Shadows Over London: A Shadow Council Archives Novella

by James Palmer

  A chill fled up Abberline’s spine. He looked at Burton, who returned the policeman’s gaze. The look in Burton’s eyes told Abberline all he needed to know. The inspector had been seeking some indication that John Gingham was insane, but everything about Burton’s face said the man was telling the absolute truth.

  John Gingham was an older man, probably around Burton’s age, though he could pass for far older. He had little if any facial hair and, despite all his talk of wealth and prosperity, appeared as if he had slept in his clothes for ages. A tattered and dirty slouch hat was stuffed over his misshapen head, and his skin had a pale, scaly pallor. The smell of fish was strong in his vicinity, which mingled unpleasantly with the other smells of sour alcohol and sweat coming from all the unwashed bodies crowded around them.

  A few of the men stepped away, laughing, giving Burton and Abberline room to shove in and replace them. A couple other men behind Gingham followed suit.

  “Don’t believe me?” said Gingham. “Fine. But you’ll see. Afore this is over, everyone will see. The whole of Londontown will get what’s comin’, what those of us in the Esoteric Order of Dagon have known all along. Prosperity not only in this life, but in the next. Why, I’ll be drinkin’ to my health over yer dried up bones.” He uttered a throaty cackle, revealing a mouthful of rotted teeth that reminded Abberline of broken tombstones. Still more people moved away, shaking their heads or cursing Gingham for a drunken fool.

  “We’d like to know more,” said Abberline.

  Gingham looked up at them, studying their faces intently. “You’re serious,” he said at last.

  “Of course,” said Abberline.

  “Good!” said Gingham, looking around furtively. Seeing that no one was still engaged in the conversation, he reached into a pocket and pulled out a small leather sack. Opening it, he reached inside and produced two oddly shaped and strangely colored ingots. Abberline recognized them immediately as being made from the same gold as the grotesque tiara in Mycroft Holmes’ possession. Abberline and Burton took the proffered ingots and quickly secreted them away.

  “Wise gents,” said John Gingham. “These fools wouldn’t believe me, but they’d waylay me fer sure if they knew about those.”

  “What is this?” asked Abberline.

  “Consider it a payment, gents,” said Gingham. “For work not yet completed.”

  “You have a job for us then?” asked Burton.

  “In a manner of speakin’,” said Gingham, returning the sack to his coat pocket. He clapped both of them mightily on the shoulder. “Yer job is to listen and pay attention. And your take will be a hunnerd times what you just received. What I gave I give freely, because it was freely given. Unnerstand?”

  “No,” said Abberline.

  Gingham fixed them with a tombstone grin. “You don’t have to struggle in the dark anymore, gents. Jus’ imagine it. No more sufferin’, no more want. And you can have it right here on Earth, right now. How does that sound to ya?”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Burton said, though Abberline detected the faintest edge of fear and caution in his voice.

  “That settles it then, gents. Ya need to join the Esoteric Order a’ Dagon. Let them gods I spoke about show ya what they can do.”

  “What do we have to do?” asked Abberline.

  “Be at the big church what burned two year ago in one hour. Show them this.” He produced two cards imprinted with the now-familiar elder sign. Gingham then clapped their shoulders again, squeezing hard as he did so. “Brothers,” he said before loping out of the pub.

  “These cultists certainly keep some late hours,” said Abberline when Gingham vanished from sight.

  “If you don’t want a lot of prying eyes,” said Burton, “the later the better. Do you know this church of his?”

  Abberline nodded. I think so. But it’s in a very dangerous part of the Cauldron.”

  “More dangerous than this?”

  “Afraid so. You want to turn back?”

  “No. Not when we’re so close. Lead the way.”

  The Esoteric Order of Dagon

  It was dark as they threaded their way through the narrow, unpaved streets, and the moon was obscured by pale clouds. The only light they had spilled from a small lantern that Burton had brought. The noxious smells of boiling tripe, slaughterhouses, back yard cows and pigs, and “night soil”—human excrement collected and used as fertilizer—hung cloying and disorienting, and several times Inspector Abberline had to stop to get his bearings before continuing onward. Once he produced a handkerchief from his pocket and clamped it to his nose.

  “Please,” said Burton. “Endure it if you can. You’re going to mark us as outsiders”

  “What?” said the policeman, his eyes watering from the stench that assaulted their nostrils. “How?”

  “East Enders are no doubt used to the smell.”

  They worked their way toward the river wharf, twisting through streets that could barely be called such. Burton saw few street signs or other markers. To navigate the Cauldron, he reasoned, one must get by on familiarity and dead reckoning, and he was glad the Inspector was as familiar with it as he was.

  As the full moon appeared from her shroud of gray clouds, Abberline pointed to a large dark shape hulking up ahead. “That’s it,” he whispered.

  Burton nodded. Their destination loomed. A large burned-out Catholic church, its spires had crumbled to near dust, its many gambreled roof caved in in places. But lamp and candlelight sputtered from within, and Burton and Abberline could hear inside its walls a low chanting.

  They stepped up the crumbling steps and through the ruined doorway. A large man wearing a hooded white robe loomed in the shadows. Burton and Abberline showed him the cards emblazoned with the elder sign that Gingham had given them. Saying nothing, he gestured with his outstretched right arm toward the interior of the ruined church.

  They could smell burnt wood and warm candle wax as they moved cautiously toward the nave, where a cluster of white-robed figures hunched on half-burnt, rotting pews. Beyond them, in the right-hand corner, stood the baptismal font, which had been turned into a source of warmth. Burton watched as a robed attendant tossed moldering hymnals and bits of splintered wood into the growing pyre that had been made there.

  What was left of the ruined tabernacle was completely covered in glowing candles, sputtering furtively. Trails of many-colored wax ran down its length, transforming it into a lurid work of art.

  Suspended from wires above hung a grotesque sculpture carved crudely from a block of maple wood. Burton and Abberline stared up at the blasphemous visage of some abhorrent entity that seemed to be part fish, part frog. A thing of bulbous, staring eyes and a long, thin mouth. Front appendages ended in stumpy webbed, claw like hands. And it chilled Richard Francis Burton to his marrow.

  Another robed figure, this one a woman, gestured for Burton and Abberline to take a seat in the last pew on the left side of the nave. Behind the woman sat John Gingham, also in a white robe. Burton and Abberline sat on the creaking wood and watched as a figure emerged from somewhere behind the hideous sculpture. He was garbed in a yellow robe decorated with all manner of crude sigils, including the now familiar elder sign. He lifted his hood and smiled at the small audience, his face ghastly in the candlelight, for it was covered with a grotesque wooden mask, the irregular angles of which were cast in weird shadows by the candlelight.

  “Who on earth is that?” whispered Abberline.

  “That’s the King in Yellow,” said the woman. “Now shhhh!”

  “Welcome, brothers and sisters,” said the King in Yellow, his voice echoing strangely off the burned brick walls of the decimated church. “You come here tonight a member of the great unwashed, having failed in your pursuit of the almighty dollar. But you will leave here as kings and queens of the Earth.”

  The huge open space filled with the echo of a multitude of excited whispers which the man before the tabernacle silenced with a look before continuing. �
�Up to now you have lived in filth and squalor. But those days are no more. Those that live in the deeps will end your suffering. You will become masters of men, and live in the House of Dagon forever and ever.”

  This last remark created more excited whispers from the audience. Burton stared at the man, thinking he should know him from somewhere. Some of the phrases he used, “the great unwashed,” “the pursuit of the almighty dollar,” sounded strangely familiar.

  “This bloke is completely mad,” whispered Abberline.

  “Perhaps. But we need to know what his plans are.”

  The chatter amongst the small crowd had just started to die down when Burton and Abberline felt a familiar strong, cold grip on their shoulders.

  “Excuse me, brothers and sisters,” John Gingham shouted above the din. “We have some folks here who should not be. I heard them call you mad, sire.”

  “Now see here,” said Abberline before Burton silenced him with his gaze.

  “Who dares interrupt these holy proceedings?” asked the King in Yellow.

  “I do, sir. John Gingham. I invited these two here, but they may be imposters.” As if testing his hypothesis, Gingham yanked on the fake beard appliance Abberline was wearing. “Ow!” he cried as it tore away from his face.

  “See? They ain’t who they claim to be!”

  “Run, Fred,” said Burton.

  “What?”

  The explorer jumped to his feet, twisted around and punched John Gingham hard in the mouth in one smooth motion. “Run!”

  The police inspector proved faster than he looked. He bounded over a crumbling pew and beyond the reaching arms of some angry, confused cultists in seconds.

  “What is the meaning of this?” said the King in Yellow. “I will have order in the house of Dagon!”

  “Oh, stuff your sea-god rot,” Abberline shouted as he punched a robed figure who got too close for his liking. Three more cultists grabbed the police inspector from behind, subduing him.

  Burton dove in, fists flying, knocking cultists out of the way. They were just poor people. Some of them cutthroats to be sure, but none expecting a scuffle this night. Burton managed to fight his way into the aisle between the two rows of pews. Standing in front of the tabernacle was a seething King in Yellow, hands clenched into fists though he clearly had no idea what he should do next. He didn’t have to do anything, as his followers, stirred into action at last, pounced upon Burton, pummeling him with their fists and limiting his movement.

  “You’re through, whoever you are,” said the explorer as he grappled with them. “Whatever this is, it ends tonight. The police are on their way.”

  The masked, robed figure laughed. “You’re bluffing, sir. You two fools have no idea what you’ve stumbled onto this night. But I am sorry, gentlemen. I can’t let you alert the authorities.”

  Abberline thrashed in the cultists’ grip. Burton watched helplessly as one of the biggest men he had ever seen came toward him with a raised pitchfork.

  Challenger

  Burton tried to break free and bolt, but there were too many of them, and he wished he had brought a gun.

  Fool! Not going heeled into the Cauldron.

  Abberline continued to writhe in the grasp of the masked man’s followers, but it was no use.

  “You should not have come here,” said the man called the King in Yellow. “Instead of acolytes, you will become sacrifices. Tonight you shall be offered to Father Dagon and Mother Hydra.”

  “Not so fast, you yellow blighter.”

  Burton, Abberline, and everyone else turned at the sound. A large, bearded man in poorly fitting cult robes stood brandishing a pair of pistols.

  “Challenger!” Burton smiled.

  The big zoologist raised a pistol into the air and fired, the loud report sending cultists scurrying in every direction. The men holding Burton and Abberline released them, and Burton gave a fleeing cultist a solid punch in the mouth for good measure.

  Abberline chased one of them around the flaming baptismal font as Challenger fired more shots, this time into the crowd.

  “Stop it!” said Burton, ducking behind a crumbling pew. “You’ll hit their leader, whoever he is. We need him alive.”

  The King in Yellow screamed as the first shot went off and ran up onto the tabernacle, pushing one of his cult members and knocking him into two more. The three robed degenerates fell in a crimson heap.

  Challenger joined Burton, a playful sneer on his bearded face. His twin barrels smoked, the acrid smell of gunpowder stinging.

  “He’s getting away,” said Challenger. “Let’s go.”

  Burton and Challenger moved toward the tabernacle.

  “Frederick,” Burton called to the policeman. “Don’t let him get away.”

  The inspector nodded, looking around behind the abhorrent statue rocking back and forth overhead.

  One of the cult members came up behind Abberline, a heavy wooden post raised over his head like a cudgel.

  “Fred, look out!” Burton called.

  Abberline turned just as Challenger squeezed off another shot, hitting the man dead center in his chest. He stumbled backward, dropping his weapon and falling onto the burning baptismal font, flames alighting his loose-fitting robes. His weight pushed the thing over, sending burning kindling into the pews, which quickly turned the entire space into one vast pyre.

  “Where the hell is he?” said Challenger.

  Burton peered through the growing smoke. “There,” he pointed. “There’s a passage behind this damned tabernacle.”

  The three men watched as the yellow-robed figure disappeared behind a panel in the wall.

  “Go!” said Challenger.

  Their way was blocked by more fleeing cult members, who somehow had the presence of mind to protect their master’s escape. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be armed. Burton punched his way through them, and Challenger used his guns as twin cudgels when they were empty of ammunition. Abberline did his part in spectacular fashion. Burton watched, amazed, as the inspector felled one of the cultists with a throat chop, then kicked another in the groin.

  “Bismillah!” cried Burton as they reached the no longer secret passage.

  “It’s called Bartitsu,” said Abberline. “The art of gentlemanly combat.”

  Burton arched an eyebrow. “You must show me sometime.”

  “Later, gentlemen,” said Challenger as he opened the thin wooden door. “Our prey is escaping.”

  Abberline slid into the passage, followed by Burton and Challenger.

  The passage was little more than a tunnel, low-ceilinged and rough hewn. They all ducked to move through it, which made for slow progress. Burton fumbled with their lantern, getting it lit and passing it up to Abberline.

  The tunnel ran straight, and after ten minutes of painful crouching, they reached a wall with a similar crude door. Abberline pushed on it, and the trio emerged in a darkened tenement.

  The place was dank and foul-smelling. They heard the faint scurry of rats, and vermin bulged behind the crumbling, faded wallpaper.

  “Where is he?” said Burton.

  “We should search this building,” said Abberline.

  Challenger winced as he stretched, his back creaking loudly. He doffed his cult robes and tossed them to the floor.

  “I’m glad to see you,” said Burton to the zoologist. “Now what are you doing here?”

  “Mycroft Holmes’ invitation did not fall on deaf ears,” said Challenger as he followed Burton and Abberline from room to room in their search for the mysterious King in Yellow. “I just wanted the pretentious fop to think I was ignoring him.”

  Abberline went up a set of rickety stairs to check the upper floors.

  “I must admit my curiosity got the better of me,” Challenger continued. “I thought investigating this weird cult would explain the changes I’ve witnessed since our return. Changes no one else seems to register.”

  “Like the madness of the mediums never occurring?”
said Burton.

  Challenger nodded. “That was one thing, yes. But my wife is also…different. Less understanding of my…idiosyncrasies.”

  Burton turned his head to conceal a grin.

  “I know I am not the easiest man to get along with, but she acts as if this is somehow new to her. It’s as if I came home to a stranger. Until I realized it is I who is the stranger to her.”

  “We changed something when we went back through Time,” said Burton. “My fiancée Isabel is…gone. Disappeared in Hyde Park shortly before I returned. I have no clear memory of this. Except…” His mouth tried to say something else but failed.

  “I remember returning home to the news, but I also remember going to my club as soon as we disembarked, and finding my friends and colleagues transmogrified into hideous creatures. A hallucination obviously, but…”

  “I know what you mean,” said Challenger. “I have had similar experiences. Almost like deja vu.”

  Burton nodded. The pain of her disappearance was once again gnawing at his breast.

  Challenger placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am glad our paths have crossed once more.”

  “No one up there,” said Abberline, bounding down the stairs. He stopped next to Burton, staring up at the large man who had rescued them.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  “Fred, Professor Challenger. Professor, Chief Inspector Frederick George Abberline.”

  Challenger gave the policeman a hateful sneer of a smile. “So you’re Mycroft’s lap dog, hey?”

  “Nice to meet you, too,” said the policeman. “I’ve read about your South American expedition in the papers.”

  “And what did you think?” asked Challenger.

  “I think you’re a con artist,” said Abberline. “Or bollocks.”

  Challenger stared down at him for a long moment before bellowing laughter. He clapped both men on the shoulder, and in another moment Burton and Abberline were laughing too, even though they had no idea why. It wasn’t an appropriate response after what they had just been through, but at this moment it felt like the most appropriate response in the world.