Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  ‘OK . . . so you’ve found out what it is.’

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’ He opened his folder and leafed through the first two or three pages. ‘It took me some time, because it’s a really rare inanimate object. But I was able to track it down because it has a very distinctive chemical composition. It’s made out of limestone from a quarry south of Kraków, in Poland. The quarry’s flooded now, and they call it Zakrówek Lake, but back in the fourteenth century, it was the source of building materials for several of the early churches in Kraków, including Saint Catherine’s, in the old Kazimierz quarter, which is where this baby came from.’

  Dan approached the statue and looked up at it, wrinkling up his nose. ‘Ugly looking dude, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s a gargoyle, Dan. Gargoyles are ugly by nature. I believe that this particular one is called a draghignazzo, which means “nasty dragon”. It’s mentioned in Dante’s Inferno as one of the demons who guarded the Fifth Pit of Hell.’

  ‘How did it get here, to Philly?’ asked Jenna. She couldn’t take her eyes away from it. It seemed to be staring at her directly, and she had the irrational feeling that if she broke eye contact, it would instantly come to life and attack her. She had interviewed dozens of sociopathic criminals who had the same unblinking look in their eyes, and she knew from experience that you never turned your back on them, ever, not even for a moment.

  ‘I checked it out on the Internet. Saint Catherine’s was plagued with bad luck right from the moment it was built. In the fifteenth century, even before it was finished, there was an earthquake in Kraków and half of it collapsed. There was another earthquake in seventeen eighty-six, when Saint Catherine’s was the only building in the entire city that was damaged.

  ‘This particular gargoyle toppled off the south porch and killed a young priest who had something of a reputation as an exorcist. Because of that, it was never put back up again when the church was restored. The priests kept it in the vaults, and they actually chained it up with heavy iron chains to prevent it from escaping. Superstitious, or what?’

  Jenna blinked, and for a split second she thought that the gargoyle blinked, too. I dare you, she thought. I dare you to close your eyes and show me that you’re really alive.

  Ed said, ‘When the architect John Haviland was building the Eastern State Penitentiary in the 1920s, he wanted to have gargoyles placed all along the parapets, each one of them representing a different sin, to frighten the inmates into mending their wicked ways. He got to hear about our pal the draghignazzo here – after all, it was quite a legend in gargoyle circles – and had it shipped over to the USA. I think the priests at Saint Catherine’s were pleased to get rid of it, especially since Haviland paid them five hundred dollars for it.’

  ‘I never saw any gargoyles on top of the Eastern State Penitentiary,’ said Jenna.

  ‘That’s because they never put any up. Haviland gathered together dozens of them, all from different parts of Europe, but they ended up being stored in the cellars underneath cell-block fourteen.’

  ‘And that’s where they are now?’

  Ed took a last bite of hotdog and shook his head. ‘Not any more they’re not. Earlier this year, the penitentiary’s directors sold them all off.’

  ‘Do we know who bought them?’

  ‘A company called A-One Chemicals, with a registered office in Delaware. I tried to track them down, but they don’t have a website and they don’t appear in any business directories. There’s an A-One Chemicals in Deer Park, Texas, but they make cleaning solvents and they wouldn’t have any use for more than a hundred gargoyles.’

  Jenna said, ‘Dan – you want to follow that up? Go talk to the accountants at the penitentiary. They must have a record of who paid them for the gargoyles, and how. And somebody must have hoisted them out of that vault, and trucked them someplace.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll get right on it.’

  ‘So how about it, Ed?’ Jenna asked him, although she didn’t take her eyes away from the draghignazzo. ‘How did it end up in Bartram’s Gardens? Was it floated there, or dragged there? Or was it dropped there?’

  ‘All the indications are that it fell, and from pretty high up. That’s how its wing got broke. You can see for yourself that it has no abrasions or chips or vegetation stains on it, which you would have expected if it had been dragged.’

  ‘So we’re back to your theory about flying creatures who turn to stone in mid-air?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘I can’t go back to the captain and tell him that. He’ll send me off on psych leave.’

  ‘In that case, Jenna, you’ll have to do what you said before. Go back to square one and find some new evidence.’

  Jenna said, ‘Yes. And I know where to start. When something wacky happens, you need to go looking for the wackjobs.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Saturday, 10:43 a.m.

  Sukie was sitting up in bed eating a bowl of Cheerios when Nathan and Aarif and Kavita came in to see her. Her face was still flushed but all of the blisters and the scarlet searing had melted away. She looked as if she were suffering from nothing worse than a bad case of sunburn.

  Braydon was sitting beside her. He had shaved and showered and changed into a clean blue button-down shirt and he was so delighted that he couldn’t keep still.

  ‘How are you feeling, Sukie?’ asked Nathan, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed.

  Sukie smiled and said, ‘Great, thanks.’

  Braydon said, ‘Doctor Berman told me what you did, Professor Underhill.’

  ‘Well, maybe he shouldn’t have. We used your daughter as a guinea pig and we didn’t ask your permission.’

  ‘I might have said no,’ Braydon told him. ‘In fact, I probably would have said no. But look at her now. I don’t know how to thank you. I mean, bless you – all of you, from the bottom of my heart.’

  Kavita said, ‘You should know that Professor Underhill tested the procedure on himself, before he tried it on your daughter. He deliberately burned his own hand, very badly, but when we injected him with the stem cells from the phoenix, his hand was healed in only twenty-four hours. In fact, in less than that. That was what persuaded us that it was probably safe to go ahead.’

  ‘So far as I’m concerned, it’s a miracle,’ said Braydon. ‘But I’ve learned something else, too. Every kid needs two parents, their father and their mother, and no matter how much their parents might have grown to hate each other, they need to talk, even if they talk with clenched teeth. A child’s happiness is worth infinitely more than any of that adult-bickering shit.’

  He turned around and took hold of Sukie’s hand. ‘Do you know something, sweetheart? You’re more to me than all of the treasure in the world. And look at you now. These people have saved your life. You’ll never have to hide your face or put up with people staring at you like you’re some kind of freak.’

  Nathan said, ‘Braydon – is it OK if I ask Sukie a couple of questions about her nightmares?’

  Braydon frowned at him. ‘Her nightmares? Why would you want to do that? I mean, why is that relevant, in any way at all?’

  ‘You want me to be frank with you? You’ve told us that Sukie has been having nightmares for years about these Spooglies, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Braydon, suspiciously. ‘But I don’t understand why you’re asking me this.’

  ‘I’m asking you, Braydon, because Sukie has been repeatedly having very vivid nightmares ever since she arrived here in the ICU, and because yesterday a young man was killed in my house by something which bore a distinct resemblance to one of her Spooglies.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about? The Spooglies . . . they’re just something out of her imagination.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Nathan. ‘I think that they could be real, and that they’re coming to life, and your Sukie can sense them. She can feel them, Braydon, these Spooglies of hers. For some reason, her mind is tuned in to the Spooglies’ w
avelength, just like some dogs can hear whistles that are totally inaudible to the rest of us.’

  ‘Say, what? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know it’s difficult to get your head round it. But I have strong reasons to believe that Sukie’s Spooglies are very much like the phoenix I created. Mythical creatures that have been extinct for hundreds of years, but which have now been revived.’

  ‘Revived? Revived by who? And what the hell for?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Nathan. He wasn’t going to tell Braydon about Theodor Zauber and his efforts to turn his gargoyles back into flesh and blood. Not yet, anyhow. It was difficult enough for him to grasp the concept that his daughter’s burns had been healed by a firebird that Nathan and his assistants had recreated from a classical legend.

  ‘OK . . .’ said Braydon, with obvious reluctance. ‘But don’t do nothing to upset her. Otherwise, that’s it, I’m pulling the plug.’

  Nathan shuffled his chair a little closer to the side of Sukie’s bed. ‘Sukie,’ he said, ‘is it OK if I ask you some questions about the Spooglies? You won’t be upset, will you?’

  ‘I guess not,’ said Sukie, shyly.

  ‘When you dream about them, are they always flying in the sky?’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘Do you ever see them anyplace else, like in a building, or a house?’

  Sukie nodded. ‘I never used to. But I do now. Sometimes, not always.’

  ‘I see. What kind of a building is it, do you know?’

  Sukie shook her head. ‘They’re all down in the cellar. It’s dark down there but I can see their eyes shining. Their eyes are green, like green lights. And I can hear them making a noise like katydids, like chirp-chirp-chirp and shuffle-shuffle-shuffle and sometimes they scream.’

  ‘Wow. Do you know how many Spooglies there are, down in that cellar? Like twenty, maybe, or thirty?’

  ‘I can’t see them very well because it’s so dark but more than a hundred I think.’

  ‘More than a hundred? That’s an awful lot of Spooglies, isn’t it? Do you have any idea where this cellar might be?’

  Without hesitation, Sukie pointed to the right-hand corner of her room, next to the door. ‘They’re over there.’

  ‘What do you mean, sweetheart?’ Braydon asked her. ‘Do you mean they’re here, someplace in the hospital?’

  ‘Uhnh-hunh. They’re over there, but a long way away.’

  ‘How do you know that, Sukie?’ Nathan asked her.

  ‘Because that’s where they are. I can feel them. I can hear them. They’re over there and they’re waiting to fly. They want to fly now but they’re not allowed to, not yet, and that’s why they’re going chirp-chirp-chirp and shuffle-shuffle-shuffle and screaming.’

  ‘Do you know why they’re not allowed to? Is somebody telling them that they can’t?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s too scary. When they fly it’s going to be horrible and people are going to get torn to bits and pieces.’

  Sukie was gradually growing more and more distressed. She was twisting her blanket in both hands and Braydon took her cereal bowl away in case she jolted her bed-table and spilled it.

  ‘When they fly there’s going to be hundreds of them and nobody will be able to get away and they’ll be everywhere! And they’ll be screaming, and so will we! And there’s going to be bits and pieces of people all over, like arms and legs and bodies and heads!’

  Sukie was panting now, and her voice rose higher and higher. Braydon said sharply, ‘That’s enough, sweetheart! That’s it! No more talking about Spooglies, OK? They’re only a bad dream, that’s all.’

  ‘But, Daddy, they’re not!’ Sukie protested, and her eyes filled up with tears. ‘They’re real! The Spooglies are real, and they’re over there! I know they are! I can feel them! I can hear them!’

  Nathan laid his hand on Sukie’s arm and said, ‘It’s OK, Sukie. I’m sorry if I upset you. You’ve been very, very helpful. If the Spooglies are real, I can tell you this: my friends and I will find out where they are and make sure that they never ever get to fly, and never hurt anybody. And we’re also going to make sure that you never have nightmares about them, ever again.’

  Sukie sniffed, and nodded. Braydon held her close to him and said to Nathan, ‘Maybe you and your people had better leave now. Don’t think that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done, because I am. But all this stuff about Spooglies . . .’

  ‘I understand,’ Nathan told him. ‘But I’d like you to know that Sukie may have saved some lives here today. Not just two or three lives, but maybe hundreds.’

  ‘Please,’ said Braydon. ‘Just go.’

  Outside the hospital, Aarif said, ‘You believed her, that little girl? You believe that the gargoyles are really there, in some cellar, in the direction in which she was pointing?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nathan, ‘I do.’

  ‘But what is the use of knowing the direction if we do not know how far it is, this cellar? She was pointing – what – to the south-west. She could have been pointing to the next street, or she could have been pointing toward Maryland, or West Virginia, or even further. How can we tell?’

  ‘That’s a problem I’ll have to work on,’ said Nathan. ‘Meanwhile, why don’t you two go back to the lab and check up on Torchy? I need to get home and sort out my house.’

  Kavita said, ‘I am so sorry about what happened to Denver’s friend. Do you really think it was a gargoyle that killed him?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Theodor Zauber is trying to frighten me into working with him, and I have to admit that he’s not far away from succeeding. That’s why I want to try and find where he’s stored all of the gargoyles he bought from the Eastern State Penitentiary.’

  ‘What will you do, if you can find them?’

  ‘What do you think? Smash them to pieces, before they smash us to pieces.’

  THIRTY

  Saturday, 11:47 a.m.

  The doorbell chimed. Nathan thought it was the builders, who were supposed to come and give him an estimate for replacing Denver’s bedroom window, but when he answered it he found Detective Pullet and Detective Rubik standing in the porch.

  The wind was getting up, and dry leaves were chasing each other around the driveway.

  Jenna said, ‘You don’t need to see my shield, do you, Professor?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Nathan asked her. ‘I already spoke with an officer from the Fourteenth District.’

  ‘I know you did. But he called me. The thing of it is, I’ve been assigned to investigate these mysterious limestone statues that keep dropping out of the sky, and these mysterious flying creatures that have been tearing people apart, and I’m beginning to come to the insane conclusion that – somehow – they are one and the same.

  ‘What’s more, Professor, it sounds to me as if the thing that damaged your house and caused the death of your son’s friend bore a very close resemblance to one of these statues and/or flying creatures.’

  Nathan didn’t answer, so Jenna stuck her two index fingers up on the top of her head and said, ‘Horns?’ Then she flapped her arms and said, ‘Wings?’

  Still Nathan said nothing, so she bugged out her eyes and pressed her nose flat with her finger. ‘Maybe it had bulging eyes and a beak?’

  ‘I didn’t see it myself.’

  ‘But your son saw it, didn’t he? How did he describe it?’

  Nathan said, ‘You’d better come in. I think we need to talk about this.’

  ‘Well, hallelujah,’ said Jenna. ‘He done seen the light. And about time, too.’

  Nathan led them into the living room. Grace was sitting at the coffee table, filling in reports for her practice at Chestnut Hill medical center.

  ‘Grace, honey. These are detectives.’

  ‘Detective Pullet and Detective Rubik,’ said Jenna. ‘We’ve come to ask you some questions about what happened to Stuart Wintergreen, among other things.’


  ‘Sit down, please,’ Nathan told them.

  Jenna said, ‘I’ve just been to see the statue we hauled out of the wetlands at Bartram’s Gardens. You heard about that?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Our chief crime scene investigator has identified it as a gargoyle – from Poland, originally, but shipped over here when they were building the Eastern State Penitentiary. Apparently it was supposed to be positioned on the roof to frighten the crap out of the inmates, as well as about a hundred more gargoyles, but for some reason they never got around to putting them up.’

  ‘I know all about them,’ said Nathan. ‘I also know who they belong to.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell me the last time I talked to you? Haven’t you heard about something called “obstructing a police investigation”?’

  ‘I was being mortally threatened, Detective. My family was being mortally threatened. After that hospital orderly was killed, I knew that the threat was deadly serious. But I thought there was a good chance that I could track the guy down and destroy his gargoyles before he could use them to kill anybody else.’

  ‘Let me get this absolutely straight,’ said Jenna. ‘The stone statues and the flying gargoyles, they really are one and the same?’

  Nathan said, ‘Yes. They are. I know it’s really difficult to believe, but in the Middle Ages, in Europe, there was a plague of gargoyles – thousands of them. They killed cattle, sheep, and countless numbers of people. But in the end an alchemist called Artephius found a way to turn them to stone, and a whole bunch of exorcists was sent out by the Vatican to hunt them down. The Brotherhood of Purity, they called them.’

  ‘So once upon a time, these gargoyles used to be actual living creatures?’

  ‘That’s right, before they were petrified. But now this German thaumaturge called Theodor Zauber has discovered a way to turn them back into living creatures.’

  ‘Thaumaturge? What’s a thaumaturge when he’s at home?’

  ‘A magician. A sorcerer. A worker of miracles. Theodor Zauber’s late father Christian Zauber was one of the greatest sorcerers of the twenty-first century, and his son has followed in his footsteps. He can do things that would make you doubt your sanity, and bringing gargoyles back to life is one of them.