PulpWork - Christmas Special 2011 (Joel Jenkins - The Christmas Eve Killers; Joshua Reynolds

by Merry John Mock) (epub)

  The Christmas Eve Killers Copyright © 2011 Joel Jenkins.

  Merry John Mock Copyright © 2011 by Joshua Reynolds.

  Cover Illustration Copyright © 2011 by MD Jackson.

  PulpWork Press, New York.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental or satirical.

  PulpWork

  Christmas Special

  2011

  A Word from the Publisher:

  We all know that Christmas is a time for family and for reflecting upon the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ and the marvelous gifts He has given us. So when I approached a pair of PulpWork Press authors to write a set of tales for the PulpWork Press Christmas Special, naturally I anticipated that the stories they yielded would be full of Christmas wonderment and yuletide joy.

  Instead, the stories they delivered are unduly dark, sinister and violent. And that, my dear readers, is why we pay the PulpWork authors their stupendous stipends. Who else but a PulpWork author can look through the tinseled veneer of Christmas and find the shadowy forces threatening from beyond or peel back the layers of the human psyche and discover the meaner machinations of the crueler human condition in a time of rejoicing?

  Joshua Reynolds kicks off our Christmas pulp fiction repast with a brand new tale featuring the characters of occult investigator Charles St. Cyprian and his intrepid assistant Ebe Gallowglass. Indeed, I think you’ll find that these characters rank highly along with other of Reynolds’ characters such as the masked ambassador and investigator Ulrich Popoca and the clockwork Pinkerton agent known as Mr. Brass.

  Then prepare yourself for a chill dish of assassination served cold as Joel Jenkins introduces you to the icy assassin, Monica Killingsworth. Those of you familiar with Jenkins’ works might recognize her as a survivor of an encounter with Matthias Gantlet in the short story The Hard Luck Killers, which appears in the collection from PulpWork entitled The Gantlet Brothers Greatest Hits.

  So sit back and sip on a tall glass of eggnog or a steaming mug of spiced cider and read by the light of the twinkling Christmas tree--and be thankful that this Christmas you need not face the horrors from beyond or the yawning maw of a heartless assassin’s pistol, except in the pages of the PulpWork Christmas Special.

  Trebor Drahow

  PulpWork Press, Editor in Chief

  PulpWork.com

  Merry John Mock

  By Josh Reynolds

  For William Hope Hodgson, Terry Pratchett,

  Anthony Shaffer, David Pinner and all the horrible holidays...

  It was Christmas, 1919, and the frosty air was stirred by the rhythmic tramp of feet and the jingle of bells. Men and women in bizarre costumes whirled about in a parody of combat, wooden swords clattering like applause. Masks, ranging from the grotesque to the giggle-worthy, covered their faces and they wore shrouds of brightly coloured rags that fluttered in the crisp breeze.

  Charles St. Cyprian blew into his clasped hands, trying to warm them as he watched the mummers dance and caper in preparation for their performance. “Well?” a voice at his elbow said.

  St. Cyprian turned to the speaker and said, “There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of plot.”

  “It’d be suspicious if there was from what I’ve heard,” Ebe Gallowglass said, sipping from a thermos mug of something warm. Cinnamon-skinned and wielding a startlingly white smile, Gallowglass dressed less like a lady than a Continental stevedore on shore-leave. In contrast, St. Cyprian possessed hard olive features and a certain exoticism to his clothes beneath the muffler and officer’s greatcoat, despite their Savile Row origins. “Why do you think they’re practicing way out here?”

  “Better acoustics? The lack of prying eyes? Who knows...is that broth?” St. Cyprian gazed at the mug steadily and she sniffed and moved it away from him.

  “I offered you some, you said no.”

  “That was before I realised that I had forgotten my gloves and just how bloody cold it is here,” St. Cyprian said, waggling his fingers. “At least let me hold the thermos.”

  “Get your own thermos,” Gallowglass said, sidling away.

  “The cheek of it,” St. Cyprian said. “My own apprentice is refusing me a bit of liquid warmth!”

  “Damn right,” she said, draining her mug and screwing the top back on. She tossed the thermos into the travel basket attached to the boot of the black Crossley hp that they both sat on. “Besides which, we wouldn’t be sitting out here if not for your friend—”

  “Steady on,” St. Cyprian said. “Jessop is more of an acquaintance than anything else...”

  “We wouldn’t be out here if not for your friend insisting we meet him out here, and not in town,” Gallowglass continued.

  “He had his reasons, I’m sure,” St. Cyprian said, fluttering his fingers towards the mummers. Below them, one the shore at the base of the slumping cliff they had parked on, the mummers continued their dance, seemingly unaware of their audience. Mummers’ plays were an English holiday tradition, though much confined to the isolated townships and hamlets, where the shadows of newborn department stores and industrial cheer had yet to reach.

  St. Cyprian noted that the costumes, despite their chaotic appearance, all had a similar theme, one of seeming barbaric pseudo-medievalism. By far the most common outfit consisted of wigs of stiffened, spiky hair and shirts covered in coiling blue scrawl that might have represented tattoos or scars. And several of the masks were obviously porcine in appearance, with great wooden tusks and stubbly jowls. “Have you ever seen a mummer’s play then?” St. Cyprian said as he glanced up at a seagull swooping raucously overhead.

  “No,” Gallowglass said, dropping her chin into her palms, her elbow balanced on one knee. “What’s this one supposed to be about?”

  “God only knows. It’s a hoary old tradition, the origins of which are lost to the mists of time and the migration of generations,” St. Cyprian said, gesturing melodramatically. “Also, it’s strange and off-putting and no one really enjoys it.”

  “By which you mean that you don’t enjoy it?” Gallowglass said.

  “I thought that was what I said?” St. Cyprian said, before blowing warmth into his clenched fingers. “Still, could be worse I suppose. A nice sea-side holiday, a bit of festivity, what?”

  “Right,” Gallowglass said. She peered towards the sea, taking in the distant shred of dark on the slate grey horizon that was England. The island of Lecach sat nestled in the Channel, between England and its closest European neighbour. It was a quiet sort of place, and, like other Channel Islands, several steps out of joint with modern British life. The Crossley whose wheel-rim she was occupying was likely the only motor car on the island, Gallowglass reflected, not to mention combustion engine. People had certainly stared when they’d rolled off the ferry in it and it had been pure hell getting the car here in the first place. St. Cyprian had insisted, however. “What do you think then?” she said, after a moment. �
�About this Craye woman, I mean?”

  St. Cyprian grunted. Gallowglass pressed on. “Do you really think she’s been kidnapped like Jessop says? That is why we’re celebrating our first Christmas together here, instead of going to that dratted Wickham woman’s party?”

  “Jessop never struck me as a fellow given to fancy,” St. Cyprian said. “And I thought you loved Bobbie’s parties...”

  “I would rather suck on a loaded carbine than put up with Wickham and Wooster and the rest of that lot. And you didn’t answer the question,” Gallowglass said.

  He sighed. ‘The Craye woman’, as Gallowglass put it, was Georgie Craye, niece of the Earl of Worplesdon, and amateur folklorist. She had, by all accounts, come to Lecach earlier in the month to witness and record the islanders’ peculiar holiday traditions. And then, according to those same accounts, she had vanished. Here one moment and gone the next. “No, I didn’t,” he said, finally.

  “It’s a beautiful view, on a clear day,” someone said from behind them before Gallowglass could reply. A bicycle bell rang diffidently as the voice’s owner skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust and rock. “It really is. Or so Georgie said.”

  “Ah, but today is not a clear day, Jessop old man,” St. Cyprian said, leaning backwards to look at the newcomer. “It is, in fact, a blustery, damp, dull day, which you have kept us waiting out in for a bit longer than I like.”

  “Well, rather, yes,” Jessop said, frowning. He was a slight man, built for the bicycle, and older than St. Cyprian by half a decade, though it didn’t show in his face. He was also besotted with Georgie Craye, something which, unfortunately, did show on his face. “You’ve been watching them, then?”

  “Yes,” St. Cyprian said, sliding off the car and bobbing to his feet. “They’re quite...mummery, I suppose.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Jessop said, shifting uneasily on his bicycle.

  “Well, what would you have me say, Jessop?” St. Cyprian said. “It’s a mummers’ play. It’s bound to be disconcerting to a sensitive man like you. It’s like morris dancing that way.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously, Charles,” Jessop said, pounding a fist on the handlebars of his bike. “Didn’t you read my letter?”

  St. Cyprian grunted and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I take everything seriously, old fellow. I’m here, after all, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, but Carnacki would have—” Jessop began.

  “I’m not Carnacki,” St. Cyprian snapped. Jessop’s mouth closed abruptly. Gallowglass sighed and looked away. Of course he’d bring up Carnacki. Everyone brought up Carnacki, especially old members of his circle, like Jessop or Arkwright. The fact that Carnacki was dead and gone and St. Cyprian was his replacement seemed to be an unending cause for consternation among the friends, acquaintances and associates of the former Royal Occultist.

  Formed during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had been known) had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee, and passed through a succession of hands since. The list was a long one, depressingly so, weaving in and out of the margins of British history, and culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian. Thomas Carnacki, his predecessor and mentor, had been one of the more beloved holders of an office that, by and large, attracted the nastier sort of human being. He’d also lasted longer than the usual office-holder, with a record of close to two decades. St. Cyprian, in contrast, wasn’t marking his calendar too far ahead. Though whether that was pessimism or premonition, he’d never said and Gallowglass had never asked.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, Charles,” Jessop said, after a few minutes taut silence.

  “No apologies necessary, old fellow,” St. Cyprian said with forced cheerfulness. “It’s the season of forgiveness and all that, after all.” He looked down at the shore. “You’re certain they—or someone—took her, then?” he said.

  Jessop swallowed. “Yes.”

  “She didn’t simply leave? She didn’t take the next ferry to the mainland?” St. Cyprian pressed.

  “No,” Jessop said, his voice ragged at the edges. “Georgie wrote to me regularly. When the letters stopped, I knew something had happened! They took her Charles. I don’t know why, but they took her.”

  “Maybe she went willingly,” Gallowglass ventured idly. Jessop shot her a venomous glare, but didn’t reply. She snorted. “Of course not; stupid of me to even suggest it.”

  “Ignore her, she’s a pathological devil’s advocate,” St. Cyprian said. He looked at Jessop. “We’ll find her, old salt.”

  Jessop nodded bonelessly. “And if we don’t?” he said.

  “We will,” St. Cyprian repeated. He clapped his hands together. “Now, I don’t know about you two, but I could do with some food before we begin our search.”

  There was only room for one village on Lecach, and in the interests of saving space on the map it had the same name as the island. It was a polite postcard of a place, possessing a proper village green and weathered stone boundary markers. The pub was called the Hogshead and it sat in pride of place in the village centre. Laughter and music echoed from behind its frosted panes despite the weather outside.

  “Georgie said there used to be a ring of standing stones around the village, back before the Normans came and knocked them down and made the local chappies sword-point Christians. Most of these houses are built over the old stones,” Jessop said, rubbing his arms against the cold as they entered. “Georgie said Christ was a blanket thrown over the old ways on these islands. One good wind and his influence would vanish…”

  “For a hotbed of secret paganism, this place is filthy with holiday spirit,” St. Cyprian said as they took one of the few empty tables near the door. The smell of cider, roasting pork and cooked apples filled the air, but beneath those tantalizing aromas was something else, a harder, fiercer scent that sent the mind to unwholesome places. Something seemed to move through the haze of the cheery fire, just out of the corner of every eye. St. Cyprian tried to focus on it, but it proved too elusive.

  “It’s filthy with something,” Gallowglass murmured, running a finger through the film of spilt beer on the rough wood of the table-top. Jessop said nothing as he looked about the common room with pinched, wary features. He had been on the island for a week, and the seams were starting to show. Part of it was worry, St. Cyprian knew, but some of it, he suspected, was instinct. Jessop was sensitive after a certain fashion, and there were places that rubbed against his soul like steel wool.

  “What is it?” St. Cyprian murmured to him. Jessop started and shook his head.

  “Nothing, just…” he trailed off.

  “Just what?” St. Cyprian pressed. A new carol was starting and it had the air of local folk song. No King Wenceslas or Christ in his manger for the bawds of Lecach, it seemed. It was a rough tune, full of rushed, roaring voices, assuring the listener of John Mock’s merriness, though who Mock was and why anyone should care whether he was merry or not, was not part of the tune.

  “I smell something,” Jessop said, wincing as the noise beat down on him.

  “I hope it’s not the kitchen,” Gallowglass said, signaling the waitress. She was an apple-cheeked islander, with that particular hard plumpness that all the inhabitants of Lecach displayed. She took their order with good humor, her eyes lingering over their faces as if memorizing them. Gallowglass jabbed St. Cyprian with a finger under the table.

  He looked up, and noticed that more than one set of eyes was on them. The celebratory mood hadn’t dampened, nor had any indication been given that their presence had even been noticed, but they were being observed nonetheless.

  “They’re watching us,” Jessop said, without moving his lips. “I can feel them.”

  “Of course they are. New faces, what?” St. Cyprian said. He frowne
d. “Where are you staying Jessop? Here?”

  “God no,” Jessop blurted, “I rented a cottage near the harbor last week.”

  “Good. We’ll stay there.”

  “I wish we could. It was broken into this morning. That’s why I rode out to meet you,” Jessop said quietly. “The place looked like a pig sty. Every one of Georgie’s papers was scattered about.”

  “Hmp,” St. Cyprian muttered. “Now who would do that, I wonder?”

  “You know damn well who did it!” Jessop hissed. St. Cyprian pressed a finger to his lips, silencing the other man.

  “As you said, we’re being watched. Stiff upper lip,” he said. Outside, it was growing dark. It got dark early on Lecach this time of year. The song was stumbling to a halt as the singers refreshed their pints and St. Cyprian closed his physical eyes but let his third drift lazily open. spirit-eye, Carnacki had called it. St. Cyprian had learned how to open it from a Tibetan lama of his acquaintance. Aside from having what St. Cyprian considered an unhealthy fascination for the color green, the lama had been a good teacher.

  It wasn’t, perhaps the smartest of ploys, but he could feel a strange sort of pressure hanging over everything, a spiritual humidity that was playing merry hell with his senses. In a place like this, at this time of year, the barriers were thinner than normal. Things moved that ought to lay quiet and doors opened that ought to stay closed.

  The world became soft at the edges and more vibrant as his senses expanded to fill the void left by his thoughts. The colors of the taproom blended and flowed into one another like watercolors. He pressed his palms to the tabletop and let his mouth hang open ever so slightly to expel a tendril of his ka. His ka slid between his lips like cigarette smoke, curling and coiling out from him in a straight line. He didn’t let it go too far. Ectoplasm was a tricky substance at the best of times. It was a useful trick, though.