The Bestiarum Vocabulum (TRES LIBRORUM PROHIBITUM)

by Dean M. Drinkel

  Mike’s silence and look of incredulity was to be expected and Helson was relieved when the first of the phones began to ring as the others learned the news. They all agreed to meet over coffee in town. “I am not surprised,” said Mike, grabbing his coat and car keys, “must be some old instinct at work bringing us together. All those people killed or hurt at Tangs? This is still a tight-knit community, there will be people we know among them.”

  “I hope bloody Nigel won’t turn up,” Helson added, his mood sombre, “if he starts making snide remarks, I swear I’ll deck him.”

  “No you won’t,” Mike kept walking out of the house without looking back, “because I’ll have already done it.”

  As they entered the outskirts of town, Helson had never seen Weltham like this. The rain-lashed streets seemed drained of colour, of life, with far fewer people out and about, even for a wet Saturday morning. Both men knew why, like the residents of the town, they were frightened.

  Mike parked the Audi and they met up with the others at Gio’s coffee house. Jenks was there with his wife Penny. Baxie already stoned and Dan with his latest girlfriend, Angel. The women looked up, gave brief, tight smiles when introduced to their partners’ old friend from America. Penny’s face was washed clean of makeup, eyes red –rimmed from crying. Unlike the streets, the coffee house was packed but mainly with strangers, press and TV crews getting out of the chilling, hard driving rain. Many had been up all night outside Tangs.

  “I hope the bastards will leave us alone now,” Dan glowered around him, “I’ve had words. When we arrived they pounced on us looking for some local reaction. Well bugger them. Penny has lost her best friend from school last night.”

  “Baxie’s aunt was one of the victims too,” added Jenks, shaking his head in disbelief, “they haven’t officially given out a list of casualties, but word gets about.”

  “Hope you are not planning to get away, Professor Brainiac.”

  Helson’s fingers curled into tight fists as Nigel sauntered in, nodding and grinning to the press, “this town will be closed down tighter than a duck’s arse any minute. Men in Hazchem suits, quarantine, secret autopsies…”

  “Just for once, shut your big mouth, Eelman,” growled Mike, putting a protective arm around Baxie’s shoulders. Nigel’s mood darkened but the stern faces of the others for once reined in his mocking banter. He pulled up a chair and joined their table but no one went to buy him a coffee.

  “I meant it, lads,” he continued, as always ignoring the women, “something like this has to be some contagion or biological weapon. Why else would make sweet little old grannies batter each other’s brains out with wooden chairs at a church union meeting?”

  One glance at the others and he gave a smug grin, “you lot haven’t heard, have you? It has happened again…this morning over at St Edward’s.” The shocked silence gave him his answer. “I walked past the latest incident as it was happening, heard the screams,” Nigel continued, “saw something strange too. Bloody great grey shadow…huge. Up on the church roof like some sort of crouching animal but see through like a ghost.”

  This statement would have once triggered guffaws from the others, Nigel’s outrageous exaggerations and wild stories were the stuff of legend among the group. This time the men were silent, uneasy, reality upturned and therefore anything was believable. Helson shuddered, deep dark memories, if that is what they truly were, stirred within his soul, threatening to erupt to the surface after years of suppression.

  “This animal, Nigel,” his voice barely above a hoarse whisper, “could you tell what sort of creature it was?”

  Shocked to be believed for once, Nigel nodded, “Yeah, Prof. I reckon it looked like a bloody great wolf, a huge bastard though. A gigantic wolf.”

  Without waiting for a reaction, Nigel stood up and addressed the huddled press nursing their latest fix of much needed caffeine, “What are you lot hanging around here for? Been another massacre while you’ve been sipping your mochachinos. Better head off for St Edwards before your editors find out.”

  For once, the friends were grateful for Nigel’s runaway mouth as the coffee house cleared of all but even more distressed locals. Many abandoning their fare and hurrying home, calling up loved ones on their mobile phones.

  “That’s better,” he smirked, “now we can talk properly. Work out what really is going on….over to you, first, Professor.”

  Helson had more than enough, stood up abruptly to leave, what did Nigel think they were, the bloody Scooby Gang? Decent ordinary people becoming violent mass murderers? Ghostly monstrous wolves? What could they do against that? He stood up, “sorry, I need some air.”

  “I didn’t take you for a ghoul, Brainiac…off to see some battered granny bodies?”

  Striding out of Gio’s, he didn’t look back, knowing Mike would probably have the creep pinned up against the nearest wall by now, the women urging him on. Hopefully Eelman was getting an overdue lesson in decent behaviour. Outside, the street was deserted. Helson could hear the wail of many emergency sirens, not all heading towards the church. What the hell was going on? With a waft of perfume preceding her, Angel ran out, eyes wide with confusion and fear. “They are closing all the schools, I’ve got to collect my little brother.”

  “Do you want me to help?” Helson offered.

  “No worries, Dan is coming with me, he’s just paying for our coffee. Thanks though.”

  Angel looked so young in the harsh light of the grey morning, vulnerable and frightened. She put her hand briefly on Helson’s arm, “Bet you wished you’d never come home, this is so unreal, insane.”

  He watched as the couple scurried away to Dan’s car, the traffic was heavier now, reckless and fast as parents raced to pick up their children from their schools. Had something happened at one of them? Helson was a spiritual man but not religious, at least he thought he was. He found himself praying to anything that would listen that the town’s children would be spared. All this chaos and bloodshed in less than twenty-four hours, what the hell was happening?

  ***

  So close now, the shadow form had gained more solidity and revelled in new sensations, feelings it had been denied for millennia. It was dense enough to feel the wet caress of the teeming rain running icy fingers through its growing pelt of grey fur. It could not taste or smell yet so had to forgo the pleasure of rending flesh and bone with its long, curving fangs but it would not be much longer. It insinuated still smoke like in movement past a school playground. How sweet that young flesh would taste! This would be its first great feast of celebration…a heinous crime that would alert the fools in Asgard. This time they could not use their only weapon against him, deception. This time the Great Wolf would prevail and win.

  ***

  Helson’s walk through the town had no direction, no purpose but awareness of the oppressive atmosphere of latent violence hung in the air, tangible and growing in strength. Nigel’s comment about contagion did not seem so risible now. Had some deranged bastards with a grudge released something deadly into the peaceful air above Weltham? This was a crazy, angry world now, anything was possible. More screaming sirens rent the morning air, two police helicopters arrived to hover like metal dragonflies above the town.

  Now Helson felt truly frightened as the notion of a terrorist strike strengthened. He could be infected, they all could. He hesitated, perhaps being alone was the only sane option, this gas or toxin could make him turn against his friends, kill them in the same mad rage as the clients at Tangs or the gentle, elderly women of the Church Union…no one would be immune.

  An authoritative voice boomed from a helicopter, ordering everyone to return to their homes, lock the doors and remain inside, commanding that there must be no gatherings or meetings for their own safety. Only Helson did not have a home and he did not want to be a danger to Mike…or Mike to him. He decided to keep away from all people, wait out whatever this was beyond town. The rain refused to relent but Helson would rather be cold and we
t than slash open a friend’s throat with a blunt cake knife. The police order had worked well, the town’s folk were frightened, eager for guidance, for rescue. Helson did not see another soul as he headed for the park on Weltham’s outskirts which lead to open countryside.

  There was just the ring road around the town to cross to get into the park but this main artery was still, an untidy blockade of abandoned cars and lorries. Built in the centre of a deep valley, with few roads leading out, the town was easy to cut off, isolate, what was part of its charm was now a trap. With the police no doubt concentrating on sealing off Weltham and its inhabitants, Helson was not challenged as he ran through the park, careful not to trip over the overturned scooters and tricycles abandoned when mothers fled home with their toddlers.

  At the crest of the hill, Helson paused for breath, turned back to look down on Weltham, by now eerily silent and still beyond the now constant sirens and loud, insistent drone of the helicopters. The oppressive miasma had not faded, spreading to the park and Helson’s old unwanted instinct kicked in as he realised this homicidal insanity was something supernatural in origin, not a terrorist attack.

  Up here, above the town, he was not alone. Others had the same idea, escaping whatever was swiftly killing their town. A sodden group of people, suspicious and frightened moved away from him, heading towards one of the few other routes out of Weltham. Helson relaxed as they left, it seems only he wanted to head into the deeper countryside. The sky was a low canopy of pewter clouds, slow moving and laden with more rain but Helson made out a darker shadow travelling against the wind direction. A contradiction in nature itself. Impossible. Its movement was not cloud-like either, a sinuous, stalking manner like some vast prowling animal.

  He watched, transfixed as the shape seemed to gain in size and solidity, swooping down to the High Street , becoming a huge wolf loping down the centre of the road, yellow eyes lit by an inner demonic fire, eyes that blazed with intelligence and malevolence. It opened its jaws in a lupine grin, exposing long yellow fangs dripping with glowing saliva mixed with human blood and torn flesh. Shaking from the impossibility of the monstrous entity, Helson whimpered with relief as it headed away from Gio’s and his friends. He felt a complete shit leaving them in town while he headed for the hills but was this creature responsible for corrupting people, turning them on each other? In which case he was a potential danger to the other lads…and anyone else in his path.

  Stumbling, sobbing, someone approached, Helson turned to see the dishevelled form of Big Eric, the Viking heading towards him. His eyes were blurred with tears but Helson sensed no fury, no crazed anger in the man, nothing that screamed infection and so stood his ground.

  “My fault, all my fault…I did this…killed my Anna…so many others...all my bloody fault.”

  The man fell heavily to his knees, began to bang his head against the ground, sobs turning to hysteria. Helson dropped down beside him, struggling to find a way to comfort him and eager to make sense of Eric’s words. Was this grief-driven madness? Or a clue to the nightmare consuming the town, anything was possible, Helson had already decided when a fever-fuelled nightmare became stark reality. Without daring to take his gaze away from the monster still prowling through the town centre, Helson put a comforting hand on the distraught man’s shoulders. He looked up at Helson, eyes red and puffy with weeping. “I did it…brought this horrible thing into our world.”

  Big Eric ripped off a silver medallion from around his neck and threw it onto the grass. “I have always been fascinated by the tales of Fenrir, I thought the Great Wolf was badly treated by the Gods…I became obsessed with him, read all I could. Learnt all I could.”

  Interrupted by gun fire and screams from the town, both men paused, ready to run from their lives should the monster head towards the park. They were horrified witness to bloody carnage…a group of armed police had confronted the beast only to turn their weapons on each other. Weltham’s High Street ran with freshly spilt blood mixing with the rainwater to pool in crimson lakes.

  “Shit, shit,“ Eric wailed. “What the fuck have I done…?”

  Helson reached down and picked up the medallion, held it in his right hand and was overcome by a sense of ownership, a feeling deep into the very core of his being that it belonged to him. The old dreams came back, more vivid than ever before. He questioned Eric about the object, whether it gave him dreams too but the man still sobbing shook his head.

  “No, nothing. I sold my soul to buy the accursed thing, that was all the old man in a weird antique shop wanted. Said I was the first person in fifty years to recognise the sigil designs, those of Loki, Fenrir and his mother Angrboða, the giantess. He said I could raise Fenrir’s ghost to be my servant if I shed my own blood beneath a yew tree.”

  He got to his feet with some difficulty and pointed to a distant tree close enough to the two to be lit by orange sodium lamps.

  “So, I put the amulet on the ground and cut my arm, let it bleed all over the surface, wished with all my heart that the Great Wolf would return to do my bidding. It was a lie. There was just some grey smoke that oozed from the ground, nothing more. I walked away, thinking I had failed…now this.”

  Eric became hysterical, overburdened with his sense of guilt. Helson’s attention was too focused on the town to be of any comfort to the distraught young man. The increasingly solid shape of the wolf had finished with the police defenders of the town and had turned back towards the centre, towards his friends. Helson held on tight to the amulet and ran back, fuelled with a curious sense of ancient destiny, that this was meant to be. The exertion fogged his mind and clogged up his lungs in pain but still he drove on, running to head off Fenrir.

  His arrival at Gio’s was not a moment too soon, with the monstrous beast blocking Weltham’s far exit, the coffee shop had become a refuge for many caught out of doors and far from home. Dan had returned without his girlfriend but the others were there, none too pleased to see him.

  “We thought you were safe,” Baxie slurred, clearly hitting his secret stash hard to blur the awful reality of this blood-stained scenario.

  “Or made crazy then devoured by whatever is out there,” sneered Nigel, more out of habit, his hands were shaking, his usually pale face now a chalk-like mask .

  “I know what it is,” Helson announced, as he struggled to catch his breath, “and I think I may be able to stop it.”

  He ignored the derisive slow handclapping, not even bothering to look up to know who it was coming from. Helson was no hero but the medallion had spoken to him, made it his and it was all humanity had against a creature even the Norse Gods could not truly conquer. With no strong drink on hand to bolster his failing nerves, Helson stumbled back out onto the street. Already he could feel the hot breath of the wolf blast down the body-strewn street, its heavy, prowling footfall betraying its now totally corporeal presence. Helson’s legs weakened at the size of the thing, as tall now as the tops of the town’s old buildings, eyes huge, hypnotic with ancient cunning and relentless ferocity.

  Helson knew he would die from this encounter but it would be a quick death, instantly crushed by the beast’s dripping fangs. Much preferable to losing his mind and killing people he loved in a possessed frenzy. He stood his ground and held up the amulet, the object began to glow with a cool silver light, knowledge flooded through him, all the bonds of hidden secrets broke away and disappeared. Empowered, Helson announced to his monstrous foe in the old Viking language that he was descended directly from Fenrir’s sister Hel and he commanded Fenrir by the power of the amulet. One forged for the Great Wolf’s father, the god Loki.

  Fenrir’s howl shattered windows, caused the earth beneath the town to tremble and heave. Helson fell to his knees from the shuddering but stood up immediately and repeated his challenge. It halted in front of him, allowing the full force of its physical and eternal power to wash over the impudent primate possessed by some suicidal impulse and death wish. What it found instead made Fenrir shudder, whi
mper like a wolf cub and back away.

  ***

  This creature does have power over me! This cannot be. But it bears the command of my father, is of my lineage and therefore cannot be disobeyed. I have a choice, to become new born again, live and grow in the service of this creature , to bide my time before I can break free and steal the amulet for myself. I have eternity. Or allow myself to die now, dissipate to true nothingness, be a fading memory to Man with no hope of return or a place in Valhalla.

  ***

  Helson moved away from Weltham briskly not wanting anyone to quiz him over what happened, especially his old friends whom he must abandon forever. Questions would be asked over what happened to Nigel. But a pact this solemn must be sealed in blood. In sacrifice. There would be police road blocks everywhere but he would travel across the surrounding fields, not stop until he was far from the scenes of tragedy and what would be endless speculation. Let them find some prosaic explanation, a mind-warping gas or mysterious ailment. No evidence of the reality would remain. It was over now.

  For the first time in his life he was content, Helson’s destiny had been fulfilled, the dreams might never return nor would he be able to go back to Weltham. Inside his coat, something warm wriggled and whimpered. A tiny wolf cub with soft grey fur and amber eyes bright with the innocence of the very young.

  Fenrir was reborn and was his.

  G Is For Golem

  In the Shadow of the Golem

  Joe Mynhardt

  “What do you know about the Golem?

  Always they treat it as a legend,

  Till something happens and it turns

  Into reality once more.”