Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Because they were attached to sacred structures, it was impossible for any alchemist or any thaumaturge to turn the gargoyles back into living creatures. And many of them were adapted as waterspouts – water-spitters, as you rightly call them – because it was believed that if their mouths were regularly flushed with water from the roof of a holy building, they would be unable to call for help from Satan.’

  Theodor Zauber didn’t realize that Grace had been standing in the open doorway behind him holding a glass of water and Nathan’s can of beer, and listening to all of this.

  ‘But you say that your father found a way of bringing them back to life?’ she asked him.

  Theodor Zauber twisted around on the couch. ‘I must apologize, Mrs Underhill. I should not really be speaking of such things. It is an abuse of your welcome.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Grace, crossing the living room and giving Nathan his beer. ‘I want to hear about this. Your father created a basilisk and when that basilisk stared at me it put me into a coma that I might never have come out of – ever. If you’re going to be talking about mythical creatures coming to life, I think I have a personal interest in knowing exactly what you have in mind, don’t you?’

  ‘I have already begged your forgiveness for what my father did to you, Mrs Underhill,’ said Theodor Zauber. ‘I hope you can accept that I am truly, deeply sorry. Entschuldigen Sie bitte.’

  ‘I do. I accept your apology. But that doesn’t answer my question.’

  ‘Very well, yes. My father did discover a method by which a petrified creature could be reanimated. It may have been turned into stone, but the stone still contains all of its DNA and all of the cellular components that made it what it once was. It is like a fish that has been frozen solid. Once it is thawed, it is physically the same fish. It is not decayed, it is in a perfect state of preservation, and the same is true for petrified creatures. All they require is for them to start breathing and their hearts to start beating once more.’

  ‘Oh. Is that all? And how exactly do you do that? I have a couple of rainbow trout in the freezer. What if I defrosted them and then gave them the kiss of life?’

  ‘Grace,’ said Nathan.

  ‘No,’ Grace retorted. ‘Mr Zauber has come here for a reason and I want to know what it is. More than anything else, I want to know exactly why he wants to bring these gargoyles back to life. Especially since they’re so dangerous.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ Theodor Zauber asked her. ‘It would be a staggering achievement in cryptozoology! And for all we know, there are human statues that have been petrified in the same way. If we could bring them back to life, we might be able to speak with people who are hundreds or even thousands of years old.’

  ‘Oh you mean those Greek statues of women with no arms and men with their dicks knocked off?’

  ‘Grace, for Christ’s sake,’ said Nathan. ‘At least let’s hear what Mr Zauber has to say.’

  ‘I just don’t understand why he wants to revive anything so vicious, that’s all. Why do you think gargoyles were exorcized and turned to stone in the first place? Because they massacred people. What else are they good for?’

  ‘You must understand that they could save many lives,’ said Theodor Zauber. ‘We already know theoretically how we can turn a living creature into stone, just like we know how a human being can be cryogenically frozen. If we know that we can successfully bring them back to life, we will be able to petrify people with serious incurable illnesses and revive them many years later when a cure has been found – without the need for expensive refrigeration equipment.’

  ‘But meanwhile you have a bloodthirsty mythical creature on your hands. Or creatures. I can’t see you stopping at just one, can you?’

  ‘All experiments can be controlled, Mrs Underhill.’

  ‘Just like your father’s experiments with the basilisk, I suppose? How many innocent people did he murder to bring that particular monstrosity back to life? And how many collateral killings were there? And by the way, it’s Doctor Underhill. I’m a medical practitioner.’

  Nathan said, ‘I can understand how you feel, Grace. But what Mr Zauber is suggesting has a great deal of scientific and medical validity. If we can actually bring a stone statue back to life—’

  ‘Oh, it’s “we”, is it? You’ve decided to help him already?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I need to know a whole lot more about this, believe me. For instance, if the gargoyles are on churches and cathedrals and suchlike, how do we gain access to them? And if they’re on sacred buildings, how do we use thaumaturgy to revive them? Like you say, Mr Zauber, black magic is completely ineffective on hallowed ground.’

  ‘Aha!’ Theodor Zauber smiled and tugged at his fingers one by one, so that his knuckles popped. ‘Over two hundred Wasserspeier are no longer on hallowed ground. They are here, in Philadelphia, and they have been here for quite some time.’

  ‘You’re kidding me. How did they get here?’

  ‘They were shipped over from Europe in the year eighteen twenty-nine by the British architect John Haviland, when he was commissioned to design the Eastern State Penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue – which, at the time, was the largest prison in America.’

  ‘What the hell did he want gargoyles for?’

  ‘Times were different then, Professor. John Haviland wanted to build a prison that looked grim and forbidding, and which would not only fill its inmates with dread but remind free citizens of what they would face if they ever broke the law. That is why it looks like a Gothic castle.

  ‘He wanted to position gargoyles around its walls to represent the sins for which the prisoners should be asking God for forgiveness. He visited derelict churches and cathedrals all over Europe searching for them, especially to Saint Catherina’s in Kraków, which was in a state of ruin at the time because of an earthquake. Then he had them transported here to Philadelphia.

  ‘However – for one reason or another – only two gargoyles were ever erected. I think the large minority of Quakers in the Prison Society raised objections. Eventually all two hundred gargoyles were stored in the vaults underneath cell-block fourteen and forgotten. When he was studying mythology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, my father found out from private correspondence where they had been taken. He had ambitions to try and revive at least one of them, but of course that was never to be.’

  ‘But now you want to try it?’

  ‘I think that whatever terrible things my father may have done, we have to recognize his genius. The German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun helped to build the V-2 missiles that killed thousands of innocent people during World War Two, but without his designs America could never have sent men to the Moon. Humanity sometimes has to be sacrificed to progress.’

  ‘Oh, you think so?’ said Grace, sharply. ‘What if your grandfather had been one of the scores of elderly people that your father murdered, so that he could steal their life force? Oh, they’re old, they’re finished, what do they matter? Or what if you had been me, in a coma. I wasn’t just unconscious. I was having one screaming nightmare after another.’

  Theodor Zauber stood up, bowed his head and clicked his heels together, like a comic-opera German. ‘It is better if I leave. I imagined perhaps that I could interest Professor Underhill in a joint experiment. I imagined that we could combine his cryptozoological expertise with my understanding of alchemy and so-called black magic, and between us we could bring one of the Wasserspeier back to life.’

  ‘Well, I think that you were being more than a little presumptuous,’ said Grace. ‘Quite apart from being reckless in the extreme. You wanted to bring back a gargoyle? What the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘You fail to understand, Doctor Underhill. Once we establish that it is possible to revive a gargoyle, we would immediately put it to sleep to prevent it from causing any harm to anyone. It is the procedure that is important, you see, not the creature itself. But – I can see that you are very hostile to such an experimen
t, and even if I cannot agree that your hostility is rational, I do not wish to trespass on your hospitality any further.’

  Nathan was about to say something, but Grace gave him a death stare and he said, ‘OK. Interesting idea, Mr Zauber, but let’s leave it at that, shall we?’

  ‘I will not trouble you again, Professor. Have no fear. But if you wish to contact me for any reason at all, I am staying for the time being at the Club Quarters hotel.’

  Nathan showed him to the door. Before he left, Theodor Zauber said, in the same confidential tone that he had used before, ‘I hope you realize, Professor, that you are passing up the opportunity of a lifetime.’

  ‘Well, maybe,’ said Nathan. ‘But I think we have a little too much history between us, don’t you, the Zaubers and the Underhills? And if my wife isn’t happy with what you’re suggesting, then neither am I, I’m afraid. It’s something you get between husbands and wives, whether you think it’s rational or not. It’s called loyalty.’

  Theodor Zauber pressed his lips together tightly, as if he were sucking on something extremely sour. Without another word he turned away, climbed into his rented Impala and backed out of the driveway with an irritated squitter of tires. Nathan watched his brake lights disappear around the corner, and then he closed the front door and went back into the living room.

  Grace was sitting on the couch looking penitent.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nathan. I didn’t mean to be so aggressive. Or so rude.’

  Nathan sat down beside her and popped open his second can of pale ale. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not too interested in gargoyles right at the moment. I’ve got my hands full with Torchy.’

  ‘Torchy?’

  ‘The phoenix. We did it. We set fire to poor old Grubby and now we have Torchy. It worked.’

  Grace threw her arms around him and smothered him with kisses until he gasped, ‘Heyyy! Can’t breathe!’

  ‘That is so wonderful! You actually did it! What does it look like?’

  Nathan took out his cellphone and showed her the pictures he had taken of the phoenix flapping inside its cage.

  ‘My God, I can’t believe it! You actually did it!’

  ‘He looks kind of shabby, though, doesn’t he? There I was, expecting some magnificent mythical bird with rainbow-colored feathers and a golden tail. Instead, I’ve got myself something that looks like a beaten-up prairie hawk. But that doesn’t matter. We burned the worm and it burned so hot that it shattered its case and nearly set fire to the whole goddamned laboratory. But this is what came out, sweetheart. A real genuine phoenix.’

  ‘What did Ron Kasabian say?’

  ‘Ron Kasabian didn’t say anything because Ron Kasabian doesn’t know yet. Oh, he knows we had a minor fire in the laboratory but he doesn’t know what caused it. I wanted to wait for twenty-four hours at least to make sure that the phoenix was going to survive. Aarif and Kavita are taking it in turns to keep an eye on him tonight, and if he’s still just as chirpy in the morning, I’ll tell him then.’

  ‘I’m so proud of you. You don’t even know. And I’m so proud that you turned down Theodor Zauber this evening. I know how sorely you must have been tempted.’

  She kissed him, and then knelt up on the couch and kissed him some more. Neither of them heard the front door open, and they didn’t realize Denver was home until he walked into the living room. He had recently cut his hair Mohican-style and he was wearing a black AxCx T-shirt and baggy jeans that showed the waistband of his Calvin Klein shorts. His best friend Stu Wintergreen was close behind him. Stu had a mess of curly brown hair and eyeglasses with such thick lenses that he seemed to be looking at the world through two portholes.

  ‘Hi, Professor Underhill!’ said Stu, cheerfully. ‘Hi, Mrs Doctor Underhill!’

  ‘Urrgghh,’ said Denver. ‘Parents in love! Gross!’

  TEN

  Tuesday, 9:03 p.m.

  Mary Lugano opened the door of her apartment and said, ‘Yes? What is it? What do you want?’

  Jenna held up her shield. ‘Detective Pullet, ma’am. Ninth Division. Do you mind if I come in and ask you a few questions?’

  Mary Lugano hesitated, frowning. She was a small, stooped woman in her early seventies. Her head appeared to be too big for her body, especially since she had a huge bouffant hairstyle, dyed jet-black with crimson highlights. Her cheekbones were sharp and angular, and Jenna could tell that she must have been quite a looker when she was younger, but too many years of deep suntanning had blotched her skin and given her the pursed-up mouth of a mummy. She was wearing a silk robe with a splashy pattern of red and black flowers on it.

  ‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’ she said. ‘I’m all set for bed.’

  ‘It really won’t take long, ma’am, and it’s always better to talk about an incident as soon as possible after you’ve witnessed it, while it’s still fresh in your mind.’

  ‘Very well. Five minutes. But let me tell you that this has shaken me up something terrible. The Nectarine Tower has always been a respectable building. Safe. You don’t expect anything like this. Screaming, and blood! My Lord! It was worse than one of those horror movies.’

  She drew back the chain on the door. Jenna said ‘thank you’, and stepped into her apartment. The living room was overheated and airless and smelled of lavender potpourri and dust. It was decorated in a style that reminded Jenna of her grandmother’s house, with oversized armchairs upholstered in brown brocade, and a swirly brown carpet, and table lamps with pleated brown shades. On the opposite wall hung a large oil painting of crowds of people hurrying across a city street in a rainstorm. The clouds were brown, the buildings were brown, the people’s overcoats were brown, and they all carried brown umbrellas.

  Mary Lugano sat down in one of the armchairs and fastidiously drew her robe around her knees. Jenna, uninvited, sat down opposite her.

  ‘My partner said you saw something fly down from the sky. Something like a bird.’

  ‘I felt it, before I saw it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean by felt it.’

  ‘Well, I was sitting right here, watching Access Hollywood. That Mel Gibson, I don’t know. The language! You never heard Cary Grant using language like that.’

  ‘OK, good. You were sitting here watching TV. Then what happened?’

  Mary Lugano lifted one hand and slowly fanned it from side to side. ‘I felt something flying over the top of the apartment building, very low. It wasn’t an airplane. It wasn’t a helicopter. It was almost completely silent except for this kind of a swoosh.’

  ‘You had the TV on, but you heard a kind of a swoosh?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t confuse me. It’s not easy to describe it. Maybe I felt it more than heard it. But it was like, swoosh.’

  ‘All right. Something flew over the building, whether you heard it or felt it.’

  ‘That’s right. And that was before I actually saw it. It made me shiver, like a goose walking over my grave. It was evil.’

  ‘Can you be more specific about that?’

  ‘What do you mean, specific? There’s nothing specific about evil. Evil is evil. You’re a detective, aren’t you? Don’t tell me that you can’t feel evil when it passes close by.’

  ‘OK. You felt that it was evil. Then what happened?’

  Mary Lugano looked up. ‘That was when I heard a thump. Thump! Real loud, like the time when my Jessie was run over.’

  ‘Your Jessie?’

  ‘My lovely golden Labrador. That was when my husband, Charlie, was alive and we lived in Bryn Mawr. Poor Jessie. The trouble was she couldn’t hear too good. A truck came speeding down the street and she ran out right in front of it.’

  ‘I see. I’m sorry. So – anyhow – you heard a thump?’

  ‘Like I say, it was real loud. So loud that it literally shook the walls! Then right afterward I heard screaming. A man screaming, but just like a woman screams. Hysterical. And then this thing flew right past my window.’


  ‘Can you describe it to me, this thing?’

  ‘First, I only saw a shadow. It flew past the window this way, right to left, so quick that I couldn’t make out what it was. But I ran to the window and I could see it circle around. It had wings, more like a bat’s wings than a bird’s wings; and it had two nubby horns on the top of its head; and eyes like Don Rickles.’

  ‘You mean, like, protruding?’

  Mary Lugano nodded.

  ‘How big would you say this thing was?’

  ‘It was big. I don’t know. A whole lot bigger than any bird I ever saw. It circled around and then it flapped its wings a couple of times – like the sail on a sailboat when it catches a crosswind – and it was gone. Back upward, headed for the roof.’

  ‘What color was it?’

  ‘Black, I think. Or a very dark gray.’

  ‘Did it have a beak like a bird?’

  ‘I didn’t really see. But its face was kind of pointy. More like a monkey than a bird. And it had a long thin tail like a monkey.’

  Jenna jotted this down in her notebook. Then she looked across at Mary Lugano and said, ‘Have a guess, Mrs Lugano – what do you think it was?’

  Mary Lugano slowly shook her head from side to side. ‘I have absolutely no idea. It reminded me of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, you know? It scared me. It really scared me, the way those flying monkeys did when I was a little girl.’

  ‘OK . . .’ said Jenna. ‘Do you mind my asking you if you’re on any kind of medication?’

  ‘What are you trying to suggest?’ Mary Lugano demanded. ‘Are you trying to say that I was seeing things? The only medication I ever take is Celebrex, for my osteoarthritis, and nobody ever had hallucinations from taking Celebrex, not so far as I know. Besides – Mr Keiller, he saw it too, and so did that Japanese lady. And all of that screaming, that screaming was no hallucination. Neither was all of that blood.’