Pax Britannia: Human Nature (20 page)

"Well you can add before dark as well now, in light of our little run in with your phantom hound."

"Oh, it's no phantom, Quicksilver, I can assure you of that," the naturalist said vehemently.

"I know. I can vouch for that fact myself," Ulysses pointed out, riled by the old man's defensive attack. "I only meant that the legend of the Barghest has been perpetuated for centuries and what I saw on the moors today looked nothing like the product of any natural birth."

"What are you saying, sir?" the curmudgeonly Haniver challenged. Before Ulysses had a chance to explain himself, the old man turned to the girl again. "Is that right, Jennifer?"

"Well, Daddy, it was getting dark and we were hardly in the best position to see, but the creature was certainly unlike any dog that I have ever seen before, or any wolf for that matter."

"How do you mean? In what way was it different?"

Jennifer put down her knife and fork and thought for a moment. "In that its various body parts didn't seem to fit together properly, quite as they should, in that... I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but in that it appeared cobbled together. In that it was greater than the sum of its parts."

"Precisely!" Ulysses crowed triumphantly.

"What are you getting at, Mr Quicksilver?"

"Jennifer's just told you! It was greater than the sum of its parts."

"I'm sorry, I don't follow you."

"But, that aside, what I want to know is where did it come from? And why now?"

"What are you saying, Ulysses?"

All eyes were on Ulysses now.

"When did the first death occur?"

"The first Barghest killing, you mean?" Haniver asked.

"Yes," Ulysses nodded.

"Back in September," Jennifer said, "a rambler, not far from here in fact, up on Fencher's Tor, at the edge of the Umbridge estate."

"Not Umbridge as in Josiah Umbridge, famous industrialist who's dropped out of the public eye due to poor health?"

"That's right." The old man was a picture of bewilderment.

"And yet the legend of the Barghest has been around for centuries, hasn't it?"

"There have been reported sightings from as far back as the twelfth century," Haniver proffered the information from his obviously encyclopaedic knowledge of the legend.

"But these deaths are the first that can be properly tied to the beast in, what, a hundred years?"

"There was a report from the seventeenth century that a farm worker witnessed the Barghest carry off a woman accused of witchcraft after it was said she had poisoned her husband."

"But the first substantiated report of a death to occur in this century happened two months or so ago?"

"What are you getting at, Mr Quicksilver?"

"What was it you said just now, Jennifer, about the beast?"

"I think I said that it looked like it had been cobbled together."

"Precisely!" Ulysses put down his knife and fork and, resting his elbows on the starched white tablecloth, gently cupped his injured right hand in his left. "What do you know of the Whitby Mermaid?"

Hannibal Haniver grunted in annoyance. "Is there any danger of you actually giving us a simple answer to a simple question? First we're talking about the Black Dog of Beast Cliff and now you've thrown mermaids into the equation."

"If I might beg your indulgence for a moment? The Whitby Mermaid - have you heard of it?"

"But of course, this isn't the arse end of beyond, you know. I do read
The Times
. And of course it was reported in the local paper - huge furore. I would have liked to have looked into that one more closely myself, but that scoundrel Cruikshank saw to it that the thing was whisked away to London before myself, or Jennifer - or anyone else for that matter - could take a closer look. And now the damn thing's been stolen, hasn't it?" A spark of excitement appeared in the old man's eyes again. "Have you seen it, Quicksilver?"

"Only a photograph. Not in the flesh, as it were. I would have liked to though. For a start it might have made my current investigation a little more straightforward. But I've seen enough to know it's a fake."

"Your investigation?" Jennifer asked.

"Yes, Quicksilver, you haven't told us what brings you to Ghestdale," Haniver said, almost accusingly.

"And you haven't told me why a leader in his field, like yourself, is living as a recluse at the edge of these godforsaken moors."

"The impudent cheek. I'll have you know that this is God's own county!"

"My apologies," Ulysses said hastily, making an instant retraction.

"I find that this is the perfect environment in which to pursue my studies."

"Would that be your studies in natural history or cryptozoology?"

"Mr Quicksilver! I will not be made a mockery of in my own home!" the old man fumed, slamming a fist down on the table. "I am going to have to ask you to leave!"

"Daddy," Jennifer said, stepping in. "I do not believe that Ulysses is trying to mock you."

"No, not at all, sir," Ulysses backed her up, trying to sound as sincere as possible. "Considering how events have escalated recently, I really would appreciate your input in this matter. As you will know from reading
The Times
, the Whitby mermaid was stolen, but what you probably don't know is that it was stolen to order, and sent back to Whitby."

"Do you know
who
it was sent to?" The old man was intrigued now.

"Only that it was stolen on the orders of one Mr Bellerophon."

"Bellerophon? I've never heard of anyone by that name living in these parts."

"No, and I wouldn't have expected you to."

"But back to the mermaid; it was obviously a fake," Haniver said. "You could just about see the stitch marks in the photograph."

"But who's to say that it wasn't stitched together while it was still alive." Ulysses smiled wryly.

"Are you saying that it was a vivisect?" Haniver blustered in wondrous disbelief.

"Are you serious, Ulysses?" Jennifer asked, sounding just as astonished.

"Like the Barghest hound."

For a moment everyone around the table was silent; only the chink of silverware on the finest bones china disturbed the eerily tense atmosphere, as Ulysses dissected a slice of ham on his plate.

"You speak of such things as if you have encountered them before," Haniver pointed out. "Have you seen something like this before, Quicksilver?"

"Yes, actually I have."

The stunned silence returned.

With a deafening crash of breaking glass, the French windows exploded into the room as something huge and terrible hurtled through them, tearing the heavy drapes from their curtain pole to trail the thick velvet hangings.

Shards of broken glass whickered through the air like a crystalline hailstorm as the beast landed in the centre of the table, its varnished surface splintering under its weight.

Jennifer screamed.

The beast roared.

And Ulysses Quicksilver stared death in the face.

Chapter Fourteen

Red in Tooth and Claw

The beast's roar silenced the screaming Jennifer. Struggling to know what else to do she pushed herself back into her chair, as if somehow that would save her from the slavering jaws and razor talons of the monster.

For a moment the Barghest simply sat there, not looking at any of them. Its nose in the air, the grossly malformed hound sniffed sharply several times while all those present in the room could do was watch in stunned horror.

The monster must have found a way out of the jet mine, Ulysses thought, climbing back above ground before hunting them to the house.

In the brightly-lit dining room, with the beast mere inches from his face again, Ulysses saw the monster clearly for the first time as it squatted there in the centre of the table, panting heavily. The room filled with the stink of its steaming body, its filth-matted hide, a stomach-turning blend of wet dog and spoiled meat.

In that same instant, Ulysses' over-wrought mind took in every hideous detail. The creature's short black pelt glistened wetly in the suffused candle-light, the bristles of its fur standing on end. Ulysses fancied he could see every one of its killingly-powerful muscles as they slid and bunched beneath the scabrous skin of its hide.

Up close he could also make out every one of the injuries it had already sustained. There were grazes and lacerations acquired, no doubt, when it fell into the mine shaft. In fact, the creature's right eye had been practically gouged out, no doubt by some outcropping rock. Cuts flecked its shoulders, forelimbs and flanks. Some still had diamond-sharp splinters of glass embedded within them. The beast's blood mixed with the mud its paws had smeared over the tablecloth.

And then there were the gunshot wounds. Ulysses could see the hole he had managed to blast in its shoulder, and one ear was now a ragged mess thanks to where another shot had pulverised half of it. Both he and Nimrod had actually hit the thing then - he had been beginning to wonder if they really had, seeing it there in front of him now - but none of their shots had been killing shots. The beast's resilience and stamina must be incredible, practically any of the other shots would have been enough to floor a lesser animal.

It was bold too, in a way that other dogs weren't. Not even a wolf would have thrown itself through a set of French windows to get at its prey. It must have followed their scent to the house and then, attracted to the noise they had made during dinner, it knew where to attack. But now Ulysses was almost certain that the Barghest was looking for one person in particular. And then he saw the dull metal box sunk into the flesh at the base of its skull, and that was enough to shock him into action: he had seen such a thing before.

He lunged for the carving knife beside the ham, even as the dog turned.

"Get out of here!" he yelled as he slashed at the dog's debrided snout, cutting through the string of flesh that separated its nostrils. Thank goodness the Hanivers' housekeeper liked to keep the knives sharp.

A combination of his natural instinct for survival and a greatly developed subconscious prescience, sent Ulysses leaping from his chair. Spinning round, he grabbed the chair in time to use it to shield himself from the Barghest's attack when it came a split second later.

The creature struck out with a massive paw, claws tearing through the upholstered chair as though it were matchwood. Ulysses' shield was gone, utterly destroyed, having only bought him one second more. Backed up against a heavy sideboard, with two-hundred and fifty pounds of killer dog bearing down on him, looking like it was ready to drive him through the wall, Ulysses tightened his grip on the carving knife. If only he had kept his sword-cane with him, rather than leaving it in the drawing room along with his jacket.

And then Nimrod was at the door, as Hannibal Haniver and his daughter both made for the way out, Jennifer sobbing in pain and fear as she was forced to put weight on her wrecked ankle. Still in his pink pinny and shirt sleeves, Nimrod assumed a marksman's stance, a fresh load in his pistol. The shot came sharp and loud, like a thunderclap in the close confines of the dining-room. It hit the creature's grasping forelimb and punched clean through flesh and bone. The Barghest gave up a surprisingly shrill yelp of pain.

Ulysses suddenly felt very cold, but it wasn't just down to the fact that the creature's destructive entrance had brought the cold night in after it.

The creature snarled and lunged at Nimrod from its perch on the table, muscles shifting as it lashed out at the butler. The swipe knocked the gun from Nimrod's hands, forcing him back towards the door, as Jennifer and her father ducked through it behind him.

Ulysses' manservant had probably just saved his life for the umpteenth time, but in doing so had now brought the monster's ire upon himself. If he didn't do something quickly he had no doubt that Nimrod was going to die.

Ulysses felt impotent against the beast. He had no gun, no sword and no chance of overcoming the beast for as long as he remained trapped in the dining room. He was up against an enemy that could not be placated, that could not be reasoned with and that would not stop, or so it seemed - no matter what they threw at it - until either it or they were dead, and right now, Ulysses didn't fancy their chances much.

But in the height of adrenalin-fuelled desperation, instinct took over.

Ulysses grabbed chair. Raising it in front of him, as might a lion tamer, with a roar of his own, putting all his weight behind the thrust he pushed forwards.

The chair connected with the side of the monster's over-sized head, clubbing it violently sideways. For a moment the beast was caught off balance and looked like it might slip off the edge of the table. Then it recovered and lunged again, making a swipe for the chair. But Ulysses was already moving for the door, after the retreating Nimrod, letting go of the chair as the monster's jaws shattered it.

Nimrod was safely out of the room and Ulysses was now moving to the open doorway himself.