Something was wrong.
If the Rucastles were truly contriving to save their daughter from a demon by using Violet as a replacement sacrifice, why did they require this extraordinarily cruel amount of security? Wouldn’t Alice be more likely to work with, rather than against them? Why was she restrained so? Why muted? Yet even as I began to think-ask Violet, I felt a sudden wave of dizziness. The world went black. I was falling again—falling in reverse through that same demonic void I’d encountered only a handful of hours before. And then…
I was in a carriage.
I was propped up in one corner of a carriage, with a strange red haze partially obscuring my vision and Holmes leaning expectantly towards me. As soon as he saw me move, he piped up, “Hi-ho, Watson! Welcome back! How was your trip to… er… Violet?”
“I think she’s in danger, Holmes! We’ve got to…” But I trailed off, confused and compelled by the bright red fibrous haze before my eyes. It seemed to move with me—it seemed a solid thing. “Good lord, Holmes! Is that my hair?”
“Well… it may have—”
“Agh! What happened to my hair?” I raised my arm to grab at my horrifying red fringe, but a wave of pain assailed me and the arm flopped helplessly down…
“Agh! What happened to my arm?”
…Flopped down onto my leg, in fact—an act that rewarded me with a second, altogether different flash of agony.
“Agh! What happened to my leg?”
“One thing at a time, Watson, please,” Holmes harrumphed. “Honestly… yes. That is your hair. It is red. Why? Magic. What is the result? Our previous adventure is resolved in our favor. Plus, you have a grand new world of cosmetic possibility open to you and only a fool fears new experiences. You are welcome.”
I gave him a warning glare.
“Second, the arm… Yes… I am not a doctor, you know, but I believe it may be broken. I don’t remember it ever bending in the middle like that before. What else…? Ah! The leg. It’s been stabbed with a screwdriver. Oh, and before you ask, there may be a few crowbar marks on your face. Don’t be surprised when you find them.”
“What did you do to me?”
“I? Nothing. You were the one who was trying to fight off a pack of monsters with a screwdriver, if you’ll recall. This is merely the natural consequence of your choices. The only thing I am guilty of is helping. Look, I bound the wound for you.”
“Ah! By God! What is this? Why does it look like that?”
“At the risk of repeating myself: you were stabbed with a screwdriver.”
“And you bandaged over it? You didn’t pull it out? That’s not how you… Ow! Holmes! Why?”
“As I believe I mentioned: I am not actually a doctor.”
“What happened?”
“You left in the middle of an adventure—”
“I didn’t just leave. You kissed me into Violet!”
“Whatever the reason for your absence, you can hardly expect the world to cease operation simply because you’ve gone. Events moved on, Watson. I’ll tell you all about it later, if you wish.”
The carriage gave a sudden, violent lurch, flooding me with pain. Holmes merely tutted at the interruption and said, “But enough about you, Watson. You believe Violet to be in danger?”
“Yes! We found Alice Rucastle! But something’s wrong, she’s—”
The carriage shook with a second violent impact.
“Ow! Argh! She’s tied up. And her eyes, Holmes! She’s crazy, I’ll swear to it! I think Violet’s going to let her go, but I don’t know what will happen when she does. We’ve got to get to the Copper Beeches, Holmes. We’ve got to help her!”
“That, of course, was my intention,” Holmes said, with as much patience as he could muster. “Sadly, it seems we are not the only party interested in the goings-on at that particular domicile.”
He reached across me and tugged back the curtain covering the carriage window. There, not six feet from my face, was Jephro Rucastle. His eponymous copper locks shook with wild abandon as his carriage veered towards me and smashed, for a third time, into our own.
“Upon reaching the neighborhood, I waved down the first carriage I encountered and asked how I might find the Copper Beeches,” said Holmes. “I explained I was trying to help a governess unravel a demonic plot.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to check whether the occupant of that carriage might be Jephro Rucastle?”
“Hindsight is 20/20, Watson; try not to boast of it.”
I was about to ask how Rucastle had motivated the driver of his carriage to do battle, when I heard the fellow call, “Sorry I keep rammin’ yeh, Brady. But he’s payin’ me extra, you know?”
From above, our driver shouted, “Well, a fare’s a fare, eh, Sam?”
“Heh! Too right! Too right!”
The next impact knocked me against the far wall and I think I nearly fainted. The proper treatment for a complete humeral fracture is setting and immobilization. It is emphatically not to load the sufferer into a carriage, set it galloping down a pitted country lane, then bounce another carriage off it, over and over.
“I don’t know how much more of this I can take, Holmes!”
“Well it needn’t be much, Watson. Look, we’re nearly there.”
By this time our carriage was so badly holed that the windows had become academic. The Copper’s vehicle was in even worse shape. Half the roof and one wall was gone and the tattered curtains flapped loosely past where the Copper stood.
“Wait a moment!” I cried. “Where is Mrs. Rucastle? She was traveling with him!”
“Oh, she fell out miles ago,” said Holmes, with a dismissive wave. “Now hang on, Watson; we’re turning up the drive.”
Even as Holmes spoke, our carriage swerved to the right, up the long drive to the Copper Beeches. I heard Jephro Rucastle cry out in dismay as we pulled away from him, but in only a moment his carriage swerved back in and smashed into us once more. It was too much. The front wheel of our carriage splintered and buckled. The two smashed halves of it came flying past the shattered window as our naked axle tipped down and tore into the drive. When it dug in, our belabored vehicle broke apart. The horses broke free and ran off dragging a rattling trail of broken harnesses. As the body of the carriage tumbled end over end, I could just hear Rucastle’s driver shout, “Sorry ’bout that, Brady! But you had her insured, right?”
“Course I did! What do you take me for?” our driver replied jovially, as he bounced off into the woods.
I might well have been killed in the crash. Certainly, my already impressive collection of wounds would have become intolerable. Yet Holmes took mercy on me. Hardly had our carriage upended before he spread his hands to either side. A barely visible bubble of gummy air surrounded us and bulged outwards. The much-abused walls of our carriage could take no more; they separated at the corners and blew apart into so much bouncing kindling. There was a sudden, stomach-turning sensation of deceleration— though what mechanism might be slowing us, I could not guess. Once down to walking speed, our bubble descended lightly to earth, touched the surface of the lane and gently popped, leaving me lying and Holmes standing halfway down the long drive to the Copper Beeches. Holmes cleared his throat guiltily and asked, “What do you think, Watson? Did anybody see that?”
Normally, I’d say they must have. However, in that particular moment, three distinct dangers that might command more attention were emerging.
First: Alice Rucastle. It seems I had been correct in guessing that the imperturbable Violet Hunter was going to go ahead with her plan to free Alice. The evidence? Miss Hunter leaned out of a second-story window, shouting in dismay at the figure of Alice Rucastle, who dangled from the window just below her. It seems she’d torn away half the leather straps and half her clothing and was engaged in a desperate bid to flee her house. Apparently nobody had notified her there was a front door. Not that she’d have cared. A look at her face was enough to show the woman was unwell. The ma
sk still dangled from one ear but as it flopped to the side, one could observe the expression of frantic joy that she wore as she gazed at the second attention-demanding development.
Which was: the sky. It was fair to say, we were having a spot of weather. Though the moon was still visible, it shone through a swirling cauldron of clouds. These formed a suspiciously perfect circle and moved with a furious motion quite at odds with the wind. As they spun, they occasionally fired a burst of lightning down onto the grounds of the Copper Beeches. These bolts did not always strike the same spot of ground, but they did always pass through the same space in the air, some hundred feet or so above the grass. Whenever they did, the bolts would splay out into a luminous haze for a moment, before continuing their plunge to earth. The haze was of human shape and size, slowly descending.
Ampere, I assumed.
And finally: a dog. Juuuuuuuust a bit of a scary dog. The only reason I didn’t assume him to be a hell-hound is that I’d seen one before. Yet, if I had been called upon to spend one night braving the company of Foofy the hell-hound or two minutes in the company of the beast that burst from the edge of the woods… well… Foofy and I would have had a fine time, I am sure. The beast was not luminous, as a proper hell-hound would be. Not composed of smoke and shadow, but of regular flesh and blood. Well, I say regular… The thing must have weighed as much as two horses and half a yak. It had muscular, oversized front legs and comically small back ones, like a bulldog. In fact, it had the snubby face, powerful jaw and slobbery jowls of a bulldog, too, but there the similarities ended. It wore an expression of hatred and intelligence—more human than canine. It seems that—to our great misfortune—Mr. Toller’s final, sober act of the evening had been to perform his regular nightly duty. He’d opened the kennel. The beast took a minute to gaze out over the scene, carefully selecting the weakest target, before it charged.
And what was the weakest target? I would have said “me” except for a new development in the tactical situation. It seems Violet had Alice grasped firmly by the straps, and was trying to haul her back in the window. Alice, though weak from months of captivity, struggled with the desperate strength of the mad. This, combined with the assistance of gravity, proved sufficient to win the day. With a shriek of alarm from Violet, the two of them fell from the second-story window, out into the garden. At least the flower bed looked soft and loamy, but now they had the problem of the terrible hound, which turned to charge them.
“Hmmm…” said Holmes, appraisingly. “What do you say, Watson? I get the demon; you get the dog?”
“But… But…” I stammered, indicating first my broken arm, then the oblong, bandaged bulge where the screwdriver protruded from my leg.
“Well, someone’s got to do it,” said Holmes with a shrug and set off over the lawn. As he went, I heard him mumble, “Oh! Better not give him any metal to key in on, eh?” So, Holmes began patting himself down for metal, checking each pocket in turn and casually discarding coins, keys, his handcuffs and his magnifying glass into the grass. With a grunt of resolution and pain, I set off up the drive, towards Violet.
Now, the fellow who would seem to have the best chance of reaching her in time was not me, but Jephro “The Copper” Rucastle. After all, his carriage still rolled (slightly) and he was farther up the drive. Yet this advantage was lessened by the streetwise experience of his coachman, Sam. Though propriety and custom demanded that Mr. Rucastle be dropped off as close to his door as possible, Sam took careful note of the monstrous hound, the descending electrical demon and the general air of desperation and decided, “Here we are, sir: the Copper Beeches!”
“But,” the Copper protested, “I want to go—”
“No. Here we are, sir: the Copper Beeches,” Sam repeated, firmly, then added, “I believe your fare’s up to an even four pounds six. All those extra rammings is what did it, you know. All those extra times you shouted, ‘Two shillings if you can catch that warlock!’ eh? Four pounds six, please.”
Mr. Rucastle threw a handful of coins at Sam, and climbed down from the wrecked carriage. He ran towards—well, no… He gobble-charged ponderously towards the fallen figure of his daughter, shouting, “Alice! You fool! Get back in the house!”
She didn’t. Instead she picked up one of the decorative garden rocks, fetched Violet a savage blow to the head with it, ignored the charging dog and ran off towards the open lawn, tearing off whatever articles of clothing and leather strappery she could reach and crying, “Ampere! Here I am! Can you hear me? They tried to keep me dull, my love! Touch me! Touch me, my promised one, and make me bright like you!”
The hound tore past the reeling form of Violet Hunter, hot on the heels of Alice Rucastle. As it passed, Violet shouted, “No!”, yanked the derringer from the folds of her vest and fired twice. From where I stood, dragging myself up the drive, I could just hear the feeble pop! pop! as Violet sent two tiny lumps of lead into (but probably not through) the hair over the dog’s flank. This did about as much as one might expect to slow the beast’s charge. Yet if this show of force was insufficient, the next one was better. As the dog closed to within a dozen feet of Alice, a prolonged flash of lightning streaked down out of the sky and spent a luxuriously long period of time for something that’s supposed to be instantaneous scorching the grass at the dog’s paws into a smoking, smoldering waste. This seemed sufficient to convince the blighter that Alice Rucastle was off limits. The monster looked about for new prey. Alice was closest. I was weakest. Yet, as the dog’s eyes fell on Jephro Rucastle, its expression resolved into one of particular hatred. It took off towards him at a run.
Behind the charging hound, Alice Rucastle met her love. And her end.
“I am here, Ampere! I’m ready to glow with you! Please! Oh, please! Take me and together we can glo— Aaagh! Aigh! AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIGH!”
The night was lit by a cavalcade of flashes and strikes of lightning. When they subsided, there was naught left of Alice Rucastle but a sad little pile of ash. Or… I don’t know… maybe a happy one.
“Hey!” said Holmes, from out on the lawn. His tone was hurt and angry. “I told you to turn and face me, demon! Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.”
I don’t think any of us had, to be honest.
“The price is paid,” said Ampere, with a crackling voice as wide as the sky. Though he must have used a tremendous amount of energy in killing Alice, his glow had not diminished. Indeed, it had nearly redoubled and the human form at its center seemed better defined— more real.
“And now what?” asked Holmes. “Now you intend to wander the earth, incinerating whatever innocent person you happen across next? No! I won’t have it! Come here, you little whelp!”
Ampere turned to Holmes with… well, what I can only assume was a look of annoyance. After all, that is by far and away the most common look one gives when turning to Holmes. As they closed on each other, bolt after bolt of searing white heat lashed from the demon towards my friend. But they didn’t strike him. Holmes reached first one way and then the next, grabbing at empty air and pulling. As he did, reality tore and bent. Yes, the projectiles would have struck him if they could have continued straight, but now straight wasn’t straight anymore. There were disturbing gaps in reality. The good news was that they seemed to spring closed again whenever Holmes let go of his fistful of empty air, but… well… it was mind-numbing to watch. The two combatants drew close.
Yet, neither Holmes nor Ampere was to be the next to fall. As I hobbled towards Violet and she ran towards me, the hound reached its target. It tore in with gleeful abandon. And surprising cruelty. A real dog—indeed any realistic predator—does its best to efficiently kill its prey. The important thing is victory—to find oneself as uninjured as possible and in possession of a meal. This beast did nothing of the kind. After throwing Jephro Rucastle to the ground, it started on his legs. Not only did it maul and scrape them with its teeth, but it seemed to take particular pleasure in twisting them in directions they ought not to bend
, celebrating with happy barks and yowls whenever a bone would snap. The Copper’s screeches reached a pinnacle of pain and desperation, echoing off into a sky charged with both electric and diabolic potential. By God, that haunting sound is a thing I shall remember always. As the beast toyed with him, Rucastle turned from screaming to pleading. “No! Please! Oh, by God, please! I know you’ve never liked me! But I am your family now! I am your master! Please!”
The beast, unmoved by his words, elected to end them. It stomped one massive forefoot down onto his chest, pinning him to the ground, then closed its jaws about Rucastle’s horrible chin-wattle and pulled. The throat came away and Rucastle’s head rolled back. The Copper’s final, gobbling, gurgling screech drifted off into the swirling clouds.
The only bit of happy news to report was this: at last Violet and I reached each other. As we neared, I cried out, “Violet! Oh, thank God! Violet, are you all right?”
She gave me a queer look, as if this were a rather stupid question, and replied, “Better than average, it would seem. What happened to you?”
“Oh… I don’t quite know. But my arm’s broken and there’s a screwdriver in my leg.”
“And… er… your hair?”
“I don’t know about that, either. Apparently, I missed quite the adventure while I was projected into your body.”
“Apparently,” Violet agreed. “But look here, Watson, are you armed?”
“I think my Webley’s in my left, inside coat pocket, but it’s difficult to tell. Only my left arm works, so—”
I was interrupted by two sensations. Both were intrusive, but the first was not unpleasant. Violet threw open my coat and began rummaging about in my clothing. The second was significantly worse. It seems that, yes, my previous assessment of the situation had been correct. I was the weakest available target. Rucastle’s hound hit me square in the chest, knocking me away from Violet and sending me sprawling. I felt two of my ribs snap with the shock. He was on me in an instant. His teeth tore into my already damaged leg and he flipped me face up, so I could see what he was doing to me. He let go of my leg, stepped on my hip to pin me and loomed over me with an evil smile. I had just an instant to spare before he snapped his jaws at my face. I got my good arm up to protect me, which it… sort of did. His fangs sunk into the flesh of my forearm. I could feel muscle and tendon tearing beneath his powerful grip. In desperation, I flung my broken right arm to my chest, grasping about to see if I still had the Webley. I did not.
Warlock Holmes--My Grave Ritual Page 18
