The Demon Curse

by Simon Nicholson

  “Welcome, my friends. My friends, to whom I owe so very much…”

  Mayor Monticelso. Harry glanced at the painting on the wall. It still hung there, and this time there was no reason to double-take between it and the face it depicted, because it was a perfect likeness. Those worn but kindly features stared down out of the oils, and the face of the figure in the chair was worn but kindly too, all hint of terror gone. Only a gentle smile quivered on it as the old man rose from his chair and tottered toward Harry with the help of a cane.

  “Thank goodness my recovery is complete! For I need every ounce of energy and fitness to express my gratitude once again!” Mayor Monticelso’s eyes shone. “Already I have expressed the utmost admiration for young Billie, who supplied the doctors with the antidote that rescued me from my terrible ordeal.”

  “Like I’ve said, it was no trouble, sir.” Billie curtsied.

  “Then I conveyed my immense thanks to Arthur, whose investigations led to his own near demise but also to the beginning of the unraveling of this appalling plot.”

  “Please don’t mention it, Mr. Mayor.” Arthur performed a neat bow.

  “Yet still further thanks are needed! For now I meet the boy who performed the most extraordinary task of all.” Mayor Monticelso turned to Harry. “And I am not the only one who will wish to thank you, young Harry. Come with me!”

  The old man grabbed Harry’s sleeve. He tugged it with surprising strength, his cane tapping the floor as he headed toward one of the room’s several doors. He pushed open the door and beckoned Harry in.

  “He is here, my friends! Young Harry is here!”

  Auntie May sat on a chaise longue while Brother Jacques occupied a leather armchair. All around the room, more of the Islanders were seated, some of them muttering among themselves, others paging through newspapers. Most wore their usual fishing clothes, although a few of the men sported ties and jackets, and Auntie May wore a hat with a ribbon around it. She was holding a cup of tea on a saucer, stirring a spoon in it, while Brother Jacques read the New Orleans Post, peering through a pair of wire spectacles. He and Auntie May looked up as the mayor and Harry came into the room.

  “The agony of the scorpion’s sting!” The old man tottered across to the chaise longue and sat down beside Auntie May. “But my sufferings would have been ten times greater, a hundred times greater, had I known about the dreadful scheme of which my agony was a part. You Islanders, accused!” He shook his head. “Thank goodness the plot was so spectacularly foiled.”

  “Yes indeed.” Auntie May nodded.

  “You are a great friend of ours, Mr. Mayor.” Brother Jacques adjusted his spectacles. “But we Islanders have other great friends too, it turns out. And this boy, Harry—he’s turned out to be one of them, that’s the truth.”

  “It wasn’t just me.” Harry’s voice was still unsteady. “Billie and Arthur, they—”

  “Sure they did!” Brother Jacques leaned forward in his chair. “Billie is a friend of ours from way before, and young Arthur’s proved his friendship. Mind you, I’d say we had other help too in this business—the help we Islanders always get in times of trouble. Help that turned out even more powerful than the help of friends…”

  His deep, dark eyes stared at Harry, who swayed slightly on his feet. The claws had gone, but he still felt a little weak as he listened to Brother Jacques’s words. He remembered the brass jars with the snakeskin, feathers, and seeds inside, and he remembered the smoke, sprawling off in different directions, filling his eyes, making them sting. Maybe the spirits did protect me. He blinked and swayed again, but he felt two hands grab him and hold him steady. It was Billie, keeping him up.

  “Madame Melrose?” Harry remembered. “Is she…?”

  “Drowned in the swamp, we believe.” Auntie May shook her head, stirring her tea again. “Now that was another friend of ours, or so she said. But she won’t be taking us in with her fine words any longer.”

  “She certainly won’t.” Beside her on the chaise longue, Mayor Monticelso’s kindly features darkened. “The victim of her own violence in two ways. First, she suffered an attack by her own vicious creatures. Second, she had shot off the oar brackets on your boat, making it impossible for young Billie to row back and throw her a rope or the like. So she perished. Her body hasn’t been found, mind, but the alligators explain that.” He winked. “Assuming they hadn’t eaten their fill after devouring the corpse of that deranged doctor…”

  “Mincing.” Harry saw a spot of blood, spreading on a shirt.

  “Dead, dead, extremely so. And at first, that seemed to be a problem.” Servants were serving more cups of tea, and Mayor Monticelso accepted one before waving the trolley on toward Harry. “How were we to rid this city of the rumors regarding the Islanders without the two criminals themselves to account for their crimes? But we need not have worried. Madame Melrose craftily covered her tracks, but Dr. Mincing’s notes on his scorpion work remain, throughout which are peppered increasingly demented references to his demonic employer. One glimpse of them set the hideous Oscar Dupont packing his bags, his attempt to ride to office on a storm of viciousness in ruins, I’m pleased to say.” He waved a hand at one of the copies of the New Orleans Post that the Islanders were reading. “The newspapers have carried the true story in full, and with luck, that nasty mob will have learned the lesson of jumping so quickly to conclusions. A cautionary tale.”

  “The fishermen? The ones who tried to put the spirit charms under the floorboards?” One last memory flickered. “What about their plans?”

  “Ah, they don’t hate the Islanders any less, I fear.” The mayor tutted. “But their hatred is now of little concern. I had no hesitation in revealing details of their feeble but manipulative plot to the New Orleans Post, and that story is covered too. It is unlikely anyone in this city will be listening to anything they say, on any matter, for some years to come. Again, a cautionary tale.”

  A servant pushed a cup and saucer into Harry’s hand. He managed to hold it steady as the tea poured, the golden liquid glowing in the sunlight. Somewhere nearby, he heard a telephone ringing. Harry realized that, in the few minutes since he had regained consciousness, people had been talking to him almost nonstop, an endless stream of revelations and observations and discoveries. And it’s not finished yet, he told himself as he turned toward Auntie May, who was saying something in his ear.

  “Brother Jacques is right in what he says. The ritual we performed, it summoned the spirits and they protected you, helped you; we are quite sure of it. How else could you have survived as you did? And we believe the spirits may have worked in other ways too, ways that we understand much less.” Her voice dropped even lower. “After all, is it not strange that you, all three of you, arrived in New Orleans at the very time you did?”

  “The spirits work in many ways, it is true.” Brother Jacques looked over his spectacles at Harry. “And their influence spreads far. Far beyond this city, far beyond this state of Louisiana too.”

  “As far as New York, maybe?” Auntie May continued. “Who knows how they found you? Who knows how they arranged for the three of you to meet, and for you all to arrive in New Orleans at the very time you were most needed? Is it not strange that, at that very time, Billie returned to us? Not only that, but she also returned with two friends, each able to help us in their own extraordinary way?”

  “The spirits’ workings cannot always be understood,” Brother Jacques muttered.

  “Indeed they cannot. We can talk around in circles, and still we won’t make head or tail of their ways. Who knows how they brought you here, all three of you?” The old woman leaned forward and gently took hold of Harry’s chin. “But I’m glad they did.”

  Her hand cupped his face. Those eyes stared into him, surrounded by complicated wrinkles. For a moment, Harry found himself almost believing the Islanders’ words, their explanation for how he and his f
riends had arrived in New Orleans. Hardly stranger than everything else. But he reminded himself that there was another explanation too, and at the same time, he noticed that the telephone ring he had noticed a few moments before had cut out.

  A door opened, and one of the servants edged in, bowing in the direction of Mayor Monticelso before nodding in Harry’s direction.

  “Telephone call for Harry and his friends, Mayor Monticelso.”

  Chapter 21

  Harry picked up the telephone, and Billie and Arthur leaned close. The voices of Mayor Monticelso and the Islanders wafted down the corridor, but Harry concentrated on the crackles of static drifting out of the ebony earpiece.

  “My congratulations on your remarkable feat,” Mr. James said. “And my apologies for my uncertainty when we last met, regarding whether you should proceed. Mind you, I had good reason because things were hardly going to plan…”

  “I can see you,” said Harry.

  The telephone was by the window, and Harry had been looking through the glass, down at the street below, from the moment Mr. James had started to speak. There he was, in his pale suit, standing below the iron balcony of the building across the street. A wire from the telephone he was holding stretched through a doorway, a packed suitcase stood by his side, and a horse-drawn cab waited by the curb.

  “Yes, a further necessary subterfuge, I am afraid.” Mr. James glanced up at the window. “I deliberately asked to be put through to this extension so that I could observe you as we spoke. I might have guessed that you would seek to observe me too. Still, observing will be the limit of it.” A gesture at the waiting cab. “Should you move from the window, I will be gone. If you were in your usual condition, even that might not be fast enough, but I’m calculating the scorpion venom still weakens you.”

  “I’m still pretty quick though, aren’t I?” Billie grabbed the telephone. “Tell us what’s going on or I’ll—”

  Harry reached out, steadying her while Arthur gently drew the telephone from her grip, angling the earpiece so that they could all hear. Harry kept watching Mr. James, but the man in the pale suit hadn’t shifted his position at all. For now, it seemed, he was happy to remain. Harry waited with his friends for the voice to crackle out of the telephone again.

  “What’s going on, Billie? I wish I could be clearer on that subject, but secrecy is vital, and I can only tell you what you already know, namely that I work for the Order of the White Crow, an organization devoted to—”

  “The overthrow of evil, wherever it may lie,” Arthur muttered. “Yes, we know that.”

  “The overthrow of evil and, just as important, the rescuing of those threatened by that evil. The Islanders of Fisherman’s Point are not alone, I fear, in falling victim to wicked forces beyond their control. There are more like them, many more.” Static swirled back around the voice. “So yes, a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary organization. Then again, you yourselves are somewhat out-of-the-ordinary too. Consider what has taken place in the last couple of days alone. Among other things, you have disguised yourselves as swamp-school orphans, escaped from a brutal gang of fishermen, discovered scientific secrets in the madness and insanity section of the city library, detected a highly hard-to-spot clue involving a leaky fountain pen, and then, of course, pulled off a truly remarkable escape from straitjackets filled with nearly a hundred of the most dangerously poisonous scorpions known to humanity. Given such skills, can you seriously expect to be employed by an organization that is remotely normal? I think not. Unusual people need unusual work, that’s what I say.”

  Fair enough, thought Harry. Glancing at his friends, he sensed that they were thinking the same. Arthur was nodding thoughtfully, Billie had tilted her head on one side, and both of them, noticing he was looking at them, looked straight back and smiled. He smiled too. He realized his strength was returning quite quickly now, his balance was back, and his muscles were steady. He lifted his right hand and flexed the fingers. He watched them darting, angling, each one alive with its own energy.

  “I have no doubt said too much,” Mr. James was saying. “My instructions are simply to inform you that, should you so wish, your services are still very much desired by the Order of the White Crow. As mentioned, there will be more who, like the Islanders of Fisherman’s Point, require help from you and your remarkable abilities. Now, I think it is time this telephone call ended, although you might like to inspect the telephone itself.”

  The earpiece went dead. Harry saw, down across the street, Mr. James hand his own telephone to a waiting servant and step into the horse cab, which rattled away. Glancing out through the window, Harry looked for drainpipes or ledges, but he knew Mr. James was right: His strength hadn’t returned completely enough for that. It won’t be long though. He looked back at his hand and watched his fingers moving faster. He realized he could feel his heart too, throbbing gently in his chest, as he listened to Billie and Arthur.

  “What was all that about?” said Billie.

  “Couldn’t make head or tail of it,” Arthur agreed. “And that’s saying something, given how good we’ve gotten at working things out recently.”

  “Some of it made sense though,” Billie said. “What he said about there being other people like the Islanders, for instance…other people who need help.”

  “There will be more, those were his words.” Arthur jotted with his leaky old pen in his notepad. “There will be more…”

  Harry kept looking out through the window. Directly below, a crowd was gathering around the steps, and he made out the mayor, tottering down them with Auntie May, Brother Jacques, and the other Islanders. The crowd pushed forward, but there were no brandished placards, no shaking fists, and no furious faces. Instead, the crowd’s cries were joyful ones, and people were reaching out to shake the Islanders’ hands. A very different crowd, Harry observed, and a bigger one too. The mayor marched off with the Islanders up the street, heading in the direction of Fisherman’s Point.

  Their rightful home.

  Harry’s heart throbbed, and his pulses twitched. He could feel those little flickering sensations too, very gently traveling over his skin. Just like before a trick. He heard a clattering noise and saw that Billie and Arthur were dismantling the telephone, Billie pulling a long ribbon of paper from the machine’s insides. On it seemed to be written some sort of complicated code. Harry watched his friends’ faces, intent, curious, determined. At the sight of them, the last traces of scorpion venom fled. He smiled, turned back to the window, and watched the mayor and the Islanders reach the end of the street, turn a corner, and disappear from view.

  He looked at his hand. The fingers were moving so fast they were almost a blur.

  “You’re right, Artie,” he said. “There’ll be more.”

  Author’s Note

  Harry Houdini was the most famous magician and escape artist of his time—probably of all time. Throughout his adult life, right up until his death in 1926, he dazzled his audiences by subjecting himself to spectacular ordeals. He escaped from nailed-shut crates thrown to the bottom of rivers; he broke out from one of the most secure cells in the District of Columbia jail; he writhed his way out of straitjackets while dangling from tall buildings. Nothing defeated him—no one could explain his mysterious powers.

  He wasn’t just a magician either. As well as being the world’s most famous illusionist, he also devoted much of his life to doing battle against “magic.” Indignant at the thought of ordinary people being exploited, he worked ceaselessly to expose false mediums—con men who duped their victims into believing they could summon their long-lost relatives from beyond the grave. In his stunts, Harry pulled off amazing escapes, but he also sought to set his audiences free, rescuing them from the manipulative clutches of fake “miracle workers.”

  So that was the great Houdini. But how did he acquire such phenomenal skills? I couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened to h
im as a boy to turn him into such an extraordinary man.

  A fair bit is known about Houdini’s childhood. He emigrated from Budapest, Hungary, to America with his family when he was just four, and grew up relatively peacefully in Appleton, Wisconsin. No records of derring-do or mystery solving. But much intrigue surrounds Houdini’s adult years—some people believe he led a double life as a spy, working for the American and British governments. I started wondering; perhaps Houdini could have had another double life too, one that happened in his childhood? What if the few facts we know of Houdini’s early years—Wisconsin, the peaceful childhood—turned out to have been a cover-up, devised later in order to conceal a far more thrilling and dangerous truth?

  What if Houdini actually moved to America when he was a slightly older boy—and under mysterious circumstances? What if he became separated from his family on the journey—and fell in with two friends, not to mention a secretive crime-solving organization? After all, the real Houdini did a fair amount of tinkering himself with his life’s events. At one point, he claimed to have been born on American soil, not in Hungary at all; and of course, he was brilliant at creating intrigue around the secrets behind his extraordinary tricks. He even hired the science-fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft (a favorite author of mine) to write a made-up tale about him having an adventure in Egypt, in which he investigated sinister forces beneath the pyramids…

  Maybe, I decided, it was time for even more mystery. Mystery about what might have happened to Harry Houdini—the boy magician.