“No matter,” I said, negotiating the creaking wooden steps leading to the cottage door. “It’s almost amusing. She claims she won’t cooperate with me if I hurt her dear Koenraad Thwaite or her unborn spawn. Yes, she actually used the word, spawn. One has to laugh, doesn’t one?”
He chuckled and gave me a knowing look.
“Aye, these women can get silly when they’re in the… family way. But she also says her lover, this Thwaite, will kill you if we don’t return her to him.”
I rapped twice on the door. There was no sound from within the cottage.
“You believe this is possible, Archibald? That Thwaite possesses the skill to kill me?”
“Oh, no, boss, absolutely not.”
I knocked again, then tried the handle. The door swung open. In the middle of nowhere, apparently the inhabitants didn’t fear robberies.
Good for us, I thought, bad for them.
It was a one-room affair. Stale odor, like ale splattered in an unkempt room. The fireplace was cold, but we found some chunks of what appeared to be roasted rabbit on the table. Archibald stuffed the meat into a satchel along with some home-bottled brew he found in a small cupboard. We found several buckets in a low cupboard, which we filled from the well for the horses. We were happy to come out of the oppressive atmosphere of the cottage; we sat outside with the horses, cracked open the brew and downed it. I hadn’t realized my thirst until seeing the drinks, and I was quietly thankful for Archibald’s good sense in having us stop. We watched the horses graze, the sweat drying on their skin.
“Now let’s get out of here,” I said, “before the inhabitant of this place returns. He’s a hunting man, for sure, and I don’t feel like being hunted today.”
As the hours passed, we stopped twice more to water the horses, and to let them graze in a field. Eventually, we swerved up a narrow path leading to a ridge, where we stopped. Tying our mounts to a lone tree, we contemplated the small building that lay before us. A hand-painted sign above the building proclaimed, ORFANS.
Archibald pulled out his sack of meat, stuffed some in his mouth, and chewed. The smell was rancid, and when he offered me some, I refused. Instead, I drank another of the dark beers.
“This must be the orphanage,” I said drily. “It does not appear particularly high class.”
“All the better for us. We can snatch the girl and make a quick escape.”
I grabbed his arm and held him back for a moment.
“Remember,” I said, “that Maria Fitzgerald is very powerful, perhaps more so than Amelia Scarcliffe. When the girl strikes, you won’t see it coming. Scarcliffe commands mistletoe to kill her enemies. Think about that, Archibald.”
His rough-textured face, hardened by the wind and winter sun, paled. His eyes narrowed, as he looked nervously at the orphanage. Smoke curled from a chimney in the center of the small structure.
“Your men told me about what’s in the Thames: creatures flitting over the water, disappearing before their eyes,” Archibald said.
“Take care approaching the girl. By all accounts she’s very young,” I told him. “But she’s dangerous. Do not let her age fool you.”
Imagine if I could harness the power of Maria and the Scarcliffe woman, harness the power and the terror of this Dagon gang. Imagine if I could get the females to control the power of those creatures for me! If I could command and control the creatures… I could rule the world, not just London, but the world.
We crept to the back of the orphanage. From inside, we heard sounds of life—chairs scraping across a wood floor, an old woman cackling, a man grunting orders, a child whining. I had no desire to kill children. But I would do whatever was required to kidnap Maria.
My objectives were not grounded solely in greed and power. I viewed myself as Sherlock Holmes viewed himself. A superior intellect trapped in a world gripped by stupidity and boredom. Logic fighting for life in a world saturated in religion and superstition. I knew what was best. With more power, I could make things happen. Perhaps Holmes could achieve my goals, as well, but he was too immersed in solving petty crimes and congratulating himself with his do-gooder arrogance.
For a man to truly be powerful and change the world, he had to be willing to break the rules, to speak out as he thought fit, to take actions that others would think too bold, too outrageous, too cunning, too dangerous.
I signaled for Archibald to break down the back door. I would let him lead the way, subdue any adults stupid enough to think they could fight us off, and then I would follow.
Kicking open the door, he darted inside. I smelled cooking meat, and my stomach growled. I was hungry, and the meat smelled fragrant and fresh and very unlike the rancid chunks my companion had just consumed.
“What’s the meaning of this?” a man demanded.
I raced in behind Archibald. To my right, he’d grabbed the man—an old fellow, flabby, with a red nose and a fat neck and swollen cheeks—from behind, wrenching him off his feet. Nearby, a woman, heavily wrinkled with brown blotches marking her face, opened a toothless mouth and shrieked. I whirled her around, shook her, and yelled at her to shut up. Her face displaying shock, she complied, mouth sucking her gums, hand dropping a cane, which clattered across the floor.
Several children huddled in a corner by a rocking chair. Two tiny boys and one slightly older girl—she must be about six years old. Maria?
The man struggled and cursed in Archibald’s grip, and finally, Archibald snarled, “I didn’t want to have to do this, mate,” and slammed the man’s head against the log wall. The man slumped in Archibald’s arms, and Archibald dropped him to the floor, turning to the children. They hugged each other, edging away from him with their eyes glazed in fear.
“Pl-please, d-don’t hurt the children,” the old lady wept. Without her cane to support her, she had fallen to the floor. “They are but orphans.”
“And which one of these fine children is named Maria?” My eyes swept over the three, honing in on the sole girl. “Would that be you, sweetheart?” I asked.
She unlatched herself from the others and scrambled to her feet, drawing herself up proudly, as if no longer afraid of me. A capital mistake.
“I am Maria Fitzgerald.” She had a faint accent I couldn’t place. “What might you want with me, sir?”
“She doesn’t look scary to me.” Archibald was keeping his eyes on the flabby man, who twitched upon the floor, his forehead gashed and oozing blood.
“How would you like to join my friend here and me for some lovely tea, some biscuits and perhaps a cake or two?” I asked the girl. “How about a hot meal and a soft bed? We’d like to bring you to London, where you are more suited, you must agree, than you are to an orphanage in the forest.”
She shook her head, the mop of black hair on her head swinging by her ears. Her hair was short, as if it had been roughly chopped by a butcher’s knife. Her eyes, wide and green, were highly expressive and beautiful.
“I won’t go with you,” she said, “for we’ve not been properly introduced. First, you must tell me, sir, who you are and what you want with me. I also object to the manner in which you’ve treated Mr. Gunshaw, who has been nothing but kind and generous to me.”
I marveled at the self-possession of the child. She exuded a maturity beyond her years.
Mr. Gunshaw, the fellow on the floor, rolled to a sitting position, then grabbed hold of the rocking chair to steady himself. He stood, still grasping the chair, then sank into it.
Behind him, the fireplace roared and filled the small room with tremendous heat. It was a giant round fireplace inside a stone-built circle that stood waist high. A cooking pot swung on a hook over the flames. I was sweating beneath my coat and collar. Archibald’s face had broken out with sweat, as well, which he wiped off with a sleeve.
I extended both arms with my palms up. I stepped toward the girl. Toward Maria, daughter of a French Dagonite leader and a dead soprano.
“Your father speaks highly of you,” I
lied.
“My father?” Clearly, she was startled. “How do you know of my father?” She stepped back, arms stretched behind her. Her eyes grew wider and seemed to bore into me.
“He is a most powerful man, is he not?”
“He is in jail,” she said.
Ah, so she still thought her father was Professor Henry Fitzgerald. Her mother must not have told her the truth.
“I want to take you to your father.”
“Well, I refuse to see him!” she said. “I didn’t know of his existence until a short time ago, and then he refused to acknowledge me. I want nothing to do with him.”
“Leave the girl be,” Gunshaw said. “She’s done nothing to you. Her father sent her here, to an orphanage. Surely, you can’t be thinking she belongs back with him?”
“Enough of this,” I said curtly, my patience wearing thin. “Every moment I waste talking to you, Mr. Gunshaw, is a moment that costs me money. This girl is coming with me, and it’s best for you to stay out of the matter.”
“But I refuse!” he cried, hoisting his bulk from the rocking chair and throwing himself at Archibald. Stupid man, he started beating Archibald’s solid chest with his bloated fists—like a little girl might fight, I thought—and Archibald just grabbed both wrists in his hands and shoved the man off him.
The old lady clawed at my ankles. I looked down. She had crawled over to me on her stomach. Now, her face looked up at me.
“Pl-please…” she moaned.
I shook her off and turned my attention back to the girl.
“Come quietly and peacefully,” I said, “please.” I held out a hand to her.
“No!” She turned on her heel and ran to a little door I hadn’t noticed till then, wrenching it open. It took nothing for me to grab her by the waist and pull her back. I kicked the door shut. She squirmed, but I held tight. Reaching into my pocket, I whipped out a cloth, balled it, and stuffed it into her mouth.
I bound her wrists behind her back with some nearby rags and tied her ankles together. Nicely trussed and ready for a long ride, she was.
Blood pounded in my head. My nerves were all a-skitter. I loved this feeling, this rush of excitement that always came when I’d conquered an enemy, acquired a weapon.
In the meantime, Gunshaw had launched himself at Archibald, beating his fists against the mounds of chest muscle to no avail. Archibald put up with it, I have to give him his due, until finally, he’d had enough of the old fool. He shoved Gunshaw into the rocking chair, and the fat man flew back into it with such force that the whole chair crashed over, sending Gunshaw to the floor. At that, Archibald pulled back his right leg. I knew what was coming, and I wasn’t disappointed. Several violent kicks later, Gunshaw lay moaning and holding his stomach.
I hoisted up Maria, cradling her in my arms like a baby. She couldn’t fight me. She was all trussed up like a goose for dinner.
Gunshaw was openly weeping, more a baby than the little girl, who did not cry.
“Shut up,” Archibald growled, “I said, shut up.” But the man continued blubbering.
I prodded aside the woman—I was gentle, for what danger could the old crone possibly pose?—and stepped gingerly toward the door.
I had Maria Fitzgerald.
I had her!
“Archibald, let’s—” I stopped mid-sentence.
Archibald had dragged the fat man by his collar across the floor to the roaring fire. He thrust the man onto the waist-high stone circle. The meat pot swung on its hook. Already, the flames whipped Gunshaw’s shirt, and the man shrieked.
“No! Let me go! No! Don’t do this!”
“You don’t know when to shut your mouth,” Archibald growled, “and I’m going to teach you what happens to a man with a big mouth.”
With that, he shoved Gunshaw over and into the fire pit. The fat man’s head hit the metal pot with a loud clang as fire swept over his body, melting and cooking his flesh. He screamed until the very end, and I stood, transfixed, always loving a good show, be it dynamite or death by fire. His last scream fizzled as the flames consumed him, setting his skin crackling.
In my arms, the girl squirmed. I glanced at her eyes, huge and round and filled with terror. The door to the back room stood open. The two boys were probably hiding under their beds.
Archibald scooped up the old lady, who struggled and shrieked as he hoisted her and tossed her into the flames. She went into the fire in a flurry of apron and skirts, scrawny-bone legs with purple veins, and puffs of white hair. She tried to lift herself, but failed. The fire consumed her neck, her arms, her head. The smoke was so thick in the room that I couldn’t breathe, and I choked on the reek of her charred flesh.
She wouldn’t have lived long anyway, so what did it really matter?
Archibald hitched up his trousers and laughed. It was a hearty laugh that rang on and on.
“Damn, if that isn’t great!” He slapped a wall with his hand and strode to the door, where I stood with Maria.
Maria’s green eyes shone like glass, focused, unblinking, on Archibald. Bound tightly, she couldn’t move her legs or her arms, nor could she speak with the cloth balled in her mouth.
But her eyes…
Her thin eyebrows rose higher, almost reaching her hair. The round face grew rounder, almost to a sphere. On her neck, tiny bubbles of flesh protruded and jiggled. Dozens of bubbles now rocked in harmony, bobbing as if to an unheard melody.
Suddenly, like a bullet, the cloth shot from her mouth and hit Archibald’s chest. He screamed and doubled over, then rose slightly and clawed at his chest. When he removed his hands, they were bloody. He stared at them in disbelief, then looked at Maria in shock.
I nearly dropped her, but held on, for I feared the result of setting her free. But my hands shook, and for a moment, I knew not what to do.
She muttered syllables that made no sense.
“Aauhaoaoa demoni aauhaoaoa demoni aauhaoaoa demoni. Ch’thgalhn fhtagn urre’h nyogthluh’eeh ngh syh’kyuhyuh.”
Blood soaked Archibald’s shirt. His eyes closed. His face went white. And then something invisible swept him up and threw him into the fire pit onto the bones of Gunshaw and the old crone.
Archibald was gone.
I stared down at Maria, still in my arms, and suddenly I believed. There was no trickery here; there had been no trickery in Amelia Scarcliffe’s cottage. This child—this creature—had real power, inexplicable power. I had to get her back to London—but how? What if she killed me?
“You have Amelia Scarcliffe?” she murmured.
I nodded, dumbfounded.
“Then take me to her. I know of her, of others. I know more than you will ever know. Together, she and I are more potent than anything you can imagine, even in your nightmares. If you work for me, if you do my bidding, I’ll consider letting you live.”
At that moment, I would have agreed to just about anything.
Though once we returned to London, I would keep Maria separated from Amelia Scarcliffe until I was ready to use them both for my own purposes.
The girl shivered when we left the hot confines of the orphanage. The air was sweet and cold, but the smell of burning flesh still clogged my nostrils. It wouldn’t do for Maria to get sick, not when I needed her. I returned to the cabin, trying not to breathe the stench of burning flesh. I grabbed a blanket from a back room, where the two boys held each other, shaking, and I wrapped it around the shivering girl.
Outside again, I strapped her across Archibald’s horse, and then the two of us rode off into the woods.
28
DR. JOHN WATSON
Avebury, Wiltshire
The wind nearly blew my cap off, and I clamped it to my head with one hand while keeping my other hand tucked into my coat pocket. The carriage that had brought us into Avebury clattered off, its driver anxious to find new custom on a night where nobody with any sense would dare venture from home.
Slicing down my calf, the cold knifed my leg, and I winced with
every step. Beside me, Holmes pushed against the gale, his body upright, his eyes focused on the inn that was a blur behind the sleet sweeping past us.
“How are we going to find infected sheep and cows in this storm?” I screamed above the wind.
Holmes shouted something back, but I couldn’t make out his answer.
I hobbled by his side, and despite the storm, I can’t say that I was anxious to get to our destination, the Loggerheads. We had stayed at the inn during our last visit to Avebury, and our room had been smelly and dilapidated. And all night, I’d been kept awake by incantations and the screeching of tuneless singing; I had never determined the source of the disturbance.
Holmes wrenched open the outer door to the place, and we stepped inside. Instantly, the cold and the wet gave way to the warmth of the fireplace, and the odors of stale beer and rotting fish.
Settled on stools by the fireplace, three men huddled and chattered in a language I did not know. Their words, high-pitched and guttural, wobbling from high to low and then back again, reminded me of the gibberish of the Dagon-worshiping cultists that Holmes and I had encountered at Swallowhead Spring, and later, at the Thames warehouse.
I touched Holmes’s arm, and we exchanged a glance.
Their garb was similar to that of other Dagonites we had encountered, which we had found was designed to hide the deformities unique to this group. All three men wore shirts that hid their necks from view. All three wore baggy knee-length trousers slung low on their hips. Beneath the tattered trouser legs, greenish flesh bulged with muscles where no man should have muscles. Enormous slippers, crafted from what appeared to be gray animal hide, clad feet twice the size of a large man’s foot. Each slipper bowed outward, forming a vaguely triangular shape.
One man lifted a webbed hand, and with a needlelike fingertip, started to rub the left side of his head—a bloated head, inflated like a toy ball, devoid of hair but splotched with a mahogany-colored scab the size of a bread plate. Rhythmically, he rubbed, up and down, up and down, pricking it, wincing, and then smearing a green ooze of what I presumed to be diseased blood across his forehead.
Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu Page 17