Crimson Shore

by Douglas Preston

  Suddenly, a figure leapt up onto the hood, then scurried crab-like down the front grille just as a flash of lightning brilliantly illuminated the vehicle. In a moment, it was dark again. But in that moment, Pendergast saw something freakish and bizarre, something so far out of his experience as to be inexplicable: a tall, bony, emaciated man, completely naked, covered with countless cuts and scars, with a bald head, a dog’s face, and a long, forked tail with a hairy knob at the end.

  And then it was gone.

  Pulling out his Les Baer, Pendergast raced toward the patrol car. He saw the creature moving away at the speed of a running dog, then loping off the road—heading toward the wildlife refuge and Crow Island.

  He turned his attention to the squad car. The windshield was opaque, coated with blood from the inside. The back door, however, was open, its window broken and missing. Grasping the frame, he leaned in. His flashlight beam revealed Chief Mourdock. The man was sprawled across the front seat. He was all too obviously dead.

  Pendergast withdrew from the car and jogged to the spot where the unearthly creature had left the road. Gun at the ready, he followed the tracks through the sand to the fence edging the wildlife preserve, which the creature had evidently leapt over. On the far side the tracks continued, straight as a compass line. Pendergast paused long enough to mentally visualize a map of the area, quickly realizing that the straight line ended at Oldham.

  Constance was at Oldham.

  He broke into a run, acutely aware that the creature was twice as fast as he was.

  49

  Constance moved cautiously through the labyrinth of tunnels. While dirty, stinking, and encrusted with niter, she could tell that these passageways had not been abandoned. Quite the opposite: they had been kept up with fresh mortar and braced with wooden beams at various weak points. Some of the bracing was so recent that the wood was still oozing pine sap. While the entrance had been carefully left looking derelict and deserted, these underground tunnels themselves were clearly well-used.

  What were they for? And who were the people using them? She had ideas about that.

  In attempting to follow the sound of the crying child, she had managed to lose it in the winding passageways. The tunnels, and the movement of air through them, did deceiving things to sound, magnifying it in one place and canceling it in another. As her light flashed over the walls, she saw—sometimes scratched into the niter, other times written in chalk or paint—symbols not unlike the Tybane Inscriptions: witchcraft symbols she recognized from the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, but of an even more complex and sophisticated nature. What before had been merely suspicion now hardened into conviction: these tunnels, she realized, must be in use by a cult, not Wiccans but real witches—black witches.

  She paused, considering the cruel irony. The rumors and legends, dismissed by almost everyone, had a basis in truth: witches had indeed fled from Salem during the trials, established a colony in the marshes, and then moved here, to Oldham, when the marsh colony proved unsafe. The entrance to these tunnels lay underneath the pseudo-church—what better way to cover up their Sunday rituals from prying eyes?

  The residents of Oldham, she knew, had moved to Dill Town seventy-five years before, and many had migrated from there into Exmouth proper—where they undoubtedly remained even now, living apparently normal lives, but retreating here for their dark rituals. Constance wondered which of the numerous townsfolk she had met since arriving here were secretly part of this coven.

  Now she paused to examine her own emotions. She was aware of feeling, rather than fear, a kind of curiosity. These dark tunnels, which in the average person would elicit great anxiety, were not that different from some of the passages that ran beneath the old mansion on Riverside Drive—save for the vile stench and the unsettling symbols that covered the walls.

  She listened intently. She could hear the crying again now, the faint echoes strangely distorted by the underground twists and turns. She moved slowly in their direction. The sounds slowly grew clearer, and now she could hear a second voice: hoarse, ragged, but somehow motherly.

  The tunnel made a sharp turn and passed beneath a low arch—and then Constance found herself in a long corridor, broad and high-ceilinged, with a ceremonial feeling to it. The walls had been plastered and were excised with demonic symbols, every square inch carved in precise, maniacal detail with symbols the likes of which she had never seen, even in the Daemonum or the numerous other occult books into which she had delved. An even fouler smell hung in the air here, of filth and feces and suppurating flesh. Along the walls stood small stone reservoirs, brimming with oil, each with a floating wick. Clearly this was used for some kind of processional. But a processional to where? The corridor ended in a stone wall.

  She heard a girl’s cry, much louder and closer. She turned toward it, startled. The sound had come from behind her, past a low archway leading from the long corridor. She slowly approached the archway and shone her light down the passage beyond. It was short and ended in a stone cell, barred with rusty iron and locked with a shiny brass padlock. Inside the cell huddled what at first glance looked like two heaps of filthy rags, topped by brushy, tangled hair. As she stepped closer, staring in horrified fascination, Constance realized she was looking at human beings—an old woman and a girl. Mother and daughter? The way they were huddled together in the chilly cell made it appear so. They stared at her, suddenly hushed, their hands raised against her light, smudged eyes wide with fear. Their faces were so dirty, Constance could not make out the features or even discern what color their skin was.

  She lowered her light and approached. “Who are you?”

  No answer; two silent stares.

  She seized the padlock and gave it a shake. “Where is the key?”

  This question, instead of receiving an answer, triggered an unintelligible wailing and sobbing from the girl, who stretched a hand out through the bars. Constance stepped forward to grasp it, the filth causing her to hesitate for just a moment. With a cry the girl seized the proffered hand and grasped it with tremendous strength, as if it were her only lifeline, and began babbling. It was not a language Constance understood, and after a moment she realized that, in fact, it wasn’t a language at all—just an outpouring of quasi-human vocalizations.

  The older woman remained eerily silent and passive, her face expressionless.

  “I can’t free you until you let go of my hand,” Constance said.

  As she pulled away, the girl kept up a frantic wailing. Exploring with the flashlight, Constance looked everywhere for a key—walls, ceiling, floor—nothing. Apparently, the jailers kept the key with them.

  Constance turned back to the cell, where the girl was still mumbling and weeping.

  “Stop that noise,” she said. “I’m going to get help.”

  More moaning. But the mother seemed to understand, and she placed a restraining hand on the girl, who fell silent.

  “Who are you?” Constance asked the mother. She spoke slowly, enunciating the words. “Why are you here?”

  A voice spoke from the darkness behind her. “I can answer that question.”

  50

  Bradley Gavin stood in the archway, his heart hammering in his chest. He was deeply shocked and surprised at finding Constance Greene in this most unexpected of places. She was dressed in a heavy, long, old-fashioned dress; her hair was wet and the dress sodden. He made a mighty effort to suppress his amazement, collect his thoughts, and project an air of calm and control. As his shock wore off, he felt a growing feeling of…what? A sense that fate had played a deep hand in this. A sense that the universe had created this opportunity, and now it was up to him to make good on it.

  He took a step forward. “Miss Greene. Constance. What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she said in a low voice. “What is this place? And who are these women?” She held a flashlight in one hand, and a wicked-looking stiletto in the other. He was impressed, even inspired, by her coolnes
s.

  “Good questions.” Gavin gestured, holding out his arm. “But this is not the most pleasant place for an explanation. May I show you something?”

  He offered his arm but she did not take it. Undaunted, he turned and walked back into the long central hallway, heading toward the cul-de-sac at the end. He was aware, with a tingling glow in his chest, that Constance was indeed following him. He paused at the far wall, pushed three loose bricks in, and slid wide the secret door and fastened it open. With a lighter he quickly circled the room, lighting the candles in each of the four sets of candelabras.

  Then he turned with a smile to face Constance.

  She did not run. She did not erupt in anger or become hysterical. She simply stared.

  Even though he had been there hundreds of times, he knew it was an impressive sight. In the center stood the altar, an ancient block of granite, dating back to the eleventh century, hidden behind a gauzy, hanging shroud; this altar, created in France, had been carried to England, and thence across the seas, hidden, transported from place to place, until it ended up here. Along its sides were Romanesque carvings of devils, polished by a thousand years of use. To one side sat a fantastically carven table, half as long as the altar. On its top were arranged a large silver cup set upon a linen cloth, along with lancets, scarificators, and other bloodletting tools.

  Illuminated in the wavering candlelight were the frescoed vaults of a pentagonal room, again depicting devils, gargoyles, ouroboros, Barbary apes, men and women, all cavorting in a kind of paradise of sin: a truly Boschian scene. Thick tapestries hung on the walls, decorated with forest images, flowers, and unicorns, also dating back to Romanesque times; and along the columns holding up the barrel ceiling were elaborately decorated alchemical symbols. The ceiling itself was hung with dozens of fine constructions made out of whittled bones bound up in twine, reminiscent of animals, birds, and beasts. Even in the still air they managed to endlessly sway and turn, as if alive and agitated, throwing raking shadows in the indirect candlelight. Ancient benches, polished by use, stood in serried ranks along the pentagonal walls of the room, and the floor was thick with layers of Persian rugs, some dating back three hundred years.

  Gavin watched Constance carefully. As he hoped, she was calmly taking it all in with those intense violet eyes, without hysteria or perturbation. He felt a swell of confidence that what was happening here was, in a way, ordained. This was one remarkable woman.

  He smiled. “Welcome.”

  “Welcome to what?” she asked in an even voice.

  “Before I go into that, may I ask how you got here?”

  No answer.

  “Let me guess, then: you’re here because you figured out the abandoned witches’ colony had not vanished, but moved to this spot. And you came to investigate. Am I right?”

  She did not react. God, it was hard to read her face, beyond those strangely quiet but intense eyes.

  “And now you’ve arrived at all this.” He spread his hands. “It must be very confusing.”

  Still she said nothing.

  “How to begin?” He gave a nervous laugh. This girl made him feel like a teenager again. “I don’t know how you did it, exactly, but your coming here is…a sign. It is without doubt a sign.”

  “A sign of what?”

  He looked at her beautiful, oddly impassive face. He sensed this woman was even deeper than he had believed. So much the better.

  “This, Constance, is our chamber of worship.”

  “Our chamber.”

  “Yes. Our chamber. And this is our altar.”

  “May I ask what religion?”

  “You may. We practice the oldest surviving religion on earth. The original religion. As you’ve no doubt guessed, we are witches.” He observed her face closely, but could not quite interpret the look that briefly crossed her face. “Real witches. Our worship goes back twenty thousand years.”

  “And those women you’ve brutalized?”

  “Not brutalized. Not at all. Please, give me a chance to explain before you judge. Constance, I’m sure you must realize that your coming here—and my arrival at the same time—is not an accident. Nor is it an accident that Carole failed to poison you with that chai tea of hers. She’s a jealous woman—but we’re off the subject.”

  Constance did not reply.

  “From the very beginning, I saw that you were one of those exceptional people you spoke of back at the Inn. Do you recall that conversation?”

  “Very well.”

  “I knew then that you could be one of us. We haven’t taken a new member into our family in two hundred years. It takes a very special person to understand who we are. You’re that person. There’s a rebellion in you, a yearning for freedom. I see in you the desire to live by your own rules.”

  “Indeed.”

  Gavin was amazed at how easy this was, how natural it felt. “And there’s a darkness in you.”

  “Darkness?”

  This was more than encouraging. “Yes, but a good kind of darkness. The darkness that brings light.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a witch. My parents were witches, my grandparents, going back half a dozen generations in Exmouth, and before that Oldham, the New Salem Marsh Colony, Salem, the British Isles, and so forth into the mists of time. I was born into this tradition just as naturally as Christians are born into their faith. Our practices may seem a little startling to an outsider, but so would a church service to someone who knew nothing of Christianity. I hasten to add that we’re not in opposition to Christianity. We believe in live and let live. We aren’t cruel people. For example, we never would have participated in that horrible mass murder of women and children on board that ship. That was done by so-called Christians.”

  Gavin paused, looking at her with curiosity, trying to peer into her mind. “Look at the beauty of this chamber, the ancient things in here, the sense of history and purpose. The corridors leading here, I know, can be off-putting—the blood and the smell and the rest. But you see, Constance, our Sabbat ceremony is free of euphemism. It involves real blood and real flesh in real sacrifice. And, I might add…real sensuality.”

  Again, her face betrayed nothing of her thoughts.

  He reached out to take her hand, and she allowed it. Her hand was cold and clammy, but he pressed it anyway.

  “I don’t want to force our beliefs on you. But let me tell you a little of our history and origin. I’m sure you know much of the story already: for seeking his freedom, Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven. But not into hell. They ended up right here on earth—and we are the Maleficarum, their spiritual descendants. Lucifer, the rebel angel, gives us the freedom to be and do what we wish.”

  “And you wish to convert me to these beliefs.”

  Gavin laughed, blushing despite himself. “You didn’t end up here, this night of all nights, by accident. You and I were guided here by forces greater than ourselves; forces we ignore at our peril.”

  “What kind of forces?”

  “Earlier tonight, two members of our community were supposed to have conducted a rare and extremely important sacrifice. However, it didn’t go as planned.”

  “What kind of sacrifice, exactly?”

  “We worship Lucifer, but we breed a mortal devil as the focus of our worship. He’s part demon, part human. His name is Morax and he has lived here, in these tunnels, for many years. He is a symbol, a spiritual gateway, a…a medium to help us communicate with the unseen world. But now, we’re in troublous times. Your friend Pendergast discovered and defiled our ancient settlement, removing important artifacts. That was a shock to the Daemonium, to our protectors. And Carole tells me you figured out that the witches’ colony didn’t die out as everyone believed, but instead moved south. Here, as a matter of fact. As a result, our community has been thrown into its worst crisis since 1692. Secrecy is the only way we can survive. We’ve always perpetuated the idea that the witches, the real witches, who fled Salem died out ce
nturies ago. But with all that’s happened in Exmouth recently—the killings and the subsequent attention—our coven was in danger of being exposed. Worse, the blasphemous use of the sacred Tybane Inscriptions by the Dunwoodys, trying to cover their murderous family history, surely angered the Daemonium. This forced us to do what we’ve only had to do a few times in the past: sacrifice our living demon to appease the powers of darkness. The last time we sacrificed our demon was during the hurricane of 1938. As a result, we were without doubt saved from extinction. And so just yesterday the coven leadership decided that we once again had to sacrifice our demon, Morax, to Lucifer in order to gain his intercession; to keep our worship a secret. It was supposed to happen earlier this evening—on the first night of the full moon.”

  “And it didn’t go as planned?”

  “Not yet. The demon escaped before the ritual could be completed. Nevertheless, he must be sacrificed. That’s why I’m here—to finish the job my brethren failed to do. Morax is in Exmouth now, free for the first time in his life, satisfying his bloodlust. But he will come back here when he’s sated. It’s the only home he knows. And when he does, I’ll be ready.”

  “And after you sacrifice him? What then?”

  “Lucifer works in mysterious ways. We’ll be protected—I don’t know how precisely. And we will eventually breed another demon from the same genetic line.” He nodded toward the archway that led to the women’s cell. “Those two, a mother and a daughter, are in fact our breeders. They carry the gene, which came to us with whalers from the South Pacific back in the eighteenth century, when a family of remote islanders joined our order. A certain defect was common among these islanders—some were born with a tail. These were true tails, Constance, not vestigial tails: caudal appendages with fully formed vertebrae, an extension of the coccyx. When my ancestors saw the women of this family give birth to such a creature—well, you can imagine their excitement. This was Morax, reborn—Morax in the flesh, just as he had been described and depicted in the ancient texts. It was a gift to us from Lucifer. And it immediately became a central element of our worship ceremony. And so it, and its descendants, have remained to this day.” He nodded out the archway again. “The mother bred the current Morax; the daughter will breed the next one.”