“Yes? Ah, yes, Mrs. Dyson. Yes, I have considered the evidence very carefully and I can give you my conclusion now. Your son is not possessed by a demon. He’s simply three years old. That explains it all…”
Tara smiled as the professor held the phone a couple of inches away from his ear. A tiny, angry voice was audible. She could not make out the words. She wiped her mouth and hands carefully, then picked up the book on top of the heap. It was a paperback copy of an old play—The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster. Several pages were marked. She flipped through, frowning over Renaissance prose, until she was brought up short by one passage.
In those that are possess’d with’t there o’erflows
Such melancholy humour, they imagine
Themselves to be transformed into wolves.
“Well,” Mortlake was saying, “let’s call it an honest difference of opinion… Well! There’s no call for that kind of language… Goodbye, Mrs. Dyson!”
The professor smiled, slid the phone back down the side of the chair.
“Some people won’t be told. It’s obvious where the boy gets his temper.”
Tara put the book down.
“What I saw wasn’t a bunch of guys imagining they were wolves,” she said firmly. “They were the real deal. Wolves, or a lot like wolves but somehow—distorted, humanoid, longer limbs.”
“Good!” he said. “The point about the Webster there, is simply that people have quite definitely imagined themselves to be wolves, and done terrible things as a result. France in the sixteenth century saw a flurry of werewolf trials, which were really cases of murder-cannibalism by deranged individuals. So far as we can tell. We must strive to eliminate that possibility in your case. Put another way, we must dismiss the implausible but rational explanation in favor of one that fits your testimony. The one that current scientific thought says is impossible.”
“I think I saw werewolves,” Tara said firmly. “I don’t think I’m a crazy person. That’s a problem because I’m a scientist. I know men can’t turn into wolves or any other kind of animal, not physically. But I still can’t dismiss the evidence of my own eyes.”
“Good!” said Mortlake. “Someone who has the courage to stand by a story nobody will believe. I like that.”
He leaned back, made a little tent of his fingers, and crossed his legs.
“Without lecturing—something you’ll find I am prone to—one finds what appear to be genuine werewolves since the beginning of recorded history. The European accounts are quite detailed. The term comes from the Old English for ‘man wolf’, the French call it the loup-garou. The ancient Greeks dubbed it lycanthropy—again, from the words for wolf and man. Herodotus, back in the fifth century BCE, wrote of a tribe called the Neuri—they all had the power to transform themselves into wolves. Herodotus was skeptical about the story, as he was about all such second-hand tales of wonder. And even if it’s true, I find it hard to believe this tribe—if it still exists—could have suddenly relocated to rural England.”
Tara frowned and found herself raising a hand to interrupt.
“Sorry, but I thought the whole werewolf thing was about infection, being bitten? Not something in the genes.”
“Hollywood favors the bite approach for obvious dramatic reasons,” Mortlake mused. “But that raises the obvious question, where did the first werewolf come from? Hmm? Some writers—especially medieval Christians—insisted lycanthropy was the result of a curse or a spell. You get a mixture of both beliefs—that it’s hereditary but that can be passed on. As a minor point, red hair was seen as one of the signs a person might be a lycanthrope. Did you have any scratches or bite marks when you were examined?”
Tara flicked her hair back irritably.
“I had a few scratches from twigs, thorns, whatever. And a skin rash on my hands and face, from some plant the doc said.”
Mortlake nodded thoughtfully.
“Any craving for rare steaks?”
She laughed at that, albeit half-heartedly. He was trying to put her at ease. But she was still torn between rational skepticism and what she had seen. They discussed lycanthropy some more, and Mortlake took her through the history of it all. She learned that people had stood trial for being werewolves and had been executed for the killings they had perpetrated.
“More details might be useful,” concluded the professor. “Would you submit to hypnosis? Be regressed to that night?”
“No,” she said at once. “I don’t trust anyone enough to poke around in my head like that.”
“Good, another straight answer,” Mortlake said. “Since we’re being straight with one another, have you ever had any involvement with the paranormal before? Sometimes, people do seem to attract strange phenomena, you know.”
Tara looked him in the eye and told a half-truth.
“When I was twelve, me and some friends got a Ouija board and tried to contact the dead.”
“Interesting!” Mortlake leaned forward. “And did anything unusual transpire?”
“Well, we got a message from the afterlife,” she replied, deadpan. “My friend Lisa’s cat, Sparky—he said he was having a whale of a time. Unlimited tuna, real dumb mice.”
Mortlake laughed out loud at that, and Tara felt relieved she had effectively dodged the issue. Then the professor suggested that they walk and talk, get some fresh air after their “confectionery feast”. Tara did not point out who had had most of the cakes. Mortlake donned a well-worn tweed jacket, found his phone again, and they were ready to go. However, Mortlake did not lead her to the stairs she had come up, but to the stained-glass window at the other end. He explained that the window, a Victorian replacement for an earlier one, depicted the saint after which the college was named.
“Ananias was a Christian who laid hands on the eyes of Saul of Tarsus, who had been blinded for persecuting Jesus’ followers. Ananias was the first person Saul saw after that nasty moment on the road to Damascus.”
“Nice guy,” she remarked, unsure where the story was going, if anywhere.
“Not necessarily,” said Mortlake. “I like to think Ananias gave Saul a right bollocking before baptizing him. Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, became Paul the Apostle and the rest, really, is history. Ananias, the bit player, was supposedly martyred afterwards, but nobody really knows. See! Here they are.”
The window depicted the laying on of hands. Ananias, a gray-bearded, dignified figure with a halo, was not quite touching the face of a kneeling man. Paul was depicted as younger, with a surprised look on his face. The colors were pretty, bright and cheerful, with a lot of yellow. But then, she reasoned, his sight was restored. It was a scene of hope, of a man’s eyes being opened to a new world. One that Saul, soon to be Paul, would help shape.
“The Road to Damascus,” said Tara. “Is that what I’m on, or something? This some kind of heavy-handed analogy?”
“Not exactly,” said Mortlake, then gestured at the lower part of the window. “Here, take a closer look at this inscription.”
Tara bent down, but it was hard to make out the phrases in Gothic lettering. The sunlight got in her eyes. She asked if it was written in Latin, which she couldn’t read anyway. Then she faltered, seeing an odd expression on the Englishman’s face. It was a mix of curiosity and apprehension, as if he feared that something bad was about to happen but was also half-hoping it would.
“What is it?” she said. “What are you not telling me?”
“I was conducting an experiment,” he said. “Probably means nothing. Let’s go outside, and I will give you the guided tour. Walking helps me think—do you find that it helps you think? No? But I suppose, as a cosmologist, you must spend an inordinate amount of time on abstruse things like coding and Bayesian analysis…”
After showing a few of the sights, such as a Victorian copy of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, Mortlake asked her if she had time to see a friend of his. Another professor, he explained, and one with an unusual talent.
“Uncle Mo
nty might be able to help us in our quest for the truth,” he added.
“Uncle Monty?” said Tara. “He’s your real uncle?”
“No, he’s just avuncular. Kindly old gent, nothing like me at all. I represent the cynical, hard-edged side of occult research. Monty Carrington, however, has a gift that I lack.”
“What is it?” she asked bluntly. “ESP? Precognition?”
“Close, but no cigar,” replied Mortlake. “Postcognition.”
Tara thought about that, was about to raise an objection, then shrugged. She recalled the old British saying, “in for a penny, in for a pound”. She was well past the penny stage.
“I guess that’s a neat trick, and it could help. Let’s go visit the guy who sees the past. I’m guessing he’s a historian?”
“He can’t really avoid it,” said the professor.
She was starting to warm to Mortlake. She had checked out quite a few psychical researchers online, and none seemed to have his self-deprecating humor. But she was still not quite sure she could entirely trust him. As he led her through a labyrinth of corridors to another set of college rooms, Mortlake kept up a steady commentary on the history of St. Ananias.
“St. Ananias,” he said, “is a college that tends to attract the oddballs, the heretics, the crackpots. Up to you to decide what I am. Monty, I must stress, is more a victim of his talent than a user of it. If he seems a little—strange, please be kind.”
Uncle Monty’s rooms smelled of pipe tobacco. He turned out to be a short, plump, white-haired old gent with watery blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles. He stood up and gave her a bow, apologized for not shaking hands. Like Mortlake, his apartment was a chaotic nest of books, but Monty did not live alone. When Tara sat down on an ancient sofa, a black cushion revealed itself to be a large cat. The creature looked at her with bright green eyes, arched its back, yawned, and stretched. Then it curled up again.
“You’re not allergic to moggies, I hope, my dear?” said Monty. “Bigglesworth does shed a little.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I like cats, no allergies.”
“He likes you,” Monty replied. “Normally, he leaves in disgust when visitors disturb his long nap—the one he takes between dawn and dusk.”
Mortlake, sitting opposite Tara, was pondering the cat.
“Another point in my favor, prof?” Tara asked. “Bigglesworth here wouldn’t react so calmly to a lycanthrope, right?”
“Spot on, sharp observation,” Mortlake replied. “Cats do not react well to the canine or the lupine.”
Monty looked puzzled, then concerned. Mortlake reassured him and gave a brief outline of Tara’s ordeal. The old man seemed unsurprised, as if tales of werewolves were an everyday thing.
“We need as much data as we can gather,” Mortlake concluded, “and it seemed sensible to consult you, old chap.”
Monty looked conflicted for a moment, then smiled benignly.
“If you are agreeable, Tara? I cannot guarantee anything. And my mind, at the best of times, does tend to wander.”
“I’ll take any help I can get,” she said. “That’s why I’m here.”
She had half-expected a séance or something like it. But instead, she was simply asked to let Monty touch her hand lightly for a few moments to “tune in”, as he put it. She perched on the arm of his overstuffed leather chair and, a little nervously, laid her hand on the back of his. The liver-spotted flesh was cool and dry. She felt no strange sensation and was a little disappointed.
“Ah, yes, I see,” said Monty, his eyes closed. “Confusion, doubt. Please try to focus on the events of that night, if you can? I know it’s hard, but close your eyes and face your fear…”
Tara did as he wanted, refusing to flinch away from her worst memories. Again, there seemed to be no paranormal phenomena linked to Monty, merely the pain of seeing Josh attacked and brought down, submerged beneath snarling beasts. She was running again, stumbling, the beam of her flashlight flailing wildly, allowing her to glimpse an obstacle here and there. Then came the final stumble, the fall, the despair and terror as she waited for them to move in for the kill.
“Enough!” said Monty, pulling his hand away. “I can see it now.”
“He’s anchored in that moment, for now at least,” said Mortlake, quietly. “Now he will move back down the right pathway—if he can find it. Otherwise, he’ll just drift.”
Tara stood up, feeling helpless concern as she watched the old man’s head loll sideways on his shoulder. He was mumbling, and Mortlake was already kneeling by his friend’s side, phone held up to record the words.
“Wolves, yet not wolves,” said the old man. “Beasts that are ravenous for blood and flesh. Yet they can walk like men, a few paces at least, and then they bound… bound… so much joy in their wildness. Yes, I see that. This is the joy of the pack, the thrill of the chase. Oh… oh, so cruel. Not innocent like a wild animal must be. There is evil here. Evil men who are not entirely men, not anymore…”
More mumbling, unclear, and Mortlake held his phone closer. Monty jerked suddenly, but his eyes did not open.
“Oh God, she’s in a cage! A girl in a cage—a child, or barely a woman, it’s so hard to see. So much filth! Chains… fear… She sees the men and fears them. They torment her to make her snarl and bite…”
The old man fell silent for a few moments, his breathing stertorous, a thin trickle of drool appearing at one corner of his mouth. Then he twitched again and started to talk more rapidly.
“The darkness under the trees, the tribe is settled, the locals don’t bother them. But there are hunters in the forest—bad men, the smell of them is so strong, and the family cannot fight so many—their guns. Her father! He is shot down, and her brothers. The others escape. But they take her, with a net. A town, now, a glimpse of a town from the back of a truck. So much concrete, grim, people in the rain—a church, with a cross—Orthodox. Beyond the town, she sees the mountain and forests. Her soul yearns for them, her home. Fragments. Men speaking a strange tongue. Another truck, a ship, more cruelty. Food, cold, too long dead. Time is out of joint now, her memories, the images are so fragmented. She is going mad in her fear and loneliness.”
“Monty,” said Mortlake urgently, “where was she taken? Where does this girl come from?”
“Far away, confused. Her people hide, few knew their name—the Nara.”
“The Neuri!” exclaimed Tara. “Could it be them? After all these years?”
Mortlake nodded. He reached out and patted Monty’s hand.
“You can come back now—leave the past to its own devices for a while.”
Monty opened his eyes and peered at Tara, then at Mortlake.
“I think I was in Prague for a moment, there. Franz Kafka was funnier than people make out, you know. Every time I see him it’s wall-to-wall jollity… Oh, sorry, I was definitely in Eastern Europe, perhaps the Balkans—very grim Soviet architecture, a place recent history has passed by. Small town in the mountains, forests. I wish I could give it a name…”
“The information you obtained is very useful,” said Mortlake. “I think we’ve got quite a lot of circumstantial evidence.”
“It’s terrible,” Monty said, dabbing at tears with a monogrammed handkerchief. “So-called human beings, so much cruelty. And the girl, she did not understand what was happening or why. But she was provoked, tormented, made to lash out and bite. I can’t really grasp why.”
Tara took out her phone and pulled up a picture she had downloaded.
“Do you recognize this man?” she asked Monty.
“Yes! That’s him!” said the old man. “Awful swine, keeping that girl prisoner. Who is he?”
“Lord Gonfallon. He owns the land where Josh—the place where it happened,” she said.
“Oh dear,” said Monty, and Tara saw he was crying now. “These terrible things. I wish I could stop seeing them, you know. When I was young, I yearned to live in the past, meet the great writers and thinkers and artis
ts. Now—I wish I could sleep without seeing the faces of all the victims. Especially the young ones.”
Mortlake gave Tara a significant look and stood up.
“I think we’ve taken up enough of your time, old friend,” he said gently. “Perhaps you should have a glass of Madeira?”
They said their farewells and walked slowly back to Mortlake’s rooms. Tara asked a few questions about Monty Carrington’s talent, or curse.
“Curse is nearer the mark, I’m afraid,” said Mortlake. “He can’t touch another human being without being triggered—he’s thrown back in time, to the most significant recent events in their lives. Not so terrible if you’re shaking hands with a fairly dull, if virtuous, person of regular habits. But it seems there aren’t so many of us around as you’d think.”
“Has he been a post-cognitive all his life?” she asked.
“Almost,” said the professor. “His gift—which is non-returnable, sadly—developed in adolescence. He found refuge from human suffering among books, as many do. St. Ananias College is, as I said, a place where the misfits congregate. Few bother him, he does little lecturing, marks papers, writes rather well on literary history, and publishes the odd article.”
Tara fell silent for a while.
“You never met anyone whose—gift was a good thing? For them, I mean?”
“A few, perhaps, but for most people, genuine psychic ability is unpleasant or even disastrous,” Mortlake said. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Tara replied. “Just making conversation, gathering data.”
Chapter 3
Just over a week had passed since her first meeting with Marcus Mortlake. He had sent Tara a series of emails, asking questions and offering snippets of information. Then, he invited her to a meeting with what he termed “an old sparring partner”. Tara guessed it would be some kind of investigator—maybe a journalist or a cop. The venue was a café in North London, not far from a Tube station. She walked straight past the place, checked her phone, found that she was expected to go into an establishment called The Greasy Spoon. She paused outside the large window and saw Mortlake sitting opposite a heavy-set man. The stranger looked like a cop—dark-suited, serious, clean-shaven.
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