The Last Gargoyle

by Paul Durham

  The Spite House is like a spindly, black spider, its impossibly narrow wooden frame lurking in the crevice between two brick neighbors. Its midnight-colored clapboards squeeze upward in the alleyway with the tenacity of a vine. A grown man could almost hug it simply by stretching out his arms. No sane person would have designed a house like this. It could only have been built out of malice or, well, spite—probably to ruin the view of a neighbor long ago. A sliver of a front door and four squinty windows face the street—one on each floor, the lowest covered with thin iron bars like bared teeth. A hint of orange candlelight seeps out from behind its sealed shutters.

  Just ahead of us, two practice-adults are heading the same way. I pause as they approach the door. One is dressed like some sort of Parisian cleaning woman, stumbling in high-heeled shoes on the cobblestone sidewalk. Her companion looks like a buccaneer who’s lost his ship.

  “What is this nonsense?” I say. “These two can’t be the cleaning service.”

  Viola rolls her eyes. “Goyle, they’re in costume. They’re probably headed to a party.” She says it as if I’m as clueless as a curb, but at least she’s talking again. “Tomorrow’s Halloween, remember?”

  Actually, I’d completely forgotten. I’m so used to seeing beasties skulk through the night, a few costumes each October hardly faze me.

  “At this address?” I ask. “They must be lost.”

  All Hallows’ Eve is not one of my favorite holidays. I don’t like strangers popping into my Domain under the best of circumstances, and every year the practice-adults who live with me make a terrible mess of my roof. They’re also more inclined to climb on me and take embarrassing pictures.

  “Oh, mullions,” I say. “Now they’re knocking.”

  The buccaneer raps on the black door of the Spite House. When there’s no immediate response, he tries again. Harder.

  I shake my head. “This is not going to end well for them.”

  But when the door cracks open, it isn’t answered by the Boneless King. Instead an ashen-faced ghoul with a plastic cup in his hand peeks out.

  “We’re here for the party,” the French maid says uncertainly.

  The ghoul looks them over. “Password?”

  The maid quickly glances over her shoulder before leaning in. “Hades,” she replies.

  The ghoul waves his hand in a circle. “Come around through the alley. And keep your voices down till you’re inside.” He flicks his black-lined eyes at the buildings next door. “Nosy neighbors.”

  The maid and the buccaneer follow the instructions, and the door closes.

  “At least we know the password,” Viola whispers.

  “Yeah,” I say. But, of course, I’m not going to need it.

  The alley is lined with puddles and large plastic trash bins. The maze of iron fire escapes overhead stifles the lamps in neighboring windows. We navigate it until we find the only light at all—a bare red bulb over the rear entrance to the Spite House. A vampire and King Neptune sit on the steps chatting, Neptune’s trident resting across his knees.

  I turn and stare Viola hard in the eyes.

  “Viola, you need to stay here.”

  “Come on, Goyle,” she protests. “You still don’t think I can handle this?”

  “This isn’t some withering old Netherkin,” I say sternly. “The Boneless King has powers over the dead, but he’s also a threat to the living. His little visits to Hetty prove it. You need to stay here—for your own good.”

  “You don’t know what you’re walking into either,” Viola points out.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “What if you need help?”

  How can I make her understand? This isn’t about me. This isn’t about not wanting her by my side.

  “Viola, I need you to promise. Promise me you’ll stay put.”

  But Viola is suddenly distant, her eyes fixed on the door. She’s hardly listening to me at all. Why must she be so difficult? Can’t she see that, despite her stubbornness, and sarcastic words and white lies, for some strange reason I actually…care about her?

  “Viola,” I say again, and, reluctantly, I remove my hood from my head.

  It catches her attention. I’ve never done this before. She’s studying my wisp face, truly seeing it for the very first time. All my scars are visible now. Not just the chipped tooth and damaged brow, but the deeper ones. The ones I can’t hide even as a wisp. My face is lined with worry. My cheeks are hollow with guilt. It’s the face of a boy who’s old beyond his years.

  “Please,” I implore her. “You’re my friend. I don’t want to lose another one. Promise me you’ll stay.”

  Something in Viola’s own face changes. Her eyes waver as they look into my own. And finally—reluctantly—she nods.

  “You promise?” I say.

  She nods again.

  “Say it this time. Swear on your life.”

  Viola hesitates. Then, “I swear on my life.” Her voice is barely a whisper, but I’ll take it.

  “Thirty minutes,” I say, and slip my hood back over my head. “If I’m not back in half an hour, you turn and run. Don’t look back. And don’t return to Old Croak’s or my Domain ever again.”

  I turn from her and walk past the chatty partygoers on the step, and for a moment the red bulb overhead bathes me in a crimson glow.

  I step inside. And find myself in a house of monsters.

  The first floor is filled with more fiends and beasts than one would have thought possible to fit into such tight quarters. Granted, the monsters here aren’t all that imposing, and the biggest threat seems to be that one might step on my toe or spill a drink in my lap. In the dim light of old-fashioned lanterns, I see pretend witches, fake zombies, and a glazed-eyed man in a straitjacket who may or may not actually need it. The otherworldly creatures mix and mingle with policemen and nurses, soldiers and cheerleaders. I spot the French maid and the buccaneer pushing their way to a steel basin filled with ice.

  I feel something—the charged energy of the undead—but the press of too many human bodies is disorienting. My keen hearing works against me, and the roar of so many voices yelling to be heard overwhelms my senses. I feel the rhythmic beat of drums coming from somewhere. Overhead, I think. Through the maze of costumed revelers, I see a flight of narrow wooden stairs with a hand-carved wooden placard at its base. A string of small red lights illuminates its message.

  I make my way through the masses and climb the narrow staircase, stepping around a pink-winged angel leaning her head against the banister. The second floor is darker and even louder than the first. No lanterns light this space, but a pulsing strobe bounces off the walls, casting everyone in green and blue hues. The throbbing drums I heard are electronic and come from the corner. A man in a long leather coat busies himself between two enormous speakers, ensuring there’s no break in the macabre soundtrack. The dreadlocks under his top hat bob as he works, the tiny skulls that ring his hatband nodding in unison.

  The partygoers here aren’t talking. Paired off, they writhe and gyrate to the deafening beat. Some of them shut their eyes and seem lost in a world all their own. Their costumes are bleaker. Faces are painted white and lined in shadows to give the illusion of skeletal glares. The women’s Victorian dresses and men’s leather dusters smell aged and authentic.

  The undead charge is stronger now. Again, my overloaded senses are unable to pinpoint the source, but I know I’m getting closer. Where the stairs continue up I see another red-lit sign.

  The third floor is pitch-black, its contents invisible except for the thick mob of dancing skeletons. Their white bones prance and glow in the darkness.

  Somewhere overhead, an unseen black light obscures the dancers’ head-to-foot costumes, highlighting only pearly ribs, shimmering skulls, and the long bones of limbs like cadavers come to life. The throb of drums is just as loud here, but their tone is no longer electronic. All around the room, a ring of skeletons has formed a drum circle, pounding their palms on the goat
skin djembes tucked between their knees. The drummers’ eyes are hollow and their jaws slack, as if in a trance.

  Of course, the dancers can’t see me, but they waggle their glowing jawbones in my direction before bobbing past. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were beckoning me to join them.

  I feel the Boneless King. He’s not here, but he can’t be far. There’s only one more floor.

  The glowing white letters of a sign call to me from the base of the final flight of stairs.

  The attic is the smallest room of all. The heat of a hundred bodies below us has risen, giving it the feel of a furnace. Around me, the shadows burn crimson—a bare red bulb dangles down on a single cord strung from the rafters overhead. The drums are faint here; they might as well be miles away. A few wayward partygoers are curled up in the corner. They look to be asleep.

  But my senses are a storm. The crush of energy almost buckles me.

  I’ve finally reached the lair of the Boneless King.

  He lounges just steps away on a throne of skulls and bone.

  I see him now as I did that first night in the Fens. His featureless face is cocked toward a wiry shoulder as if perplexed to see me, but his hollow black eye sockets show no hint of surprise. The jagged, red-scrawled smile has smudged and his crown sits askew—giving him the look of a malevolent clown. The ends of his crimson scarf rest in his lap, his endless spindle legs sprawled in front of him and crossed at the ankles. All he needs is a heavy goblet in his fist to complete the image—a king lording it over this unseemly spectacle. But the sleeves of his ragged sweater just billow over the armrests of his undead throne and dangle toward the floorboards.

  And yet, this time, his power is unmistakable. It radiates all around me in the tight space, as suffocating as hot brimstone. My head swirls. I’m flooded with fleeting images.

  Dark earth and soil. Fingers crawling through the dirt. Unspeakable visions of the things this fiend has done over the years. To Samuel and other Bone Masons. To other Grotesques and the Twins. I can hear the pleas of those he’s harmed. The creak of the bones on which he sits. And, finally, whether real or imagined, my mind’s eye envisions what he intends to do to Hetty, and even little Tomás.

  And then all I feel is rage.

  The Boneless King’s unflinching lipstick smile mocks me. I can’t wait to wipe it off his vacant face.

  I extend an open palm.

  “The music’s playing, Hannibal.”

  The Boneless King shifts his whole body at the sound of his given name, his head straightening, then tilting toward his other shoulder with curiosity.

  “Aren’t you going to dance?” I beckon with a finger, then clench my hand into a fist.

  The Boneless King grips the arms of his throne and pushes himself up, the tips of his crown reaching all the way to the top of the arched rafters. He sways on his impossibly thin legs. His arms extend out to either side, the long sleeves of his moth-eaten sweater slip down past his wrist, and instead of hands, claws wriggle in the air.

  I guess he’s accepted my invitation.

  I prepare to transform into my other wisp form—the one with the teeth and wings. The one best suited to punish. But I pause at the unexpected sight. The Boneless King’s throne is now pulling itself apart, uncoiling as if coming to life. The intertwined skeletons untangle, rising up on their bony legs.

  Netherkin.

  I count six before the first one hurls itself at me with surprising speed. I catch it with a swat of my arm, sending it bouncing off the wall in a cascade of clattering bones.

  But the rest follow quickly, teeth clacking as they snap and dig their hard fingers into me. Two more fall before I feel my arms pinned at my side. They won’t be able to hold me for long, but they may not have to. The Boneless King is stepping forward, his arms long enough to stretch across the entire attic. His fingers probe like the legs of a black widow spider.

  Another Netherkin falls as I free one arm, but I’d rather not face the Boneless King with one hand tied behind my back. As I slip free, the sharp tip of one of his fingers barely grazes my forearm, but the sting is beyond anything I’ve felt before. I leap away like a child who’s scalded his hand on a hot stove.

  I look down at the sleeve of my wisp form. It’s sliced open. I don’t bleed like you do, but I feel something unexpected—something leaking out from the fresh tear. I flex my hand and feel a weakening of my grip.

  The Boneless King’s painted mouth doesn’t move, but his crooked smile sure looks smug.

  I compose myself and ready for his next attack. I’m not one to sit back and wait, so I step forward to take the fight to him. But now my legs are stuck. One of the sleeping partygoers has wrapped his arms around my ankles. And now—ouch! He’s sinking his teeth into my leg.

  It’s not a costumed practice-adult but another Netherkin. In the corner opposite me, two more push themselves up from their slumber. The Boneless King flicks his fingers and comes at me once more. I can’t defend myself here—I need to lure him from this attic lair. I stomp the Netherkin at my feet and slowly back down the stairs to the black-lit room below.

  It’s loud and disorienting again, the drums still pounding. I’m aware of the glowing dancers around me, but my eyes are on the steps. The Boneless King and his Netherkin are following.

  Something thuds hard against my shoulders. There’s a painful clawing at my back. I turn and the skeletal dancers are swarming, hitting me from all sides. What is this? I can’t touch or be touched by the living. When I reach out and block one’s strike, I finally realize the truth—these aren’t costumes at all.

  I’m surrounded on all sides by even more Netherkin.

  The Boneless King reaches the landing and lumbers forward, ducking to clear the ceiling.

  I’m being slashed and torn at. There are too many—the space is too tight. This is a fight I can’t win. I retreat, bullying my way through the dancing Netherkin as I hurry for the next flight of stairs. I shove aside a bony drummer and send his djembe flying.

  Back on the second floor the partygoers are still packed shoulder to shoulder in their dreamlike states. At least they’re not Netherkin. I’ve got a bit of breathing room, but not for long. My pursuers are close behind, pouring down the stairs and into the deafening noise of the crowded room. Dancers pulse green in the light of the strobe. They’re lost in their music, but even if they weren’t they couldn’t see the chase unfolding before them. The strobe flicks and now the skeletal Netherkin glow red as they fan out around me, trying to pin me in.

  The dreadlocked man in the skull-ringed hat suddenly plucks his fingers and ratchets up the volume. The din sends my head spinning and the dancers shifting across the room. They unconsciously form a thick human wall, blocking the top of the last flight of stairs.

  I curse them, but they can’t be doing this on their own. Has the Boneless King gotten into their minds the same way he invaded Hetty’s?

  My exit blocked, I smash aside a Netherkin as I scan the room for another means of escape. Behind the dreadlocked man, a thick black curtain shrouds a window. I have a clear path. I charge for it before the Netherkin can seal it off, just as the strobe light switches color again.

  The room goes dark for a fraction of a second, and when the strobe flicks back on I check over my shoulder for pursuers. The dancers are cast in a hue of yellow-gold. I slam to a halt. There’s a familiar face in the crowd. Her eyes are vacant and bewildered in the press of bodies, an out-of-place violin case still in her hand.

  “Viola!” I yell in alarm, although she clearly can’t hear me over the roar of the speakers.

  I grit my teeth and hurry back for her. I kick the legs out from under one Netherkin as he rushes at me. I catch his thigh bone in midair and use it to knock the head off the next Netherkin right behind him. The skull goes clattering under a speaker.

  “Viola!” I yell again as I reach her. But it does no good. Her gaze is behind me, over my shoulder. I recognize the same lost expression I saw
on her face that night in Copp’s Hill.

  I glance back, following her eyes. The Boneless King has arrived from the floor above. He casts his hollow stare over the room and its throb of bodies, living and dead. He raises his hands and the black widow fingers click together. His arms lengthen and stretch well past the sleeves of his worn sweater, snaking around the walls of the room as if he’s about to pull everyone here into his dark embrace.

  I ready myself, then press my insides against my form with all my might. I feel like I might burst, but I know now that my wisp form is visible to anyone who looks my way. I hope it’s enough to finally pull Viola from her trance. I lean in until I’m an inch from Viola’s face, and boom as loudly as my voice will carry.

  “Viola! We…must…go…now!”

  Her eyes blink wildly, as if she’s been yanked from a deep sleep. Then a flash of recognition. She gives me a shocked nod.

  The window’s no longer an option—the fall would crush her. I check the mob of dancers in front of the last flight of stairs. Their faces are now strained—as if all the undead energy around them is making them sick. I can’t touch the living. But I can pass through them. Not that it will be pleasant for any of us.

  “That way!” I say, pointing for the stairs. Making sure Viola follows, I press through the wall of bodies, feeling all their warm, squishy organs and flesh as my wisp form passes like a biting breeze. Yes, it’s as awful as it sounds. The dancers squirm in discomfort, shifting their positions just enough for Viola to squeeze past too.

  Back on the first floor the crowd has thinned, and I eye the exit to the narrow alley before opting for the unused front door. I’ve had my fill of tight spaces tonight.

  We burst out onto the middle of the street.

  Viola’s face is like ice, paler than I’ve ever seen her. She looks like she might crack into shards right on the cobblestones.