Burial

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Easier said than done,’ I told him. ‘You don’t happen to know any, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I used to correspond with Crazy Dog until the beginning of this year, but I haven’t heard from him for months. He’s either dead or drunk or being chased by the South Dakota cops on bigamy charges. Somehow, you’ll have to find your own.’

  ‘Thanks a whole bunch,’ I told him.

  ‘That’s not all,’ he warned me. ‘You’ll also have to have people to back you up, people who understand what you’re doing and aren’t afraid.’

  I nodded. ‘I think I can manage that. What else?’

  ‘Most important of all, you’ll have to find out what bargain Misquamacus struck with Aktunowihio, because if my guess is correct, and Aktunowihio is giving Misquamacus the power to drag down all these buildings, then Misquamacus must have offered him something which Aktunowihio badly wanted. All Indian magic is based on bargains. You lend me your magic bonnet, I’ll give you my horse. You give me your horse, I’ll strike down your enemy dead. You strike my enemy dead, I’ll make your pumpkins grow. And so on.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what Aktunowihio might have wanted?’ I asked him.

  Dr Snow shook his head. The afternoon sunlight caught his glasses, like a heliograph signal from a distant butte. ‘I really couldn’t say. But once you’ve found out — if you find out-you’ll have to find some way to break the arrangement — some way to cancel the whole deal. Otherwise — pfff! — forget it.’

  We drove back to the city feeling tired and defeated. It was dark by the time we crossed the George Washington Bridge and Manhattan glittered and sparkled like a city seen in a dream. As I drove southward I wondered how much longer the dream could possibly last. We may have conquered the land surface but we hadn’t conquered the darkness that lay beneath it, the darkness of centuries, the world that really was America, when you came to think of it.

  Amelia said, ‘Will you take me back to my place? I have to think.’

  ‘Think? Think about what?’

  ‘Harry — I want to sit for a while on my own and work out whether I really want to be doing this with you.’

  I made a face. ‘I suppose you have that privilege.’

  ‘Of course I have thatprivilege! It’snoteven a privilege! You’re expecting me to involve myself in something totally catastrophic and you haven’t even stopped to ask me if I want to!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand, a gesture of self-punishment. ‘You know me. I’m always taking everybody for granted.’ I continued to drive, glancing at her from time to time.

  After a while, she said, ‘What?’

  ‘Do you want to?’ I asked her.

  ‘Do I want to what?’

  ‘Do you want to get involved, of course.’

  ‘Harry! For God’s sake! I said I needed to think about it! I’m scared, if you want to know the truth. I’m absolutely scared to death. I saw Misquamacus’ head coming out of that table and I know what Dr Snow is talking about is true. Things can be dragged from one world into the other, and vice versa, and, boy, we’re talking about something really, really scary here because those worlds are so dangerous and so strange! Do you really want to see something like — I don’t know, your dead grandfather standing in your bedroom at night? Do you really want to lose people for ever?’

  ‘I have to find Karen somehow,’ I said. Even saying Karen’s name was like cutting my tongue with a tomato-knife. ‘If he hasn’t hurt her — if he hasn’t killed her, I mean — then I really have to find her.’

  ‘Maybe you’re learning some responsibility,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Oh, for sure. Or maybe there’s nothing else in my life that’s really worth doing.’

  New York

  Just after four o’clock that same afternoon Martin Vaizey was visited at the 13th Precinct by his lawyer Abner Kaskin. Outside the mesh-protected windows, a sudden summer shower was falling. It sounded as if somebody were desperately throwing raisins against the glass to attract attention.

  Martin was sitting at the table in the interview room when Abner Kaskin came in. He was very straight-backed, freshly shaven, his hair brushed and gleaming. He looked pale and a little tired, but his bunk at the 13th Precinct was a great deal less restful than his bed at home in the Montmorency Building.

  His sleep had been disturbed by something else, too, apart from shouts and echoes and slamming doors and the constant whooping of sirens.

  Abner Kaskin shook his hand and then set his briefcase down on the table. He was round-shouldered, with combed-back wavy hair, protruding teeth, and lips that looked as if they had been painted on with lipstick. He wore an expensive crumpled linen suit, its padded shoulders speckled with rain, and the necktie of the New York Bar Association.

  ‘We’re making some progress,’ he said. ‘Donna Medina called me from the DA’s office just after lunch and said that she might consider a manslaughter plea for Mr Greenberg, providing we make things easy for her.’

  ‘Why should we make things easy for her?’ Martin demanded. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Martin, you reached down into that woman’s throat and you turned her inside-out. Then you karate-chopped her husband and broke his neck. The medical examiner’s evidence is incontrovertible; the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming; and there are two eye-witnesses who might support your demonic-possession story but who both admit that they saw you commit both killings. That’s why we should make things easy for her. Listen, Martin, we’re not talking about acquittal here. I’ll consider myself a platinum-plated genius if I can get you out of this with two consecutive life-sentences.’

  There was a lengthy silence. Martin sat with his head bowed. ‘Abner,’ he repeated, ‘I simply didn’t do it. I was helpless. I was taken over. I no more killed Naomi Greenberg than if somebody had put a gun in my hand when I was fast asleep and squeezed my finger on the trigger.’

  ‘Martin,’ Abner replied, ‘I’ve defended twenty-six eminent and respectable people like yourself on charges ranging from first-degree murder to vehicular homicide. I know when people are innocent and I know when people are guilty. It’s my job to know. Now, I believe that you’re innocent. Don’t ask me why. All the evidence is stacked up against it. But whereas all my other clients could be defended with pleas of provocation, or temporary insanity, or stress, or drunkenness — you have no mitigating plea at all. Demonic possession is not yet recognized in US courts as an acceptable defence. Maybe in Haiti, who knows?

  ‘Unless I can raise the devil right in the middle of the courtroom, and prove that possession is possible, then we don’t have a prayer.’

  Martin lifted his head and looked Abner steadily in the eye. ‘You’ve seen what’s been happening in Chicago.’

  ‘Sure. It’s terrible. I have a cousin at Spertus College, I’m still waiting for news. But what does that have to do with it?’

  ‘That’s your proof. That’s your devil right in the middle of the courtroom.’

  Abner eyed him warily. ‘Am I hearing you correctly? Come on, Martin, you haven’t lost it, have you?’

  ‘I had a phone call from Harry Erskine, from Albany. He’s been investigating my case for me. He went to see an expert upstate. No — not a spiritualist, nothing like that A doctor of anthropology. A very respected doctor of anthropology, Ernest Snow.’

  ‘Never heard of him, sorry.’

  ‘Maybe you haven’t, but anyone who’s anyone in anthropology has heard of him. And according to Harry, he’s totally convinced that the force which possessed me — the darkness which possessed me — is one and the same force that brought down Chicago.’

  Abner’s mouth was already open, about to say something, but then he closed it again. He ran his hand through his wavy hair.

  ‘Martin,’ he said, at last ‘Do you want me to enter a plea of insanity?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I know the concept is difficult to grasp, but believe me, I’m
not insane.’

  ‘Then maybe this Harry Erskine ought to enter a plea of insanity. And Dr Snow, too. For God’s sake, Chicago was hit by an earthquake, not a demon. What do you think this is going to sound like in court? Come on, Martin, this isn’t the Middle Ages.’

  Martin said, ‘I’ll prove you wrong, Abner. I’ll prove it.’

  ‘Well, so long as you’re confident.’

  ‘Abner — just give me some time. If I can’t establish my innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt, then you can make it as easy on Ms Medina as you like. Did you bring me those books I asked for?’

  Abner popped open the clasps of his briefcase. He handed Martin three thickish books, and then a faded black-velvet pouch containing something that jingled. ‘This, too. The sergeant asked if you wanted to bring your plates from home, too.’

  Martin loosened the drawstring around the neck of the pouch and shook out two silver three-tined forks. They were tarnished and obviously very old. On the end of each of them was the bulging-eyed face of a dragon.

  He held them up. ‘You see these? Eight hundred years old, at least. I bought them in London.’

  Abner peered at them unhappily. ‘Eight hundred years old, hunh? Very nice.’

  ‘Do you know where they came from?’

  Abner shook his head.

  ‘They came from Massachusetts. They were discovered by Puritans when they were digging graves at Plympton. They’re Norse — from northern Denmark originally.’

  ‘Is it impertinent to ask what you want them for?’ said Abner.

  Martin dropped them back in the pouch. ‘Not for eating. When those were made people didn’t eat with forks, only knives. They were carried to America by Viking sailors to protect themselves against malevolent spirits. The idea was that they would hold the forks in front of themselves, handle-first, and the spirit would jump into the handles, like lightning into a lightning-conductor.

  ‘But then the Viking shaman would turn the forks round, and the only way in which the spirit could then escape was through the six prongs, and that would mean splitting itself into six. That was the theory, anyway.’

  Abner’s expression grew more and more miserable with every word. Eventually, he closed his briefcase, stood up, and held out his hand.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I want you to think very seriously about pleading insanity. It doesn’t mean you have to be starey-eyed and frothing at the mouth. It simply means that your mental condition at the time you perpetrated the killings was sufficiently unstable as to render you not responsible for your actions. There’s no shame in it, Martin. Plenty of people lose it from time to time. I know some judges who should be weaving baskets.’

  Martin looked up. ‘I’il make a deal with you, Abner. If I can’t bring the proof in twenty-four hours that I was being manipulated by a spirit or a demon, then you can plead more than insanity, you can plead totally ga-ga.’

  ‘It has to be proof that I can produce at your arraignment hearing,’ said Abner. ‘You have to convince the judge, not me.’

  ‘Let’s hope we luck out and have one of those judges who should be weaving baskets,’ Martin replied, although he wasn’t smiling.

  He was returned to his cell. Through the bars he was faced with nothing but a flaking green-painted wall. A tiny mesh-covered window allowed a faint trapezium of sunlight to wax and wane on the surface of his fixed wooden table. The table was scratched and gouged with thousands of messages and initials and wildly obscene drawings. He set his three books down on it, and laid his velvet pouch next to the books.

  The precinct echoed like the lunatic asylum in Dracula. Howls of misery from arrested winos; screams and laughter from crack addicts; doors slamming; keys jangling; a woman arguing high and shrill; and the rattle of night-sticks against bars and brickwork.

  Martin pressed his hands over his face. ‘Samuel, help me,’ he whispered.

  He was summoning his dead brother, his brother who would always be ten years old and never any older. He was asking Samuel to take his hand, and to guide him into the darkest and most frightening landscapes of the spirit world.

  He knew that it was highly dangerous. He knew that he could be putting Samuel at risk, too. But he could see no alternative. He had tried to fight the darkness on his own and it had totally overwhelmed him and made a murderer out of him. He could only guess at how powerful it was. If Harry Erskine was right and it was the Great One from below, Aktunowihio, then it was certainly powerful enough to drag whole cities into the darkness.

  He opened one of the books that Abner had brought him from his apartment. Forces of Darkness, Professor Calvin Mackie’s examination of Celtic and Indian concepts of life after death.

  Ever since they had started to write decipherable hieroglyphs, it was clear that the Alqonquin and Micmac tribes had been aware of ‘the shadow world beneath, and the huge dark horn-headed god, whose face could only be seen through a man’s fingers.’ On a stone at Spiro Mound, Oklahoma, Professor Mackie had discovered the letters M-M, which stood for Mabo-Mabona, the ancient Celtic name for Aktunowihio. Next to the letters was a crude but clear engraving of a beast with round eyes and antlers and a face so wild and horrifying that Martin turned the page to cover it up and pressed his hand over it.

  He felt a small kind of madness coming on. The world of spirits was always unpredictable and frightening even when he was doing nothing more than looking for sons and daughters and deceased parents. Moving through the world beyond was like struggling through a dark garden hung with line after line of black, drenched blankets. He was always aware that others were pushing their way through the blankets, too, close but mostly hidden. It was only when a pale cold hand reached out between the blankets that he received any guidance. He would take hold of that hand, however dead it might be, and hurry after it, trusting it.

  Sometimes — mostly — his spirit guides were gentle and helpful and would take him where he was anxious to go. At other times their hands would suddenly slip away and leave him disorientated and lost, in the tilted corner of somebody’s nightmare, or in the flickering strobe-light crisis of a sudden death — a car crash, a heart-attack, somebody shattering through a plate-glass window. Occasionally they would lead him into actual danger. Darkness, and more darkness, and a thick threatening smell like the breath of wolves.

  Then he would have to drain himself out of his spiritual trance. Dwindle, and vanish, and return to the waking world. It wasn’t always easy. Only four months ago, he had opened his eyes after a spirit-guidance session to find the back of his hand bitten — bitten by something, and blood on his trousers. He had gone to the doctor for a tetanus shot and the doctor had looked at him very strangely.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me how this happened, are you?’ the doctor had asked him; and Martin had said, ‘No, I’m not, because you wouldn’t believe me if I did.’ He took out the Celtic forks and laid them on the table, with the tines pointing towards him. Maybe they’d protect him, maybe they wouldn’t; but the Celts must have thought that they worked, and if you were planning on taking a walk in an electric storm, it made sense to take your lightning-rods.

  ‘Samuel,’ he whispered. ‘I need you, Samuel. I need you more than I’ve ever needed you before.’

  The cell remained stuffy and silent The light from the window brightened and then dimmed again, as clouds passed by. He could see the shadows of the clouds on the backs of his hands, almost like moving pictures.

  ‘Samuel, help me,’ he urged. ‘You’ve always managed to help me before. Please help me now.’

  He closed his eyes tight. All he could see was blackness. He hoped it was the blackness of spiritual trance; of that dark, wet, blanket-hung garden. But he knew that it wasn’t, not yet. It was simply the darkness of a desperate man with his eyes shut.

  ‘Samuel,’ he repeated. ‘Wherever you are, Samuel, I really need you now.’

  And even deeper in his mind, he said, Samuel, I beg you.

  He thought he heard something
.

  Somebody breathing, close beside him.

  He slowly turned his head forty-five degrees to the left, and then he opened his eyes.

  Karen was standing outside his cell. Karen van Hooven, née Tandy, in a yellow linen blouse and a short twill skirt. She looked pale, and her eyes looked strangely colourless and metallic, almost as if they were steel ball-bearings rather than eyes. Her hair was awry, and looked as if it were floating in an unfelt draft.

  ‘Karen?’ said Martin, uncertainly. ‘What are you doing here?’ She came up to the bars of his cell, and grasped them in both hands. At first she said nothing, but stared in Martin’s direction with her eyes oddly long-sighted, as if she were actually focusing on the wall behind him.

  For some reason that he couldn’t quite work out, Martin felt afraid of her. There was an unusually unsettled feeling about her psychic aura. He had only sensed a similar aura twice before. Once in a woman who was dying from seventy-five per cent burns, after trying to rescue her husband from a house-fire. Once in a nine-year-old boy whose father was abusing him and who would soon be drowned in a washbasin.

  It was an aura of darkness. The same darkness that surrounds the sun.

  It was an almost-visible aura of death.

  ‘Karen?’ Martin repeated; although he made no move to get up. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

  Karen said, ‘I have to warn you.’

  ‘Warn me?’ asked Martin. ‘Warn me about what?’

  ‘I have to warn you to take your punishment. We won’t be pleased if you don’t. You did what you did. Now you have to take your punishment.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I mean you mustn’t interfere. Things will be much worse if you do.’

  ‘Karen,’ said Martin. ‘Does Harry know that you’re here?’

  ‘What?’ Her voice was silvery and flat.