The Bestiarum Vocabulum (TRES LIBRORUM PROHIBITUM)

by Dean M. Drinkel

  "I can hear you, I can smell you...we had an agreement...but you broke your word...you promised me you bastards, never one of our own...now come out where I can see you and let’s finish this once and for all."

  Vincent moved so he could better see whatever it was his father was addressing, but try as he might it was impossible.

  "All these years I stood aside and watched you..." The words trailed off. "But now you have to pay for all the pain, the misery...the agony that we've caused."

  Vincent took a step forward. His father wasn’t making any sense.

  “It’s finished. Do you hear me? Finished!” Vincent leant out further but tripped over a root and fell to the ground.

  A gun-shot ran out, echoing through the forest’s canopy. Vincent covered his ears, it was so damn loud. He turned around. Something hurtled towards him.

  Everything went dark.

  ***

  When Vincent regained consciousness, he found himself in bed. He had one helluva headache and his back, his arms, his legs were killing him. The door opened, his mother, she looked concerned.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she explained. “Your father, he’s not a well man...I should have put a stop to all this a long time ago...he needs help. Vincent, I’m so sorry.”

  The boy sat up, as much as it hurt him. “You don’t understand. I saw it...well, them...in the forest.”

  She ran a hand through her hair, she frowned, there were tears in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Amon,” Vincent whispered.

  “Stop this nonsense right now, there’s no such thing.” She sat down on the end of the bed.

  “It’s not nonsense...I saw them in the trees, there were three or four of them...they were feeding on a wounded animal.”

  She grabbed her son, started to shake him violently, then she pulled him into her breast. “Never follow your father again, do you hear me? There’s a sickness in this family you don’t understand...”

  “Isn’t this just fucking cozy?!”

  Vincent’s father was standing at the door. His eyes were wild. He stormed into the room. His mother stood, tried to block his path but he punched her in the stomach, she doubled up in pain, collapsing.

  Vincent cowered, he was unable to protect himself as his father picked him up by the neck, squeezing his throat, throttling the life out of him.

  “Can’t you see what you’re doing to this family?” His mother complained.

  He stared but there was no recognition in his eyes. He turned back to his son. “What did you see? What did you fucking see? Why were you spying on me?!”

  “Papa, I wasn’t spying.” Vincent stuttered. “I saw it...I saw the...Amon...It’s real...”

  “What are you fucking talking about?” His father spat, pure hatred on his face. Stale Bourbon on his breath. He dropped Vincent who bounced off the bed onto the floor.

  The boy crawled to his mother, she wrapped an arm around him.

  “I saw it...them...it was only a quick glimpse, but I know it’s real.”

  “No, you didn’t...for God’s sake Christophe! Please, just tell him the truth!” She implored.

  His father looked confused. “I don’t und...are you bullshitting me?”

  Vincent reached out for his dad, touched his arm. “I saw it, just as you see it. We’re the same you and I, you said that yourself. I WANT TO BE LIKE YOU!”

  Tears flowed down his father’s cheeks. “Then this is how it ends.”

  He pushed past his wife who sobbing into her hands.

  After a couple of moments, she wiped her face, took a deep breath. “We have to go now. I’m sorry Vincent. I hope you can forgive me. There was no need to lie but I understand why you did...but this is where it stops. We should go to the police. This house isn’t safe anymore, we have to leave. There’s no need to protect him, there’s nothing to be ashamed, none of this was your fault.”

  She pulled Vincent from the bedroom, to the top of the stairs, they waited, the sound of the back door banging open and closed.

  “He must be outside...let’s go, quickly.”

  She dragged him down the stairs, they got to the front door.

  “You stupid cunt, where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  They turned.

  His father, an axe in his hand. “I asked you a question bitch.”

  “Go...go!” His mother implored, trying to get the front door open.

  “You’re fucking going nowhere.” His father shrieked, raising the weapon high above his head.

  As the axe fell, his mother put her arms up to protect her. She screamed and screamed, cut short only when her head came off at the neck and Vincent fell backwards out of the door.

  His eyes closed.

  ***

  His eyes opened.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow. A moment of confusion perhaps but now total clarity.

  Adele was on her knees before him. She was screaming and shouting, cursing, swearing – he wasn’t listening though – it was just noise, like a million trumpets blasting in his ear-drums.

  The bodies of his children Kevin and Emile lay beside her. Dead. He would work on them later. Her hands and feet were bound together, there would be no escaping for her.

  Vincent looked at the axe, at Adele, then at the axe, then at Adele.

  “Can’t you just shut the fuck up?!”

  He raised the axe high above his head, then let it fall, cleaving off her head with one clean swipe.

  “How did you like my plan, you stupid bitch...you should have stayed out of our business.”

  Like grandfather, like father, like son.

  He stripped off his bloody clothes and headed to the bathroom.

  ***

  ...it was terrifying beyond belief. He stared up at the Amon, the Amon stared down at him. But it wasn’t the Amon anymore – its appearance had changed.

  It had transformed.

  It was now his father.

  They were naked: his father and the other men, the other women.

  “Please...no...” Vincent tried to fight but they held him too tightly, there was no escape. Someone picked up a wad of leaves, of dirt, of mud and forced it into his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

  “It won’t hurt Vincent, I promise, it won’t hurt at all. You might even come to enjoy it.”

  All he could hear was the sound of those fucking cunting trumpets.

  What a fucking liar his father was...

  ***

  ...it was terrifying beyond belief. He stared up at the Amon, the Amon stared down at him. But it wasn’t the Amon anymore – its appearance had changed.

  It had transformed.

  It was now his father.

  They were naked: his father and the other men, the other women.

  Emile stood in the hallway, his hands covered his ears, all he could hear were the trumpets.

  “It won’t hurt Emile, I promise. It won’t hurt at all. You might even come to enjoy it.”

  What a fucking liar his father was....

  ***

  Vincent lay on the floor. The Amon held him in its arms. There would be no escaping this, he was bleeding out, he was done for. It was only a matter of seconds. As he fought for life, as he fought for breath, he looked into the eyes of the creature that held him. There was no emotion, just an icy stare. He remembered the first time, the lake in the forest, the faces of his attackers, floating like death masques on the surface of the water. His initiation and the later initiation of Emile and Kevin. They were one and the same.

  Grandfather.

  Father.

  Son.

  Brother.

  All of them paying for their sins.

  Boy oh boy, what a mess.

  Vincent raised his arm – he had something important to say but he didn’t have the strength to plead his case. His arm dropped down back by the side of his body. His eyes closed.

  When he opened them, he was alone as he knew he wou
ld be.

  He had always been alone.

  Since that very first bite...

  B Is For The Black Hound

  of Newgate

  Jan Edwards

  Everyone, man or woman, inmate or jailor, required a strong stomach and wits sharp as Toledo steel to survive Newgate Prison. They also required a degree of faith. Whether in justice, God or in Good Queen Bess herself hardly mattered, but a sense of faith was imperative to exist within those walls.

  Newgate was infamous in its brutish conditions, even for those who could pay for a private incarceration away from the rat-infested dungeons that housed the less fortunate. Rumours ran amok over occurrences. In the main these misdeeds were perpetrated in the name of the courts, and who was I, Francis Scholler, to judge truth from fiction, in my turn. The rigours of living took much of my time there, and life is hard in any event. The great famine made all of our lives, whether free man or not, harder in that year of our Lord 1596, but Newgate Prison was some special kind of purgatory.

  I had been incarcerated for several weeks following a street brawl outside of the Rupert’s Head. Two men had died and I had been accused of sorcery. A serious charge. But there was but one witness, an habitual felon and brother to one of the dead men, whose testimony was not valued by any side. Yet still I gained neither trial nor release.

  All people embellish a tale in retelling, and indeed much of my own told here is supposition and hearsay. Nevertheless I think the circumstances of my parlous state worth repeating, given the recent rumours of spectres along Deadman’s Walk that borders Newgate’s walls. I have not the skills with a pen and paper of my late friend Kit, a one-time inmate like myself, but I will say what I can as a warning, if naught else.

  Starved of victuals, prison fever among the inmates was running rife through the lower cells, and even paying guests, able to hire drudges to wash the walls with vinegar against the onset, were falling victim to the flux and various assorted poxes. I, however, was less open to contagion than most, being left alone for the much of the time. Folk here gossip like any fisher-wife, and my alleged crimes were well known through the rumours emanating from my accuser. It was a mixed blessing. Meanwhile I busied myself with my studies, confident that my jottings could be explained away as astronomy and science. Yet…

  That night the noises that spiralled up from the meaner sections were especially chilling, alternating between the screams of agony and the moans of despair. Night time seemed to lend them extra power. I was no longer a stranger to those awful cries and several weeks awaiting trial had shown me exactly how dark this place could be. But for my infamous cousin and tutor Dr. Dee, I should have been amongst them. As it was, my illustrious relation’s purse and reputation ensured me such comfort and privacy as the institution allowed.

  I shuddered down a final swallow of greasy mutton and pushed away both wooden bowl and spoon, trying to feel satisfied, even grateful, for that which was served me. Given the famine, sustenance of any kind was a boon, though my reputation as a sorcerer, and that of my cousin, kept the warders as afraid of repercussions as any inmate to risk my starving. None entered my cell without real need, slipping food and drink through a slot in the wall, and leaving slops un-cleared until I paid them handsomely. They had not subjected me to the tortures that others suffered for fear of my ‘powers’, convinced of my ability, not to mention a whim of mine, to strike them down with a glance. Chief Warder Brewys was the exception of course. He was a God-fearing man, like the rest, but made of sterner stuff. I doubt there was much that Brewys had not seen in his long life.

  My meal had been pungent, full of herbs and garlicks to hide the gamey nature of the meat. No doubt the scent had finally reached them even above the background stench of filth and disease permeating every cell in the place, and their cries of “food for pity sake” were louder than usual that night. I felt for them, I truly did, even as I preferred it be I who ate over them. Even rancid mutton is a delicacy when it kept your belly from swelling with hunger.

  An anger infected their wailing, and even as I listened it shifted into a roar of triumph. This was not a good sign. I recognised the sound of a mob. Gathering up my notes I stuffed them into the very bottom of the chest and crossed to the door.

  “Warder!” I hammered thick oaken planks with the flat of my hand. “Guard. Hey! What goes there? Warder!” I twisted this way and that, pressing my face to the rusted metal grille to see along my small section of dark and filthy corridor; right and down the steps to the massed cells of the poor, left and up to the cells above. There was a single door opposite my cell, where the poor weakened wretch within screamed out to the guards as best he could without his tongue, which was missing following the attentions of the court investigators.

  Along the upper landings the warders were ordering ranks, answering the demands of the more-wealthy and privileged inmates whilst ignoring all others. That, in itself, alerted me to the seriousness of the situation that outreached anything I’d heard before.

  The rioters had reached the foot of the stairwell, and I retreated to the rear of my cell. Being locked in this room was not a reassurance of safety. I was trapped and vulnerable. Looking around for some method of defence I could see nothing suitable. I had a bed, a table, one cane chair and one padded, and a small oaken chest that was my own. A luxurious item for Newgate, but Spartan in terms of hiding places. My cell was hardly abundant in weaponry.

  I pulled the cane chair to the far wall to peer out of the window. Nothing there but roof tops showing dully in the faint beams of a gibbous moon.

  The mob was swarming up the stairwell now and my fear rose with it. I make no bones that my heart was racing in that moment.

  I dropped to my knees with hands clasped tightly together and began muttering the phrases taught me by my tutor. I kept it through the sounds of splintering wood and the squeals and screams of the prisoner in the cell opposite. His death scream cut off abruptly, to be followed by yowls of delight and then curses and growls; blows falling on flesh; fists hammering on my own door; running feet heading to the upward stair; musket fire as guards repelled the mob.

  I looked up, slowly, still chanting as calmly as I was able, feeling my body tense now and arch against my will under the spelling of Dee’s words. My blood ran fast. The sight of wild eyes and shouts of derision and hate through the grille hurried my preparations.

  The banging on the door came louder and frenetic and I knew it could not hold fast. Splintering and creaking, it burst open, catapulting men through the broken doorway. They were feral excuses for manhood. Ratted hair and rotting clothing scattered over jutting bones were already dark with excrement and filth, and each man bore a fresh glistening coat of red-brown blood on face and hands and chest. The lean creature at their head held a hunk of bloody flesh and bone that I recognised as a human arm from the mangled hand dangling limp-fingered from one end. I would have felt the revulsion of any man for such an act of sheer barbarity. They had been driven to consuming a fellow inmate by hunger and the sheer lack of humanity that each had survived for however long they had endured in this living hell. I almost succumbed, but for the power of Dee’s spellbinding, and that I could identify the man wielding it. How could I not? Adam Keele was the reason I was incarcerated here. My persecutor – apparently bent now on revenge for his own predicament despite it being of his making.

  “Sorcerer,” he snarled. “Your time has come.”

  Rising to my feet I faced those who advanced upon me. My senses were fading into a familiar’s black mist and I feared for these poor ignorant men.

  I later heard that the two of those left alive by dawn were incapable of coherent speech and in God’s truth I cannot see why any would have been surprised by that. A night of their gorging on fellow man could be seen as a route to madness, and emerging from that insanity to face the reality of their crimes against their Maker, coherence was not to be expected. Sawney Beane himself would not have created such carnage in a single night.


  I accept no blame when it was they who came at me...and besides...some had escaped.

  And where were the guards? A fair guess is that they were upstairs, mercenaries to the wealthier prisoners instead of maintaining order or manning the gates as they’d already been paid to do. It was rumoured that the gates were locked from within when the horror was passed, so you may pick your choose on that.

  It was also reported by several reliable sources that the door to the cell of one Francis Scholler was awash with viscera. I cannot vouch for that when I remember so little of that...small skirmish.

  ***

  Sergeant Warder Brewys was a stoic. A greybeard of battlefields across Europe, and beyond; and a pragmatist. He did not add his own vomit to the bloody chaos, as some of his staff had. He felt a certain revulsion, as any Christian soul would, but the tangy smell of fresh death was not new to him. The stench of piss and shit voided in the moment of violent death did not overwhelm his senses. What made his long whiskery eyebrows rise was the distribution of the bodies on the floor.

  He had witnessed a cornered man fight like a demon, and knew how a pattern of fallen men would lay around him. Brewys knew that he, in similar circumstances, would have taken the high ground and used the raised level beneath the window. And yes there were two bodies, or parts of them. The others were scattered to the corners of the cell. He moved around the room, scanning with an expert eye, conducting a head count. Skulls, unless carted away, typically remained relatively whole; he noted eight in this room. Eight men ripped asunder. He was minded once again of a battle’s aftermath, but not on the day of war. What he saw was reminiscent of the following morning, after the crows and carnivores had taken their fill.

  Brewys knelt to examine one of the ravaged heads, hoping to identify it by some mark or other. Drawing his dagger he bent to roll the head face up, or that which could be said to be a face when it was but a mangle of slashes and gouges. Frenzied tearing had ripped off most of the features, flaying the skin and bursting one of the eyeballs. The remaining orb stared up at him, bloodshot and frenzied. The pupil was the exact cold, blue-grey of dry slate..