Murder, Mystery, and Magic

by John Burke

  Edwin went on staring at the island, which seemed to come no closer although the boat’s engine was still thrusting it energetically onwards.

  “Yes,” said an insinuating voice close to his left ear. “Just a memory of where we come from.”

  This time it was the real woman, the one who had been no more than a distant fantasy but whom he had let himself be lured into meeting.

  Her hair glowed like sun-sparked amber. She was wearing seashell earrings, trailing long green and brown tendrils like very fine seaweed. Her dress was a rippling velvet as green as her eyes, with tucks of shadow which were pale rather than dark, as if her skin were showing through slits in the material. But when he thought how much he preferred that first picture he had seen of her, somehow this dress was immediately transformed to meet his demand, and her shoulders emerged ravishingly into a fresh flood of sunlight.

  She said: “I knew you would come. But you don’t care to join in the pleasures of the pool?”

  He took a deep breath. “I didn’t come here just at random. Just to…well, get mixed up with anybody and everybody.”

  “You are discriminating. Which is why I called you.” Her smile was deliciously mocking. “You took your time answering! But now you are here. We are together. You are ready to be alone with me and not disappoint me? You are in love with what I am prepared to ask of you, yes?”

  “Well, I…that is….” Damn it, why couldn’t he speak, act, reach out and put his hands on those shoulders, move closer?

  “If you want to be away from the others, it presents no problem. Of course you prefer the privacy of my retreat. My cavern has been prepared for you.”

  Without his noticing, the haze had lifted from the island and now it was clear-edged. There were shapes—human shapes?—moving on it, and others apparently sprawled out, resting. He forced out yet another trite remark: “You live here permanently? I mean, over there?”

  “We live here, all of us, in the way we have always lived. More restricted than our lives used to be, but we can exist. Exist”—it was more a wailing entreaty than an explanation—“so long as we are well fed. We need the perpetual rejuvenation we were used to. That is why you are here: why you have been sent for.”

  Sent for? Lured, he thought with a sickening lurch in his stomach.

  “Fate has decreed it this way. For us—the Sirens, the mermaids, the selkies, those who must forever draw men into the waters. Or out onto the rocks and islands of temptation. Yes.” Her hand was on his arm, stroking rhythmically. “Aren’t you honoured to be chosen to feed me?”

  “Feed you? I don’t see how I can…I mean”—even as he spoke he knew it sounded ridiculous—“isn’t there a meal included in the booking?”

  She waved at the tapestry. “We need…replenishing. We can no longer exist in the old ways. Our singing can no longer be heard above the discords of transmitters belching forth from the pleasure cruisers, the constant traffic, the speedboats, the aircraft carrying our livelihood far away above us. People forever staring into petty things they hold in their hands, not looking around them, not listening. Men no longer venture bravely into the unknown, because there are no longer any unknowns on this earth. So we had to swim away from our old polluted seas and our rivers, to flee across hundreds of weary sea miles until we found our way upstream to this new lagoon. Found our new haven, where we can fulfil our destinies.” Her fingers slid down and tightened around his wrist. “We have always existed, immortal, feeding men’s dreams. But there has to be a price to pay. We, too, need feeding.”

  “Look, I don’t quite get this—”

  “When we reach my cavern you will understand. You have surely read of us as legends in those old books you are so fond of. But we are more than legend. Real and richer than the dry paragraphs in any of your books. So wonderful for you.” Her face was close to his. “You may call me by name. I am Lorelei.”

  Light from every side was still playing on her cheek and bare shoulder. A dancing impertinence of fingers of light, touching, feeling. Yet the smoothness he had visualised from her photograph was becoming a thin, transparent layer. Under it was glistening bone, a skull shining through the skin yellowed not by light but by age. Incredible age.

  Over her exquisite shoulder he again glimpsed that phantasmal pool below them. Only now the waters were in a dark turmoil, and Josh was not so much yielding to an embrace as struggling to free himself. The woman clamped herself even more tightly, her legs scissoring round him, her whole body impaled on him and gripping him agonisingly, squeezing every drop of sustenance out of him, her nails biting into his back so that the blood ran under her nails and down her fingers.

  And there were others in the whirlpool of stupefying lust. Men who had answered the advertisement and come to fulfil their dreams. The creatures were swarming over them, struggling to retain human shape. Those arms which the gullible prey had thought would be so warm and soft and yielding were cold, the skin becoming like that of some reptile, slithering over and round them, but never relaxing their hungry grip.

  She said: “Of course you want no part of that. You will find it more beautiful with just the two of us in my cavern.”

  “You mean out there? On that island?”

  “Deep, deep into it. I come up for the warmth of the sun, and food, when I must. To call men to me.” Those fingers had ceased to caress. They were tightening, grasping, demanding. “We shall be alone there. You will rejoice in what you can give me. Your appetite and mine, they will be one.” Her breath was warm on his cheek. “Sometimes,” the mesmeric voice murmured on, “we find a lover worth keeping. Not to be greedily used up all at once. To be kept…and savoured at intervals.” But that in breath was becoming rank, a stench of rotting seaweed and a foulness from depths beyond human comprehension.

  And surely those shapes on the island were no longer human? They looked like discarded costumes, the deflated skins of what had once been living beings. Skins sucked dry, tossed aside, no longer of any use.

  He forced himself to look away from the island, away from this creature clinging to him. Down there in the depths, was that a glimpse of the little bell-cote of the chapel? Mud swirled and blurred the image, then cleared for a moment of writhing, thrusting limbs. How many of these creatures were swimming in and out among the empty door and window frames of the old abandoned houses?

  What might have been no more than a swirl of the current began shaping itself into the body of a girl, a shape which grew more beautiful as it rose through the surface of the loch and leapt aboard like a fish throwing itself onto dry land. But as she flapped and gasped for breath she was reaching out triumphantly towards young Jamie Dunbar as he came out on deck. He bent towards her; she reared up; they swayed in what might have been the movement of a sinuous new dance; and then, together, they went over the rail and down, down into the streets of the silent yet still pulsating village.

  “A selkie who had outstayed her time on land,” said the creature called Lorelei dismissively. “She will have difficulty getting him to adapt to our ways down there.” She was beginning to sound impatient. “Come, now. Shall we take ourselves away? I chose you because I thought you would be worthy. You should be honoured.”

  The promised dream had become a nightmare. He struggled to wake up. He must concentrate on waking up, reaching for the glass of water beside his bed, and soothing Marjorie’s drowsy grumbling.

  “Come on,” she rasped. The fingers had become claws, the skin of her face was beginning to peel away in oozing strips from the gaunt skull. “We’re running it too close. Come to me. You must. Come on.”

  There was sudden uproar from below decks. Some men were laughing, some protesting, others sounded as if they were fighting drunk; and the voices of the women were a clash of implacable siren songs distorted by the discords of voices turning sour, losing their fervour.

  As if under panic orders, the boat shuddered into a tight turn and raced towards the shore. It was much closer than their steady out
ward progress would have suggested.

  “You fool. Worthless fool.” Lorelei was screaming on and on. “Unworthy. You could have been one of the favoured ones. Now be damned. You will never be allowed to forget. Be damned into eternity.”

  He found that Josh was beside him, strangely shrunken, grabbing his arm to steady himself. Somehow they were ahead of the others, scrambling ashore and starting to run without knowing how far they would have to go before they were safe, out of hearing of the sirens’ song and the sirens’ appetites.

  Safe. Would they ever be safe?

  * * * *

  Marjorie Blackett had asked a dozen or more questions without getting any answers that satisfied her before going off to exchange the usual magazines with Beryl Darby. When she came back she looked, for the first time in their married life, disturbed by the possibility of hitherto unsuspected quirks in her husband.

  “What on earth did you do to Josh Darby?”

  “I didn’t do anything to Josh.”

  “But whatever the two of you got up to—”

  “We didn’t get up to anything.”

  “Well, whatever it was,” Marjorie persisted, “he looks a lot the worse for wear.”

  He had nothing to say to her. And nothing to say to Josh when they met again on the train for the first time since their escapade.

  This time Josh did not come plumping himself down forcefully beside Edwin or slap things on the table with a flourish. He stooped, eased himself into the seat, and grinned apologetically. They finished the journey without him uttering a word. How could he keep moving at all? He was an empty bag of skin, all the inner life sucked out of it. Gutted and thrown back. Tossed back onto dry land. But with just enough energy left to keep it moving, maintaining a pretence of being alive.

  Edwin Blackett was still, he prided himself, Edwin Blackett. He opened his shop, cast an eye along his stock, and waited for the post. Things he had ordered would arrive in the usual way. He would assess them, make his decisions, send in his entries to the most important catalogues, make decisions.

  Making decisions….

  He found he couldn’t concentrate. With a book in his hands he couldn’t appraise it, was incapable of even opening it.

  He no longer dared to open a magazine.

  Was she rotting away by now? Could he have been the one to save the incomparable beauty of her? Was he to be forever racked by the guilt of her death?

  Or was she like the shapes he had seen, the carapaces discarded on the land?

  Still capable of resuscitation?

  Beryl Darby brought the usual magazine in, but made a point of speaking only to Marjorie, glancing apprehensively at Edwin and then scuttling out. When she had gone he turned to the fateful page; but it was now advertising something for young stick insects.

  He found himself telling Marjorie that there had been some unfinished business back in that distant Book Town, and of course it was a nuisance, but he couldn’t get people to make any sense on the phone, and he’d have to go back and sort it out.

  She didn’t believe him; but somehow was too scared to argue.

  * * * *

  The landing stage was even smaller than he remembered, no more than a few planks jutting out from the bank. The boat moored to it was a very small cabin cruiser, certainly not made for more than ten passengers. It didn’t look as if it was used very often. The tourist trade hadn’t been any great success yet.

  And the island within which Lorelei fed on her willing sacrifices…and the gutted carcases were cast aside?

  Only a small brick and concrete turret lifted its conical cap above the centre of the reservoir: probably a pumping shaft of some kind.

  It began to rain. Very gently at first, sweeping a subdued drumming across the surface of the loch. Through the tap-dancing of the raindrops came bursts of a light-hearted melody, a tune that became a rippling chorus of laughter, voices bubbling up from the sunken village.

  It might have been an invitation to Edwin Blackett to join in. But it wasn’t.

  He had been rejected. As he stumbled away, the rain and the pulsations from the depths grew more forceful, more derisive.

  They were laughing at him. And would go on deriding him, laughing at him forever.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  English writer John Burke was born in Rye, Sussex, but soon moved to Liverpool, where his father was a Chief Inspector of Police.

  Burke became a prominent science fiction fan in the late 1930s, and with David McIlwain he jointly edited one of the earliest British fanzines, The Satellite, to which another close friend, Sam Youd, was a leading contributor. All three men would become well-known SF novelists after the war, writing as Jonathan Burke, Charles Eric Maine, and John Christopher, respectively.

  Burke’s first novel, Swift Summer (1949), won an Atlantic Award in Literature from the Rockefeller Foundation, and although he went on to become a popular SF and crime novelist, all his work was of a high literary standard.

  During the early 1950s he wrote numerous science fiction novels that were published in hardcover as well as paperback, and his short stories appeared regularly in all of the leading SF magazines, most notably in New Worlds and Authentic Science Fiction.

  In the mid-1950s he worked in publishing, first as Production Manager for the prominent UK publisher, Museum Press, and then in an editorial capacity for the Books for Pleasure Group. In 1959 he was employed as a Public Relations Executive for Shell International Petroleum, before being appointed as European Story Editor for 20th Century-Fox Productions in 1963.

  His cinematic expertise led to his being commissioned to pen dozens of bestselling novelizations of popular film and TV titles, ranging from such movies as A Hard Day’s Night, Privilege, numerous Hammer Horror films, and The Bill. He also did adaptations of Gerry Anderson’s UFO TV series (under his pseudonym, Robert Miall). A member of the Crime Writers’ Association, he published many crime and detective novels on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s. He also edited the highly successsful anthology series, Tales of Unease.

  To date he’s written more than 150 books in all genres, including work in collaboration with his wife, Jean; and has also published nonfiction works on an astonishing variety of subjects, most notably music.

  Now living in Scotland, Burke continues to write well into his eighth decade; in recent years many of his supernatural and macabre stories have been collected and antholologized. His latest collection, Murder, Mystery, and Magic, is a Borgo Press original—and Borgo will be publishing some of his classic SF and crime novels and stories in the near future.

  ALSO BY JOHN BURKE

  The Golden Horns: A Mystery Novel

  Murder, Mystery, and Magic: Macabre Stories