Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu

by Lois H. Gresh

Male voices yelled behind me from deep in the forest.

  They were coming. The Dagon gang was racing to their revered place of worship.

  I had to get out of here, get away from the cliff and the beach. My other three agents—Michael, Lloyd, and Archibald—were probably kidnapping Amelia Scarcliffe from her cottage at this moment. Rather than wait for them at the O Tei Hau Ia I Te Rahi Inn, I’d catch up with them at the cottage.

  The wind was so fierce that I couldn’t tell whether my men were dead. I could see neither the men themselves, nor dismembered parts of them. I had no time to look for them. If they were gone, so be it. I’d cut my losses and replace them. Turning, I was about to hurry up the slope when I noticed something that made me stop in my tracks.

  The rocks were settling back into place on the beach, as if they’d never exploded into the air. More unsettling, the large black slab still stood there, undisturbed, its top surface polished as if no dynamite had exploded on it.

  The male voices continued to yell from behind me, and the sounds were growing near. I had to hurry up the path and out of sight. In fact, it would be wise for me to help my men capture Amelia Scarcliffe.

  This business of the beach was another oddity to add to the growing list. It was peculiar, I gave it that much, but how much stranger had the explosions been than the existence of creatures in the Thames, bearded froglike gang leaders, women with powers to kill men simply by wishing it so?

  All I wanted was to put an end to the entire Dagon gang. If Sherlock Holmes did it before me and stopped the creatures and the powers and all the rest of it, I’d give Holmes the win, for my victory would be worth far more. He could have the satisfaction. I’d take the dens and the gold and control of the criminal underworld.

  *

  I burst through the door to find my three agents pinning an eerily beautiful woman to a counter. The smell of flowers and black tea laced with bergamot filled the shop. On the floor by the counter, a broken teapot sat in a puddle of steaming liquid.

  The woman writhed against the arms of my men. They’d already gagged her to muffle her screams. As she fought them, various bits of needlework fell off the counter: brightly colored embroideries of cats, shrubs, and flowers.

  Nearby, green vines dangled from the ceiling over a chair. I batted at the vines, nearly knocking over the chair, and pushed Archibald out of the way. I took his place near the woman’s head.

  “Turn her over,” I ordered, “and bind her!” While Michael and I rolled the woman to her side, Lloyd and Archibald bound her wrists and ankles with rope they’d brought in their sacks.

  She wore a nightgown that covered everything from her neck to her ankles, but still it was obvious that she was heavily pregnant, about to burst. I rolled her onto her back again, swept the long black hair from her face, and stared into eyes that seemed to penetrate my own and pierce my very being. Struggling to get free, she squirmed and her gown shifted and exposed her neck. That’s when I noticed the skin flaps.

  I pushed aside the gown, then immediately recoiled in horror. My three men, to their credit, gasped but continued to hold her tightly to the counter. Where women have breasts, Amelia Scarcliffe had coiled tumors that twined and folded into mounds that looked like intestines.

  I reached a hand toward her, then reconsidered and extended only the tip of my forefinger to her neck. I wasn’t going near the “breasts.” Gingerly, I touched one of the six jiggling neck flaps.

  Pain bolted up my finger, and I jerked back my hand. The fingertip where I’d touched the neck flap was a bruised purple. The edges of the bruise were singed, as if burned.

  Lloyd lifted her gown, down by her ankles, and stared up at body parts that I already knew I didn’t want to see.

  “Look here!” he cried. “This one should be in a traveling carnival!”

  Archibald and Michael followed his gaze. All three chortled.

  “I wouldn’t have that if she were the only lass left,” Lloyd laughed.

  Being a gentleman, I am nonetheless not immune to some of the crass and perverse ways of my gender. Yet when I peeked, what I saw between Amelia Scarcliffe’s thighs sufficed to switch off any physical desire I might have felt.

  Instead, I grimaced and looked away, and then stared—but only for a moment—at her feet. They were huge and flat, with webbed toes.

  Lloyd reached to touch one of the nail-less toes.

  “Don’t touch her!” I exclaimed, waving my bruised-and-singed finger.

  She spat the gag out of her mouth with a laugh.

  “You’re enjoying this, are you?” I snarled. “Well, not for long! Where is Maria Fitzgerald?”

  “Fitzgerald was a jealous old fool who would believe anything Lucy Nolande told him,” she spat. “That child is no more a Fitzgerald than I am! Her sire was the Dagonite leader in Blois—”

  “I don’t care whose child Maria is. I only care about her powers.”

  “Fool. She has his power. You will be defenseless against her rage if you hurt her.”

  “Well, well.” I forced the gag back into her mouth and secured it as I spoke. “We shall see about that.”

  I sank into the chair beneath the vines.

  My men lifted the pregnant woman and crammed her into a sack long enough to cover her from foot to neck with her head sticking out. They yelled at her to squat down, and when she refused, they shoved until finally, her knees bent. Quickly, they pushed her head down and pulled the strings along the top of the sack, securing her within. The sack bulged. Miss Scarcliffe’s bound feet kicked. The sack was too close to me, and her feet struck my shins. As I fell from the chair, toppling it, the overhead vines descended, bunched, then sprouted needlelike protuberances, which grew longer and longer.

  Michael and Lloyd shoved Miss Scarcliffe against the wall beneath the vines and pinned her there.

  The vines shivered, then billowed outward and formed a circle over Miss Scarcliffe and the men.

  Archibald and I ran toward the door. I was anxious to leave Half Moon Bay and never return. Even the noise and squalor of London beat being in a place like this.

  Sherlock Holmes could clean up the crime of Half Moon Bay. Let him come here and handle Koenraad Thwaite and these ghoulish creatures.

  I looked back at the sack, at Amelia Scarcliffe, at Michael and Lloyd. Over them, the strange vines thickened into a mat. The needles were now six inches long and growing longer by the second.

  Dashing back to the counter, I grabbed Michael’s elbow and yanked him back. We both tumbled to the floor, and in front of us, was Lloyd… still holding the sack and the squirming Miss Scarcliffe.

  The needles—hundreds of needles—plunged into the top of Lloyd’s head. Instantly, his hands dropped, but his body did not. It remained rigidly in place and suspended in the air by hundreds of needles. His arms and legs twitched, and now his entire body twitched with them. Blood oozed from his hair down his face and neck. As he screamed, the vine mat grew and slunk down over his face, muffling his shrieks. His arms thrashed but could not beat off the intertwined vines, which continued to grow in both length and thickness, forming a tight hood over his head.

  The hood squeezed and shrank. The muffled shrieks died. His arms were limp at his sides. The hood expanded slightly, as if taking a deep breath, then squeezed his head so tightly that his skull cracked. With a loud squish, the hood collapsed, and in a gush of blood, Lloyd’s brains splashed down over his shoulders and chest.

  Releasing the corpse, the needles and the vines withdrew. Blood dripped from the ceiling where they hung. The body fell—headless—to the floor.

  On our elbows, Michael and I crawled to the door as quickly as we could, when suddenly, Miss Scarcliffe screamed beneath the gag on her mouth, the top of the sack ripped open, and her head popped out.

  Those blood-red eyes with pus-colored irises. That oval face with exotic ridges across the cheekbones, ridges that should have made this woman deformed but instead somehow made her beautiful. In fact, she was
so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I found myself—me, a man who could have any woman, and often did have any woman he wanted—mesmerized. I knew what lay beneath her gown, and it wasn’t something any man would desire. And yet…

  The neck flaps gently wobbled, rubbing against one another. I wanted to touch them, to bury my face in them.

  “What’s the matter with you, boss? We have to get out of here!” From behind me, Michael yanked on my shoulders. Startled, I realized that he was standing, while I was still on the floor on my back, staring at Amelia Scarcliffe.

  The neck flaps beckoned.

  I was intoxicated.

  Michael shoved his arms beneath mine, and he hoisted me up.

  “Boss, snap out of it!”

  “Yes,” I murmured, my head still whirling with confusion. “Snap. Out of it.” Carefully, I shifted my focus from Amelia Scarcliffe and shook my head. “Bring the woman,” I said, “but knock her out first so she doesn’t struggle, and for God’s sake, get her head back into the sack, would you? Such ugliness. I don’t want to see her again.”

  Michael brightened, clearly relieved that his employer had not, after all, taken leave of his senses.

  He hit Miss Scarcliffe over the head with a gas lamp from the counter. She slumped forward.

  “What an annoyance,” I muttered. “Disgusting.”

  Michael scowled and gathered the sack up and around her head.

  “Hit her again, just to make sure,” I said, “but don’t kill her.”

  “Gladly. A loud-mouthed hag, that’s what she is.”

  Michael lifted the lamp high over his head. As metal hit skull, I stepped outside and into the wind.

  PART TWO

  MURDER IN THE ASYLUM

  25

  MISS AMY SWITZER

  Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum

  How extraordinary that Dr. Sinclair dared to chastise me, after all I’d done for him. I’d given up my life for the Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum. In my mid-forties, I was long past the age where any reasonable man would want to court, much less marry, me. Orphaned at a young age, I’d been lucky to find work as a nurse all these years, and indeed, I’d devoted myself to Dr. Sinclair and his needs. I’d always hoped that Dr. Sinclair would reward my devotion and loyalty with masculine attention. Just thinking about the possibility excited me.

  Late at night, all the inmates snoring in their drug-induced slumbers, and here I was, the ever-faithful Miss Amy Switzer, standing guard in the dark corridors lest someone needed my help. It had been a long day, and my feet ached. I could go home, but home was a one-room dump of a boarding house for stray women down on their luck. Old crones and widows lived in those rooms, paying a few coins of rent out of their savings. As for me, I could barely afford the few coins despite my post as a full-time nurse at the asylum. Dr. Sinclair didn’t pay me all that well.

  There was nothing to go home for, so I sank onto a hard-backed chair at the end of the hall. I’d volunteered for night duty again, so the staff who had families could get time away from this terrible place.

  Darkness settled like dirt on the floor and crept up the walls and doors, obscuring them. It was so dark that I couldn’t read the hand-painted room numbers, hastily daubed by Miss Klune and myself years ago. The numbers were worn down from age and inmates’ nails.

  Looking down the long hall was akin to looking down a tube filled with charcoal paste. A patch of light shone from far away, off to the right of the day room, where a lone gas lamp flickered by the nurses’ desk.

  I mentally reviewed, one by one, the inmates in each room along the hall. How I pitied them. If only I could help each and every one of you, I thought. Your lives are even worse than mine.

  The nurses’ clock faintly ticked down by the day room. It chimed twice, as the time slipped to 2 a.m.

  I crossed my legs, studied them. Why couldn’t they look dainty and more feminine? Why was I cursed to be so muscular and flat-chested? My hands were huge and coarse, and my face…

  Surely, if he were normal, Dr. Sinclair would find my face lovely, wouldn’t he?

  I raised a strong, hairy finger to my lips, and I pretended that the finger belonged to Dr. Sinclair. Shutting my eyes, I tried to fantasize, but as always, failed. It was too far out of the realm of possibility.

  I knew the truth: my face was as masculine and ugly as the rest of me. I forced my lips into a smile. My mouth exercises, as I thought of them. If I sat with a forced smile for long enough, perhaps my mouth wouldn’t be perpetually downturned and angry-looking.

  It was no wonder I was an old maid. Even Dr. Sinclair, who was single and available, didn’t view me as female, but rather, as a piece of muscle he could put to use herding up inmates, slamming them into Eshockers and strapping them onto treatment tables.

  My uniform smelled of inmates’ vomit and sweat. I’d leave later, clean myself up, and get back here for my day shift. But for now, it was enough to enjoy the simple quiet and peace, the luxury of calm in this dark hall.

  I shut my eyes and let my head drop. The faint ticking of the nurses’ clock lulled me to sleep. So relaxing, so relaxing…

  “Errrr! You cheatin’ scoundrel! Those ain’t me undergarments!”

  My head snapped up. I almost fell off the chair, but grasped the seat just in time and steadied myself.

  Cackling came from Room 18, five doors down from my chair. It had to be Mrs. van der Kolk babbling in her sleep, for had she been awake and thinking about her cheating husband, she’d be screaming steadily. Nothing else stirred on the floor: all the other inmates snored and dozed peacefully through Mrs. van der Kolk’s cackling. I hoped she hadn’t awakened Caroline Brown, who slept in the same room.

  Irritated that she’d awakened me, I pulled myself to my aching feet, stretched my neck and shoulders, and yawned. I’d better go shut her up before she awakened the whole hall. That was all I needed, wasn’t it, a hall full of lunatics screaming in the middle of the night, with nobody here to help me subdue them?

  Ah, now that Caroline, she was a true beauty, everything I was not. Seventeen and in her prime—though sadly, insane—Caroline caught the eyes of all the men who worked at Whitechapel. Even Dr. Sinclair lusted for her, and he never thought about much other than his damned Eshockers.

  The cackling subsided, and I sagged back down on the chair seat.

  At the far end of the hall by the nurses’ desk, someone else started chattering: “The Eshockers! The beast! It ain’t nothin’ but evil!”

  Even in the dark, I knew the sounds came from the broom closet known as Room 5.

  Acid rose and burned in my stomach. My nerves started skittering. I willed myself to remain calm, but it didn’t work. It rarely did.

  That damned Willie Jacobs. He’d wake up the whole lot of them. Of all the lunatics—all of whom I pitied something terrible—only one truly got on my nerves. Only one made me want to scream and bash my head against the wall. Only one—with his shrill screaming voice, his pus, his odors—

  Willie Jacobs.

  Lately, he’d not been spending the night in his bed. He’d been off somewhere, helping Dr. Sinclair with some strange task until after midnight. I’d hoped to get some peace and quiet tonight, but here he was, as loud and annoying as ever. Dr. Sinclair had gone home early, perhaps releasing Jacobs from his mystery task.

  “Get your ’ands off me!” Jacobs shrieked from down the hall. “I won’t ’elp you no more! No, don’t make me, don’t!”

  He typically screamed in his sleep.

  In fact, he was probably jabbing his nose while he screamed in his sleep. The man couldn’t seem to take his hands off his nose, and I couldn’t bear watching him to the point that, once last week, I’d strapped his wrists to the bed posts. He’d screamed bloody murder all night, and I’d been forced to unleash his wrists—and with them, his fingers, those jabbing, poking fingers that never left his nostrils.

  If I held his hands behind his back, he’d rub his nose on the nearest wall
, ledge, or piece of furniture.

  Once, I’d actually caught him rubbing his nose on the side of an Eshocker—while being Eshocked. Dr. Sinclair had yelled at me to leave the room. He didn’t want witnesses to his oh so very clever little Eshocking treatments, as if Miss Klune and I and a host of others who worked here didn’t already know what the Doctor was doing. As if…

  On my feet again, angry now, I padded quickly down the hall, my tread soundless in my special nurse’s shoes.

  I knew how to be quiet at night.

  I knew how to let the patients sleep.

  I respected the people around me—didn’t I?

  But Willie Jacobs didn’t respect anyone around him.

  Well, I’d shut him up, and for good.

  I had just reached Room 18, where Mrs. van der Kolk and the beautiful Caroline Brown slept, when Willie Jacobs’s screaming ceased. I paused, tense, and waited for the screaming to begin again, but all was quiet. He’d settled back into the same drug-induced sleep as the other inmates.

  Inmates. Patients. Lunatics. What was the difference, really? They were all the same.

  Insane, and sad.

  Nothing to live for but death itself.

  Like me, I thought, allowing myself a moment of self-pity, but quickly I snapped out of. No, I’m nothing like the lunatics. I serve Dr. Sinclair, and I serve the Whitechapel Lunatic Asylum. My life has meaning. My life has purpose. I’m essential to the well-being of everyone here.

  I pressed my ear to the door of Room 18. Mrs. van der Kolk’s snoring rose and fell in an even cadence. I didn’t hear a peep from Caroline Brown, but she never snored. The young rarely snore as loudly as the old.

  What must it be like for Caroline, to be locked up at such a young age, knowing she’d never be free?

  Yes, this poor girl suffered even more than I did.

  There… what was that? A whimper? Did I hear her whimper?

  My mind flitted again to Dr. Sinclair, so arrogant, so commanding. He demanded that I ease the suffering of these patients. And I knew that, in his heart, he probably did indeed lust after Caroline, and he probably pitied her more than he pitied anyone.