The Dagger Men: A Novel of the Clay Shamus

by Michael Panush

  “Keep writing!” Clay called. “End this!”

  “Use that Serpent Yad, child!” Zipporah added. “We’ll keep you safe!” But she and Clay both stared across the meadow and wondered how that would be possible. They had cleared away the legionaries and the simple golems of the Dagger Men. Now, the Dagger Men sent their elite.

  Rabbi Eisendrath himself had finally chosen to arrive. He walked down the meadow, his tattered frock coat dragging behind him. His hands rested in the pockets of his vest, and rain pelted his bald, tattooed head, the water looking dark as it covered the occult script on his face. Behind him, six hulking ice golems walked together through the rain. The city must have made them with the contents of ice boxes and Rabbi Eisendrath had done the rest. The ice golems had slim frames, but they stood head and shoulders taller than Clay. Jagged icicles sprouted from their shoulders and wrists, and they shook their arms to send icicles flying through the air. The frozen projectiles smashed into the mud, stabbing deeply into the dirt, or shattered on the stone pillars and walls of the Third Temple. Roman soldiers and smaller earth golems joined Rabbi Eisendrath. He had massed a powerful force around him, and intended to take the temple back.

  Harvey stared at them, looking over his shoulder. “No. There’s too many of them. Mr. Clay, you’ll never—”

  “Finish removing the enchantment,” Clay ordered. He stared at Rabbi Eisendrath, looking into the dark eyes of the Dagger Man. Rabbi Eisendrath had survived pummeling with a golem’s fists, which should have pulped his organs and broken his ribs. He had lived for centuries. Clay began to have some idea about the exact nature of this high priest of Dagger Men. He stepped closer to the ice golems, his fists swinging at his sides. “Rabbi Eisendrath!” he called, trying to show some of Zipporah’s bravado. “What kept you?”

  “Marshaling my forces to defend my city,” Rabbi Eisendrath called back. “From abominations like you, golem!”

  Clay didn’t flinch at the comment. “It ain’t your city anymore!” Zipporah called.

  “I will make it more than a city!” Rabbi Eisendrath replied. “I will make it a Garden of Eden, a paradise on earth! There will be no persecution, no harm to innocents. Jews will be powerful here, as they were in ages past, and we will praise God with our very breaths!” His snarled as he talked, his lips curling back to reveal perfect, square teeth. He looked more like a sculpture than a man. “But you seek to ruin my perfection. You have put a snake into my garden, a serpent! I will cast it out with a fiery sword. I will protect my Eden!”

  “Come on, then,” Clay said. “Come and try.”

  The ice golems charged, racing from Rabbi Eisendrath and running to meet Clay and Zipporah. Their spiky limbs swung down as they attacked. Two ice golems reached Clay, and drove their icicles into his chest. Spiked ice punched into his body, nearly impaling him. He twisted to the side, breaking the ice, and punched at icy faces. Ice shattered under his fist. Chunks rained down, spilling onto the grass. Clay rammed the outstretched leg of an ice golem, breaking its knee. It fell back. Clay drove his elbow into the golem’s head, breaking the ice and finally destroying it. Ice floated in the rivulets of water caused by the rain. Clay turned to the next, only for fingers tipped with icicles to stab into his chest and lift him up. He kicked the ice golem in the chest. It didn’t work. The ice golem hurled him back. Clay flew past Harvey and smashed into one of the stone pillars of the Third Temple. Stone broke under his back. He tumbled down to the mud and lay there.

  Zipporah fought the ice golems as well—with limited success. She cut apart icy fingers as they reached for her, slicing through frost and sending the frozen claws spinning away. They still forced her back, closer to the Founding Stone. Clay stumbled to his feet and ran to join her.

  They stood together, protecting Harvey as the ice golems closed. “M-Mr. Clay? Miss Sarfati?” Harvey’s voice came from behind, very faint. “I think there’s some kind of problem. With the Serpent Yad, I mean. It doesn’t appear to be—”

  “Not now, Harvey!” Zipporah cried. An ice golem reached for her, trying to entangle her in frost fingers. She drove her sword through its wrist, stabbing it through ice, and then hacked to the side. The ice golem’s hand fell free and hit the ground, where its fingers moved and carried it along like an ice blue spider. Zipporah looked back at the temple steps. “Twist—a rifle!” She sheathed a sword and held out her hand. Kid Twist dutifully tossed her a rifle, Clay’s Springfield, from the door of the temple. Zipporah caught the gun, twisted it around, and impaled the crawling hand with the bayonet. She hoisted it up, the icy hand still stuck on the end, and fired at the ice golem before it could attack again. The bullet caught the ice golem in the head, and it fell back as slush and snow.

  Despite their efforts, they couldn’t hold out against the ice golems. Clay knew it as two ice golems attacked him at once. Their ice fingers slashed at him and held him in place while Rabbi Eisendrath watched. The leader of the Dagger Men had started to wave his hands, forming his fingers into occult symbols. Clay grabbed a lump of mud and tossed it at him. Dirt splashed onto Rabbi Eisendrath’s tattooed face. He sputtered and stumbled, his spell ruined—but mud wouldn’t hold him for long. An icy arm grabbed Clay’s leg and pulled. His leg went out from under him and he fell to the mud. Battle raged above him, as he stared into the gray sky. The ice golem raised its thin hands again, preparing another strike.

  Something red and glowing roared down from the sky before a plume of smoke. It shot down like a comet and smashed into the back of the ice golem. Ice broke and melted. The ice golem fell in half, the pieces tumbling down onto Clay and falling into the muck. Clay rolled over and pulled himself to his feet. His legs ached. Bits of his limbs had chipped off and they fell through his ripped sleeves and struck the ground. Clay still managed to stand and look at the sky.

  A zeppelin hung there, a gray sausage growing larger as it came down through the rain. Water ran down the gasbag and splashed onto the undercarriage. Steel plates protected the doughboys inside, and they aimed cannons and machine guns down at the field below. The guns of the zeppelin roared as it drew closer, sending rockets, machine gun rounds, and artillery into the clusters of legionaries. The name of the airship, Terrible Swift Sword, had been emblazoned in gold lettering on the side. The doughboys inside wore goggles under their tin bowlers, and readied rifles and submachine guns as the airship touched down. Gangplanks fell into the muddy earth and the soldiers hurried to attack the enemies. They had been fighting rebels in Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Compared to those jungle guerillas, the antique Roman soldiers and mindless golems must be duck soup.

  Cheers came from the assembled gangsters, which echoed over the park. Clay felt better as well. He stood next to Zipporah as rifle fire tore into the ice golems and remaining legionaries, while cannon shots and rockets rained down from the deck of the Terrible Swift Sword. Fire split the rain and skeletons dropped under the blasts. Some charged the doughboys, backed up by golems. Rifle fire, submachine guns, and then bayonets met them. The doughboys held their firing line, and golems and skeletons melted under the blast.

  Colonel Menelaus Montgomery Rook stepped before the firing line. He hadn’t aged a day since Clay had seen him after the War in Russia—still a man who was never happier than in the middle of a battle. His uniform was spotless and he waved his sword as he urged his men onward. A trim, down-swept moustache covered his face, and Hermes, his prized carrier pigeon, sat on his shoulder. Colonel Rook fired at the attacking Romans with his pearl-handled revolver, and then moved in and finished them with sweeps of his saber. He had fought in the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, Mexico, the Great War, Russia, and countless smaller conflicts. And now, he fought in Sickle City as well.

  He parried a gladius with his saber and blasted apart the Roman’s skull, before turning to face Clay. Colonel Rook snapped off a salute. “Clay! My word, son—this is a grand battle
you’ve arranged. I always wanted to test myself against the might of Rome and the Caesars!” He grinned as he shot an attacking earth golem, fanning off his revolver to make sure that his bullets drilled a hole in its head. “We fought creatures like this in Russia, time to time. I enjoyed slaughtering the supernatural even more than I did the Bolsheviks, and it’s a fine thing to repeat that here!” He called to his men. “Fan out! Engage these Romans and defeat them! Leave nothing standing, boys, until the city is ours!”

  The battle was all but won—even though the earth still shifted and danced under the feet of the Third Temple’s attacker. Then Clay remembered Rabbi Eisendrath. He could summon monsters with his spells, and that may turn the tide. Clay scanned the battlefield and found the familiar scrap of black. Rabbi Eisendrath watched the battle in horror. His hands rose, preparing another spell. A barrage of cannon fire enveloped him first. Clay turned away from the blast. Fire blanketed the grass, along with bursts of smoke. That should have obliterated a normal man, but when the smoke cleared, Rabbi Eisendrath remained. His coat had been tattered and the tattoos blasted away from his skin. He looked more like a lump of clay than a man. He started walking to the Founding Stone, hate in his flinty eyes.

  Zipporah stared at him. “He’s not human.”

  “No.” Clay ran to Harvey, Zipporah close behind. They stared at the Founding Stone as Rabbi Eisendrath approached. “The spell—you said there was trouble?”

  Harvey looked up from the Founding Stone. He gripped the Serpent Yad with both hands and tried to drag it across the stone. “It’s not working. It’s like the stone is resisting me.” Mud covered his boots, trying to drag him down. “Maybe it’s Sickle City, sir. The city doesn’t want to go back to how it was.” He turned to Clay. “I don’t know what to do. Could you—could you talk to it?”

  “Me?” Clay stared at the Founding Stone.

  “You’re both golems. You and the city,” Zipporah suggested. “Talk to it.”

  “But it’s a golem,” Clay said. “It has to follow the orders of the Dagger Men. It’s mindless.” Then he remembered the Elephantine Hotel, watching them with sad painted eyes as they escaped from Palisade Park. It could have stopped them, and it didn’t. “Mindless,” he repeated.

  “No, sir,” Harvey said. “It’s not. No more than you are.” He kept the Serpent Yad aimed at the stone. “Please. Just try and talk to it.”

  Clay rested his palm on the stone. He knelt down and put his head close to the carved letters. He could hear something behind the stone—perhaps the beating of a heart. He whispered to it. “You must have seen a lot of pain in your time. A lot of cruelty. I have as well. But we don’t need to let that pain control us. We don’t need to let ancient prejudices from the past rule our lives. We can choose our path. It doesn’t matter why we were created, or what orders we were given. We can find a better way.” He tapped his fingers on the stone. “You know this isn’t right. You know what the boy has to do. Maybe part of you can stick around, but there’s no Second Jerusalem. There’s no paradise. There’s just a city and the people who live in it. They have to learn to live with each other.”

  A second ticked past. The gentle pounding in Clay’s ears grew. Then the earth below him shifted. It flattened, the mud falling away from his boots. Hills and valleys straightened, the dirt filling itself in. All the golems stopped running. They collapsed, falling to the grass in piles of steel, wood, glass, brick, ice, and dirt. Their pieces scattered in neat piles. Rabbi Eisendrath wordlessly shouted and Clay turned to look at him. A hole had opened in the earth below him, trapping him for good. The pit surrounded him, and though he clawed and struggled, he could not get out. The legionaries fought on, but gunfire quickly finished them. The battle had been won.

  “What h-happened?” Harvey asked.

  “The city chose a side,” Zipporah said. “It decided to defend its people.”

  Shouts of victory came from the defenders of Sickle City. Fedoras, newsboy caps, and bowler hats sailed through the air. Rabbi Holtz ran past the piles of dead golems and hurried to his son. They embraced. Colonel Rook hurried to the Founding Stone, along with everyone else. They gathered around Harvey, who held the Serpent Yad over the Hebrew character that would return Sickle City to normal. There was no hurry. He could strike it at any time now, without danger. The city was on their side.

  ~~~

  For a while, Harvey stared at the stone as the cheers echoed. “I almost feel bad about it,” he said. “Sickle City was alive, and now it’s free. Do I really have the right to kill it?” He looked at the Serpent Yad and then at the stone. “But if the city’s truly alive, it could cause trouble for people—making streets break or buildings fall over. That sort of thing.” He tapped his finger on the stone. “Maybe there’s some kind of solution.”

  “Do what you think is right, boychick,” Rabbi Holtz said. “We trust you.”

  “Okay,” Harvey agreed. “I think I’ll—”

  Dirt and mud flew behind him. Hark shouted a warning as she raised her crossbow. Clay spun. Rabbi Eisendrath had clambered out of the pit. His body had changed—his fingers fusing together and elongating into powerful, jagged blades. His tattoos remained, blurred and smudged on skin like melted wax. He raced through the crowd, leaping into the air and lunging for Harvey with his bladed hands. Clay stepped in front of him. He caught Rabbi Eisendrath and they struck the ground together. Clay grappled with him, but Rabbi Eisendrath broke and reformed.

  “Golem!” Clay called out the name. “That’s what you are.”

  “Yes.” Rabbi Eisendrath leaned down, his tattooed face melting. “Rabbi Eisendrath died a century ago—stabbed a hundred times by the blades of Cossacks. He built me with his blood and his bones and the dirt from the road, and I have continued serving him ever since.” He lunged for Clay’s head. Clay grabbed his arm and twisted. “I will always serve him. That is a golem’s job. I will pay back the world for all the injustice I have seen.” His other hand lashed for Clay’s head, the bladed edge cutting through the air. It struck Clay’s cheek and kept cutting. From far away, Clay heard Harvey shouting in panic.

  Zipporah ran to help. Her scimitars hummed down, aiming for Rabbi Eisendrath’s head. They sliced the letters—but it was too late. The bladed hand had done its job, cutting through Clay’s head. Momentum carried it along, even as Rabbi Eisendrath collapsed into rot and dust. Clay’s head was cut in half. Darkness consumed him and he saw nothing at all.

  Chapter Ten

  ALL OF CREATION

  Something close to life flashed back to Clay after an instant of darkness that could have lasted an eternity. Candle light, faint and quivering, appeared in his eyes. He stared at the candles, the tall sort used for Shabbat, with a deep, smooth whiteness below a dancing flame. He stared at the candle flame for a while and then rolled over, staring at an arched ceiling. Garish carnival posters looked back at him from the walls, along with dusty bits of furniture. Rain drummed on the windows, overlooking the gray sea and the roller coaster. A carriage moved along the wooden rails, the grinding mixing with the crashing waves and the calliope music of Palisade Park. Clay was in the attic of the Elephantine Hotel, lying on a table and surrounded by candles. He sat up.

  A tall man with a face like a vulture stood in front of him. He wore a shaggy robe, with a circular, completely round fur cap, a shtreimel, on his lean head. He kept his beard, almost completely gray now, in a neat triangle that matched his thick sideburns and moustache. Thin, round spectacles perched on his nose. Clay recognized him instantly.

  “Rabbi Chaim Holtz.” He nodded, almost politely, to his creator.

  “Golem.” Chaim stepped aside. Clay’s clothes, his shirt, and a new brown suit, matching vest, and a trench coat, hung on an old coat rack. “Get dressed.” Chaim folded his arms and watched as Clay hopped off the table. His feet slid on the floor. Clay grabbed the table to
support himself. Chaim watched. “Your body is strong. It will take a few moments to remember that strength.” Clay slipped to his knees, then grabbed the table and pulled himself back up. He stumbled to the coat rack and started to dress. He buttoned his shirt and slid his tie under the collar, not looking at the rabbi who had built him.

  Shlomo Ben Shlomo, their dybbuk informer, remained in his fishbowl. His grating voice filled the attic. “What’s going on? Has the golem awoken yet? Has the schnorrer—” A dusty tablecloth covered the fishbowl, which sat in the corner.

  “Shut up.” Clay didn’t bother facing Shlomo Ben Shlomo. “Or we’ll toss you out the window.” That made Shlomo shut up. Clay kept his eyes on Chaim. “How long has it been?” His hand went to his face, his fingers tracing across his features. He couldn’t feel any scar left by Rabbi Eisendrath’s claws. No mark remained and his face was as smooth as ever. He had new eyes at least—another pair of round stones, jabbed into his face.

  “A few weeks,” Chaim explained. “My younger brother sent a letter to me, begging for my help, and so I arrived. I have left Russia, and Poland as well. The war, and chaos—it is not safe for my people, if it ever was.” He rested his hands in his pockets, refusing to look at Clay’s face. “I live in Germany now. There is still fighting, still battles, but at least is it safe.”

  “For how long will it be safe?” Clay asked.