I heard an unpleasant scraping sound coming from nearby, like nails on a blackboard. It was that which had roused me. I searched for its source and saw a shape move against the window. The scraping sound came again. Slowly, my movements still hampered by the very air, I approached the window. I had my gun in my hand, three bullets left in its chamber.
There were parallel scratches on two of the panes, and the glass was stained with a black fluid like squid ink. I looked out at the grounds beyond but there was no moon visible in the sky, and no stars shone. The blackness was so thick that I might as well have been underwater, and it would not have surprised me had a liquid darkness begun to pour through the broken pane and fill the room, slowly drowning me.
The broken pane: if I had gained access to the house by slipping my hand through the gap and opening the latch, then whatever was out there could have done the same. Why, then, scrape and scratch?
The answer came first as sound, then as form. I discerned a single deep inhalation from without, quickly followed by smaller, faster sniffs as something in the darkness caught my scent. A gray, wrinkled form pressed itself against the glass in a gesture of dreadful longing, its thin limbs splayed, the loose skin that hung from them cracked and oozing, its fingers like sharp, jointed needles. It was about the size of a man, but hairless and eyeless, its flat nose twitching as it smelled me. And then its mouth, indiscernible until now, slowly opened, toothless and red, and from deep in its jaws an appendage shot forth, less a tongue than a fleshy tube, its open ringed with tiny barbs. It struck the glass hard, leaving more of that black residue.
The sniffing came again, and the creature changed position, lowering itself to the shattered pane, its left hand blindly exploring the window until it found the gap and pushed its way through, blocking it entirely.
I prepared to shoot, then paused. What else might be out there? I thought. What other horrors might I draw to me with the noise? And the bullets: so few left, and no chance of securing more in this place.
I searched for another weapon. There was a letter opener on Lionel Maulding’s desk. The blade was dull, but the end was sharp. I stabbed hard at the creature’s arm and, although no blood or viscera came forth from the wound, I saw its mouth widen in soundless agony. I jabbed at it again and again as it struggled to pull its hand back, tearing its flesh still further against the sharp edges that still clung to the frame, until at last it was free. It retreated into the dark and was gone.
There were wooden shutters on the windows. It was clear from the dust and dead insects upon them that they had not been used in some time, but I pulled them closed and secured them, and did the same with the other windows. I did not sleep, but waited for the coming of dawn. When at last light began to seep through I came close to weeping, for a part of me had feared I might never see daylight again, so black was the night. I opened the shutters. There was a mist upon the grass, and the sun washed the dark clouds with red.
I thought that I had never seen anything so beautiful.
XVI
I began my work as soon as morning had secured its grip on the world. I checked the measurements of the rooms on the plans of the house before pacing those same quarters, checking my reckoning against the original dimensions. It was my good fortune to have started with the study—that, or the final gasp of logic and rationality in a world that appeared to be coming apart at the seams. Quite simply, the study was not as long as it should have been, and it was clear that the shelves at the western end of the room had been set about seven feet away from the wall. Still, it was the work of an hour or more to determine a means of access to whatever lay behind, and I resorted, in the end, to emptying the shelves to a height of almost six feet before the mechanism revealed itself: a simple lever hidden behind an ornately bound first volume of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire—quarto sections, 1776, I noted, for this book business was, I admit, starting to rub off on me.
I moved the lever, and a section of shelving opened with an audible click. I paused before widening the gap, uncertain of what might be revealed to me: a stink of corruption; another of those foul burrowing creatures, its body burning with an awful heat; or a glimpse of the maelstrom itself, a pathway between universes? Instead, when curiosity inevitably got the better of me, I saw only a smaller version of the room I already occupied, furnished with a square table and a single straight chair. There was a candle on the table, unlit. I found my matches and put one to the wick, for the door did not open fully, either by design or a fault in the mechanism, and I had barely been able to squeeze my way inside. In the flickering light of the candle, Lionel Maulding’s occult library was revealed to me, volume upon volume, most of them old and having about them, even in appearance, the taint of the forbidden and unclean.
I paid them little heed, though, for it was the book on the table that most interested me. It was as Eliza Dunwidge had described it: a large bound work covered in a material that was obviously hide of some kind. I could see wrinkles and scars upon it and, God help us, what might even have been a tracery of veins. Worse, the book’s surface did seem to throb with life, but that might simply have been a function of the candle’s imperfect light combined with the nature of its binding and the tale told to me by Eliza. Still, I was reluctant to touch it. With its red covers and its yellowed page edges, it reminded me uncomfortably of a mouth. There was, too, the memory of Maggs the book scout, and the channels burned in his head by whatever the book had seeded in his brain.
But the Atlas called to me. I had come so far. I wanted to know. Somewhere in its pages lay the truth: the truth of what had befallen Lionel Maulding, but more important an answer to what was happening, or had already happened, to my own world.
I opened the book. I looked inside.
It was blank. How could it not be? After all, it had transferred its contents to this realm, overwriting all that had once existed, like a palimpsest that slowly, surely, overwhelms the original.
And from somewhere both nearby yet immeasurably far away, I swear that I heard laughter, but it was the laughter of the damned.
XVII
I burned the book. I set fire to it in the fireplace of Maulding’s library, laying it flat upon the wood and coals once I was certain that the blaze had reached the required intensity. The book sizzled and hissed and popped, more like meat roasting than paper burning. At one point it emitted a loud, whistling sound that was almost like a scream, but it ceased as the binding blackened. It stank as it was consumed. It smelled like decayed flesh finally consigned to the crematorium, but I had smelled worse.
I don’t know how long I sat there, using a poker to move the book and stir the fire, but eventually it coalesced into a ruined mass that would burn no further. I dozed for a time, and dreamed of the Atlas as it might once have been, with intricate maps of worlds unlike this one, its territories marked with the images of beasts and demons, its intricate cartography the work of the Not-God. But those pages were empty because all that they had once contained had been fed into this world like sand falling through an hourglass. Now there was nothing left, and the process of transformation had begun. Where Lionel Maulding was, I could not say. Perhaps, like Maggs, he had begun to die the moment he opened the book, and its ideas had gestated in his head before erupting and, finally, consuming him.
But there was another narrative too, of course, even if I retreated from it just as assuredly as I desired to turn my back on the possibility of one world infecting and corrupting another: the book had never existed. It was a fraud perpetrated by the Dunwidges with the collusion of Maggs, and that unfortunate’s death had been carefully staged in order to maintain the pretence, and ensure his silence. I, too, had colluded in it. I had played my role. I had allowed myself to be manipulated.
But what of those burrowing creatures, or the exploded thing in the hallway of this very house? What of the deformed children that had followed me through the streets, or the gray wraith at the study window? Wha
t of days—weeks—lost, according to Fawnsley? What of—
Everything?
For there was a third narrative, was there not?
• • •
It was late afternoon. Mrs. Gissing had not appeared, nor Willox. I left the Maulding house, my possessions in my overnight bag, and walked to the station. The train to London was due. I would return there. I would go to Quayle. Whatever answer he gave me, I would accept. If there was a cell and a noose at the end of it, it could be no worse than this.
There was nobody at the ticket office when I reached it, and I detected some sounds of confusion from the platform. I followed the noise and found the stationmaster remonstrating with prospective passengers, his assistants beside him, all of them looking troubled.
“What’s happening here?” I asked of no one in particular.
“The train from London didn’t arrive this morning,” said a portly woman. “The train to London came and went, right enough, but nothing from the city.”
She indicated the stationmaster.
“Old Ron here is as ignorant as the rest of us, but I have to get to London. My daughter’s about to have her first child, and I swore to her that I’d be with her to help her through it.”
I was bigger and taller than the rest of those gathered, and eased my way through the crowd until I was face-to-face with the stationmaster. He was nearing the end of his time: gray-haired, overweight, and with a handlebar mustache that increased his resemblance to an old walrus.
“Explain,” I said to him, and something in my tone silenced those around me, and brooked no opposition from the functionary.
“It’s like I’ve been telling these people, sir: we’ve had no trains come through since this morning, and all the lines are down. I can’t get through to anyone to find out what’s going on. I sent one of the lads down to Norwich on his bicycle to see if he could find out anything, but he hasn’t come back yet. I can give you no more.”
I stood on the platform and looked to the southwest. It might have been a trick of the light, but it seemed that the sky was darker down there, and tinged with red, even though sunrise was long past. It resembled a great conflagration seen from a distance. I glanced at the station clock and watched the minute hand move.
“The clock,” I said.
“What about it?” said the stationmaster.
I continued to stare at the clock face. It was just gone noon, and the minute hand had shifted, but it was inching closer not to one but to twelve in this backward realm. The clock was running in reverse.
• • •
I left them and returned to Bromdun Hall. I have closed the shutters and barricaded the doors. There is food here, and water. The sky is darkening, and it will not be light again. There are noises coming from upstairs, and from the grounds. I have closed the door to Lionel Maulding’s secret study. From behind it, I can hear the splintering of reality, like ice cracking on a frozen lake.
It is the coming of the Not-God.
I have three bullets.
I will wait.
V. AND IN DARKNESS SHALL WE DWELL
The drapes had been allowed to fall, hiding the chambers of the lawyer Quayle from the night, and from any prying eyes that might have been inclined to wander in the direction of the lighted window. But to do so would have required the watcher to make his way into the tiny courtyard off Chancery Lane, and nobody entered that place unless for business with Quayle. In addition, to see into Quayle’s rooms would have required somehow gaining entry to one of the buildings that brooded over the courtyard, their upper levels ever so slightly overhanging the lower in the Dutch manner, for they were narrow indeed, and any furniture they contained had been hauled in through the windows by means of the vicious-looking hooks that protruded from the gables.
Nobody could quite recall how the houses in the courtyard came to be built in this fashion, or who had been responsible for their construction. Peculiarly, neither was there any memory of the hooks being used for the purpose of hoisting furniture, and a search of the records of relevant businesses would have found no recent receipts or dockets relating to the delivery of anything, furniture or otherwise, to any of the buildings, Quayle’s excepted. The question of their ownership was nebulous, and someone with sufficient time and energy might have trawled deeds and registries only to conclude that, whoever had possession of them, he or she was identifiable only as a client of the lawyer Quayle.
That esteemed gentleman was currently to be found at his massive black oak desk, his paperwork set aside, and a small glass of sherry by his right hand. Seated across from him on an upright chair, and contenting himself only with tea, was a detective from Scotland Yard named Hassard. Fawnsley, Quayle’s clerk, was gone. He had slipped away shortly after the detective’s arrival, presumably to his own lodgings, although there were those who would have been surprised to learn that he dwelt anywhere other than beneath Quayle’s roof, so omnipresent was he, and so disinclined to leave his master’s presence.
“Hassard,” said Quayle. “That’s a Huguenot name, is it not?”
“The Low Countries,” said the detective.
He was young, with hair that had turned prematurely gray. He seemed to regard Quayle’s coiffure somewhat dubiously, for the lawyer retained a suspiciously dark thatch for his years.
“There was a Peter Hasaret, if I recall correctly, who fled the persecutions in those lands in the sixteenth century,” said Quayle.
“I believe that we are among his descendants,” said Hassard.
“He was burned alive.”
“Again, so I understand. You seem well versed in Huguenot history, Mr. Quayle.”
“The origins of this firm lie in a partnership between the original Quayle and one Couvret, a gentleman of that faith,” explained the lawyer. “It ended badly. Couvret died.”
“Murdered, wasn’t he?”
Quayle permitted himself a raised eyebrow, and regarded the detective as though perceiving him in a new, and not entirely welcome, aspect.
“Disemboweled, to be exact,” Hassard continued.
Quayle’s other eyebrow briefly threatened to take flight and join the first, but he somehow managed to restrain it.
“I am not the only one who appears well versed in history,” said Quayle. “I shall save you the trouble of further precision by admitting that my ancestor, the founding Quayle, was long suspected of being involved in Couvret’s murder, although no proof ever emerged that would have led to a conviction.”
“Which would have been unfortunate for the firm,” said Hassard.
“Most,” agreed Quayle.
He sipped his sherry. Hassard made another attempt to drink his tea, but it was a little strong for his liking, and so thick and tarry as to be almost reluctant to depart the cup. He abandoned it and opened his notebook.
“About Mr. Soter,” he began.
“Yes?”
“Can I assume that you have not heard from him?”
“Not a word.”
“It’s a most unusual business.”
“It is.”
“His manuscript has been examined by a number of different experts, including a military psychiatrist. If it is a suicide note, it’s not like any that they’ve seen before.”
“I was permitted only to view a transcript,” said Quayle. “Although it contained clear intimations of Soter’s willingness to end his life, one assumes that such an act would have resulted in a body.”
“Which is why we continue to look for him,” said Hassard. “He’s wanted for questioning about five deaths: those of Eliza Dunwidge and her father; the book scout Maggs; and two street children.”
“My understanding was that Maggs remained missing,” said Quayle, “and the only account of what might have befallen him was contained in Soter’s manuscript.”
“We dragged a body from the Thames last night. It’s in a bad way, but we’re pretty certain that it’s Maggs. That makes five.”
�
�What of the intruder that Soter claimed tried to crawl in the window of Maulding’s home?”
“A phantasm from a troubled mind, perhaps,” said Hassard. “Although Maulding’s window was broken, we found no signs of man or beast on the grounds of Bromdun Hall. No, there are just five victims with whom Soter had an association, but that should be enough to put the noose around his neck.”
“You appear quite convinced of his guilt.”
“The manuscript strikes me as self-serving, such as that nonsense about the insects in Maggs’s room, and the disappearance of the body. Soter seemed to be trying to imply that old Dunwidge might have been involved in disposing of Maggs’s remains, but Dunwidge isn’t around to ask anymore. Soter made sure of that. He beat him to death and dumped his corpse in the basement of Maggs’s lodgings.”
“So you claim.”
“He remains the most likely suspect, unless you can point us to another.”
“He was a disturbed man, but a hero once. The war broke him.”
“The war broke many, but they didn’t all become murderers.”
“No, they did not. But it is necessary to understand the circumstances that might have given birth to one.”
“If you say so.”
Quayle sighed. Perhaps the detective was not so worthy of his interest after all.
“About those children,” said Quayle.
Hassard shifted in his seat.
“What of them?”
“I hear that they were . . . unusual.”
“They had rickets, if that’s what you mean.”
“Something worse than rickets. I was informed that they were almost mutated.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Really? Is it also nonsense that you have so far failed to identify them, and that they were without parents or guardians, and no one has come forward to claim their bodies?”
“That’s true,” Hassard admitted. “But it doesn’t make them any less dead. If I may be so bold, Mr. Quayle, you seem almost inclined to doubt that Soter did anything wrong at all.”
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