The mysterious woman pressed Chrysanthe to them. “Take her, please!”
The maidservant was in bad shape, but she stirred. “My queen,” she slurred.
Ariadne smiled and touched her cheek. “Thank you, Chrysanthe. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you seeing this through. But I cannot go.”
“Why?” Sebastianos asked. He did not bother to hide his incredulity. This was poor timing for a jest, but surely no sane person would speak of staying in this vile catacomb.
The woman shifted her gaze to him. “The pact with Umôrdhoth is bound to my bloodline.” She pulled her dark hair aside and showed them a mark. A black orb, circled with dark rays. Sebastianos thought at once of the thing beyond the pit. “As long as Minos’ line continues, it will seek its due. If this is to end here, truly end, it must end with me.”
The ground shook again, and something howled from the direction of the pit. Even the cultists were fleeing now, scattering towards all the exits.
“Take her and go!” said Ariadne.
“No,” whispered Chrysanthe.
She lunged towards Ariadne, arms outstretched. Her wounds made the movement unsteady. Tears were streaming down her face. Ariadne stepped back and shook her head. She looked to Sebastianos with a plea in her eyes.
Sebastianos caught hold of Chrysanthe. “I’m sorry,” he said. To Ariadne and Chrysanthe both.
Chrysanthe pounded at him in anguish. Theseus took her by the other arm, his face solemn with grief. They pulled her away, but Sebastianos could not bear to look at her. His heart broke for her already. The three of them fled that dark place deep beneath the earth. His last glimpse of Ariadne was her turning, face resolute, to confront the vile darkness her father had made a pact with.
•••
Daisy closed the old book carefully. Joe sat back and whistled low.
“That is a hell of a story,” he said.
It seemed a powerful understatement. On the face of it, it was unbelievable. Just another myth. But if monsters were real – and he knew they were – then why not heroes? If he and his friends could fight back now, why couldn’t the people of the past?
There was something warming to the thought, as sad as the story was. A human kinship stretching down through the ages. They might fall, they might fail, but they were never alone as long as someone else took up the fight.
“Handed down, retold and reshaped. Even this version may not be the full tale,” Daisy said. “But the mark…”
“Yeah,” Joe said. He set aside grand thoughts of the past to focus on the demands of the present. He rubbed a chin that was bristling with five o’clock shadow. “Sounds an awful lot like the one on our girl here. A descendant of Minos, huh?”
“Perhaps,” Daisy said. “Or connected to something else similar. There is no way to be sure.”
“The Devourer Below,” Joe said distastefully. “We’ve heard that name before.”
Daisy nodded. “Too much to hope that night saw it done away with for good. What will you do now?”
Joe blew out a heavy breath. “What I can. Ancient curses are beyond me, but I still have to try.” He drummed his fingers thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll stop by the diner.”
“Ah,” Daisy nodded. “Agnes. That’s a good thought. I’ll come with–”
“Nope,” Joe said and shook his head. “Any other time I’d be glad to have you along for the ride, but you still have a bum arm. You’ve done enough. You gave me a place to start.”
The librarian glared at her arm briefly as though it was doing this on purpose. Joe stood from the table, and she walked him to the exit from the library. Full night had fallen beyond, the sky dark and full of stars.
“Be careful, detective.”
Joe grinned as he perched his fedora back onto his head. “I’ve never been anything less, ma’am.”
There was a lot of work still to do if Nadia was to be saved. He set off into the night.
To Be Continued…
All My Friends Are Monsters
Davide Mana
Later, Ruth Turner would tell herself that it all started on the night the cops raided the Southside Speakeasy. When things twisted out of shape and the nightmares began, she needed to find a starting point to give her story a direction and make sense of it. And the hectic run in the alleys, feet slipping on the wet paving, her breath short, was as good a beginning as any other.
Hidden in the arch of a doorway, panting, she had tried to catch a glimpse of whoever was coming after her, unseen steps echoing in the dark. Her heart pounded in her chest not just from the strain of the long run. Running in men’s shoes was a lot easier than running in half heels. But being caught in a bootlegger’s place? And wearing male clothing?
She shuddered. Everybody knew what cops did to people like her. So when the shout had sounded, “Raid!” she had followed a few of the other patrons through the back door behind the bandstand, in the small courtyard where the privy was, and then through the iron door into the alley, and into the night, each man and woman for themselves, running.
Trying to slow down her breathing, she leaned out of her hideaway, and a body smelling of rose and tobacco slammed into her, knocking her back against the closed door with a bump. A brief cry, and Ruth pulled the newcomer into an awkward embrace, and placed a hand on her mouth. She could feel the heartbeat of the woman, a frantic pulse against her chest.
“Hush,” she whispered in the other woman’s ear.
More steps approached. Slowed down. Ruth and her companion retreated further into the shadows, and held their breath.
“I’m sure she came this way–” a man’s voice said.
Another man coughed, like a dog barking. “I’m too old for this rubbish,” he gasped, and coughed again.
The first man came closer. A streetlight at the head of the alley cast his long shadow on the pavement. A cop. He wore a beret, he carried a bludgeon.
With a screeching mewl, a cat shot out from behind a dustbin and ran to the end of the shadows.
Ruth’s companion pressed hard into her, just as the out of breath cop let out a rattling laugh. “There goes your mystery dame,” he said. “Let’s get back.”
“I tell you I saw her run this way.”
“If she did, she was faster than us. Let’s go back.”
The silence seemed to last forever. Then the first cop grunted. “Yeah, fine.”
Ruth and her companion remained still for a while, after the steps had died away. Then they finally let go of each other. “Are you alright?” Ruth asked, in a hushed voice.
The other woman nodded. She was about two inches shorter than Ruth, and wore a soft dress, the color impossible to tell in the yellow glow of the distant streetlight. Short, bobbed hair, and a sharp face, pointed chin and high cheekbones, her eyes and lips underscored by dark makeup.
“We’re safe now,” Ruth said, slowly.
The girl was staring at her. Taking in the double-breasted jacket, the fedora.
“I saw you in there,” she said. Her voice was pleasantly husky. “I like your style.”
Ruth was speechless for a moment. “Thanks.”
The woman just ran a hand through her short hair, and sighed. “I lost my hat.” Then she grinned mischievously. “I’m Charlie,” she said, offering her hand.
“I am Ruth.”
They were still standing real close, half in shadow. Ruth could smell Charlie’s perfume.
“Have you got a cigarette, Ruth?” Charlie asked suddenly.
Ruth’s hand went to her pocket, and then she froze.
Charlie smirked. “Worried we might get arrested? For smoking in public?”
Ruth chuckled and pulled out her pack of Lucky Strikes. She shook two cigarettes out of it. The click of her lighter illuminated Charlie’s fine features, highlighting her bright eyes and t
he copper in her hair. Finally, Charlie stepped back and leaned against the frame of the door. She took a long drag and exhaled slowly. “I needed this,” she said.
Ruth nodded and tipped the ash off her cigarette. She was not a heavy smoker, not really, but the Luckies were part of her persona when she went out at night, just like the jacket, the tie, the hat.
They smoked in silence, enjoying the sudden peace, the noises of the night city faint in the distance. Finally Charlie dropped the butt of her smoke on the ground and squashed it with the tip of her foot. “So, Ruth,” she said, turning to stare at her, “are you into girls?”
Ruth’s eyes widened, and she felt her cheeks burn.
Charlie came closer. “Because I am.”
Her boldness was like a slap. Ruth retreated, and Charlie smiled at her. “Let me see your hair.” She took Ruth’s hat away. Ruth’s long black hair fell on her shoulders, brushing the curve of her jaw. “Beautiful,” Charlie whispered.
Later Ruth would tell herself it was there it all started.
•••
In the following days, Ruth felt like she was walking two feet over the ground, and was so happy she was sure she was giving off light. She worried for a while her colleagues in Pickman Street would notice and ask her questions. It didn’t happen.
To all around her, she remained the black-haired, silent woman working in the morgue, barely visible to the other employees, and a silent shadow to the people that would come and cry for their dead friends, or stare silently, unbelieving, at the still bodies of their relatives.
And yet, for Ruth the smell of disinfectant could not wash away the smell of roses, and her eyes sparkled with joy. She strove to set her features to a somber demeanor when she walked visitors to the icebox drawers where the bodies were preserved. She felt their pain, but her heart was singing.
Grief, like her, haunted these rooms, and she had managed to find a way to live with it so far, slowly retreating into a solitary existence, pushed into a corner by the leaden weight of the world’s pain. Eat alone, sleep alone, her nights at home spent with a book, or a radio serial.
Of her youthful dreams, she had a distant, almost impersonal memory, like the ghost limb of a trench war survivor. Like the distant echo of a toothache: there, but not really anymore.
That had been Ruth’s existence for years. Until the day the pale blonde girl arrived at the morgue.
They had fished her out of the Miskatonic, her hair intertwined with river grasses, her fingernails broken as she had tried to claw her way back onto the banks, and failed. “Accidents happen,” the man from the ambulance said, handing Ruth his report.
No name, no history. She had been so young. So beautiful.
Moving like a machine, Ruth arranged the body on the slab and then sat down to fill out the forms describing the conditions of the remains. It was only when a single tear drew a black smear on the paper, washing away the ink, that Ruth realized her heart was broken.
She cried then, giving in to the emotion. She only managed to compose herself when one of the detectives from the precinct came and collected the report. The man had looked at Ruth in a strange way, maybe sensing something Ruth herself could not name.
No one claimed the body. A column appeared in the Gazette, but no one came forward. After the prescribed time, the men from Christchurch Cemetery came and took the blonde girl away, leaving behind a signed, stamped paper. A solitary ceremony, a cheap coffin and a shallow grave, paid for by the city. Ruth had accompanied the body and stood as the gravediggers shoveled dirt on the pine box, and the priest turned and walked away, his head down. As the men put a white wood cross in place, hammering it down with a shovel, the last of Ruth’s heart crumbled.
She was standing on the brink of a precipice, and she decided to take a plunge.
Two days later, on her morning off, Ruth visited a shop selling secondhand clothes, in the old neighborhood where the Italians and Spaniards lived. She bought a man’s suit, blue, three shirts, three ties. A pair of comfortable two-tone loafers, their soles worn, the leather scuffed. A wide-brimmed hat.
The following night, at home, she watched herself as though in a dream as she dressed in front of her mirror. The clothes felt so right. The jacket made her shoulders wider, her waist thinner. The hat hid her hair, cast her eyes in shadow.
Then, her head spinning and her heart racing, she went out in the night. As another person. Like Fantòmas, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. Looking for life.
It did not take long for her to find the steps down to the Southside, where there was music, and booze, and freedom. She had been patronizing the speakeasy for about a month when the cops raided the premises, and she met Charlie, and fell in love.
•••
“They raid us once a month,” Levon said. He placed the teacups down in front of them, filled with the dark amber of bootleg whiskey. He winked. “The cops want to make sure the boss keeps paying his dues.”
Ruth took a sip of her liquor, the alcohol burning on her tongue.
“Damn nuisance,” Charlie said. She was a little tipsy already, this being her third “tea” of the evening.
“They usually come on the Saturday, when the place’s packed,” the waiter said. “So tonight we’re easy.”
Ruth looked at the people crammed in the smoky room. To her, the place seemed packed enough. On the bandstand, the guys were warming up. The noise of a thousand voices went down a notch as the bass and drum picked up the rhythm. Jungle Blues. Levon nodded and moved on to the next table. Ruth sighed and relaxed against the back of her chair.
“Feeling good, love?” Charlie asked.
She did that thing she did, caressing Ruth’s hand, running her long nail around Ruth’s ring. Ruth had started wearing it two weeks before, on their first anniversary celebration. Three months, and a silver ring. Charlie had one just like hers.
Ruth drank some more and nodded. “Always, when we’re together.”
The music was jumping in time with the butterflies in her chest. She’d never get used to it, she knew. And she liked the feeling. A woman at a nearby table, her man’s hand on her knee, looked at them and grinned. She gave Ruth a thumbs-up, like they were aviators in a film.
“We could go to the movies one of these nights,” she said, suddenly.
Charlie shrugged. “If you like.”
Ruth arched an eyebrow, and Charlie seemed to sober up suddenly. “I like it here,” she said. “I like being with you in the bright lights. Where everybody can see us, and nobody cares.”
Ruth chuckled and lit a cigarette. “You’re drunk.”
But she felt like it too. She ran a hand down the lapel of her double-breasted jacket, touched the lilac silk pochette Charlie had given her on their first date.
“Let’s order one more tea,” Charlie said, raising a hand to call Levon. “Then we go home.”
Ruth gave her a look. “What do you have in mind, you minx?”
Charlie smiled like a happy, tipsy cat. “Wait and see.”
•••
“Some people were here to see you,” Lumley said.
Morgue assistant, he was the sort of guy that carried a black leather bag like a doctor’s, containing just his sandwiches. His shift over, he stood and picked his coat from the hanger behind the door.
“What people?” Ruth asked. It was not like she ever had any visitors.
Lumley shrugged. “People. A man and a woman. Nice clothes, the dame. He looked like a bum. I told them you’d be in tonight.”
He picked up his hat and his bag and wished her goodnight.
Despite her seniority, Ruth still got nights, two weeks a month.
“It’s because you’re a dame,” Charlie usually said. “We girls always get the short end.”
Charlie worked at a milliner’s shop on Church Street, and when Ruth was doing night
s, they barely saw each other.
With a sigh, Ruth worked her silver ring around her finger.
“Nice bauble you have there, Miss Turner.”
A man’s voice. Rough. She started and turned. At the office door, a man and a woman stood, looking at her.
“Can we have a word?” the man said.
Ruth took a step back. They came in and closed the door behind them.
They were a strange couple. The woman was tall, aristocratic, her black hair pleated in an expensive do. Everything about her spoke of money. She pulled her fur cape closer as she looked with bored curiosity at the desks, the filing cabinets. Like a tourist. The man, on the other hand, looked a lot cheaper in a well-worn gray suit. He badly needed a shave, and kept staring at Ruth with a hungry, predatory look on his face. He had short stubby hands, his fingernails stained brown.
They were not the sort of people that usually visited these rooms. “How can I help you?” Ruth asked, warily.
The woman turned to her, like she had just noticed Ruth was there, and arched an aristocratic eyebrow. “Yes,” she said.
Ruth frowned. The man nodded. “You certainly can, miss. Help us, that is.”
His grin revealed big yellow teeth. Ruth looked at him, and then at the woman.
“We are seeking an arrangement of reciprocal benefit,” the woman said.
“You know how they say,” the man said. “One hand washes the other, and together they wash the face.”
“I don’t–”
“Do you have many unclaimed bodies?” the woman asked suddenly, with the same tone one might use to inquire about groceries.
“Sure they do,” the man nodded. He was rifling through the papers Lumley had left on his desk. “John Doe, they call ‘em.”
“Don’t touch–!”
He turned sharply, his mellifluous smile gone. “Don’t you snap at me, woman.”
The Devourer Below Page 13