Castle of Sorrows

by Jonathan Janz

  Quinton made it out of the stairwell and into the great hall. The music seemed less severe in here, but his head still ached something fierce. Maybe some fresh air would alleviate some of the sick gonging in his brain.

  He crossed the hall and headed toward the foyer thinking the source had been the sixth floor studio after all. Not the record player, alone, of course. That was impossible. But maybe the recently deceased Stephen Blackwood had footed the bill for some godamighty sound system to be installed, and the turntable had been attached by some wires he hadn’t spotted. This didn’t entirely satisfy Quinton, but it did ease his fear somewhat. He passed through the foyer and swung the front door open. The chill autumn breeze hit him right away, along with stinging beads of rain. Wincing, Quinton turned his back on the rain and immediately felt better.

  Yes, Quinton thought, eyes closing languidly. This was a good deal better. He backpedaled slowly down the stone walkway and extended his arms, the bite of the raindrops almost pleasant now. There was nothing supernatural occurring on the Sorrows. The rumors he and Moss had heard were just that—spooky stories uttered and embellished by querulous forensics geeks who just wanted a little attention.

  Quinton sighed. It was all perfectly explainable now. Moss had a seizure brought on by some undetected brain lesion. Despite Quinton’s lack of medical background, he’d acquitted himself rather nicely. Maybe he’d even receive some sort of commendation.

  As for the impossibly loud music, that was explainable too. Stephen Blackwood had long ago installed some sort of sound system, but because of time and lack of use—hell, how long had it been since this island had been inhabited on a regular basis?—the thing had malfunctioned, resulting in the explosion of sound Quinton experienced earlier.

  The wind whipped up, the freshets of rain growing in intensity. He no longer minded, however, because everything was a-okay. He’d been silly to think of leaving the Bureau. The money was excellent, and his job was secure. As for his wife and her refusal to put out, he guessed he’d have to live with that. Maybe he’d buy a couple of books on how to thaw out a frigid wife. Sensitivity training, something along those lines.

  Quinton stopped walking. He remembered Caleb Moss, lying on the bed on the fifth floor. Out here the music was less offensive, but maybe upstairs it was still severe. If it was, that couldn’t be good for Moss’s hearing. Quinton had an abrupt, unwelcome vision of his partner’s eardrums exploding like paintballs all over the white pillowcase. Shit, he couldn’t believe he’d left him up there. Maybe if he hurried…

  Something made Quinton stop and peer up at the castle.

  A figure sat in Moss’s window. It was Moss himself, Quinton realized a moment later. Of course it was Moss. The only reason he hadn’t recognized him at first was because…

  Well, because Moss was naked.

  At least Quinton was pretty sure he was naked. His upper body and legs were certainly bare, and if he had any underwear on, it had to be the skimpy kind, not Fruit-of-the-Looms. Everything but the man’s genitals were exposed; thankfully, those were obscured by the way the man sat in the window, just like some country boy lounging beside a stream. Only this wasn’t some bubbling forest creek teeming with crawdads. This was the fifth story of a supposedly haunted castle, and damn near all of Caleb Moss was leaning out of the casement window with a carelessness that set Quinton’s teeth on edge.

  “What are you doing, partner?” Quinton called up, striving for a casual tone but failing miserably.

  Caleb grinned beatifically. “I’m calling.”

  Quinton stepped backward to better see Moss’s face, and as he did, one mystery was solved. Yep, the guy was buck naked. Quinton could see the man’s flaccid member dangling over the windowsill like a pale and rather pathetic jalapeño pepper. Maybe if Quinton had a dick that small, he reasoned, his wife would want sex more often. She certainly couldn’t claim he hurt her, which was an excuse she used often.

  “What do you mean, you’re ‘calling’?” Quinton asked. “Who the hell you calling? The reception’s for shit on this island.”

  “I’m calling him,” Moss said, and in spite of the dopey grin stretching the man’s face, Quinton noticed something that made his stomach ball into a hard knot.

  There was blood dripping down Moss’s legs.

  “Hey, what the hell’s happening up there?” Quinton said, no longer attempting to mask his nervousness. This was messed up, and messed up good. Quinton wanted off this damned island. Haunted or not, he’d had enough unusual shit for one lifetime.

  Moss didn’t answer this time, was seemingly too immersed in whatever he was doing to speak. Quinton strained to see what was happening up there in the window. The rain and wind were picking up, so Quinton had to squint to compete with the elements. Moss appeared to be checking his wristwatch, but that couldn’t be right because Moss didn’t wear a watch. Yet the man had his wrist turned—palm up—and appeared to be pushing buttons. Like he was timing a race or something. Only there was no race going on, and for that matter, there was no watch on Moss’s wrist. Quinton could see how bare it was from here. He could also see how pink Moss’s skin was because the contrast of the blood was…was…

  Oh shit, Quinton thought. Blood was gushing from Moss’s wrist.

  Quinton’s fist went to his mouth. He bit down on his knuckles hard enough to break the skin.

  Moss had discovered the salad fork. Quinton had no idea whether Moss had sampled the salad or not, but he doubted very much either of them would have an appetite now. Moss had punctured the skin of his wrist and flayed it open in ragged flaps. The tines of the fork were digging inside the veins and sinew of the man’s forearm, and blood was sluicing out of the wound. It looked like Moss was trying to commit suicide in the most gruesome way possible. He hadn’t slit his wrists sideways the way novices did. He hadn’t even made a vertical incision the way the serious ones did it. No, he’d decided to get in there and treat the insides of his forearm like a kid treated some cast-off electronic toy, severing nerves and arteries like a bunch of colorful plastic-coated wires, stretching them until they popped and then watching with a child’s glee as they spurted blood.

  Gagging, Quinton weaved toward the castle, not only to put a stop to Moss’s self-mutilation, but to escape the sight of it. He knew he’d have to behold the gut-wrenching scene in moments—the man would need a tourniquet and serious medical attention afterward, the kind Quinton was woefully unprepared to provide—but if he could banish the image from his mind long enough, he might be able to make the journey back up the staircase without spewing his lunch all over the place. He ripped open the front door, sprinted through the foyer and the great hall.

  Grimly, Quinton rushed up the stairs. If anybody was equipped to deal with a crisis, he told himself, he was. This was his partner, and for his partner he could stomach some blood and gore, couldn’t he? Hell, hadn’t Quinton always enjoyed scary movies?

  Quinton made the fifth floor and dashed down its stone length. Something about the music was different now, but there was no time to consider that. He reached Moss’s door, which still hung open.

  Quinton experienced a fleeting terror of finding the window empty, his partner having already consummated his self-violence by leaping to his death. But Moss was where Quinton hoped he’d be. The guy’s pimply ass was draped over the sill, his hairy crack staring at Quinton like a furry black caterpillar.

  Quinton headed straight toward Moss. Sure, he could do it with finesse, talk the guy down like you saw on all those cop shows, but what was the point? If he fell out the window, he fell out. If Quinton waited any longer to make his move, Moss would bleed to death anyway.

  Quinton got behind Moss, grabbed the man around the midsection, then ignoring the nudity and the dopey drugged-up grin, Quinton carried him over to the bed, stripped off his own shirt and wound it around the man’s mutilated arm. Quinton tried not to look at it a
s he did, but he nevertheless got an eyeful of meaty gore, the savaged veins and pulpy tendons reminding him of roadkill after the buzzards have been at it. Jesus, what had compelled Moss to do this?

  More to distract himself than to help Moss, Quinton asked, “You said you were calling him. Who the hell were you calling?”

  “Gabriel,” Moss said.

  Quinton cinched the shirt tighter around the forearm, looked about for a belt or something to tie off the blood flow at Moss’s elbow. “I don’t know a Gabriel. Wasn’t he an angel or something?”

  “He’s making the music.”

  Quinton scowled. “What are you talking about? The song’s coming from that old Victrola. You heard it yourself.”

  Moss shook his head dreamily. “It’s coming from the tower.”

  “Tower? You’re crazy.” Quinton ceased what he was doing though and listened. The sound did seem to be filtering in through the window.

  He stepped over to the bloody sill and stared out at the single tower that rose like a spire about fifty yards from the castle. Son of a bitch, he thought. The music was coming from there. How had he not noticed it before? There was a barred window in the uppermost part of the tower, and it was through that window the music was drifting. It wasn’t a full orchestra anymore either, was just a piano. But that piano was really working overtime, whoever was playing it somehow tinkling out the myriad notes and rhythms of the entire symphony. And it was clear as day too.

  However, he’d sort of preferred the previous incarnation of the song to the one he was hearing now. Because the first version had come, unquestionably, from some sort of machine. But this version…this version was being performed by an incredibly talented but somehow present individual. And the thought of this—the thought that someone else was now on the island with him and his bleeding partner—filled Quinton with such a soul-shattering dread that he found he was unable to step away from the window no matter how hard he tried. What had Caleb said?

  I’m calling him.

  Quinton swallowed. Was the him in question the dude burning up that tower piano?

  And more importantly, Quinton thought, why the hell was Moss calling him by mutilating himself? Just how did taking a salad fork to one’s arm call someone? Who was it he was calling, a goddamned vampire?

  Quinton tried to smile, but couldn’t. Uh-uh. Because this wasn’t funny at all. In fact, it was the furthest thing in the world from funny, it was—

  “He’s coming!” Moss called, and Quinton leapt several inches off the ground.

  Whirling, one hand clamped to his chest, he snapped, “What the hell’s wrong with you, Caleb? You trying to give a guy a coronary?”

  Moss’s eyes were open, on his face the vapid grin of a brainwashed zealot. Like a resident of Jonestown or maybe one of those Tea Party guys Quinton often saw on CNN.

  Quinton drew in a deep breath, blew it out slowly. He said, “Man, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I’m ready for the Caleb I know to pay a visit. This weirdo shit is scaring me half to death. Now let’s get that bleeding stopped and talk this over like reasonable…”

  Quinton’s mouth went dry. He turned slowly toward the window. The music still played, but now there was another sound beneath it, an arrhythmic accompaniment that had nothing to do with the song. It was a thick, heavy, clopping sound, like gigantic cloven feet were treading on concrete. Frightened like he hadn’t been since he was a very young child, Quinton listened.

  The footsteps were coming from the tower. Descending the tower.

  “There ain’t nobody,” Quinton whispered to himself. “There ain’t nobody coming.”

  But there was somebody coming. Quinton knew it. He heard the hooves reach the base of the tower, pause. Then the door was swinging slowly open, a figure emerging.

  The figure stared up at him. It was colossal, it was black and it had horns. Holy shit, Quinton thought. The beast made Quinton look like the little kid he once was, the one whose big brother terrified him with stories of Greek gods, of mothers that ate their children and of fathers that sacrificed their sons. There was a book his brother would read out of, a kids’ version of all the old myths. The creature peering up at him, its huge white eyes fraught with hunger, looked just like the picture that had given Quinton the most nightmares, the one of the god Pan, the horned satyr who played the flute and had half-naked women swooning around him, the one whose lusty grin and mad eyes had pursued Quinton into nightmares so wretched he’d awaken gasping for air and pleading with his parents to let him sleep in their bed.

  The beast began stalking toward Castle Blackwood.

  Quinton sucked in a horrified breath, stumbled away from the window. He had to shut the bedroom door, had to bar the damned thing. He’d never be able to get downstairs in time to prevent the monster from entering the castle, but he could sure as shit get their door closed and throw every goddamned piece of furniture in the room in front of it. After that, who the hell knew? He only knew he had to keep that monster from getting in, from slaughtering him, from feasting on his…

  Quinton froze.

  I’m calling him.

  Quinton threw a panicked glance at Moss, whose eyes were still open, who still wore that goofy grin, only the grin was no longer just goofy, it was downright rapturous. And though Quinton had mistaken that expression for vacant earlier on, there was nothing vacant about it at all. Just eager. Eager about what was on the way, and happy as a pig in shit that the summoning had been successful.

  On legs he could no longer feel, Quinton tiptoed over to the window. He eyed the spill of Moss’s blood leaking over the sill, imagined the dark, viscid stuff oozing down the castle’s pale façade.

  I’m calling him.

  Cold fingers of dread choking off his breath, Quinton took one last step toward the window and peered down. He saw the glistening rivulets of blood crawling down the castle.

  Quinton looked below that.

  And saw the monster scaling the castle wall.

  Part One

  The Garden of Love

  Chapter One

  Ben Shadeland was outside when the detective showed up. It was just after three o’clock, near the end of Joshua’s nap. Baby Julia was also asleep, which gave Ben the rare opportunity to get some yard work done. The flagstone walkway they’d had put in that spring was already a riot of weeds, and since Ben didn’t trust the herbicides, he had to yank them out by hand.

  He stood and wiped his palms on his cargo shorts.

  Coming across the yard Teddy Brooks smiled at him, his white teeth in startling contrast to his dark brown skin. “Big composer like you, I figured you’d hire out all your menial labor.”

  Brooks was small, probably five-eight or so, but he looked fit. Brooks had the body of a guy in his mid-thirties, but Ben put him at least a decade older than that.

  Brooks nodded at the flagstone walk. “You do that yourself?”

  “Why? Does it look like it?”

  “You want me to be honest or save your feelings?”

  “We had it done professionally.”

  Brooks’s eyebrows went up. “No kiddin’?”

  Ben surveyed the cracked mortar sourly. “I hoped it would look better than this.”

  “I kind of figured it was a weekend project. Maybe something you and your boy worked on together.”

  Ben mopped his forehead with his shirtfront. “Would’ve turned out better.”

  “Joshua asleep?”

  “Uh-huh. Julia too.”

  “You seen the black Escalade lately?”

  Ben felt his muscles freeze. “Have you?”

  “I had, don’t you think I would’ve told you about it?”

  Ben stared at Teddy Brooks. Stared at him hard. “Would you have?”

  Brooks reached into his dark brown slacks, produced a pack of Lucky Strikes an
d an engraved silver lighter. The cigarette smoking, Brooks had told him shortly after they’d met last fall, was a product of his failed marriage. The lighter had been a present to himself.

  Ben moved away so his clothes wouldn’t smell of smoke. He’d be holding Julia soon, wrestling with Joshua.

  “I don’t blame you for being paranoid,” Brooks said. “Man goes through something like you did, he gets protective.” Brooks blew out a hazy plume of smoke. “Watches his best friend lose his mind and turn violent. Sees his ex-wife die in a helicopter crash. His son gets taken away from him, and after he gets his boy back, the kidnapper shoots him in the belly.”

  “I told you who took Joshua.”

  Brooks chuckled out smoke. “Shit, Ben. You still stickin’ to that mythological story? Expect me to believe some giant black goat man took your son?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “I bet a psychoanalyst would have a field day with you. Like maybe you have some deep-seated fear of a black man stealing your pure white woman. An Othello complex or something.” Brooks chuckled, favored him with a sidelong glance.

  Ben resisted the urge to knock him on his ass.

  But Brooks persisted. “You’re causing all kinds of problems, you know that? My employer thinks I’m stealing her money. No matter how much time I spend talking to you, all I get is satyrs and apparitions and other shit straight out of The Twilight Zone. You gotta give me something concrete, Ben. Just to get her off my back.”