by Sean Little
It was a banshee, Clarke thought. It was the only thing it could be. His grandmother, who had immigrated to Virginia from Ballyknockan in County Wicklow used to tell him stories about the banshees. They bring death, Nico.
Clarke’s mouth was dry. The banshee’s scream was holding him in place. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even scream. The Colt in his hand suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. It dropped to the ground pinning his hand beneath it.
The banshee flew at the gate, stopping at the portcullis. It continued to scream. The sound hurt Clarke’s ears, but he couldn’t bring his hands up to protect himself. He could only sit helpless. The sound of the keening started to rattle his teeth. It felt like his head would crack. He squeezed his eyes shut, fully prepared for the banshee’s wail to kill him.
Ka-THOOM!
There was a massive explosion from somewhere behind Clarke. The banshee broke its wail and shot straight into the night sky, vanishing into the dark.
All feeling returned to Clarke in an instant. The moment the keening was done, so was any spell the creature had over him. Clarke slumped onto the ground and waited for the ringing in his ears to subside.
He rolled to his side and saw Bobbins and Shaw standing behind him. Shaw had pulled a floor-length housecoat around herself. Bobbins was wearing an oversized red flannel nightshirt and his feet were clad in slippers. In the man’s hands was what could only be described as an elephant gun. It was the biggest shotgun that Clarke had ever seen, but strange wires and pipes jutted off of it. In the stock, a faint red glow pulsed and illuminated Bobbins’ face. The bodyguard was holding her small revolver. Both looked at Clarke with concern.
“What in the name of the devil was that thing?” shouted Bobbins above the shriek of the wind.
“Damned if I know,” said Clarke. He got to his feet and dusted off his pants with his hand.
Bobbins shouldered his elephant gun. “Well, that is fun! I swear I could sell tickets to this place. People would pay to see these things.”
Sandsworth was in the great hall in his butler uniform by the time the three of them entered. Clarke marveled at the man’s dedication to the job. Sandsworth had tea ready and poured Clarke a cup. The butler then added a splash of whiskey to the drink. “For your nerves, sir,” said the butler.
Bobbins sat at the head of the table on Clarke’s left. “I have no idea what to think anymore. Did you see what I saw?” he asked Shaw. She nodded. “And you, Mr. Clarke? You saw it, of course. I have never seen a picture of a Black Annis, but if I had ever been asked to draw it, it would have looked exactly like that, right down to the blue skin and big, hooked nose.”
Clarke’s head jerked up, and he squinted at Bobbins. “White skin. Small nose.”
“No, it was a dusky blue hag, a Black Annis like something out of the tales my grandmother used to tell me when I was a boy.”
“It was a banshee, all white and ghosty.”
There was a prolonged silence. Bobbins and Clarke stared at each other. “You saw a banshee. I saw a hag. Ms. Shaw, what did you see?” asked Bobbins.
From the shadows by the fire where she stood Shaw stared at them, shadows wrapping around her face. She said tersely, “A man.”
“Just a man?”
Shaw didn’t answer for a long moment, but when she did her voice was soft and small. “A man who hurt me.”
“Interesting,” said Bobbins in a whisper. “Sandsworth, fetch Csupo and Vasile.”
“Very good, sir.” The butler disappeared from the room without a sound.
Chef appeared with tea and biscuits. He was still wearing his pajamas, but had pulled a robe over them. Bobbins busied himself with pouring tea. When Sandsworth returned, he had the two wide-eyed Romanians in tow.
“It came again, didn’t it?” said Vasile. “The strigoi.”
“It did,” said Lord Bobbins. “When you both saw the succubus, what did it look like?”
“Like a woman,” said Vasile.
“A beautiful woman,” said Csupo.
“But give more details: her hair, her complexion, her figure.”
Csupo and Vasile exchanged shrugs. Vasile started. “She had long blond hair.”
“Red hair,” said Csupo.
“Blond, fool. Blond as straw.”
“No,” insisted Csupo. “It was red, like an Irish woman’s.”
“Was she tall or short?” asked Bobbins.”
“Tall,” said Vasile.
“Short,” said Csupo. He added, “With huge…” He held up his hands in front of him in the universal “large breasts” gesture. When he saw Shaw looking at him, he blushed and dropped his hands.
“She was thin and lithe and tall,” said Vasile. “She moved like a goddess.”
“Well, this is interesting,” said Bobbins. He bit into a chocolate biscuit. “This thing, whatever it is, seems to take on the form of something that we fear.”
“It weren’t no banshee what hit me in the woods,” said Clarke.
“No, I think that is something entirely different,” said Bobbins. “As Alice said, ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’ I believe I will have to wire for assistance. Ms. Shaw, send to the laboratory, please.”
“Not him,” said Shaw.
“Do you know anyone better to deal with it?”
Shaw’s lips pulled into a thin line and her nose wrinkled. “No.”
“Then him it shall be.”
“Who?” said Clarke.
“No one you’ve met, I’m sure,” said Bobbins. “I will introduce you when he arrives, though.”
No one slept the rest of the night. They tried, but given the evening’s activities, brains were set to whirling and sleeplessness was the result.
In his cell, Clarke laid on the straw-tick and feigned sleep. The Colt was on the bed next to him, though. He kept it out of the holster and within easy reach. He thought about the cave, and the banshee—or whatever it was. He thought about other strange things he’d seen in his travels. He’d never seen a ghost, but he’d known men who swore they saw specters of the fallen creeping the battlefields after dark. He’d never seen a monster before that werewolf—or whatever it was—hit him in the forest. Ghosts were part of every culture he’d ever experienced. Was it possible there was some truth to it, or was it just some sort of coping device that people had created to make losing loved ones less painful?
In New Orleans, Clarke saw men that people proclaimed to be voodoo loa and those men had people certain that they controlled dark spirits. He’d seen voodoo houngan summon ancestors back to speak to their relatives. Whether it was real or not, was another question. He thought about the ceremony, the music. He thought about the belief. One of the things that made voodoo work was the fact that often, the victims believed in it as much as the practitioners. If a person believed wholly in something, no matter how silly the thing was that they believe, it was often more powerful than that thing being real.
Chef was preparing breakfast and all manner of savory smells emanated from the kitchen. Bobbins sat at the head of the table reading some letters while a plate of eggs, sausage, and bacon rashers was slowly going cold in front of him.
Ms. Shaw was in a chair by the fire cleaning her pistol. She had disassembled it and had the parts spread out on a footstool.
There was a small silver urn with a pair of half-inch tubes coming out of it on the table next to Bobbins. The tubes were attached to Bobbins’ temples and the urn was making a slow hissing noise as a small, thin stream of steam exited the top of the urn.
“Ah, Mr. Clarke,” said Lord Bobbins. “Sit down. Do help yourself to some breakfast.”
Clarke sat at the table. He rubbed his face and felt several days’ scruff on his cheeks. He needed a bath and a shave. Maybe he could get one in town?
“What’s the thing there?” said Clarke gesturing to the urn.
“This is an invention of mine,” said Bobbins.
“What’s it do?”
Bobbins looked off
ended. “Precisely what it is supposed to do. I’m a very good inventor. Are you implying that I would put a malfunctioning machine on my face?”
“But what’s that?”
Bobbins gawped at Clarke as though he’d just been asked to name his favorite color of sky. “What’s what?”
“Never mind,” said Clarke. He knew better than to chase that circle. He changed the topic. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Good! That’s a very good thing to do. I, myself, encourage everyone to do as much as thinking as possible. That seems to be one of our general problems in this world: not enough thinking,” said Bobbins. He set down his letters and picked up a fork. “What are you thinking about Mr. Clarke?”
“I was thinking about fear.”
“Intriguing. Let me hear your thoughts.”
“Fear is a bodily response, right? Just like anything else the body does, there needs to be a stimulus. If we don’t eat, that’s the stimulus that makes our stomachs remind us we’re hungry. If we don’t sleep, that’s the stimulus that makes us tired, right?”
“At an elementary level, I suppose you’re correct.”
Clarke picked up his teacup. The thin china was almost hot to the touch. It felt good. “Something has to scare us to make us feel fear. However, fear is an automatic response. Our bodies just do it. Something at that cave has to make us feel fear. There has to be something that stimulates our bodies to do it. This got me thinking to my time in Madagascar.”
“Wonderful! I was hoping you’d tell this story.”
“I’m not going to tell the story of how I got people killed. This is before that, when we first got there,” said Clarke. He sipped his tea and cleared his throat. “The people there threw us a party that first night. It started normal enough. There was food. There was a local wine and everybody got pretty loose. Then, a couple of these big fellas come out with these big drums. They start playing the drums and people start dancing around the fire. I remember the drums felt like they were banging through your chest, they were so loud. Your pulse almost started beating with the rhythm instead.”
“I love a good party,” said Bobbins. “Sandsworth, we should have drums and wine at the next manor gathering. Make a note.”
“Indeed, sir.”
Clarke continued. “Anyhow, after they danced a while, this woman came out wearing bones all over herself and this crazy mask. She did this weird snake dance in front of the fire and said some mumbo-jumbo. Then, they started playing the drums again. Wilder, this time. Faster. The people started dancing even wilder and faster. I started wondering if there was a point to the madness.”
Bobbins bit into his toast. “There never needs to be a point for fun, my dear boy.”
“Well, this wasn’t fun for them. They were conjuring their ancestors, or so they believed. One of the girls in the dance suddenly screamed and fell to her knees. She went into convulsions and lay twitching on the ground. Other people started calling out to their gods and pointing at what they claimed were ghosts. It was all very eerie. Until the next day, one of the kids that claimed to be possessed was playing in the street. I asked him through our interpreter what it was like to be possessed. He said he was just playing the game because his parents told him he had to play. That got me to wondering about them.”
Bobbins stopped chewing for a moment. He dabbed a napkin at the corners of his mouth. “Where are you going with this, Mr. Clarke?”
“I’m just saying that if you get people loose, then they’re more willing to believe what happened or do silly things. What if no one believed in the possessions, but this is what they had always known. You give them a little stimulus like wine and dancing, and they just do what they have always done because it’s suggested.”
“Are you saying that the people of Cărbunasatul are playing a game?”
“Maybe. Without knowing they’re playing.”
“How is that even possible?” asked Shaw. She had reassembled her gun and moved to the table.
Clarke leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There’s the stimulus, right? The fear—whatever it is. It’s affecting people. That’s like the wine, right? Then, you stage a couple of terrifying acts and that’s the dance. Now the people are going to believe whatever you tell them to believe. It’s a mass delusion.”
Bobbins’ eyes were sparkling. He twisted the end of his mustache. “So someone is doing this to the town. But why?”
“Why does anyone do anything?” said Shaw. “Money.”
“Pssh!” Bobbins flitted his hand. “This is a poor mountain village in Romania. What sort of money is there to gain?”
“You should ask yourself what sort of money is there to lose, m’lord,” said Shaw.
Bobbins sat back in his chair, still fiddling with his mustache. “That is interesting, isn’t it?”
“Your inheritance of this castle wasn’t exactly a secret, m’lord,” said Shaw, “especially after you paid the London press to cover your announcement of it.”
“How else would I build interest in tourism?”
“Your plans for the village were also not secretive.”
Clarke said, “So, who would want this village to stay broke, or for you to lose a lot of money?”
Bobbins pressed his hands to his face in thought. He rubbed his temples. “Well, there’s the obvious, of course—”
“Proctucus,” said Shaw. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth became a thin, tight line.
“And I do have some enemies in the House of Lords.”
“Bunweather, Crumple, and Morely, specifically,” said Shaw listing the men on her fingers. “However, I doubt those three together would have the IQ necessary to successfully peel a hard-boiled egg, let alone mastermind something like this.”
“And then there’s the possibility that someone in the town resents you coming here and taking their castle,” said Clarke.
“No one was using it!” Bobbins protested. “The previous owner vacated it and lost the deed to the town because he wasn’t fulfilling the demands of being primar!”
“That’s not the point,” said Clarke. “Someone is ticked off that you’re here, or they want to see you fail at something.”
“Or they want something else, like maybe there’s gold in the mountain caves,” said Shaw.
“Ridiculous,” said Bobbins. “The miners would have found it by now.”
“There is more to this story,” said Shaw. “That was my point.”
Bobbins pushed back his chair and stood. In an instant, Sandsworth had scuttled away with his plates and tea cup. Bobbins began to pace before the fireplace, hands clasped behind his back. He bent forward slightly, staring at the ground as he walked. Twelve paces one way, a crisp spin on his heel, and twelve paces back.
Finally, he stopped. “Mr. Clarke. I will go to town. You will accompany us, of course. However, while to town is distracted, I want you to investigate other things. Look at the undertaker’s home first. Then, see what you can learn elsewhere.”
“Elsewhere?”
“Elsewhere,” said Bobbins. He laid a finger alongside his nose for a moment and winked at Clarke.
“Elsewhere. Got it.”
Bobbins left the great hall. Shaw looked at Clarke. “Elsewhere?”
“He was telling me to break into some basements and poke around, if I had to.”
Bobbins was in Cărbunasatul by eight in the morning, precisely. The old bell in the church tolled the hour just ask he crossed the invisible line that separated the edge of town from the wilderness. Bobbins had Vasile stop the carriage just before town so that he could stroll into the village without protection around him.
Bobbins cupped his hands before his mouth like a megaphone and shouted, “Come, friends! Come out! It’s a new day! We will have a grand day together!”
The effect was instantaneous. Shutters opened and people peeked out. When they saw their primar walking unafraid, they opened the doors. There was smiling. There were cheers. Children, cooped up too l
ong by fearful parents, burst out to join the man in the bright red coat in his impromptu parade. House by house, the people ventured out. Everyone ignored the cold and the arrival of winter winds. It felt like the entire village was breathing a sigh of relief.
“Where is the market? Where is the music?” Bobbins shouted. Two paces back and pace to the right, as Sandsworth would be, Vasile followed translating all of Bobbins’ calls into Romanian.
Shaw walked two paces behind and two paces left of Bobbins. She wasn’t wearing a visible weapon, but Clarke had no doubt she was armed. Her billowing skirts could hide a lot of hardware.
Clarke deviated from the group as the people grew. He didn’t say anything. He just went to the side of the street, as if he was looking for a bench to sit and rest, but then quickly moved behind the houses that lined the main street before the center of town.
Clarke knew where the undertaker’s house was. It was the house with the damaged basement door; it wasn’t difficult to spot. He made a beeline for the house, pausing to tip his black Gambler to women coming out of the homes behind the main street. He smiled and nodded, but acted like he knew where he was going. Often, that was the secret to not being bothered. If he walked with a purpose and a swift stride, he found that people assumed he knew was he was doing and he was where he was supposed to be.
After a quick glance left and right to make sure he wasn’t being watched, Clarke slammed his shoulder into the back door of the undertaker’s home. The wooden lock-peg snapped in two and the door swung open. Clarke slid inside and closed the door behind him, bracing a nearby chair against it to keep it closed.
The entry level of the undertaker’s home was undisturbed since the night of the attack. There were plates drying in a wooden rack next to an empty washtub. There were half-burned candles sitting cold and unlit. The house was still as death. Even the noise from the street didn’t penetrate the windows and shutters.
