The Grimswell Curse

by Sam Siciliano

  “Then what happened?”

  “The Devil was pursuing him, chasing him, haunting him, and Victor could not help but jump. When the Devil chases you, you will do anything to escape. Victor was lucky.”

  “Lucky?” My voice was incredulous.

  “He is at peace now. The Devil can torment him no longer.” A smile twisted her mouth. “The Devil has lost him.”

  “And what of Rose Grimswell?” Holmes asked.

  “Ah. The sweet creature.” The monotonous creak of the rocker made me briefly consider putting my foot on a runner to stop the noise. Jane’s eyes glistened again, the grayish-yellow light from the window illuminating her sad face. “The poor thing.” A tear trickled down one cheek but she did not touch her face.

  “Has Rose visited you?”

  “Yes. Many times. She is the only one who...” She stared out the window. “It has begun, has it not? The Devil... She has seen the Devil, has she not?”

  “Yes,” Holmes said.

  “And he speaks to her.” She sighed wearily, and her tiny hand clutched at her dirty hair. “I knew it must happen, but still... He will not stop—he will hound her until... If she is lucky, he will kill her like he killed her father.”

  She said this with a terrifying, utter sincerity. The dread which had been my companion at Dartmoor began again. “How can you say such a thing?” I said.

  “Would you wish a place like this on her? There are young girls here, poor sad wretches.”

  Holmes’s hands clutched at the chair back as he stared at her. “I believe I can save Rose Grimswell.”

  Jane laughed wearily, even as the tears began. “A mere mortal cannot best the Prince of Darkness. Satan rules here on earth. Only in the next world is there hope, and even then, I wonder. If the Devil wants her, you can do nothing. You will only be destroyed.”

  Holmes stared directly into her eyes. “I have fought devils before and won.”

  “Perhaps, but you have not fought the Devil.”

  “Who is the Devil, Miss Grimswell?”

  She lowered her eyes, seemed to notice her hand and quickly thrust it back into the pocket of her robe. “I... I do not know.”

  Holmes drew in his breath slowly, then let his hands drop to his side. He glanced briefly at me. “What can you tell me about your sister Constance?”

  Morrissey’s warning should have prepared me. Her lips clamped tightly shut, and her eyes opened wide even as the color faded from her face. I had never seen such obvious terror, such fear, and it upset me. Something had changed in that room that seemed to amplify our fear, something had happened, but my mind leaped about like some rabbit, incapable of rational, linear thought. Abruptly it came to me—silence filled the room, total and overwhelming silence, because the chair had stopped rocking.

  Holmes reached out with his long arm and set his hand on her shoulder. “Please, you must not—I will not let anyone harm you.”

  “You... you cannot help me. No one can protect me here.”

  “I might be able to get you away from this place. My cousin here is a physician and could assist you.”

  I was still too caught up in my own anxiety to speak.

  “He cannot help me—you cannot. This is a dreadful place, but I am safe here from the Devil and from her. If I am quiet, if I am still, they will not pursue me. If I leave these walls, I will be hunted down and devoured in an instant. I am trapped—I am trapped.”

  “No, not if—”

  “Silence!” she shouted. “What do you know of it? What do you know of me? You cannot fight the Devil—they are too strong, far too strong, and they do not care how much they hurt you! They enjoy human suffering—they feed upon it—it is meat and drink to them. That is true even of the minor demons, the ones in white or frock coats. I must remain here until I die. There is no escape for me.” The sudden fury had seeped away like blood from an old wound.

  Holmes had lowered his hand. His gray eyes showed his dismay. “There are things I must know—things you must tell me. You... you were never married, were you, Miss Grimswell?”

  The rocking chair began to creak again. “No.”

  Holmes ran his hand through his black hair. “But you were in love with Lord Douglas Shamwell, were you not?”

  Again her eyes filled with tears. “Yes.”

  Holmes turned to me, his eyes showing an unfamiliar desperation. “Madam, I must ask you a question which may seem impertinent— which is impertinent—but I must know the answer. Rose’s life may be at stake, as well as other lives. Have you... have you ever had a child?”

  The chair ceased moving, and her eyes widened. When it came at last, her laughter was pained and savage. “No.” She sobbed, then covered her face with her forearm and the sleeve of heavy wool.

  Holmes’s face was red. “Forgive me, I—”

  “I was pure and good, but that was not what the Devil wanted—he wanted someone as foul and luxurious as himself, someone who would couple with him and give birth to his spawn. Their bodies are white— they writhe about one another like serpents. I have seen them.” She lowered her arm, her eyes fixed on Holmes. “He would only mate with another demon, a female, because they were really only one—only the same—and their... their get was the same.” She turned to gaze out the window. “It took me a long time to understand that. I was so hurt, so upset, I... I tried to kill myself when I found out about them. I wanted to die.” She raised her fists, letting the sleeves of her robe drop and revealing the ragged red scars on her wrists just below the palms. I felt a visceral shock, as if a knife had slid into my own belly.

  “Oh, God—how awful I felt. It was worse than anything. My life since has been nothing but pain, but not that dreadful agony, that gaping wound. I... It was only later—long afterward—when I saw that thing they had created, that I truly understood. It never had anything to do with hurting me or finding me wanting. The Devil is one. He takes different forms, but he is always the same. The Devil mates with the Devil, and the Devil is born again and again. They are all the same. They truly are.” She smiled and nodded weakly.

  I felt nauseated, and my hands were cold. I could think of nothing to say. She was, after all, hopelessly insane. Holmes had gone very pale, but he had not taken his eyes off her. His hands gripped the chair back again, the tendons standing out.

  “I have been a fool.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The Devil... had a child, a son, and the child... was exactly like the father.”

  She smiled and nodded.

  “And just like the mother. And they were all the Devil.” Holmes seemed to be talking to himself.

  “Yes.” She nodded eagerly. “You understand it perfectly.” Her eyes were red, her face streaked with tears, but she seemed childishly pleased.

  Holmes glanced at me. “Can we go?” I asked. My voice shook slightly.

  He stood abruptly. “Yes.” He stared down at Jane Grimswell. She had begun to rock and was staring out the window through the bars. He hesitated, then touched her shoulder. “Thank you, Miss Grimswell. I have hopes that your cousin—that Rose—may yet be saved.”

  She shook her head sadly. “You cannot beat the Devil, Mr. Holmes. No man can.”

  “Nevertheless, I shall try.” He picked up his top hat, and we started for the door.

  “Mr. Holmes?”

  “Yes, madam?”

  She was staring at us both. “I shall pray for you all the same. I... oh, I hope you will succeed.”

  “Thank you, Miss Grimswell.”

  We stepped outside, and he closed the door. I felt almost dizzy, my hands still cold and clammy. “The poor tortured soul,” I muttered. “She is totally mad. Constance did not tell us she had tried to kill herself.”

  Holmes said nothing. We started down the hallway. The low moan was still coming from behind the same door. “Lord, this is a dreadful place!” I wanted to run down the stairs and get outside, but I restrained myself. “We have come all the way to London for nothing.”


  Holmes gave a fierce, savage laugh and stared at me. “Hardly.”

  Twelve

  Holmes had some further mysterious visits to make that evening, but I went home and slept that night in my own bed. Tried to sleep, rather—the visit with Jane had been very disturbing, and Michelle was still back in Dartmoor.

  The next day, we all returned to Grimswell Hall late in the afternoon. Dartmoor was a welcome sight, the air clean and bracing after the stench of London. The ride to the hall was spectacular, the terrain so varied—the sweeping, barren expanses of the moor, the streams of cold clear water, the patches of stunted woods with twisted black oaks, their leaves gone, the marshy dark mires where man or beast trod at their peril, and the black granite tors atop the hills set against the luminous sky. However, as we drew closer to our destination, my spirits sank.

  Michelle took my hand. “Is something wrong?”

  I shrugged, then glanced at Rose Grimswell and Holmes. “No.”

  Michelle frowned. She knew me well: she could read me like a book.

  Soon we were following the drive through the trees, the massive edifice of dark stone ahead. We stepped down, and the heavy oaken doors of the main entry swung open. George stepped forth to greet us. The familiar grin seemed lackluster, and his eyes had an odd, strained look. “Welcome back, gentlemen and ladies.” His eyes flickered about, rested on Holmes, and then he reached out to slip something into Holmes’s hand. Michelle and Rose had gone by and did not see this.

  “Well, it’s about time.” Digby’s voice had a weary drawl. He wore a checked Norfolk suit of a hideous brownish-green shade. “I thought you had all ended up in some bog or another.”

  “Heavens!” Constance exclaimed. “Don’t even joke about such things! And how are you, Mrs. Vernier? Are you quite recovered?”

  Michelle smiled, a glint of humor showing in her eyes. “Oh yes, I feel much better. I had quite a chill.”

  Our excuse for not returning the night before was that Michelle had fallen into a bog during our trek. Since we wished to get her warm and dry as quickly as possible, we had gone to a nearby inn. As it was late and the weather foul, we had decided to spend the night there, and then Holmes and I had business in Grimpen during the day. This was the story we had all agreed upon, and we had a note sent to the hall late the day before.

  Digby gave Rose a petulant smile. “I’m growing rather weary of being left out of all these outings. I might as well be back in London.”

  “An excellent idea,” I murmured. Only Michelle heard me, and she stifled a laugh.

  Rose took his arm and smiled. “Come now, Rickie, would you really have wanted to rise at six in the morning yesterday?”

  Digby shrugged. “Perhaps not, but—”

  “Tomorrow we shall all go for a walk after breakfast, and you will be included, I promise.”

  “Splendid. The day was not entirely wasted. I met the delightful widow at the farm down the road. Something of a mystery, what she’s doing in so godforsaken a place. Well, tomorrow I’d like to hike up to Demon Tor and finally have a look at the view.”

  Constance opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “All this exercise—it cannot be good for a body.”

  We went upstairs to dress for dinner, but first I stopped by Holmes’s room. “What did George give you?” I asked.

  “Ah, you saw that, did you? It was a note asking me to meet him by the menhir down the road at nine.”

  I frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”

  Holmes smiled sardonically. “No one is safe with a murderer on the moors, but I shall be armed.”

  I hesitated, then sighed. “I shall come with you.”

  “Very well, Henry.” He drew aside the curtains and stared outside. “The clouds are lifting. It should be a beautiful evening.”

  So it was. The stars were dazzling, far brighter and more numerous than in London. We could see them in a band overhead between the trees as we strolled down the drive, our boots striking the hard granite underfoot. Holmes wore a woolen overcoat, a bowler hat and gloves. His left hand held his stick, and his right was in the pocket where I had seen him place his revolver. Somewhere nearby in the trees came the wavering hoot of an owl, a disembodied voice overhead. The wind was faint, just a touch on our faces.

  Soon we left the trees and followed the path onto the moors. A bright moon, almost full, was low in the eastern sky; it cast our shadows before us. The moor was a great silent presence, grass and heath reduced to a dark rolling plain, the distant hills and tors silhouetted against the bright night sky.

  I shook my head. “One should not have to worry about murderers on a night like this when all of nature is so splendid.”

  “Man brings his own darkness wherever he goes, a darkness with none of the beauty of a Dartmoor night.”

  Abruptly, a strange cry rose through the night, almost human in its yearning, yet alien all the same. “Good Lord,” I said, “what...?”

  “A fox, Henry. That is the mating cry of a vixen, and if I am not mistaken—look there.” He raised his stick and pointed to where a small dark shape with a bushy tail trotted across the moor. “A male, no doubt. To him that cry was a siren song.” To our left came a series of high-pitched, staccato barks. “And that is another male replying.”

  The wind picked up briefly, then died down. Out from under the trees the sky was truly magnificent, a vast starry expanse dominating the dark plain. The misty belt of the Milky Way split the sky, fading where it met the moon. Some stars were blue diamonds, others yellow or red. One reddish star was particularly brilliant.

  “Do you know that star?” I asked. “The bright red one there.”

  “That is not a star, Henry, but a planet—Mars.”

  “The god of war,” I murmured.

  “Yes, and a reminder of our combat. Curious. The planet itself is nothing more than a point of reddish light. Man gives it the connotations of blood, war and strife.”

  “Blood and strife,” I said. The moors seemed as far from London and its teeming masses, vehicles, buildings and noise as one of the planets above us. Despite the danger which might await us, the quiet beauty of the wild landscape moved me.

  “I should like to come back here when our business at the hall is finished, perhaps for a walking tour with Michelle. I hope... I hope Dartmoor is not ruined for me by...”

  “It will not be. Dartmoor is older and vaster than mere man. I only hope man himself does not ruin it.”

  “You think we have that power?”

  “I know we do. Did you not hear me discuss with Miss Grimswell how the ancient stones have been pulled down and used to build a farmer’s fence and the like? Farmers try to fence off the moor. There are a few small woods in Dartmoor, but the large oaks were cut down two hundred years ago, the wolves all slaughtered about the same time.”

  “Frankly, I am glad this evening there are no wolves on the moor.”

  Holmes gave a snort of laughter. “There you are wrong. There is a creature far worse than a real wolf loose on the moor.”

  “Surely you cannot mean a werewolf?”

  “No, something far worse. The werewolf is an interesting invention, but he is all bestial savagery with no cunning or intelligence. This creature is a man, but he is missing something essential. His heart is that of a beast—no, worse than that. He willingly kills his own kind. No animal, no wild beast, does that, so I am wrong to say he has the heart of a beast. He has the heart of a reptile or amphibian, something cold and unfeeling and primitive. Or perhaps, worse yet, he is one of those rare monstrosities who enjoys killing, who enjoys slaughtering his own kind.”

  “Oh, dear God,” I murmured.

  Holmes stopped and seized my arm. In the moonlight I could see his white face with the beaked nose under the bowler hat. “Forgive me, Henry. I had no right to ruin so beautiful an evening with my dark reflections. I should have kept them to myself.”

  “You think our adversary is that black?”

&nbs
p; “I know he is.”

  “But no one at the hall seems capable of—”

  “We are not dealing only with the people at the hall. No, our adversary, as you rightly called him, does not live at the hall, although he has his ally there.”

  “How can you—?”

  Holmes raised his stick. “There is our destination.” The menhir stood before us, a slab of blackness with the moon and stars behind it.

  I took a breath and tried to regain some of the simple joy for the night’s beauty, but it was futile. I was afraid again. “But he is a man—not a monster?”

  Holmes sighed. “You have not been listening. He is not a supernatural being, but that does not make him less loathsome or frightening. He is something worse. If he was a different species or a supernatural creature, then his evil might be more comprehensible.” He drew in his breath, then cried, “George! Are you here?”

  The murmur of the wind stirring the heather and bracken was all we heard. A bird flew by, a dark shape overhead, and from its hoarse cry I recognized it as a raven.

  Holmes sighed. “I feared this.”

  “Feared what?”

  “That he would not come.”

  Holmes reached into his pocket, opened his coat, then struck a match. His hands and his watch showed briefly. “It is after nine.”

  “Perhaps he was delayed.”

  Holmes’s laugh was bitter. “No doubt.”

  As we waited, I began to pace. The night grew chiller, and thin streaks of cloud began to obscure the magnificent sky. Holmes pulled off his glove, took a cigarette from his case, then smoked the cigarette slowly. I walked around the menhir, crossing its shadow periodically, but the shadow began to blur and fade as the clouds covered the moon. I could not seem to hold still, but Holmes stood without moving, a dark figure akin to the slab of granite which rose over us.

  Nearly half an hour must have passed when I said, “I do not believe he is coming.”

  “No, Henry. He is not.” Holmes sighed, then shook his head. “Damnation.”

  “Perhaps we should go back to the hall and simply demand to speak to him.”