The Only Human

by Rick Mofina

  “Should we tell him everything?”

  She responded: “Yes! Everything! We need help now!”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Ty related the history of their encounter with Professor Blair and everything that had happened since. He left nothing out. Sedgwick listened, nodding, widening his eyes at times and unscrewing his fountain pen to take the occasional note. When Ty finished, Sedgwick said: “That’s quite a story.” He hesitated before saying more, staring at his notes as if searching for the right words.

  “I deal with scholars and experts from across the country and around the world. They come here to consult our rare books and records as part of their research. We also deal with others.”

  “Others?” Ella asked.

  “How shall I put this?” Sedgwick paused. “Let’s just say those desperate to find threads of historical record to confirm their theories, often wild conspiracy theories or apocalyptic doomsday scenarios.”

  Sedgwick took another look at his notes.

  “Bertram Blair was brilliant and an expert on the architectural history of New York City and Europe. But I dare say he was an eccentric. And, it turns out, given to elaborate fantasies. As you said, things such as a gargoyle uprising; an ‘awakening’ as it were, with shape-shifting demons rounding up segments of the population. Well, it’s the stuff of Hollywood, of adventure tale, isn’t it? I’m afraid Bertram was indeed a capricious soul.”

  Sedgwick stopped to choose his words carefully.

  “Ty, Ella, I think given the fact you witnessed Bertram’s accident, then saw his apartment on fire, admittedly a strange coincidence, and with police wanting to talk to you and questioning your parents, well I think it’s taken a heavy emotional toll, especially on young minds such as yours. It’s horribly tragic. One cannot fault your reaction to events.”

  Ty and Ella exchanged looks of helplessness.

  “Would you look at Professor Blair’s notebook for us?” Ty asked.

  “Yes, of course. I always saw Bertram with it, but never actually read it. He was quite guarded with it. I’ll be happy to take a quick look. There are sandwiches, drinks, cookies and cakes on that cart left over from our fund-raising reception that just ended earlier. It’s over there. Help yourself.”

  Ty hesitated then decided to replace his goggles to give Sedgwick another appraisal and the others in the room before agreeing to pass him Professor Blair’s notebook.

  He and Ella were hungry and thirsty.

  Ty went for egg salad sandwiches, then ham and cheese. Ella had tuna and they both had cookies, cakes and bottled water. But while they ate, they never took their eyes from Sedgwick who at first flipped quickly through the notebook then slowed down. Then he started making notes before stopping. He removed his glasses and ran his hand over his face as if troubled by a discovery.

  He stood at the large window overlooking Bryant Park.

  Ty and Ella stood behind him awaiting his conclusion.

  “Did you know,” Sedgwick said without turning from the window, “that we store some of our rarest, oldest records in the stacks, underneath that entire park?”

  Ty and Ella didn’t know.

  “Something in Bertram’s notes is somewhat disturbing.” He turned. “Come with me,” he said, clutching the notebook.

  As Sedgwick hurried out of the room with Ty and Ella in tow, he spotted the librarian they’d spoken to first.

  “Flora, if anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be in the stacks.”

  “With them?” She glared at Ella and Ty, who hadn’t removed his goggles. “Miles, you know the stacks are closed to the public. Only thirty people have the authority to enter that part of the library.”

  “Yes, and I’m one of them. Please take any messages for me.”

  As they rushed down the polished stone stairs they could hear emergency sirens outside, getting louder as they got closer.

  16

  Sedgwick led them to the main floor, then along one of the spectacular hallways and down several flights of narrow stairs, taking them underground.

  Keys jingled as he pulled them from his jacket and unlocked a door. It clanged and creaked, opening to a tunnel with pipes, cables and wires snaking along the low ceiling.

  “We have two levels of stacks under Bryant Park which is directly above us. Only a few senior staff members are authorized to enter,” Sedgwick said as they walked quickly through the long, white tunnel.

  “Why?” Ty slid his goggles down to his neck.

  “The stacks are closed to the public and used primarily for storage. This is where we keep a lot of irreplaceable treasures, rare books and records. For example, George Washington’s diary is here in a secret compartment.”

  “Why are you taking us here?” Ty asked.

  “In these notes,” Sedgwick help up the notebook, “Bertram refers to an obscure old text, which I am convinced is part of the lore and does not exist. But I want to check.”

  “Will it give us the answers we need?”

  Sedgwick stopped.

  “I’ll be honest. While some of Bertram’s observations are based on irrefutable historical fact, I’m afraid that the conclusions he draws are, to me, pure imagination, and I want to prove that. I want to resolve the incredulous issues you two young people have apparently inherited in the wake of his tragedy. I hope you understand?”

  “I guess so,” Ty said.

  “Besides, I’m very curious about the text.” Sedgwick continued walking.

  They followed him into a vast gloomy area filled with row upon row of shelves jammed with books and divided by narrow aisles. The fluorescent lights on the low ceiling were too weak to fully illuminate the musty darkness. Sounds of the streets surrounding the park above them were muffled by several feet of earth entombing the underground warehouse. They went a great distance with Sedgwick eyeing the shelves, looking at the notations on each one before he halted.

  “Here.”

  He turned down the narrow space between two massive shelves. His movement disturbed the dust, sending it whirling into the dank air. The shelves were crammed with books in various stages of decay. They had age-worn covers, yellowed paper. Some were bound together with twine that held faded handwritten notes that previous librarians had written, some of them over a hundred years ago. Yet Sedgwick knew what he was doing, drawing his face close to the books as he inched along.

  “If we have it, it would be right about here.”

  He stopped to study several rows of books before him. In the dimly lit quiet, water dripped somewhere.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Ella said, “with everything closing in on us. It’s like a grave for books.”

  “It’s safe and peaceful.” Sedgwick never lost his concentration. “However, if you’re claustrophobic, there’s a fire escape to the surface of the park. That way, along that wall.”

  He pointed and Ella nodded after seeing it.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  Sedgwick gasped.

  “My Lord, it exists! It really exists!”

  He fished a pair of white gloves from his jacket, tugged them on and removed a small slim book from the stacks. Stained with water damage, discoloured from deterioration, the jacket was a mixture of gray, pale white and emerald green. The pages had crumbled edges. The covers protested with small crackling sounds as he opened it to the title page: Mythos of the Grotesques: Being the Journal of Master Carver Hugo Heinz-Steger.

  “This is it!” Sedgwick said. “Bertram’s notes say we’ll find the curse in this book!”

  17

  Miles Sedgwick shook his head in amazement.

  He stepped from the confines of the shelves into the wider aisle, holding the discovered book so Ty and Ella could also see the pages as he read through them.

  As an expert in ancient texts, Sedgwick began reading the old cursive hand-writing quickly.

  “This is remarkable!” he said, slowing when he came to notations in an alien-looking language of characters.<
br />
  “Hey,” Ella recognized them. “Those strange symbols are in Professor Blair’s notebook. I couldn’t read them. What are they?”

  “It’s rune, an ancient alphabet. I have a basic command of it.” Sedgwick was engrossed in the text but paused every several minutes to explain as he read.

  “First, to understand this book, you already know that Gargoyles are the stone carvings of creatures on buildings. You know that they’re actually ornate coverings of drain pipes installed to direct rainwater away from buildings so it doesn’t damage the stonework?”

  “Yes, we got that,” Ella said.

  “The word Gargoyle comes from the French word “gargouille,” for throat. And a grotesque is a carved creature that is not a drain pipe.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Ty said.

  “One of the stories about the origin and mystical powers of gargoyles goes back some thirteen hundred years,” Sedgwick said. “There was a region in France that was terrorized by a fire-breathing dragon-monster with huge wings until a French nobleman killed it and mounted its head on a church to repel all evil forces.”

  “Is it true?” Ella asked.

  “No, it’s more a legend.”

  Sedgwick continued reading for several long minutes before explaining.

  “There are many myths and beliefs about gargoyles and grotesques: One holds that they were created to protect churches from evil, expelling all that is vile by vomiting the “bad water of the soul.” Some people theorize that during medieval times, gargoyles were meant to frighten people to go to church by indicating the end of the world was near.”

  “That would fit with what we saw at the cathedral,” Ty said.

  “Other myths hold that gargoyles possess magical, mystical powers; that they come to life at night while humans sleep to protect them, or, to eat them, or steal away their children, or to plot the demise of humanity.”

  “That all sounds scary,” Ella said.

  “It’s all myth, legend and lore, but,” Sedgwick nodded to Professor Blair’s notebook and the ancient text he was reading. “Bertram scoffed at it all, until his research led to his discovery of a “gargoyle curse,” which he claims is outlined in this old text. Very intriguing.”

  “What’s the curse?” Ty asked

  “We haven’t come to it yet.”

  Sedgwick read for several more minutes before pausing.

  “Over a century ago in New York City, there were hundreds of carvers who created many of the gargoyles and grotesques we see today. According to this journal, a small secret group of the carvers practiced the black arts, the invocation of evil spirits.”

  Ty and Ella exchanged looks.

  “Hugo says that some of the carvers idolized or worshipped their creations as gods and instilled them with powers and hidden codes.”

  “Why do that?”

  “That’s a mystery. It could be a belief passed down from the 1st century BC to 5th century AD, but here, from what I can read, it’s more of a small group, or cult of carvers being obsessed with their work.”

  “So they put some sort of curse on the gargoyles?” Ty asked.

  “According to the journal, it seems that one of the leaders of the cult, Gephardt Kron, was a small man with a hunched back. His malformation resulted in his ridicule and mistreatment by people of all stations in life. He developed a visceral hatred for the world and channeled it into his carvings. Consequently, he put a gargoyle curse on New York City.”

  “So that’s what’s happened?” Ty said.

  Sedgwick read for several moments more before he explained.

  “To avenge his humiliation, Kron used the black arts to set in motion the awakening, or coming to life, of gargoyles and grotesques throughout the city. They would be led by an elite band of super-gargoyles in an uprising that would enslave the humans who had humiliated them, had deemed them hideous and had committed them to the eternal vomiting of their impurities. This revolution, or war against the humans, would come at the right time, when the stars aligned. It would erupt after more than a century of the creatures serving humans.

  “It would be the gargoyles’ time to rule, to subject humans to humiliation and domination. Now humans would serve as the hideous representation of a sub-form of life, reviled and imprisoned. Gargoyles would rule over the earth. It would lead to total dominance, the enslavement of all humans who would be forced to see truth and see the light through the gargoyle way.”

  “This is horrible,” Ella said. “What’s the gargoyle way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What powers did the carvers give the gargoyles?” Ty asked.

  Sedgwick continued studying the book.

  “The ability to transform themselves into human form, at will, and pass as human without detection, before transforming back to gargoyle form.”

  “This all makes sense!” Ty said. “The shape-shifting I’ve seen and the disappearances of all the people on tour buses, the fire, the ferry incident.”

  “No, hold on,” Sedgwick focused on Ty and Ella. “The curse is deeply fascinating, but it’s the stuff of fantasy, an allegory for revenge. Yes, it’s absolutely connected to Bertram’s obsession, his tragedy and a few odd coincidences that are likely the result of human error. But I caution you not to interpret this to be real, not for one second.”

  “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen through these!” Ty touched his goggles.

  Sedgwick took a moment to absorb what Ty had said.

  “Does the book say if there’s a way to stop the curse?” Ty asked.

  Sedgwick returned to the Mythos.

  “Possibly.” He turned page after page reading quickly. “Here, right here.” He placed his finger on a page. “Hugo says that he and his friend, another carver, upon learning of Kron’s curse, consulted an expert in black magic and devised a way to remove – “ Sedgwick pulled his head from the book at the sound of a faint, distant noise coming from where they’d entered the tunnel. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes,” Ty said, “but don’t stop, you have to continue!”

  “Yes, of course.” Sedgwick’s brow creased, he shook his head. “No, I can’t read it. The details are in a complicated form of runic. This particular passage is too complex for me.”

  Voices and footsteps echoed from the tunnel distracting Sedgwick.

  “I think someone’s coming,” he said.

  “Please,” Ella said. “How do we remove the curse?”

  Sedgwick shook his head.

  “We need help deciphering the passage on removing the curse,” he said, his fingers probing his jacket pockets. “Lotta-Maria Olofsson is a leading academic expert on rune and runic mythology. She was at today’s reception. She’s retired, getting on in years, but she’s very kind and helpful. She gave me her card. I’ve got it.”

  Again, Sedgwick was distracted by the sound of people approaching.

  “Here, hold this.” He passed the book and Olofsson’s business card to Ella. “I have to see who is coming. You two wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Ty and Ella watched Sedgwick hurry down the long aisle toward the tunnel.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Ty.”

  Ella pulled him from the aisle so they could watch out of sight.

  “Excuse me, may I help you?” Sedgwick’s voice echoed from the distance as Ty spotted Flora, the other librarian, with two police officers.

  More voices echoed with Sedgwick’s as the conversation quickly turned to an argument with Sedgwick shouting in protest.

  “What is this? Arrest me? Arrest me on what grounds? Take your hands off of me!”

  There was the chink of chains.

  Ella squeezed Ty’s shoulder and whispered.

  “What’s going on, Ty?”

  He slid on his goggles, adjusted the apertures, zoomed in, and through a prism of color and liquid light, saw that the officers were not human. Sedgwick and Flora were now both in handcuffs.

  “Gargoy
les!” he whispered back.

  One of the demons raised its snout and glared in Ty’s direction.

  “Run, Ella!”

  Ty pushed her down the narrow row toward the far wall and the fire escape. The sound of stone smashing against the floor grew louder as the beast rushed toward them.

  “Faster Ella. Faster!”

  18

  Spears of daylight pierced the iron mesh of the fire escape a few yards ahead. Ty and Ella climbed the stairs to the door as the gargoyle’s thudding resounded off of the underground walls behind them.

  “He’s getting closer Ella, hurry!”

  Adrenaline pumping, Ty slammed his shoulder against the steel door. Sprinkles of dirt cascaded on him as he surfaced to blue sky, fresh air and the welcome chaos of midtown traffic.

  They’d surfaced in a fragrant flower garden near a dedication plaque on the west side of Bryant Park. A startled group of gaping Japanese tourists took pictures.

  Ty and Ella ran to the far side of the carousel where they blended in with the dozens of families surrounding the ride. Amid the huffing pipe organ and squeals of happy children, and through the sailing horses, Ty and Ella turned to see that a “cop” had now surfaced in the garden. The tourists were pointing in conflicting directions, giving them a few more precious moments.

  Ty and Ella ran through the trees to 40th Street West, gasping as they talked.

  “What’s going to happen with Mr. Sedgwick?” Ella asked.

  “They’ll take him away like my parents, like the others.”

  “What could they be doing with them?”

  “I don’t know. I just hope they’re alive.”

  “How did they find us, Ty? How?”

  “I don’t know, I gotta think.” He looked back. “Good. The freak went the wrong way.”

  They were nearly breathless as they zigzagged toward Times Square. Ella still held the Mythos book and Lotta-Maria Olofsson’s card.

  “We’ve got to find this Lotta-Maria person to translate the old language so we can remove the curse! But there’s no address or email, just a number on her card.” Ella reached for her phone. “I’m calling it now!”