It looked like I could be in for a wait. I contented myself with trying to guess the occupations of the people I could see.
There was the slim, suave, older man, a bit like Durban, but more ostentatious—silk handkerchief in the top pocket, suit from Saville Row, Rolex watch, gold cufflinks and diamond tiepin. Someone from the city? No, more probably an Edinburgh lawyer—there was something in his eyes that spoke of power. He had thin, almost feminine lips, and when he spoke he ran his tongue over his teeth as if savoring every word.
To his left there was a dowager duchess—all black lace and red silk, her hair pulled back severely into a bun, pince-nez poised delicately on a thin blade of a nose, top lip pulled down to hide protruding teeth. Her eyes were rheumy and ran with tears, bright sparkling droplets which were wiped daintily away with a small, black lace handkerchief.
I had her pegged as the widow of a country gentleman—one of the riding-shooting-fishing set.
Just at her shoulder there was the nouveau-riche businessman, looking out of place in such company. He had already drunk too much—I could see it in the reddening of his cheeks and the too careful way he had of picking up his glass. His suit nearly fitted him, and his tie was loud and garish. He laughed too much, and too loudly, but he didn’t notice the disapproving looks he received from the others. Definitely a car-salesman, or a garage owner. I guessed the Porsche might be his.
And then there was Durban himself, completely at ease, one leg casually draped over the other, eyes watching everything in the room as he took delicate sips from his whisky glass.
The party continued at its own sedate pace, the unseen person stayed hidden, and I waited. Waiting is something you get good at in this job, and I had developed numerous mental games to keep my brain from going to sleep. I was working out the cube root of some ridiculously large number when things started to move and I had to pay attention.
The party began to split up and a light went on in the adjoining room. I just caught a glimpse of a huge mahogany dining table before the drapes were drawn in both rooms. I hadn’t noticed it, but it had begun to get dark. As I looked up to the sky I felt the first spots of rain on my face. I debated returning to the car and waiting near the drive for the evening to end, but I had a feeling the festivities had yet to begin in earnest.
In the twilight I felt safe in having a cigarette, and as I smoked I could just hear the quiet murmur of conversation from the dining room.
I was there for another hour, up until eight o’clock, and was seriously damp by this time. The car was beginning to seem more and more inviting and I had just made up my mind to give up when a door opened at the side of the house and the party appeared.
I almost pinched myself to make sure that I was still awake. They were all robed, heavy black cloaks with pointed hoods, and they carried thick gray candles, hands cupped above them to protect their fragile sputtering light against the rain.
They walked slowly, sedately, and in the dim light it seemed that they were floating above the ground. I counted them as they made their way across the lawn into a heavier area of woodland—they numbered thirteen.
I got the cold shivers again—I remembered some of the stories from Dunlop’s book and from the Internet—but I’d got five hundred a day, and that gave my client the right to a stiff upper lip. I followed at a safe distance.
We didn’t have far to go. I reached a bend in the track we had been following and had just enough time to stop myself before I walked into a clearing.
It was a natural amphitheater, tall oaks surrounding a thirty-yard wide clearing. I noticed that great swathes of grass had been trampled down flat—this wasn’t the first time they had done this.
Thick gnarled tree branches hung across the clearing, just above head height, branches that stuttered and twitched in the flickering candlelight.
They had arranged themselves into a loose circle. As one they bent to the ground, and at first I thought they were about to pray, but they only placed the candles at their feet. Their robes hung over their faces, throwing their heads into black shadow, and I had a sudden mental picture of the robes all falling to the ground, empty.
I had never felt more like running in my life. I had a cold, metallic taste in my mouth, and my palms tingled, pins and needles that seemed to dance just beneath the skin. If someone had put a whisky bottle in my hands at that point I believe I could have downed its contents in one, oblivion-seeking gulp. I tried to pull myself together and observe the action—that was what I was being paid for, after all.
When I looked back they were holding hands and facing inwards. One of them stood in the center—I couldn’t see his face due to the darkness and the shadows, but I guessed this must be the one who had sat in the corner of the room. He started chanting and I could hear the foreign accent even through the incomprehensible speech.
Soon they had all joined in, but it still didn’t help—I still couldn’t make any sense out of it. It didn’t sound like Latin; in fact, it didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard. It reminded me of the harsh tongue of Mordor, but I couldn’t imagine the well-heeled crowd in front of me as attendees of a Tolkien convention.
The circle broke, but only to allow one of the members to step into the center, before it formed again. A hood was thrown back and I saw it was the old lady from the petrol station. She took some papers from under her robe and held them in front of her. She started to read. Then she began to sing.
She was obviously a classically trained singer, maybe even an opera singer, but I doubted if the tune that came from her had ever been performed in any of the world’s big theatres. It clashed in strange eerie discordance, running up and down scales that seemed first too flat, then too sharp. The air began to buzz around her, as if she was standing too close to a live power cable, and I think I saw the trees fade momentarily to reveal a greater darkness beyond, a darkness that seemed to writhe as if alive.
The song, if that’s what it was, slowed to a deep chant, and the rest of the circle joined in once more. The chanting rose in pitch, becoming almost frenzied. The circle had begun to spin anti-clockwise, and I saw that they were all naked under the robes. I hoped it wasn’t going to turn into an orgy—five hundred was not enough to make me watch this particular crowd in action.
It got cold quickly, and at first I thought it was only a night chill, but then I caught the smell—the dank festering odor that I’d noticed in MacIntyre’s shop, and in my bedroom.
The circle stopped spinning and they all looked expectantly at the figure in the center. The figure there removed something from under his robes, and at first I couldn’t make out what it was. Then I heard the noise—the pathetic, lost mewing of a small cat.
It struggled in his arms, but he had a tight hold. He raised it above his head in one hand, and I stopped breathing as the small creature fell quiet and still. He took something else from his robe—a thin, evil looking knife that glinted redly in the candlelight. With one fluid motion he gutted the small creature, first from chest to legs then across its body, letting its insides fall in hot steaming gobbets over his robes.
He stood stock still, hands still raised, and there was a moment of stillness. I realized I still held my breath and let it out slowly, noticing the small plume of steam as it hit the cold air. Suddenly he threw his head back.
The hood fell from his face and revealed a very old, obviously Arabian, man. Wrinkles ran like cracks across his face, deep fissures of black in the shadows. His teeth had all but rotted away, leaving only blackened stumps on the gums, and his nose was little more than a festering, rotting sore. But his eyes were alive. Clear, blue and shining as if with their own inner light.
He howled—a sound that shook the branches and echoed around in my head long after the actual noise had finished. A shiver passed across his face, like some small animal moving under his skin. He stretched. That’s the best word I have for it, and I wish I didn’t have to think of one. My brain was telling me to look away, but,
like a car driver at a traffic accident, I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
His head lengthened and broadened, becoming vast and red and pumpkin-like, putting out small bloody protrusions which burst like overripe fruit in a spray of gore, sending out blind, wriggling maggots which grew out like snakes, spreading fast, a multitude of them which writhed and crawled over his enlarged scalp. They flopped and quivered from his head in a seething mass, still anchored to his scalp.
Then he raised that gigantic, grotesque head, his eyes now blazing a deep, golden-red, and the tentacles stood around his skull like an evil halo.
Each tentacle had a mouth, and each mouth was full of silver pointed teeth from which a steady stream of saliva ran to glisten and bubble on the grass at his feet.
At the same time the old Arab’s body flowed and melted. It was all I could do to hold in a gasp as I recognized the waspish waist and the bull-chest. Worst of all was the legs—they cracked and popped as the bones found a new structure and the creature bowed into a more crouched position.
Finally, the changes slowed and the creature pulled itself upright. I found myself looking at the living personification of the amulet, its black body gleaming like a well-oiled body-builder, its chest rising and falling as it took great, heaving breaths, the tentacles pulsing, mouths opening in time with its breath.
I realized that this was the murderer. I shivered involuntarily as I thought of old Jimmy, alone and defenseless against this monstrosity, struggling amid the organized chaos in the barn he called home.
The beast turned in a circle, arms outstretched, as if showing himself off to the audience—an audience which bowed in turn as his eyes met them. When he spoke it was in a deep bass register that rumbled across the clearing, and it vibrated in the pit of my stomach like a bass at a rock concert.
“Sototh aran predak c’tengi.”
“Karan F’thang C’thulhu.”
“Ig Shuggoth Nyah.”
“Amuran zokar nyarlthotep?”
The last phrase sounded like a question. A tall figure stepped out of the circle to answer the monstrosity, and a conversation took place. I won’t bother transcribing it here—I could make no sense out of it, anyway—but I recognized the tall figure as Durban. And as he talked, the tentacles still danced, the mouths gasping in time with the conversation, more silver ropy saliva dripping from the jaws to the dark grass.
Durban made an action with his hands, a strange fluttering movement as if performing a complicated shadow play, and the monster in front of him pulsed in and out of reality in time with the movements. Durban made one last pass of his hands and suddenly he was alone in the center of the circle. The smell was gone and I noticed the rain again.
The circle spun, singing in the same discordant voice, the chant rising, then rising again until its cadences filled my head and threatened to send me spinning along with them.
The trees themselves seemed to join in the dancing, and I was horrified to find that my throat tried to recreate their words. I had to shake my head hard and cover my ears before I managed to get some sense of equilibrium back, but even then the horrific singing seeped through my fingers, tugging at my mind, offering me treasures. It was sweet, it was seductive, but I only had to think of Tommy MacIntyre’s body for the spell to lose its influence on me.
Finally, after what seemed like an age, the singing and the spinning stopped. The circle stood silent for long minutes, and again I had the impression that the hooded robes were just that—empty pieces of cloth that would at any minute blow away, screaming in the wind.
A collective sigh ran through the circle, and the crowd broke up. They headed back towards me and I only just managed to get behind a large tree in time. They had split into three distinct groups led by Durban, and I caught some of his conversation as they passed.
“He was much stronger tonight “ a female voice said. I think it might have been the duchess, and the measured tones that answered could only belong to Durban.
“Yes. Surely tonight he will find it.”
I had to move closer to hear the next bit, increasing my chances of being discovered.
“This delay must not be allowed to go on much longer—it is nearly time. I told you we shouldn’t have trusted Marshall. Men like him sell their Grandmothers to the highest bidder “ someone said. From the tone of the voice I guessed it was the garage owner I’d seen before.
“You know we had to have a non-sensitive to do the job “ Durban said. “Dunlop would have spotted anybody else too easily. Anyway—tonight should see the end of it.”
“I hope so “ the garage owner said.
“Are you doubting me?” Durban said, his voice suddenly full of menace. Again a chill ran through me. Durban was not a man to mess with.
“No. No..” the garage owner said, and dropped back away from the others.
“We are close “ Durban said. “Very, very close.”
They moved away towards the house, but I stayed under the tree, my mind spinning, trying to believe what it had just seen. I stood there until all the figures had gone back into the house and there was only the quiet dark and the sputtering rain.
The name registered… Marshall. I could almost hear the synapses connecting. I only knew of one Marshall, Brian Marshall, burglar, rapist and all round bad guy.
I put the name together with the situation and realized what had happened. They had employed him to get the amulet, for reasons as yet unknown, but probably to do with the grotesque being I had just seen. And now he was holding out on them—just his style. And they had sent that thing after him. My only chance of recovering the amulet was to find him first.
I wasn’t sure I wanted any further involvement in this case; it was getting just too weird for me, but as I’ve already said, five hundred a day buys a long supply of loyalty.
There was a rustle in the trees behind me, back in the clearing, but I didn’t dare look round. Suddenly I didn’t want to be there anymore. I made my way quickly back through the grounds, almost running, trying to ignore the flickering shadows which played on the statues, threatening to bring them to life.
The wall was wet and slimy after the rain and I managed to smear the front of my coat in thick green slime, but it didn’t slow me down; I doubt if the Olympic high-jump champion could have gotten over the wall any faster.
My hands shook so much that I couldn’t get the key in the car door. I stood there beside it, fighting for calm, smoking a cigarette down as fast as I could push it without bringing on a cough, waiting for my heartbeat to slow and my hands to steady.
I tried to rationalize what I had seen, trying to pass if off as a quicksilver conjurer’s trick, but my mind kept going back to Tommy McIntyre, to the small bloody holes in his body, and those saliva-coated tentacles. The cold trembling in my spine stayed with me long after I finally got into the warmth of the car.
I drove back to the city as fast as the old car would allow. I planned to head straight home, but when I turned into Great Western Road I remembered someone who might help me find Brian Marshall.
I parked outside Wintersgills pub.
By that time I had calmed down. I no longer checked the rear view mirror every five seconds, my hands didn’t shake, and when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t see the madness twinkling behind my eyes. The whole incident had taken on a strange, dream-like quality, but unlike a dream, it refused to fade from my mind. I still had difficulty assimilating it as a fact, but I had managed to distance it from everyday reality—far enough to stop myself being paralyzed in fear, anyway.
I had to be careful. Walking into a bar in my mood would be like playing Russian roulette. I was unlikely to come back out in a standing position.
I’d stopped here to pay a visit on Dave Knox. Dave and I went back to the time when I dropped out of University and he gave me a job behind the bar. I had stayed there for two years, completing the journalism correspondence course by day and serving the punters by night. I knew from experience tha
t Dave had many contacts in the underworld and wasn’t above more than a bit of dodgy dealings. I reckoned he would be as good a person to start with as anybody.
One thing I liked about Dave, he was always pleased to see me. The bar was quiet, only two old men and a dog in one corner and a small group of students in another.
“Derek “ Dave said, and there was genuine warmth in his handshake. “Long time no see. What brings you to this corner of the jungle?”
“Oh this and that—you know how things are.”
He studied me closely, and he must have seen something of the night’s activities in my eyes because he poured me a whisky, which I accepted gratefully. His eyes widened as I downed it in one gulp. The hot burning nectar did a lot to dispel the coldness in my spine, but it still didn’t erase it completely.
“Another?” he asked, but reluctantly I shook my head.
“No. I’d better not. I don’t think I’m finished work for the night yet. Give me a beer.”
While Dave poured the beer I lit another cigarette. This time my hands didn’t shake.
We reminisced about old times for a couple of minutes as I sipped the beer, then I got down to business. He seemed surprised that I was interested in Marshall.
“A bit above your usual league, isn’t he?” Dave asked, but didn’t stop for a reply. “Actually, one of the lads was talking about him this morning. Marshall thinks he’s hit the big time. Seemingly, he was in his local, boasting about how much money he had coming to him.”
It sounded as if I was on the right track. Dave told me where Marshall’s local was, along with a description of him, told me not to wait so long before my next visit, and offered me a free pint if I came back to tell him what it was all about.
The rain was coming down in sheets as I left, and I got soaked through on the way to the car. My aging windscreen wipers were barely up to the task and I had to take it slowly as I made my way across town.
Glasgow at night—what a city. The city center itself was quiet, but on the fringes the queues for the nightclubs were already building up.
The Midnight Eye Files: Volume 1 (Midnight Eye Collections) Page 11