Tom picked up a can and sniffed. “Christ, he was eating human meat.”
“How can you tell?” Father Xavier asked.
“My sense of smell has heightened.” Engraved on the bottom of the can was a fancy letter M. “It’s from the Meraux Cannery.” Tom crushed the tin in his fist. His blood singed at the thought that Avery Pendleton and his officers had associated with the Cannery Cannibal.
A huffing sound came from the kitchen. Tom pushed open the door and found Hysmith hunched over the dead butler, tearing strings of meat from the Cree Indian’s throat. The lieutenant’s rail-thin body and misshapen head resembled a praying mantis in a red uniform.
Tom aimed his pistol, but Hysmith moved too fast, scampering on all fours out a side door. Tom chased the spindly-legged lieutenant down the stairs. He, it, roared as Tom fired shots, hitting the wall and banister. Before he could get off another shot, Hysmith bolted out the front door.
Tom ran outside, into the raging blizzard. “Lieutenant!”
Hysmith vanished in a bank of white fog that covered the fort. Only a few rooftops were visible now. Tom stopped halfway down the front steps. Wind whipped his hair and clothes, freezing his extremities. Snow pelted his face. Lt. Hysmith howled from somewhere in the storm. Tom hurried back inside and shut the door. He brought down the bar that barricaded the door.
Father Xavier came down the stairs. “The officers turned faster than I expected.”
Tom pulled out his key to the cellar. “Come, Father. We have to find Pendleton.”
195
The canoe filled with a band of Ojibwa braves paddled upriver against the storm. Anika chopped at the rapids with her oar. Snow flew into her eyes, making her squint. She watched the shoreline. As twilight faded, the forest grew darker.
“That’s where I saw the wiitigo,” she pointed toward the riverbank. “Kunetay was among them.”
Swiftbear said, “They are upstream now. Moving toward the fort.”
“How do you know?” Anika said.
“Hawk medicine gives me vision from the sky.”
Like Anika’s grandmother, Swiftbear had been born with a veil of skin over his eyes. He had the gift of second sight and could see through the eyes of animals. Hawk, who circled the sky, was his favorite totem. Anika wished she had been born with such a gift. But for her, practicing medicine had always been difficult. She knew a few spells to ward away evil manitous, but she had yet to discover the power to call upon the help of the spirit world as the elders of the Mediwiwin did in their ceremonies.
Anika was grateful to have such a powerful shaman as her uncle to journey with her. She prayed to Great Spirit that they reached the fort in time.
196
Tom unlocked the cellar door. A dusty chamber with a dirt floor stretched off into an impenetrable void. There were no windows down here. The ground floor acted as a vault. Avery Pendleton was somewhere in the multi-roomed maze that stretched the length of Noble House. Tom had visions of a spindly predator crouched in the darkness, waiting to pounce upon its prey. He cautioned Father Xavier to keep close. The priest carried his black bag and dagger-cross. Tom had the second dagger-cross on his hip, but preferred to carry his pistol. They had to exorcise Pendleton’s demon before the chief factor fully turned like the others. Tom hoped they weren’t too late.
He entered cautiously with the exorcist a step behind. Tom’s oil lamp lit up numerous barrels and crates. Doorways led off in both directions. The powdery earth floor had too many boot prints to follow a trail.
A sound echoed from the room to Tom’s left.
“This way.” He led Father Xavier between pallets stacked with pelts—beaver, raccoon, muskrat, rabbit, otter, deer, and fox. The bounty of Pendleton Fur Trading Company. A rack of hanging wolf furs with the heads intact stared with hollow eyes. From each pelt, Tom smelled the musky scent of the skinned animal. His mouth salivated. His mind filled with images of chasing a deer through the woods, pouncing on the prey, tearing into its nape. He saw other creatures in this vision, half-human, half-animal, as Tom feasted among a pack of windigos. And then he saw the face of the Beast with antlers. Feeling dizzy, Tom stumbled and gripped one of the fur stacks for balance. A hand touched his shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” whispered Father Xavier.
“More illusions. The demon’s making me think like an animal.” Tom’s stomach ached. “Christ, the hunger’s getting worse.”
“Keep drinking,” the priest urged.
Tom sipped from his canteen. The throat-burning liquid reminded him of his mission. He gripped Father Xavier’s wrist that was holding the dagger-cross. “If it comes down to it, Father, I want you to use this.”
“As long as we stick together, I won’t let the demon turn you.” The priest gesticulated the cross in front of Tom. He spoke something in Latin.
“You can exorcise me later.” Tom kept walking. “We must first find Pendleton.”
They continued exploring the dark cellar. Candlelight glowed up ahead. Tom entered what looked to be some sort of ceremonial room with pagan statues and benches that faced an altar. A fire burned in a large hearth.
Tom’s stomach knotted as he saw a large bed with chains dangling from the posts. The officers have been making women do sexual things down in the cellar, Anika had said. Another wall was covered in whips.
Tom’s throat filled with hot bile. He stepped into a ceremonial chamber lit by several torches perched on iron poles. Avery Pendleton was standing at an altar and appeared to be praying to male and female deities.
Tom pointed his pistol at his boss’ back. “What the hell is all this?”
Pendleton turned around. The torch flames flickered shadows across his skeletal face. His skin had turned so transparent that all of his veins and arteries were visible. One of his irises reflected the light like a wolf. He frowned as Tom and Father Xavier stood shoulder to shoulder, holding out a pistol and cross.
“This chamber is off limits,” Pendleton snarled. “Both of you, go back upstairs.”
Tom pointed to the stained mattress on the four-poster bed. “You and your officers were sexually abusing women down here, weren’t you?”
“That’s none of you goddamned concern, Inspector.”
“It bloody well is when there’s a murder. Three months ago you killed a teenage girl. That’s why your employees cursed you, isn’t it?”
Pendleton started to protest, but instead waved his hand in gesture of concession. “Actually, it’s much more complicated than that. Those men had a vendetta against us long before that girl’s death. And for the record, it was Lt. Hysmith who killed her, not me.”
“I don’t give a damn about Hysmith, you sick son of a bitch. Tell me about these men.” Tom held up the photo of two dozen gentlemen in top hats.
Pendleton’s eyes widened. “Inspector, you have no business snooping in my—”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me you knew Gustave Meraux?”
“You wouldn’t understand—”
Tom cocked his pistol. “Answer me!”
“Bloody well then!” Pendleton folded his arms. “If you must know…we are all members of a secret fraternity called the Hell Fire Club.”
197
The Hell Fire Club. Tom swallowed hard when he heard the name. As a teenager apprenticing with his father in London, Tom had learned about a secret society of elite aristocrats who gathered for drinking, orgies with prostitutes, and all sorts of debauchery. The Hell Fire Club had been founded around 1750 in England by a rebellious man named Sir Francis Dashwood. He was a womanizing rake and loved to throw lewd parties with other wealthy men. The club’s meeting place was a Cistercian monastery called Medmenham Abbey, near Marlow. Above the door was the phrase, “Do as thou wilt.” Secret rituals were performed in caves beneath West Wycombe Hill. According to rumors, naked women were used to represent nuns in Black Masses.
Tom said, “The Hell Fire Club was rumored to have disbanded in the late 1700s.”
“And all of your officers are members,” Tom said.
Pendleton nodded. “As well as other business owners.”
“And the Masquerade parties?” Father Xavier asked. “Is that how you engage with the Devil?”
“We aren’t Devil worshippers,” Pendleton said. “The club’s meetings are nothing more than high society having a jolly good time. We indulge in wine, women, and pagan rituals to honor the Druids.” He looked at his altar statues. “We worship Bacchus and Venus. It was Gustave who took up an interest in conjuring demons.”
Tom looked at the group portrait—Gustave standing on the front row, wearing a suit and top hat, a sinister smile. “How could you associate with such a monster?”
Pendleton said, “Inspector, you only knew Gustave as a mass murderer, but before he went insane, he was a charismatic libertine and well-liked among his peers.”
“Then what made him become the Cannery Cannibal?” Tom asked.
Pendleton exhaled. “It all started ten years back, when Lt. Hysmith, Walter, Percy, and myself did some fur trading with the Iroquois Indians. They are well known for cannibalizing their enemies. The Iroquois taught us that human flesh contains a spiritual life force that can be absorbed when eaten. It would give us more power and sexual potency, they promised.”
“And you ate human meat?” Tom asked.
“We were adventure seekers, willing to try anything once. The Iroquois were right, our sexual appetites increased, as did our feeling invincible. After we returned to Montréal, I met Gustave. He told me about a club that engaged parties where any desire can be fulfilled. The four of us joined. We told our new brothers about our eating human meat with the Iroquois. Gustave became fascinated with the idea and began bringing soup tins to the parties. He called the marinated human meat viande de pourvoir. It was considered a delicacy, like caviar and tartar, only the power felt from eating human meat was highly addictive. We consumed it voraciously and demanded more.”
“You fucking cannibal!” Tom gripped the lapels of Pendleton’s fur coat. “You helped Gustave kill all those women!”
“My club had nothing to do with those murders!”
“Bollocks, he was supplying you human meat!” Tom shoved the barrel into his neck.
Father Xavier gripped his shoulder. “Don’t, Tom, you’ll only strengthen the demon inside you. It feeds off your anger.”
Tom released Pendleton and backed away.
The chief factor straightened his jacket. “Gustave told us he was getting the meat from the Iroquois. It was only after his arrest that we learned he was abducting prostitutes and canning their meat at his cannery.”
Tom squeezed the handle of his pistol until his knuckles ached. It took all his restraint not to bludgeon Pendleton’s ghoulish face. He had known Gustave was the Cannery Cannibal and failed to report this to the police. If Avery had, Beth would still be alive today. He glared at Pendleton. “You son of a bitch, you have been lying to me this whole time.”
“Be sensible, Tom.” The chief factor raised his palms. “I was only protecting my interests.”
Father Xavier said, “It was Gustave who summoned the legion to attack your forts, wasn’t it?”
Pendleton nodded.
“Why is he coming after you?” Tom asked.
“Three years ago Gustave and I became bitter rivals. He tried to overthrow my leadership and turn our club into a Satanic cult. In one of our rituals, he used that skull. After that, Gustave told everyone to call him the Dark Messiah. My brothers and I attempted to have Gustave murdered. But he escaped and went underground. A few months later you arrested him.
“Shortly after, I received a letter threatening that Legion would hunt down every member of the Hell Fire Club.”
Tom looked at the demon skull on the altar. “How did that skull end up here?”
“Gustave wasn’t working alone. He had formed a cult. They’ve been sabotaging the forts.”
198
Upstairs, an axe blade split the front door of Noble House. An arm reached through the hole and lifted the bar across the door. Cloaked in his new human skin, Gustave entered Noble House with the frosty wind at his back. He ascended the stairs. His blood-covered hand stained the banister with red mucus. His axe blade tapped the stairs with each passing step.
At the fourth floor, the Pendleton home smelled of death and echoed with the sounds of chittering. In the dining hall, rats and ravens were feasting on the bloated corpse of Walter Thain. His stomach erupted with gases. In the kitchen, the same frenzy was happening to the remains of the butler. While there was still plenty of flesh on the dead men’s bones, Gustave was not hungry for meat. His lusts were fevered more by the floral scent of perfume that wafted from down the hall. Feeling fire in his loins, he entered the study. Inside Avery Pendleton’s secret room, a dozen masks hung on the wall. Gustave pulled down an Iroquois warrior’s mask. He waved a hand over it, changing the pattern to match the dreams of his beloved.
199
In the watchtower, Private Wickliff jerked at the sounds of howls coming from the forest. He opened one of the portals. Snow was falling heavily now, the wind blasting frosty air into his lungs. The white fog pressed against the fort.
Where are the others? Wickliff wondered. He hadn’t seen or heard from his lieutenant since the birds attacked. Nor had he heard so much as a peep from Private Bowen in the corner tower. He called out to his mate, but the wind was so loud it snatched his words.
Wickliff opened the side door and crossed the landing that stretched between the watchtowers. The portals at the corner shack were pitch dark.
“Bowen, are you in there?” Wickliff peered into the portal. He heard the sound of chittering and chewing in the darkness. A rodent leaped onto the windowsill. A bloated thing with diseased white skin and a ropy tail. The rabid rat hissed and foamed at the mouth, baring bloodstained teeth.
A cry of pain issued from beyond the dark portal. A soldier’s arm covered in more hairless rats reached out. Bowen’s half-eaten skull jutted out the window. “Wickliffffff!”
“Oh, shit!” Wickliff turned, slipping, and raced back toward the center watchtower. A column of white-eyed rats scurried after him.
200
Willow woke up from her slumber. Her room was pitch dark. “Avery?” she called out. “What’s happening?”
Her last memory was entering Hospital House and seeing the man from her dreams offer her a snort of cocaine. After that, nothing.
She tried to rise but her arms and legs were tied to the bedposts. “Avery!”
Down the hall the floorboards creaked. Metal scraped along the wall. A flame suddenly flared up in the darkness and lit an oil lamp on a table near the door.
Willow looked past the foot of the bed. From the gloom of the hallway formed the shape of a man wearing a tribal mask—white with red circles around the eyes and mouth. “Hello, Little Lamb.”
Willow’s heart fluttered. Her dream lover had returned.
She gasped, “It was you all along.”
“Yes, my love.” The man entered her boudoir and leaned an axe against the wall. “I have wanted you since the day we met.”
Heart beating wildly, Willow closed her eyes. The man from her dreams gripped her shoulders. She moaned. He tore open her nightgown. She arched her back. Then, what felt like sharp blades carved into her bare bosom.
Willow cried out. In her dreams there had never been pain. She opened her eyes.
Things squirmed behind the man’s mask. His eyes were chasms of infinite blackness. “We will rule our legion together, you and I.”
“Nooooooo!” Willow ripped off his mask and screamed at the sight of his face.
201
At the front of the fort, Wickliff fled from the rabid rats. His boots slid along ice that covered the stockade’s landing. He gripped the spike-tippe
d wall to keep from falling. A rodent leaped onto his leg and bit his calf.
Wickliff screamed and swatted the critter off. Two more rats ran up his legs. He hurried along the landing. The blizzard howled. Snow blurred his vision. Just outside the fort he saw shapes moving within the fog. Creatures clawed at the front gate. A giant with a long, white arm reached a skeletal hand over the fence. Talons swooped, ripping Wickliff’s coat. He dashed back into his watchtower and shut the door.
“Oh, Jesus!” He fought back rats trying to climb in through the open portal. He closed the panel, crushing several rodents.
Heart hammering, Wickliff slid down on his rump, praying.
The shrieks outside were maddening. Down below sounded the clack of a bar being lifted and the gate’s double doors swinging open. What followed was the thundering footfalls of a stampede, as if a herd of cattle had been let into the fort. Directly below Wickliff, someone climbed up the ladder and knocked on the trapdoor.
“Bugger off!” Wickliff screamed, aiming his rifle at the floor.
“It’s Lt. Hysmith. Open up!”
“Lieutenant?” Wickliff felt confused. Inside the fort, beasts were howling.
The hammering rattled the floorboards. “Open the goddamned door, soldier!”
Wickliff removed the bar. The trapdoor flew open, knocking him back. Dozens of squealing rats flooded the tower. Wickliff backed to a corner, stomping and kicking. The horde crawled up his legs and chest, a dozen greedy mouths biting into him.
“Hungrryyy…” A beastly form dressed in a red soldier’s uniform climbed into the tower.
Paralyzed with fright, Wickliff watched helplessly as Lt. Hysmith burrowed his monstrous face amidst the feeding rats.
Part Twenty
Legion
For Jesus said unto him, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”
And Jesus asked him, “What is thy name?”
Dead of Winter Page 36
