by Mark Cassell
Isidore and I shared a quizzical look, and followed Victor’s hammering footfalls into the corridor beyond. We made our way in silence to the room where we first encountered the necromeleons. It was where Victor had been overwhelmed by the dead. Where I thought he’d died.
“How did you escape?” I asked him. Then I heard the noises, a kind of frantic shuffle, and as we rounded the bend, there was my answer.
Strip lights flickered. Some dangled from the ceiling in broken casings and coils of wire, some lifeless. Below the stuttering lights, the familiar traceries of Witchblade fire encircled a crush of undead bodies. In the centre of the ambient oranges and yellows, necromeleons knocked into one another. Their black eyes darted about, their skin a mix of dead pallor and fiery reflections. Around the ring, strewn over the charred floor, were several blackened limbs. The stench crawled up my nostrils and filled my head.
“The longer I hold the Witchblade, the more I understand it.” Victor smiled—evidently a painful effort behind those bruises.
Isidore raised her gun, taking furtive steps into the room. Dead eyes stared at her through the flames.
“I don’t suspect it can hold them forever,” Victor said. “Not with the Shadow Fabric being as powerful as it is.”
“The Fabric is contained,” I said.
“For now.”
A few paces further and we came to the CCTV room. The screens were as lifeless as the necromeleons. Even the console was dead. Everything was dead. Except us.
“Where is Goodwin?” I asked.
Victor had paused in the doorway. He ran the Witchblade down the wall, its blade scoring the paintwork. “I have no idea.”
“We can’t just burn the House.” Suddenly, almost stupidly, I understood our intentions.
Victor’s eyebrows wriggled across his bloodied forehead.
“This is crazy, Victor.”
“Too much is at stake,” he said.
“We have to find him.”
“For the greater good, sacrifices must be made.”
My jaw dropped. My mouth was dry. “What—”
“Leo, for the light of humankind, we have to fight against the darkness.”
“What you’re saying—”
“What I’m saying is, Goodwin would do the same. We’re on the same side.”
“Are we, though?” I took a step towards him.
“He—”
“Is Goodwin on the same side? How do we know?” My face burned as I shouted and waved my hand. “Look at all this shit, Victor. Look at it. You had no idea he was doing this?”
“Leo—”
“Did you?”
“Leo—”
“Please, you two,” Isidore said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
I ignored her. “Victor, did you know?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“We can’t burn this place to the ground with Goodwin still here. Somewhere, he’s down here.”
“He could be anywhere.”
“Yes. We’ve got to find him.”
“We don’t have time, Leo.”
“And what about Polly? We can’t leave her here.”
“We know where she is, and we can grab her. Even though she’s attached to the Hourglass.” He paused, clenched his teeth, and added, “And we’ll run while this place burns.”
“Victor.” I wanted to grab him. “Goodwin’s down here somewhere.”
“We don’t know where he is.”
“We have to try.” I needed to find Goodwin, to confront him.
“He…” Victor wiped a gloved hand across his forehead, smearing blood and sweat. “He could be dead.”
“We’ve got to look for him at least.”
“We haven’t got time, Leo. For any of this.”
“We have to make time. We have to try, Victor. We can’t abandon him.”
Pushing himself away from the wall, with nothing else to say, he headed off to the room we came down for. Isidore’s face was unreadable, and without a word, she followed him.
“Victor!” I shouted. “Don’t walk off.”
We reached the room. And in the dim light, the boxes seemed to taunt me—each one I knew contained many shadowleaves. I stood back, staying out in the corridor as Victor and Isidore entered. I glared at the back of Victor’s head. My tongue refused to move. My breath was sharp, my head hammered…but not from nausea. Not like last time. This time it was the exertion of getting down here so quickly. I waited for the sickness to hit. I leaned against the door frame and gripped it tight. My eyes glued to the room and what it held, what it represented: humankind’s evil. Every vile thought turned into action. How many were similar to my crime?
Victor flicked a switch and a bulb lit up the collection of metal boxes neatly aligned along chrome shelves that extended from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. In contrast to the shiny racks, the boxes were dull, stamped with the Ministry of Justice emblem. There must’ve been a few hundred of them, equating to thousands of shadowleaves.
Isidore noted my hesitation to follow them fully into the room. She nodded. The way she looked at me made me believe there was hope. For all of us. For me.
I stepped into the room. Surprisingly, my feet obeyed and no nausea wrapped its cloying hands around me. Coming to stand beside her, I already had Goodwin’s lighter flipped open. My thumb rested on the wheel—this was my weapon. Victor had the Witchblade, Isidore her gun. And there was me, with a lighter. Only a tiny flame, yet I knew what fire could do against darkness, and I had no intention of losing my weapon. As before, it would’ve been better had I made some kind of flamethrower. Too late now.
Standing in the centre of the room, it was easy to feel closed in. Such oppression, knowing each box held the heinous crimes of convicted men and women from across the country. Goodwin had collected those shadowleaves over the years, and stored them beneath Periwick House. Incredible, yet somehow, Goodwin had the resources to do it. I didn’t know Victor at all, having known him for a lot less time than Goodwin. They were friends. And what was Goodwin to me? Who was this man who’d paid my way in a new life after my accident? All while he carried on with his weird experiments, right under my nose. He claimed to be a family friend…was this true?
Victor reached out and ran his gloved hand along a row of boxes. He curled a finger around an emblem. “This high concentration of shadowleaves is perfect fuel for the Entity.”
I stared at him.
“I’ve no doubt,” he added, “it’s the Entity that’s here.”
“So, where’s Haunt?”
“I don’t know,” Victor said, slowly. “That entity may never have been here in the first place. The broken mirrors at the farmhouse may have nothing to do with Haunt. Rather, it’s the Entity—the Being of darkness—and its haunt into this plane of existence.”
I frowned and clenched my jaw. This was getting confusing. My ears rang.
A familiar voice echoed from the corridor: “I thought I heard voices.”
Isidore swung her gun round and aimed it at the doorway.
Goodwin stood there, framed in the white glare of the strip light, bloodied as Victor. He squinted through one swollen eye, the other gummed shut. “And you have found my collection…”
CHAPTER 38
“Don’t you realise you’ve built a store of ammunition here?” Victor shouted as Goodwin stumbled into the room. “Should the Entity stitch this lot, we’ve lost.”
Goodwin brought an arm up and rubbed the back of his head. He winced. Filth caked his clothes and he was missing a shirt sleeve and both shoes. When Victor appeared earlier, I’d mistaken him for a necromeleon, but there was life in Goodwin’s eyes. He was real. Even through all the bruises, I could see that. He was the Goodwin I knew…or thought I knew.
“I’m…” Goodwin dropped his gaze, “I’m sorry.”
My anger rose again. A rush of noise flooded my head. I wanted to yell at this man who’d lied to me. Lied to all of us. Sorry just wasn’t good
enough. Who the hell was this guy? Who was he to me? I actually had a lump in my throat.
Isidore had lowered her gun, now angled towards Goodwin’s feet. I guess her trust had been damaged, and she didn’t even know him. I sighed and perhaps she heard me, because she took a few steps in my direction. Her finger slid away from the trigger.
“Goodwin.” Victor walked towards him. “Tell us what’s been going on here. Where have you been?”
As Goodwin talked, I couldn’t look at him. After all this time hating him, wanting to confront the deceitful bastard, I couldn’t face him. After doubting him, I had a thousand more doubts about myself. I wanted to know, yet couldn’t ask. If I knew the true Goodwin, then I’d finally learn my past. I knew I’d been a criminal in my old life. Now, faced with the chance to know more, I didn’t want to take it.
“I’ve only just come to,” he said. His teeth were bloody. “All I remember is Stanley becoming darkness. I remember the shadows bursting from the walls and how they dragged me through the corridors. I must’ve been beaten unconscious. What time is it? How long have I been out?”
It was quarter past six. I said so, trying not to say anything else.
“Stanley came to visit late morning…” Grimacing, he ran a hand down his ribs, reminding me of the CCTV footage.
“Goodwin,” I said, giving in to myself. It was surprising how soft my voice was. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
His shoulders slumped. “Perhaps it is time to tell you.”
“Everything.” Victor locked eyes with his old friend.
“Yes.” Goodwin coughed. “Let me put it this way, Vic, all that I didn’t believe is now right before my eyes.”
“You’re not wrong there,” I said.
“Leo, please,” Victor whispered.
Goodwin ignored me and continued. “In truth, I’ve always turned to science and never once believed in the supernatural. I always rationalised things scientifically. Coincidentally, if necessary, never supernatural. Yet here it all is.”
“Forever the sceptic,” Victor said. “I never knew you were a scientist, Goodwin.”
“I am.” He nodded gently. “And have been since before any of us met, Vic.”
“Katrina…” Victor pulled at his gloves. “Katrina is dead.”
Goodwin shook his head. His lips moved, yet no sound came out.
Victor continued, “She said you found a means of combining ancient apparatus and modern technology. To remove the evil from a man.”
“I have.”
“In doing so, you have the potential to cure the darkness that turns a man into a criminal. Whatever the crime, you found a way to suppress it?”
“Yes. All for the good of mankind.”
I wanted to punch him for that comment; it was lame. What of those who turned mad? What of the dying man on the gurney before he became a necromeleon? For the good of mankind, they had all reanimated and become the walking dead. I could’ve been one of them.
“It’s madness, Goodwin.” Victor paced the room. “You created mad men and mad women. You even killed people.”
“Indirectly, you could say that.”
“Good God, listen to yourself.”
“I knew the Hourglass had a power. I knew it could extract evil.”
“Even though you didn’t believe in the supernatural yourself?”
“I saw it as a piece of scientific equipment. Primitive, yet its potential was incredible. I could not ignore it.”
“So you found it. You kept it from me. From all of us.”
“I wanted to make a difference in the world.”
“You’ve extracted more than enough evils,” Victor whirled his hands about him. “This crazy collection is more than enough for your experiments. Why so many, Goodwin? Why didn’t you stop at a few?”
“Every man and woman is different. Every prisoner has their own agenda, their own reasons, their own ideals.”
“Your ideals are mental.” I spat the words at him. “What am I in all this?”
“Please understand…” Goodwin’s eyebrows pinched together as he raised a hand. “You’ve no idea how far I’ve come.”
“Not interested,” I said. “You’ve betrayed our trust. Old friends and new.”
Victor tugged at his gloves. “What amazes me is the sheer scale of the operation here. I mean, you collected thousands of shadowleaves. Are they all from prisoners?”
“The majority, yes.”
My heart had replaced my tongue. I could not speak.
Victor said, “How on earth did you manage such a thing?”
For a moment Goodwin remained silent, and finally said, “Money.”
Isidore nodded, biting her lip.
“You bought them?” Victor’s eyes widened. “You bought the prisoners?”
“I have a great many contacts in the justice system.”
“Did you believe anything at all of the supernatural? Did you just go along with everything for your own means?”
Goodwin shook his head. “Forever the sceptic.”
“Goodwin,” Victor shouted at him, “you obviously realise the danger we’re in.”
“I… Yes, I do. I know now.”
“Precisely when did you come by the Hourglass?”
Goodwin took a moment to answer. “1975,” he said, and coughed. Red spittle flecked his lower lip.
“You had it from the beginning?” Victor’s voice lowered. “Where did you find it?”
“Lucas, rest his soul. He acquired it. Somewhere in Eastern Europe.”
“Lucas?”
“He was loyal, we cannot deny that. Loyal to each of us.”
Victor slowly shook his head. “I never knew he found it.”
“Why would you? You guys were never really on speaking terms.”
“That was between me and him.” Victor stopped pacing. “You could’ve told me.”
“Money,” Goodwin said again as though to justify it.
Beside me, Isidore said, “It’s always about money.”
Victor glared at Goodwin.
“So,” he said, “let me get this straight. You had the Hourglass all along and built the House with these rooms beneath it. As a cover, obviously. All the time believing you could cure humankind’s evils. You paid for the release of prisoners and collected their shadowleaves. You also experimented on them. Some dying, some going mad…”
“And,” I said, “you did it because someone murdered your father?”
He stepped back. “Something like that, yes.”
“Did you even know my father?” My throat burned as I shouted. “Did you know any of my family?”
Goodwin’s swollen eyelid fluttered as he tried to hold my gaze. He didn’t reply.
“Goodwin, seriously. Was everything a lie?”
Still nothing.
If he hadn’t already been beaten and bloodied by the Fabric I would’ve done it myself. The deceiving, lying bastard.
“Did I mean anything to you?” I lunged forward and Victor caught my arm, his grip tightened on my bicep.
“Leo,” he said. “Come on, my friend. This will get us nowhere.”
“Vic—” My heart wanted to leap from my throat. I stood there with my head hammering, fists clenched. Then a ridiculous calmness washed over me, which annoyed me further. I was angry at myself for being angry in the first place. Stars spotted my vision for a moment and I swayed. Victor tightened his grip. My breath softened and I stared at the ground.
“The prisoners, Goodwin,” he eventually said, and released me. “Did you cure any?”
Goodwin’s chin dipped to his chest, but his eyes stayed on Victor. They drifted to Isidore, and then to me. He didn’t say a word.
“Well?” Victor spat. Perhaps even he found it difficult to contain his anger.
“Yes,” Goodwin replied. “There were several cases where the patient became normal.”
“Define normal, Goodwin.”
“Like me,” I said, “I was a pati
ent. A criminal. Have I become normal?”
A long silence followed, and I believed everyone could hear my heart pounding against my ribs. Goodwin didn’t know where to look, and when he spoke, his words came slowly.
“Normal is no longer wanting to wrong another man. No longer having the urge to break the law, or to push aside morals or ethics.” Almost in a whisper, he added, “There were side effects, however.”
My ears burned. “How did you know our minds were free of evil?” And I wondered if my mind was exactly that: free of evil thought. What was I capable of? Moments ago, I wanted to beat the shit out of him, so perhaps I wasn’t entirely cured. Or maybe, when it truly came to it, a mental block would crash into place and freeze my fist in mid-swing.
“With such advances in technology over the last thirty years, I had everything in hand, and I developed a process to enable us to see into a man’s mind. I call it my dream camera.” Pride glimmered somewhere amidst the bruises. “Put to the layman, it categorises thought processes. In remarkable detail, in actual fact. We can see beyond the grey matter, we can see the black and the white. The good thoughts and the bad.”
Victor rubbed his forehead. “We’re wasting time.”
“What can we do?” Goodwin coughed, covering his mouth. His fingers came away spotted with blood. “Stanley is—”
“Stanley is truly dead,” Victor interrupted. “The Entity possessed him. It tricked you. Tricked us all.”
“I know that now,” Goodwin said, and coughed again. “I knew from the moment I closed my office door. He changed from the bastard he always was into something even worse. The shadows came out of him and he made me take him down here. Under the House, to reveal my theories. But he knew. He knew about everything.”
“He knew…” Victor said. “No, the Entity knew you held the key to its success.”
“The shadowleaves.”
“Yes. We’re dealing with the most evil Entity known to humankind. The darkest power there is.”
Goodwin, Victor, Isidore, I didn’t know any of them. I caught my reflection in one of the chrome shelves—I didn’t even know who I was.
“You’re such an idiot, Goodwin.” I barged past him into the corridor with Isidore close behind.
