Dark Waters (Mephisto Club Series Book 1)

by David Longhorn

  The cavern connects with the sea. Well, I guess I kind of knew that already.

  A splashing noise, nearby and much louder than before. This time a wave washed over his feet and Malahide stepped back, turning up the lantern. He heard a weak sloshing from the lantern as he raised it up. The oil reservoir in the base was running out. And there was nowhere obvious here for Jeff to hide.

  “Stupid animal,” he muttered.

  His words echoed eerily, 'stupid' and 'animal' bouncing around the slimy walls. Malahide took a couple of steps back, resolving to go. He had to force himself to turn his back on the tidal pool. As he reached the tunnel entrance there was a third splash, much closer this time, and he spun round to see a spreading circle of ripples a few feet from the ledge.

  A big fish, obviously. Got trapped. Confused. Trying to get out.

  But before he could turn again, he saw something lying just under the surface, on the top step. It glimmered like a coin. He took a couple of steps closer and saw that it was indeed a coin, about an inch across.

  It looks like a gold medal, of all things.

  The priest hunkered down, put the flickering oil lamp to one side, and reached out for the metal disc. Before he could reach it, a pale hand darted out and snatched it away. He leaped up, saw a pale oval shape disappearing into the depths of the pool. A few bubbles broke the surface.

  “Stop playing, silly buggers!” he shouted, his voice unsteady. The words echoed around the cavern, mocking him. He snatched up the lamp, which guttered and nearly went out, its fuel almost exhausted.

  This time he backed away until he reached the cavern wall, then felt around for the passageway, never taking his eyes off the green water. But there were no more disturbances while he watched. As soon as he turned to run back up the narrow stone tunnel, the splashing came again. Suddenly possessed by childish terror, Malahide began to pray, with quiet desperation.

  In the past, he had often felt the presence of God when he was in most need of succor. But at this moment, he sensed only an emptiness, and no matter how hard he tried he could not rid himself of the image of the green water. The lamp went out and he flung it backwards, heard it smash on the stone. A faint radiance was now visible ahead of him, weak Hebridean daylight leaking down from the kitchen. Malahide began to scramble upwards, using his hands on the steep stairway. The light seemed very far above him.

  ***

  When Dan came to in the hospital, he was afloat on a morphine haze. He found himself in a private room, and realized that his private health insurance must have kicked in. The door was ajar, and from the corridor came reassuringly normal noises. Nurses exchanged banter with porters, trolleys rattled back and forth, a speaker made announcements that were just the wrong side of comprehensible.

  Dan needed to pee. He checked to see if he was more or less intact. He recalled something telling him he had 'bumps and bruises' and a sprained ankle. He struggled against stabbing pain to get out of bed, made his way to the small bathroom, urinated with a profound sigh of relief, then hobbled back to bed.

  As he climbed back up, he saw that a small child had come in while he was occupied, and was sitting in a chair behind the door. It was a little girl of about six, wearing a quaint-looking night-dress, pink with a floral pattern. The girl had large blue eyes and her hair was in blonde ringlets, a little like Shirley Temple. She clutched a small, old-fashioned teddy bear. She was swinging her feet while staring at him.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't think you should be in here, honey.”

  The little girl showed no sign of having heard him. Dan had read stories about confused patients wandering the corridors of hospitals. It seemed odd that a child should be able to mix with adult patients so easily. He looked around for a buzzer, found it, and pushed the button.

  “A nurse will come and take you back to your ward, honey,” he said, trying to sound friendly, but not creepy. He was not comfortable with small children, and this one was in what amounted to his bedroom. The girl stopped swinging her feet and frowned.

  “You're a bad man,” she said in a high-pitched, accusing voice.

  Dan felt the first stirrings of genuine panic. He had heard of men being tarred with terrible accusations on the word of a mischievous child. He tried to laugh, but sound the nervousness in his own voice.

  “I'm not that bad, surely?” he asked.

  The girl shrugged, then held her bear to her ear.

  “Teddy says you could be a lot better,” she said solemnly. “He says you want to hurt us.”

  Dan reached for the buzzer and pressed the button continuously about ten seconds. He was terrified that the child would jump off her chair and run to the bed, do something terrible and crazy that would ruin his life.

  “I don't want to hurt anybody!” he protested.

  Please come, please come, please come!

  A nurse in a crisp, blue uniform walked in, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking. She gave him a professional smile, and Dan was instantly reassured. The woman was stocky, about fifty, her hair drawn back in a severe bun, her bare forearms mottled red.

  Old school, probably for the best.

  “Now what seems to be the trouble Mister Fox?” she asked briskly. “This is not a hotel you know! You can't just ring for room service!”

  “Sorry, ma'am,” said Dan, making his accent a little bit stronger. “But I think my little visitor over there is lost.”

  He pointed at the child, who stuck out her tongue at him. The nurse, oddly, did not turn around to look. The girl jumped down off her chair and walked over to stand by the woman. It was then that Dan noticed something he should have spotted much sooner. The Teddy bear was a collector's item.

  A Steiff bear, and in excellent condition. Who in their right mind would give that to a kid?

  “Nurse?” he said, uncertainly. “The child – she shouldn't be just wandering around.”

  “Leave it alone, Mister Fox,” said the nurse, as the girl reached up and took the woman's hand. “Just stop before you do any real damage. We don't want you to give it to them.”

  A swirl of smoke and flame engulfed the nurse and the little girl. Dan yelled as he watched the fire consume their clothes, their flesh. The rare bear blackened, fell to the floor, followed by its owner's blazing body. The nurse fell forward, sprawling across the bed. Lumps of flesh fell, smoking, onto the blankets as Dan scrambled away from her.

  “Leave us alone!”

  With the last word, the burning nurse disappeared. At the same moment a young, dark-skinned woman in a pink overall looked around the door.

  “You all right, mate?” she asked in a Cockney accent. “Buzzing away there, got me worried.”

  Dan shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. The young woman walked up to the bed, smiling pleasantly.

  “Good stuff kicking in, eh?” she joked, looking at notes on a clipboard. “You'll fall out of bed, Dan. Wouldn't want that, you'd have to see a doctor!”

  “Comedy gold,” Dan said, managing a taut smile. “I just – I kind of panicked. Wasn't sure where I was. Sorry.”

  “That's all right,” the nurse replied. “But don't make a habit of it.”

  She swung a screen around on its articulated arm, so that it was facing Dan.

  “If you want to sign up for telly, radio, whatever, you can just put your card details in,” she explained. “All the latest mod cons! Now, let me just check your dressing.”

  When the nurse left, Dan swung the video screen away and pondered what had happened. He refused to believe in ghosts. He did not want to believe he was going crazy. That left some kind of mental manipulation, which was at least a real-world possibility.

  Tricks, he thought. That's it, the Mephisto Club is playing some kind of mind game. Hypnosis can do it. Hell, maybe they did it weeks ago and I just can't remember.

  “Why would they do that, Dan?” asked Melinda.

  She was sitting in the chair at his bedside. Dan was surprised to find she had change
d in appearance slightly. Before, she had looked the way he remembered her at their first encounter. Now she was dressed in a long, dark coat, her hair tied back. A winter look. When their relationship had started to get serious.

  “Serious for one of us,” she said, smiling sadly.

  “You're not a ghost,” he said. “Either I'm mentally ill, which is possible, or you're part of an attempt to manipulate me. For all I know none of this really started until I met that Secretary guy. Memories could have been implanted. Hell, if they can do it in Vegas, why not London?”

  “Trying to convince me, Dan?” she asked. “I thought I didn't exist.”

  He found nothing to say to that.

  “Those people who upset you earlier,” she went on, standing up and going to the door. “They're just a few of the thousands who really don't want you to succeed. But I'll try and help you. I believe in you, Dan. It's just not easy because–”

  Melinda stopped. Frowning, she then put her head out into the corridor. There were brisk footsteps, the sound of a woman talking to someone, the slam of a door. Then she walked back over to him, looking relieved.

  “False alarm,” she said. “So many souls drifting around here, but most of them are just lost.”

  “Why would a bunch of ghosts care about my career choices?” Dan demanded, trying to keep his voice low. “What have I done?”

  “Nothing yet,” Melinda said. “But that's the thing about being dead – you get to see a lot of stuff that might happen. Sometimes the future's real clear, but more often it's vague. Your future is unusual.”

  “Great, I feel blessed,” he grunted.

  “That's not the right word,” she said, sitting down again. “Not at all. And I'm no guardian angel.”

  Dan tried not to stare at her, but it was impossible not to be amazed at the accuracy of his vision. He could see the faint, downy fuzz on her cheek, the slight asymmetry of her thick eyebrows, tiny golden flecks in her irises.

  “Dan,” she said, “don't listen to her. I'm not allowed to say any more, but don't listen to her. She's not what she seems.”

  “Who–” he began.

  But she was already gone.

  ***

  A few miles away in the reading room of the Mephisto Club, James Nisbet sat nervously opposite the Secretary. They sat by one of the tall windows that looked out onto Salisbury Square. On the table between them was a well-laded cake stand, a silver teapot, cups and various accessories. Other members were scattered around the high-ceilinged room, reclining in deep leather chairs. Some seemed to be asleep, others were perusing rare volumes. One had dozed off and let a dog-eared tome slide to the thick, blood-colored carpet.

  “Your father would be proud, Number 33,” said the Secretary. “He was very keen to have you succeed.”

  “I'm sure,” Nisbet replied sourly. “But I don't understand why Fox needs to be the one?”

  The Secretary poured tea into a bone-china cup, pushed it across the table to the younger man. Nisbet did not pick it up, instead leaning back, crossing his legs.

  “Sometimes the universe presents one with an opportunity,” said the Secretary. “When it does, one must seize it with both hands. Or however many hands one might happen to have, I don't presume to judge.”

  Nisbet looked puzzled at that, then shrugged irritably.

  “But Fox isn't even British, and you set him to the most difficult task. Why? Is he some kind of chosen one? God, I hope not.”

  The Secretary poured himself some tea, then dropped a lump of sugar into the milky brown liquid with silver tongs. Picking up the cup and saucer, he leaned back and looked levelly at Nisbet.

  “There are no chosen ones, Number 33,” he said. “Only shifting potentials, an ever-changing web of probabilities.”

  The Secretary sipped at the tea, blew on it, sipped again, put the cup down.

  “Our prognosticators say that Fox happens to have the right skill set for the task. He will probably die at some point during the challenge, as most do. But he will almost certainly recover at least one of the artifacts.”

  “Yes, I know how your spooky fortune tellers operate,” Nisbet whined, “but why not call in some kind of professional? There are quite a few real-life Indiana Joneses, aren't there? Men who steal things to order.”

  The Secretary looked out of the window.

  “There are some nine million souls in this city, including hundreds of competent professional thieves. Not one of them, I am reliably informed, has a better chance of succeeding than Fox.”

  The cadaverous old man gestured at the cake stand.

  “Choose an éclair, a meringue, a tart – which one will satisfy you the most? Personal bias is all in such matters. But–”

  The Secretary leaned forward, jabbed a bony finger at Nisbet.

  “In matters of life and death one takes expert advice.”

  Nisbet sighed, stared out onto the square.

  “The Russians nearly killed him, before he even got started,” he said. “Hardly auspicious.”

  The Secretary smiled.

  “You don't know why they failed,” he said. “We do. It is very auspicious indeed.”

  “Would you care to enlighten me?” asked Nisbet, sourly.

  “Love,” the Secretary replied. “The power of love, like hate, can be a splendid motivating factor. For the living, and for the dead.”

  “I don't understand!” the younger man whined.

  “You don't have to,” the Secretary said dismissively. “All you need to know is that, unlike earlier candidates, Fox has someone running interference for him. On the other side.”

  Nisbet picked up a meringue and took an angry bite.

  “Love,” he said, through a mouthful of creamy fragments. “How bloody ridiculous.”

  “So cynical,” the Secretary sighed. “And still so young.”

  Chapter 5: Island Life

  As soon as Malahide got back to the kitchen, he slammed the low door shut and jammed the old freezer right up against it. He waited, then, in silence, apart from his rasping breath and the beating of his heart. He anticipated the slam of a big, solid body against the other side of the flimsy wooden barrier. He imagined a vague but monstrous shape that would crash into the small, sane kitchen and overwhelm his out-of-condition self. It did not come.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he breathed. “What just happened?”

  He had no answers, only an image in his mind. The crucifix now in the church, with its bizarre, unconventional Christ. The figure in the tangle of golden sea-fronds might be a man, the legs merged due to a mistake in casting, or some other fault. But Malahide did not think so, not now.

  A long-haired being with a human torso, but a tail below, and some kind of gill-slits on its rib-cage.

  “I'm out of my depth,” he said, striding out of the kitchen into the hall. “Don't be too proud to ask for help, my old tutor taught me.”

  The only link to the mainland that he knew of was by telephone, thanks to an undersea cable. The phone in the priest's residence was solidly old-fashioned, the handset linked to the base with a spiral cable. When Malahide picked it up he heard the familiar dial tone, and it gave him a slight boost in morale. It was such a staid, old-fashioned sound. There was a notepad by the phone with the bishop's number on it. Dialing seemed to take an eternity, but then he heard a ring tone.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was that of a woman, and she sounded far away. The line was hissing with static.

  “This is Father Malahide,” he said loudly. “Could I speak with his grace the bishop, please? It's a matter of great urgency.”

  “Hello?” came the feminine voice again.

  “I'm calling from Soray, I need to talk to his grace, this is Father–”

  Malahide paused. There had been a sharp click on the line, distinctly louder than the background noise. The priest thought back to numerous old movies. The click signified one of two things. Someone tapping the line, or someone simply lifti
ng the second receiver in his bedroom.

  “Hello? Who is this? It's a very bad line?”

  The distant woman was sounding peeved, now. The background static grew louder, became a dull roar like the incoming tide.

  “Sorry, I'll try again later,” he said, already starting to replace the handset.

  He stood for a few moments, listening to the silence. The wind, seagulls, and then a creak that might have been weight, shifting on a floorboard. The sound, perhaps, of a stealthy footstep.

  Malahide looked up at the landing.

  “Hello?” he said. “Anyone there?”

  There was another soft footstep, and a subdued noise. It sounded, to Malahide, very much like a giggle. For a second he did not recognize the young woman who appeared at the top of the stairs. She was naked except for an Alice band holding back her abundant, intensely red hair. She put one slender, pale hand on the banister, another on her hip. There was a faint, ironic smile on her face as she stood looking down at him.

  “Who – what?” he stammered. “How did you–”

  It was then that he remembered the girl from communion, the one whose tongue had shot out suddenly to take the wafer. He had estimated her age then at about twelve, based on her stature and clothing. Now, gazing at her unclothed body in his fuddled state, he felt she must be older, but probably not by much.

  “Hello, Father,” she said quietly. “You weren't around so I made myself at home. Hope you don't mind.”

  “This is – you can't be here,” he said, but could not move.

  He had been propositioned by women before. It was an occupational hazard for priests, even the secretly gay ones. Some women had a thing for the clergy, and stern warnings were issued at the training stage. But in the past, Malahide had been fending off mature women who were fully clothed, more or less. He struggled with a rising tide of sheer panic.