The Arcanum (23 page)

37

MARIE AND ABIGAIL were lost. The ceiling of the tunnel looked like a black ocean of flowing smoke. The fire was spreading. There was no sign of Lovecraft; Marie could only assume he was dead, lost in the tumult of their escape. She would mourn the eccentric demonologist if she managed to survive herself. The fire had already consumed much of the breathable air. Marie’s lungs burned, and she could tell Abigail had inhaled too much smoke. Her face was dark with soot, her breathing labored. And they had no protection from the demons save for a long wooden stake that Marie had salvaged from one of the splintered pews.

Worse still, her efforts in the cathedral had backfired—not only exhausting her, but also adding an unexpected new gauntlet to run.

For the bodies of the dead still walked the tunnels and they, too, were now on fire.

The corpse of an old woman, gray hair in flames, flailed at them as she surged from the shadows. Marie fended her off with the stake, and the old lady plunged into the earthen wall, burst into pieces, and clattered into a pile of smoldering bones.

Abigail tugged anxiously on Marie’s wrist. They’d lost all sense of direction in the smoky haze.

“This way,” Abigail suggested.

“We been dat way,” Marie countered.

Squeals resounded from the tunnel Marie had chosen, and ruby eyes gleamed just beyond the flames.

“Hurry, Marie!” Abigail ran down her chosen tunnel.

By now, they could not even see the walls, the smoke was so thick. The fire roared through the tunnels—snapping timbers, igniting corpses, fouling the air.

Then, just as Marie sucked in what she feared would be her last breath, her foot slammed into stone. Pain shot up her leg, and she tumbled into a wide, circular crypt. The taller ceiling drew the smoke up from the floor. Marie collapsed, dragging herself forward on all fours, coughing violently.

ABIGAIL TRIED TO help Marie to herfeet, but could not. Instead she crossed the floor of the tomb until her hands found a solid monolith of stone set into the wall—the doorway sealing off the dead from the living. She screamed and scratched at the stone in futility as her strength ebbed.

ELSEWHERE IN THE underground labyrinth, Lovecraft gasped for air. His labored breaths made him light-headed, and he ran only because stopping meant dying. He had no idea where he was; no energy to think with as the flames roared around him. He fell to one knee and just barely found the will to stand again.

A toddler, cloaked in fire, staggered from the shadows, still clutching a ragged teddy bear, bouncing crazily off the walls before careening down another tunnel.

Lovecraft laughed at the absurdity—a high, manic sound.

Then the demons squealed, close by.

He didn’t want to die at their hands. It was better to suffocate in the smoke than be pulled apart by a mob of demons, or burned alive like a heretic. Though he realized with some irony that the situation was fitting: to die in a grave. Why bother his aunts with a funeral now? He was already buried, and there would be no need for a coffin once he was cremated.

He fell to the tunnel floor suddenly, utterly spent. He would not—could not—function any longer. The dirt was cold. He was thankful for that. A hum filled his ears, drowning out the crackle of the flames, and Lovecraft wondered what visions would overtake him in the moments before death. As his consciousness swirled, the ragged hem of a worn brown robe swept into his field of view.

Lovecraft looked up, seeing first the glint of a scythe. Then his gaze traveled higher, to the long wood beak and, finally, those jeweled eyes.

The creature didn’t see him.

Another flowed out of the fire and joined its companion. They gurgled at each other, heads bobbing like crows. Then one of them turned and, for a moment, the back of its robes parted, and Lovecraft dug his fingers into the mud walls to keep from screaming.

For behind the ragged robes, Lovecraft saw the feathery tips of bloodstained white wings.

As the demons flowed back into the fire, Lovecraft felt small comfort in the chilling notion that, as he died, the world died with him.

THE CHAIN LOCK flew to pieces and the steel gates tore off their hinges as the Silver Ghost crashed through into the Willow Grove Cemetery. The car finally plowed to a stop after upsetting two headstones. Doyle kicked open the driver’s door and ran onto the field. The moon had broken through the clouds to provide a hazy illumination.

“Howard! Marie!” Doyle was losing strength and resolve, the full weight of his sixty-plus years pressing down on him.

“Marie!”

He stopped, and turned in a circle. All he could see around him were silent headstones and the occasional white block of a mausoleum. Crows squawked in the distance, their calls carried on the wind. Doyle turned back to the car, when the crows cawed a second time, making him hesitate. Crows were diurnal. Doyle stopped to listen, head tilted.

There it was again, but now it didn’t sound like a crow at all. He began to run. Graves flashed past him as crow calls transformed into shrill cries of terror—

“Arthur!”

Doyle surged toward a mausoleum. “Marie?”

His call was answered from inside the crypt, weakly. “Arthur!”

Now he could see the smoke, trailing from the tiny cracks in the door. “Marie?” he called again.

There was no answer. He banged at the door with his fists; he dug his fingers into the narrow groove, tearing skin, but nothing gave. Doyle even tried flinging his battered body against it, but in vain.

He pounded some more. “Marie, answer me!”

More black smoke escaped from the tomb. It seemed to be growing thicker.

Doyle backed up and forced himself to think logically.

“Secret tunnels,” he muttered as he assessed the mausoleum. His fingers searched the borders of the slab and found rounded grooves, not too different from tracks. At the top corners of the slab were holes, and when he probed at these, Doyle felt steel. So, somewhere, there was a catch to open this door.

He began to look around. A rectangular grave some thirty feet distant boasted a marble statue of a blindfolded woman holding a sword. Doyle noticed that the sword pointed directly to a gravestone in the shape of a cross. He walked over to the cross, which was not buried in the ground, but rather set into a steel square. Odder still was a curious engraving, which read: TURN TO HIM FOR HE IS NEAR

“ ‘For He is near,’ ” Doyle repeated.

He grasped the arms of the cross and lifted it from its sheathe. Then, grunting from its weight, he turned the cross upside down and set it back into the steel square.

Something clicked, and the mausoleum slab rolled ponderously open. Abigail and Marie flopped out of the opening and onto the grass.

Doyle rushed to their sides.

“Marie? Marie!” He slapped her cheeks and checked her pulse, which was too weak to detect. Then he took a deep breath, tipped her neck back, and pressed his mouth to hers, blowing air deeply into her lungs.

Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware of Abigail coughing raggedly and crawling away from the mausoleum.

Doyle pressed his fingers again to Marie’s neck and continued to work, forcing air into her lungs. Finally, Marie’s chest lifted, she breathed.

Her slender hand caressed Doyle’s cheek, sliding around to the back of his neck as she kissed him. After a long moment, their lips parted. Marie’s finger brushed a tear from Doyle’s cheek, then she was overcome with a violent jag of coughing.

Abigail said quietly from behind him, “Mister Lovecraft is still back there.”

Doyle stood up and regarded the column of black smoke still billowing from the tomb.

“No, Arthur. Don’t,” Marie said.

Doyle tore off his topcoat and threw his deerstalker cap to the ground, then took in a great gulp of air and plunged into the crypt.

His eyes stung from the smoke, and tears flowed down his cheeks. Visibility was nil, though the glow of the flames provided a ghostly light. The corpses—at least those who remained in their graves—shimmered like coals. Aging support timbers groaned, and Doyle heard one of them collapse up ahead—a sound that didn’t bode well for the rest of the tunnel system.

“Lovecraft!” he shouted, but there was no answer. He waited another few seconds, but heard nothing save the crackle of the flames. He plowed deeper into the tunnels, shielding his face from the patchy fires dotting the ground. He climbed over a collapsed timber and dove away just as another buckled to his right. His path out of the tunnels was slowly vanishing.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes. “Lovecraft, can you hear me?”

“What? Can’t a man die in peace around here?”

Doyle whirled. Lovecraft sat propped against the wall, his arm slung around the skeleton of an old lady, his satchel still clutched in his lap.

“What are you doing in my dream?” Lovecraft asked, but Doyle just yanked him to his feet.

“Shut up and save your air.”

Suddenly, the tunnel shook, and clods of dirt rained down. Doyle fell to his knees as the ceiling broke open, only twenty feet in front of him. A tsunami of black dirt and corpses washed into the passage, and the timber supports began snapping all around them. Lovecraft curled around his satchel as dirt showered down from all sides.

Doyle grabbed both Lovecraft and satchel, and literally tossed them through the hole of the tunnel roof.

A wail crescendoed behind them as the demons massed.

As Doyle lunged after Lovecraft, the last of the pillars gave out and an avalanche of black dirt poured down around them.

“Move, Howard! Don’t look back,” Doyle roared as they scrabbled free of the dirt.

Marie and Abigail were waiting by the mausoleum, but there was no relief in their eyes.

“Arthur—!” Marie began.

“Don’t stop,” he commanded. “Run, damn it!”

Doyle shoved both her and Lovecraft ahead. “Run, Abigail!”

Eleven demons—engulfed in flames—burst from the mausoleum in a beautiful and horrifying eruption of light. They soared after their quarry, breaking into packs, weaving around headstones, propelled by an unseen force—leaving a thick and dancing trail of sparks in the air.

Doyle knew they had lost, and made the decision to sacrifice himself for Abigail’s sake, as Matthew had before him.

But just beyond a thicket of trees, one last hope revealed itself.

A small, white chapel lay at the edge of the cemetery.

“Quickly, head for the church,” Doyle shouted.

Marie and Abigail obeyed, half dragging Lovecraft between them.

The demons soared closer. Doyle could hear the wind whip their flowing robes, feel the hot breath of the fire.

They screeched like circling hawks.

Marie reached the door to the chapel first. She yanked on the handle, but the door was locked.

Lovecraft used his satchel to shatter a small stained-glass window beside the door, then boosted Abigail through. Next came Marie, assisted by Abigail from the other side.

“Hurry!” Doyle shouted as he turned on the demons with nothing more than balled fists.

Lovecraft straddled the windowsill. “Arthur, don’t be daft,” he said. And then he, too, vanished inside.

Once the others were safely through, Doyle turned away from his pursuers and launched himself through the window just as six hooked blades sank into the chapel walls.

The chapel had the comforting smell of an empty barn. There was a single aisle, and there the Arcanum gathered. Doyle threw his arms around Marie and Abigail as they all knelt on the cold stone floor. Squeals resounded outside, and they could see the blurred orange glow of the demons as they passed before the windows.

All eyes went to the door and the slender wooden bar that locked it.

“That’ll never hold,” Lovecraft said.

Doyle stood up and dragged a pew against the doors. He tipped another onto its side and crashed it down atop the first, barricading them inside.

Glass shattered as a sickle smashed a window, but still the reaching demons continued to circle, as if unsure of what to do.

Then, as Doyle knelt down beside the others again, he saw the simple steel cross above the altar, and understood.

“This is a holy place,” he whispered.

“They can’t hurt us here,” Lovecraft realized.

Doyle lay down along one of the pews and allowed himself to breathe again, to rest. For the moment, they were all safe.

Gradually, the squeals of the demons receded and their glow faded, until the chapel was completely dark—save for a beam of moonlight. Doyle sat on the cold stones, watching, until the sky lightened to a crepuscular blue and dawn broke over the Willow Grove Cemetery.

38

HOUDINI SAT, HIS hands handcuffed in front of him, in a tiny jail cell in the basement of Police Headquarters, just one block south of Bleecker Street on Bowery.

They’d brought him in at two A.M. through an alley off St. Patrick’s Avenue, and shuttled him inside with Mullin’s coat over his face. They immediately locked him in a secure room in the basement, where no one else but Mullin was permitted access.

Throughout the proceedings, Houdini was passive, dazed.

Detective Mullin sat outside the cell on a hard-backed chair, still half-clad in his Santa costume. An Enfield .38 lay, cocked and loaded, in his lap. Houdini’s reputation was formidable, and Mullin was prepared to shoot if escape seemed imminent. But now Houdini looked like a beaten man. A bewildered man. Mullin’s only other worthwhile observation of the evening was that Houdini was far shorter than he’d expected.

The sounds of footsteps on the metal stairs beyond the door brought Mullin back to the present. He readied his pistol and shot a glance at Houdini, who remained immobile.

Paul Caleb entered the room, still looking polished save for two purplish rings beneath his hazel eyes—the only signs of his fatigue. He’d abandoned his monk robes for his standard attire.

Mullin lowered his .38.

“Detective.”

“Mr. Caleb, sir.”

“Has he said anything?”

“No, sir. Just been sittin’ like that.”

Caleb gazed at Houdini.

“Give us a moment, will you?”

Anxious for the break but aware of his duties, he offered the .38 to Caleb.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be just outside, then,” Mullin said, and left.

WHEN THE DOOR had closed behind him, Caleb took Mullin’s chair, turned it around, and sat down close to the cell door.

At this, Houdini lifted his head, clasped his fingers, and rested his chin on his fists—still not looking at Caleb.

“Would you like to tell me what happened, Harry?” Caleb asked, softly.

“Houdini,” the escape artist mumbled.

“I’m sorry?”

Houdini closed his eyes, “No one calls me Harry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose a moment, then ran his cuffed hands through his wiry hair. “Not even my wife.”

“I see.” Caleb bit his bottom lip thoughtfully.

Houdini leaned back so his shoulders touched the wall, and gazed off into space.

“I’m afraid the ‘Handcuff King’ died tonight, when you shot that woman,” Caleb said. “Your fame, your celebrity—they’re all gone. To me, you’re just a suspect in a crime. A very guilty suspect. So, I’ll call you Harry if I choose. Because that’s what you are to me, just another Tom, Dick, or Harry. I don’t mean to sound cruel, but that is the reality of the situation we find ourselves in. And it’s a taste of what’s to come. And while I’m not here to save your reputation, I am very eager to save your life.” Caleb leaned over the back of the chair. “That is, if you let me.”

Houdini looked at Caleb for the first time. His eyes were red and exhausted, his cheeks hollow and gaunt.

“Now, I know there’s more to this murder than a vendetta over a séance,” Caleb continued. “And I know that others are involved. I may be new to this job, Harry, but that doesn’t make me an innocent.”

Fear showed in Houdini’s eyes, though he struggled to contain it.

“I see a conspiracy, my friend—a vast and chilling conspiracy. Moreover, I believe that Madame Rose saw the same conspiracy and was killed for it. I see a cancer of occultism spreading across this city, and I see the spilling of innocent blood in our streets thanks to ritual murders committed by occultists who seem to have very powerful friends indeed. And I believe you are a part of this conspiracy.” Caleb allowed his words to sink in before continuing. “For too long, the law enforcers of this city have turned a blind eye to the moral decay, the decadence, afflicting the power elite. Well, no longer.”

Houdini turned his face away.

“Give up your friends, Harry,” Caleb insisted. “Save your soul, man. Break open this cabal. Lead me to them, and I promise you mercy.”

Houdini clenched his fists and bent over to rest his elbows on his knees. He rubbed at his tired eyes.

“This silence doesn’t serve you, Harry. We can play this by the book, if you like. Call your lawyer, but I’m telling you the moment that happens, you’re front-page news all the way to Tokyo. And you’re savvy enough to know what even a whiff of scandal can do to a career. So my way is the only way, and you damn well know it.”

“I want to speak to my wife,” was all Houdini said.

“Of course you do.” Caleb stood up and turned the chair back around, placing it against the wall. “And if I do that for you, what do I get in return?”

“You’ll have your answer. After I speak with my wife,” Houdini growled.

“So be it.” Caleb nodded as he unlocked the door.

Mullin straightened and crushed his cigarette under his shoe as Caleb shut the door behind him. He waved the smoke away, turning back to the cell, but Caleb stopped him.

“Listen, Detective, I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot. I doubted you, I’ll admit that.”

Mullin scratched at the roll of stubbly flesh under his chin.

“But this is the sort of case that makes legends out of men like us. And now I’m counting on you. Don’t let me down.” Caleb went so far as to clap Mullin’s shoulder. “We can do great things.”

“If you say so, sir,” Mullin replied, unmoved.

Caleb stood there a moment, nodding and smiling, then abruptly backed away. “Yes, well, carry on, Detective.”

“Yes, Mr. Caleb, sir.” And Mullin reentered the basement, leaving Caleb in a cloud of stale smoke.

BESS HOUDINI SAT in the library at Crow’s Head with her hands folded in her lap. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, giving the room a golden glow. She was dressed conservatively, her hair tightly pinned beneath a boxy, flowered hat, waist cinched tight in a beige dress with an ankle-length hem. For the past hour she had sat immobile as the night’s adventures were recounted, including the revelation of her husband’s twenty-year involvement in a secret investigative society—something she’d always suspected but had never had confirmed.

Doyle and Lovecraft sat across from her, as bruised and battered as prisoners of war. Doyle was just finishing the story:

“They won’t let us see him. My sense is they’ll hold him in an effort to flush us out. And I fear this was Darian’s goal from the start: to pin the murders on the Arcanum. Perhaps as insurance in case his mission failed, or simply as revenge for his father’s death. In either case, knowing your husband, the enormity of his guilt may cloud his judgment. But he must not give in to despair. That’s what Darian wants. Houdini is not responsible for the death of Erica DeMarcus. She was murdered by her brother because she knew too much. Now, obviously, proving this will require unconventional means. But in the meantime, he needs you to give him strength.” Doyle sighed deeply. “I’m so sorry, Bess. Is there anything we can do for you?”

Bess cleared her throat. “A drink, perhaps?”

“Of course.” Doyle rose. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Whiskey.”

“Right away.”

After a few moments, Doyle returned with a full glass, and Bess downed it in a gulp. She closed her eyes as the liquor burned down her throat, and then her face relaxed. She stood up and brushed off her skirt.

“You’re a real shit, Arthur Conan Doyle.”

Doyle nodded, not disagreeing.

Bess checked her lipstick in her compact. “Give me the message to bring to him.” She snapped the compact shut. “And what are your plans to stop this Darian?”

Doyle ran a hand over his head. “We’re working on that.”

“Well, you’ll need reinforcements,” Bess said with all the assurance of a field commander. “I know just the folks.”

WITH THE FRANTIC rush for survival over, Doyle quickly felt his aches and pains return. His suspenders hung about his legs and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Even shaving and a sponge bath were torture. His lower back throbbed. He stopped midway down the hallway of the dusty third floor as his bruised ribs stabbed forks of agony across his midsection. It was then he heard the water running beyond a crack in the door just across from him. He could make out a flash of wet skin.

Marie stepped out of the bathroom, clad only in a thin robe. Her wet hair was tucked behind her ears, and hung down her back. She turned to Doyle with pursed lips, as if expecting some comment. Her eyebrows arched in a question, and Doyle winced—ostensibly at the pain in his back.

“I think I’ve finally gotten too old for this,” he joked, as he stretched the sore muscles.

“Let me.” Marie said, turning him around. Her strong hands pressed deeply into his flesh, and he tensed at the sudden pain. “Relax,” she said. The heels of her palms swept up his vertebrae, then her fingers clenched around his shoulders. He let his forehead droop as Marie’s thumbs probed at the edge of his trousers, working the knots out of his muscles.

But even as his body relaxed, Doyle felt the heat rise across his neck and burn up into his cheeks. He was too aware of his own breathing, and the tension that weighted the air between them. Marie’s hands opened over his ribs, and where her fingertips massaged, the rest of her caressed. He could feel the warmth of her breath through his shirt, and her fingers slowly crept from his ribs to his forearms, climbing up to his biceps.

He turned and found her very close. Her chin lifted. He took her by the shoulders. “Marie . . .” he whispered.

Her wet hair dampened his shirt as she rested her head there. “We never have the luck, do we?”

His arms enfolded her, his chin resting on the top of her head. “I love my wife.”

“It’s natural to love more than one person.”

“Jean showed a great deal of courage by giving her blessing to this voyage. I can’t repay that kindness with betrayal. We’ve been through too much together these past few years. The war took so much from us. My son . . .” His voice trailed off.

Marie lifted her head, then pressed both hands to his chest as if in benediction.

“I’m sorry,” he offered.

Marie put her finger to his lips. “The next life.”

“The next life,” he answered.

LOVECRAFT WANTED TO die. There had been moments in the preceding days and weeks where he’d fought it off, but not anymore. Now he really wanted to die. His head ached fiercely, and his hair was caked with dried blood. A front tooth was loose. He could move it back and forth with his tongue, which horrified him—for he’d had nightmares since he was little about losing his teeth. He could not sleep due to the swelling migraine behind his eyes—a consequence, he presumed, of having swallowed enormous quantities of corpse dust. The stitched-up gash at the base of his skull, caused by God knows what, burned and itched.

And that was just his head.

He sat up on the cot, clad only in his torn, dirty trousers. His bony torso was wrapped in gauze bandages. Every breath, no matter how shallow, inflamed his scorched lungs. The frequent coughing fits brought tears to his eyes.

A mewling through the wall distracted him. Annoyed, Lovecraft grabbed his candle, wrapped a blanket over his shoulders, and padded into the hallway.

Abigail’s room, next to his, was the source of the sound.

Lovecraft peered inside and saw her hunched over at the rolltop desk, crying.

Lovecraft backed up a few steps, and coughed.

Abigail turned reddened eyes to him and stood. She opened her door all the way and glared at him.

“Why are you always staring at me?” she demanded, the tears drying on her cheeks. “What do you want?”

“I’m not sure,” Lovecraft answered honestly.

“Well, stop it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?” Despite her anger, a trace of curiosity kept Abigail frozen.

“I’m sorry,” Lovecraft stammered, “About what happened. Earlier.”

Abigail shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve met all kinds of perverts. There was a man in Paris who used to steal my dirty britches.”

“I wasn’t . . . I’m not a . . . It was simply . . .” Then Lovecraft just sighed and turned to go.

Abigail watched him shuffle away for a moment before asking, “So what did you want, anyway?”

Lovecraft stopped moving, but didn’t turn around. “I understand,” he said.

“Understand what?”

“Your loneliness,” he answered softly. “More than the others ever could.”

Abigail’s eyes gleamed with distrust. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do. I’ve felt it, too. Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been different. I was shunned by other children. I didn’t understand their games; I couldn’t kick or throw balls. I found their discourse obtuse and primitive. Truly, I believed that I was from some distant planet, that I’d somehow been orphaned on a world of violent monkeys.” He flushed, uncomfortable with revealing such private thoughts.

Yet Abigail was listening, so Lovecraft continued.

“They wanted no part of me and, as a result, I wanted no part of them. And my world would have been quite empty had I not discovered books. It was like seeing one’s true home through windows of paper and words. I could only touch it through my thoughts, yet I knew I had found the place where I truly belonged—in worlds where carpets flew and magical swords decided the destiny of kings. And look at you. Up until a few days ago, you were just a theory, a supposition built on fanciful platforms of science and myth. And, now, here you are.”

The intensity of his gaze must have been unnerving, but Abigail didn’t flinch.

“Abigail, you are another orphan like me, from those lands behind the words and behind the paper—a manifestation from the ether, born out of the wishes of children and desperate men. And you must realize that your being here makes a dull, gray world suddenly quite remarkable.”

Abigail took a single step toward Lovecraft, and a thunderous gong suddenly shook the walls of Crow’s Head.

“Howard?” he heard Doyle shout.

“I’m upstairs,” he called back.

“We’re under attack.” Doyle’s voice rose from below.

Still wrapped in his blanket, Lovecraft shuttled Abigail down the wide central staircase as the gong continued to sound. Its source was an eighteenth-century grandfather clock, modified by Duvall into an occult alarm.