secrecy that a Chinatown operation would afford his particular concerns. The police steered clear of the foreign population, and the professor felt that his business would go undetected if he could conduct it from a section of the city that was little known or understood.
The only problem with Hearthstone’s scheme was that there were others who already controlled the area. Namely the Wong Ching Benevolent Society, an organization known as much for its wealth as its ruthless behavior.
But within that equation lay the answer to the professor’s dilemma. If Chinatown understood wealth, then its occupants would understand him. And if the Wong Chings understood ruthless behavior, then ruthless behavior would be the order of the day.
Hearthstone recruited a pack of hale and hearty Irishman from one of the city’s more notorious waterfront bars and appointed a recently busted policeman named Thomas Clancy as their leader. Equipped with firefighting garb and axes, the Irishmen descended upon a restaurant called Sun Lim’s, which happened to serve as headquarters to the Wong Chings. When their axe blades grew dull and the tiled floors were well-oiled with Chinese blood, the merry Irish mob torched the building. They watched the flames dance, drinking strange Oriental liquor and singing a merry tune of their native land.
Then get ye a dozen stout fellows,
And let them all stagger and go,
And dig a great hole in the meadow,
And in it put rosin the bow.
The incident was reported in the local press as an accidental fire. Even in those days, the mayor feared civil unrest if the truth was widely reported. But the mayor needn’t have worried, for the true story was know by all in Chinatown. The tale terrified even the bravest members of the teaming populace. The word riot was not spoken, was not even thought.
This pleased Professor Hearthstone. He immediately launched the second phase of his operation, flooding the community with money and gifts to demonstrate the largess of the new regime.
In the shabby apartments and cellars of Chinatown, people began to speak happily of the collapse of the Wong Ching Benevolent Society.
In a lavish suite overlooking Grant Avenue, Professor Hearthstone set about learning the Chinese language.
And in the gutted ruins of Sun Lim’s Restaurant, a dark thing laughed.
“You should not have let him pass, Mr. Machii.”
The yakuza lieutenant, his shaved head lowered, stared at the kitchen floor. Hearthstone knew that the man would not comment until instructed to do so.
Another bumbler, Hearthstone thought. Not like in the old days, when the yakuza were the world’s best. No, those days were long gone. Today, too many yakuza were simple punks drawn from the bosozoku gangs. And they didn’t leave their bosozoku past behind, still caring more about motorcycles and hotrods and dirty magazines than matters of economics or honor.
“Dr. Taoka made the mistake of allowing his loyalties to fall into question,” Hearthstone continued. “I’m afraid that such questions must be dealt with in a harsh manner. We must act swiftly, even if our suspicions are tenuous at best. As we say in America, we must shoot first and ask questions later.” Hearthstone suppressed a smile. “Bang bang bang. Understand?”
An almost imperceptible nod from the yakuza; even a bosozoku could understand such a simple message. Hearthstone watched the man’s bristly eyebrows shift as he studied the floor — Hearthstone’s shoes, his own shoes, the elegant dish that lay on the floor between them, the raw, teriyaki-drenched filet mignon that filled the dish.
Was he afraid? Or was he thinking, measuring the distance, weighing the time that it would take to strike?
No. That was imagination.
“You will not make this mistake again, will you, Mr. Machii?”
The yakuza lieutenant bowed.
Hearthstone brightened, his mind focusing. Of course. A test. That was the sane man’s measure of loyalty. “And you will do something to restore my faith in your abilities, will you not?”
Machii did not hesitate. Still avoiding Hearthstone’s eyes, he turned to the kitchen counter and positioned a marble cutting stone. He placed his left hand on the stone, fingers splayed, and slipped a neatly folded handkerchief under the smallest finger.
The yakuza’s fingernails were stained with engine oil. The professor allowed himself a slight frown. No demon, this one. Only bosozoku trash.
A slim knife appeared in Machii’s right hand. A swift slash — no sound of blade meeting marble — and the yakuza’s left pinky was severed at the juncture of the proximal and middle phalanges.
Beads of sweat erupted on Machii’s forehead. Carefully, he folded the handkerchief over the severed finger. Once. Twice.
Hearthstone nearly laughed at the scene. A clean white shroud for a dirty little finger.
A shroud…
Machii peered into Hearthstone’s eyes. The professor backed away, fighting the memories that came flooding back.
Hearthstone held out a hand.
The yakuza snorted against the pain. His lower lip quivered. (Hearthstone watching.) Tightened into an agonized grin. (Hearthstone reaching inside his coat.) Parted as he took a very small breath.
His last breath.
His last grin.
A single slug exploded from the barrel of Hearthstone’s automatic, and the yakuza slumped forward. His severed digit slipped from the handkerchief and dropped into the elegant dish. A thick line of blood oozed over the filet mignon and puddled beneath the thin teriyaki sauce.
Hearthstone watched the yakuza’s face, stiffened when the man sank to the floor.
It wasn’t that the man’s death disturbed the professor.
Behind him, something had begun to growl.
She came each day to Hearthstone’s Grant Avenue suite, though she preferred to call the street Dupont Gai, or old Dupont Street, in the manner of
the local population. She came with books tucked under one arm, ready to teach the Chinese language to Jacob Hearthstone.
Her name was Anastasia White, and she had grown up in Shanghai. Her father was a diplomat — of what nation she would not say. Her mother was not a topic for conversation, either. But Hearthstone judged that Anastasia’s mother must have been a true beauty, for the young woman’s complexion was a stunning creamy gold and her amber eyes were as delectable as spiced almonds.
Needless to say, Hearthstone played at being a poor student, ever eager to keep the beauteous Miss White in his employ. Soon they were working their way through the extensive menu at Madame Liu’s, Anastasia’s favorite restaurant, under the pretense that chatting with the waitresses was good practice for the professor; but before long there was no need of pretense. There were evenings at the opera and excursions to the cinema, though Hearthstone attempted to avoid the latter, especially when the night’s program included features starring Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. No sense, he thought, in rekindling unpleasant memories when romance was on his mind.
And then, on a rare, warm afternoon, Anastasia came to him in tears. “Professor, I’m afraid that I will be leaving San Francisco immediately. I’ve come to refund the balance of this month’s lesson payment, as I shan’t be able to instruct you further.”
“My dear, whatever can the matter be?” Hearthstone asked, strong concern evident in his voice. “And why so formal? This isn’t like you at all.”
“Please, Jacob. Don’t make this difficult.”
“But I must insist — ”
“Very well. A man has been visiting my apartment. A very disagreeable man. He has related several stories concerning his association with you, stories which I refused to believe until very recently. And then, just last night, he threatened to reveal our relationship to the most sordid members of the press. He demanded blackmail payments. When I refused, he… he forced himself… ”
The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists Page 24