by Rick Hautala
*****
Gregory L. Norris writes regularly for a number of national magazines and fiction anthologies. A former screenwriter on Paramount's modern classic Star Trek: Voyager, he is the author of the handbook to all-things Sunnydale, The Q Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Alyson Books) and the forthcoming short and long story collection, The Fierce and Unforgiving Muse: Twenty-Six Tales From the Terrifying Mind of Gregory L. Norris (Evil Jester Press). Norris lives and writes in the outer limits of New Hampshire. Visit him on Facebook and at www.gregorylnorris.blogspot.com.
A GENTLEMAN’S FOLLY
Phil Hickes
The Reverend William Shawcross had been a member of the club for some months, but so far he had refused, politely enough, all my attempts to engage him in conversation, and so I, eschewing intrusiveness in any form, had resigned to leave him to his own devices. Although the club is a place where we often come to whisper dark secrets, some men are incapable of divesting themselves of the full horror of their experiences, like the poor, shell-shocked wretches that returned from the Great War, their juddering bodies a flesh and blood memorial to silent terror. I believed the Reverend to be such a man, and although that innately inquisitive part of my character yearned to learn his history, I forced myself to suppress my curiosity and leave him be, fully understanding that relating certain experiences leaves a man open to betraying his emotions, and that is anathema to many of my generation.
So it was with some measure of surprise that I heard his baritone voice call to me one evening, as I warmed myself by the fire, having fled the climatic terrors that winter was unleashing on London’s darkened streets.
“Good evening, Bentley, may I join you by the fire?”
“By all means, Reverend, pull the chair closer and warm yourself. You’ll take a little wine?”
Not waiting for an answer, I signaled to Jones to bring another bottle and poured a glass, which I placed by the Reverend’s elbow.
“Thank you, most kind,” he said, staring into the flames. As he didn’t seem inclined to further conversation, and remembering my unsaid commitment to respect his privacy, I remained silent myself and lit another cigarette, watching it release blue-gray serpents into the air.
The Reverend was an intensely thin man of about sixty years, deep cavities in his cheeks bearing witness to either a meager diet or a rapid metabolism. His eyes were icy blue, his skin pale, and his whiskers bushy and ghostly white. Combined with his dark vestments and the black leather gloves that he always wore, the overall effect was to lend him an air of severity, as though at any moment he might don a black cap and send a man to the gallows for stealing a loaf of bread.
After a few minutes, he spoke.
“I have heard you know something of occult matters, Bentley?”
“A little,” I replied cautiously. My knowledge was, in fact, extensive, but the sight of the Reverend’s white collar led to me favor understatement, lest he disapprove of my activities and deem them sacrilegious. Despite having shed the constrictions of the Victorian age, a man might still suffer social exclusion if judged to be heretical in his conduct.
“I, too,” he said, “though I curse the day I ever entered into its study. May I ask what you know of demons, Sir?”
I hesitated, intrigued by his directness yet still unwilling to divulge the full extent of my research.
“I have read a little on the subject, Sir, and believe that they are diverse in both appearance and ability. Some men believe that they may be commanded, if the correct rituals are observed.”
The Reverend glanced up at me, his blue eyes wide and staring. For a moment I was convinced he might strike me, such was the vehemence of his glare.
“Fools, Sir! Utter fools!” he cried, violently pounding the arm rests of his chair with his black gloves.
“Forgive me, Reverend, I only relate what others have written on the subject,” I said, alarmed by this hitherto unseen show of passion in such a taciturn man.
“No, no, forgive me, Bentley, my conduct is unbecoming.”
I signaled that it was of no consequence, and the Reverend lapsed once more into a grim silence, the only sounds the crackling fire and quiet murmurs from the surrounding tables. I sensed him struggling to control his emotions, and before long, he spoke again, though I had to lean forward to catch his words.
“My outburst was one borne of anger, it is true, Bentley, yet that anger is directed not at others but at myself, for it is I, Sir, that attempted to conjure and command dark forces, fool that I am!’
“You, Sir?” I said, surprised at this confession. “You have personal experience of such matters, too?”
I cursed my rash words inwardly, though he appeared not to notice my slip of the tongue, lost as he was in his own memories.
“Yes, though I am ashamed to admit it, being a man entrusted with the spiritual welfare of others. Yet here I feel that I am finally among men who have understanding, and as such, may be inclined to judge my pursuit of forbidden knowledge with a modicum of sympathy.”
“You are correct, Sir, please continue,” I urged.
The Reverend took a deep breath, as though steeling himself to recall memories long suppressed.
“Know you the meaning of this symbol?” he asked, clumsily placing a note on the table beside me, his hands evidently still stiff and cold despite the fire’s warm welcome.
I picked up the note and studied it. It was a rune, possibly of qabbalistic origin. It looked familiar, but whilst I had committed many sigils to memory, I could not immediately recall the meaning of this particular one. Tucking it into my waistcoat so that I might study it later, I shook my head.
The Reverend looked into my eyes and smiled, but it was the joyless leer of the resurrection man collecting his bag of coins. Perhaps sensing my unease at his unsettling expression, he leant back into his chair and allowed the shadows to reach over and conceal his features.
“Allow me to explain how I came by it,” he said. “Many years ago now, I secured a position at St John’s near Manchester. This was long before the Great War brought folk rushing back to seek solace in the bosom of the church, and my duties were light, leaving me free to continue the occult research I had begun at Theological college. Perhaps if I had been inclined to take a wife and start a family, then I would have been pleasantly distracted by domestic duties. But as it was, I was content with my bachelor status, which afforded me ample time to immerse myself in private study, the isolated location of the vicarage deterring casual visits from my parishioners.
“My interest in ancient texts eventually led me to discover the writings of Abramelin the Mage. You will, of course, be familiar with the name. Over time, I became excited by the prospect of attempting the rituals described in his great work. Who would not desire to gain a deeper understanding of the astral levels of existence, upon which one may divulge oneself of all physical limitations! Like the man who takes a pipe of opium, and enters on a path that will eventually ravage body and mind, I was unconcerned with consequences, seduced as I was by thoughts of power and knowledge denied to other men.”
The Reverend glanced over his shoulder, a furtive expression that might have been comic had it not been for the atmosphere of creeping dread that was descending on us like a winter fog. Satisfied that we were not observed, he continued to speak.
“The Mage’s instructions had led me to believe that demons were weak entities which could be easily subjugated, providing one followed the correct procedures. How naïve I was! A Man of God, playing with Satan’s most cunning cohorts like a spoilt child plays with his wooden marionettes. And yet, nevertheless, despite my professional commitment to the pursuance of the light, I was secretly fasting, preparing for a summoning ritual that would take me closer, instead, to all that is evil and unholy.”
I winced a little, remembering myself the dull ache of hunger and all-consuming fatigue that accompanies the fasting process. Even now, it had left a legacy, in that I was unable to resist ord
ering more food than was necessary for my relatively modest size, and much to my chagrin, I had had to re-order new suits at my tailor on three occasions. It seemed corpulence was to be my penance.
I lit another cigarette and waited for the Reverend to continue, which he did, shuffling nervously in his chair.
“I had consulted the charts and chosen a date that was astrologically fortuitous to a conjuration of this kind. You will know of what I speak. I drew the circle as instructed and placed the protective elements around it. Telling my churchwarden that I was away to London to attend an ecclesiastical conference, I began the ritual. For days and nights, forgoing sleep, I chanted words of power, until at sunset on All Hallows Eve, I felt the room grow as cold as ice, and my breath billowed forth in great clouds of steam. Then, a great wind roared through the room, extinguishing the candles and leaving me shivering, as much from fear as from the icy temperatures. Oh, that I could have stopped it there! But by then I knew it was too late, and from the shadows at the edges of the room I beheld a great crow appear, which opened its cruel beak and roared, like the barking of a thousand rabid dogs.”
I leapt forward, unable to contain my excitement at this description.
“Malphas!” I cried, “A Duke of the third circle! My God, man, what were you thinking?” This was a demon known only to me by lore, though my experience in these matters told me that even sorcerers who had crossed the abyss would think twice about summoning a diabolic entity of this rank—let alone a novice magician.
The Reverend reached for his glass of wine, which had sat untouched until this point, but his hands were still stiff and ungainly, and he sent it crashing to the floor. A couple of members cast a curious glance in our direction, but within seconds the ever attentive Jones silently cleaned away the shattered detritus and placed a fresh glass at the Reverend’s side.
Waiting for the conversations at neighboring tables to resume, the Reverend continued his narrative.
“Yes, it was the dark Duke Malphas himself that I had summoned, and I commanded him to appear in human form, which he duly did, transforming into a huge man with jet black skin and blazing red eyes, the malice of which chilled my very soul. So consumed was I by my lust for knowledge that I was ill-prepared for the wiles of this demon, which had been honed over millennia. I was to him but a trifle, there to be toyed with, the mouse in the claws of the sadistic cat. And so the demon convinced me that it was unable to speak freely when encumbered by the symbolic devices chalked on my study floor, and like a half-wit child, I was persuaded to step outside its protection.”
“But, surely your readings of the Mage had taught you that such a course of action would be suicide?” I said, aghast at the man’s naivety.
“You would have thought so,” he said, “but I was so delighted at my success, confused by lack of sustenance, and seduced by the demon’s poisonous arguments that my faculties became clouded, and I soon found myself trapped within my own enchantments, at the mercy of this foul abomination.”
“And, how is it that you are still here, sitting before me, and not torn into a thousand pieces with your soul scattered to the seven circles?”
The Reverend shifted nervously in his seat again.
“I believe that my death would have been too easy, too ephemeral an act for Malphas, and that he wanted to torment me for my impudence. And soon enough he began to whisper of matters unknown to me. Yet this was not the knowledge of invisibility, or hidden treasures, or seduction, or flight. Nor was it understanding of how the heavens are constructed, or what mystical forces bind the universe together. I soon discovered that the demon had resolved to instruct me in matters closer to home. Soon, the delineations of the room began to dissolve, and visions appeared that were as real as you appear to me now.
“I saw a nest of rats in the sewers beneath Vienna, that when birthed had become entangled by their tails, but which continued to grow and feed, until it became a writhing mass of hair, teeth, and claws that strained out to all four points of the compass, a gnashing, pulsating cartwheel. I saw a perverse nobleman stumble upon this foul nest, and instruct one of his men to procure an infant, so that he might place it within the middle of this monstrosity, and I screamed as I saw the delicate babe slowly devoured by this mephitic, wriggling mess, its agony beyond comprehension.
I saw a mad surgeon in Toulouse place spiders’ eggs inside the patients that lay on his operating table, and shortly thereafter swollen lumps appeared on their cheeks, and I beheld these fleshy protuberances burst like a lanced boil, spewing forth hundreds of spiders, their bodies fat with blood.”
My revulsion must have been evident, and I huddled closer to the fire, unable to prevent myself translating his words into mental images, which leapt into mind like unwelcome night terrors.
“Such depravity I witnessed!” the Reverend continued. “A mortuary in Geneva, where the night workers sated their twisted lust on the corpses of men, women, and children. A cellar in Bavaria, in which a lunatic gnawed on the noses and eyes of his bound victims, until they became living skulls. A rapist in a village near Kursk, that strapped himself into a sheath made of razors before setting out to defile young girls in a manner that defies description. It was as though Bosch himself was painting pictures in my mind. Worse! Endless vignettes of slaughter, torture, rape, necrophilia, pederasty—all of Man’s evils brought forth for me to witness.”
A gasp caught in my throat and I coughed loudly, allowing our table to once again become the subject of unwelcome attention. Both the Reverend and I refrained from further dialogue until the room had once again given us a camouflaging burr of conversation.
“And what happened—how did you escape?” I pressed.
“For days I was forced to watch as the demon exposed me to every possible perversion, whispering in my ear without respite, until the combination of obscenity and hunger drove me to madness, and I ceased to know who or where I was.”
“And yet you sit here before me?”
“Did you serve in the Great War, Bentley? You look of an age.”
I was disarmed by this change of subject but nodded, the crackle of the fire suddenly a volley of rifles across a ravaged wasteland.
“I was wounded at Passchendaele and discharged shortly after.”
“Passchendaele? Then you will understand me when I say that when a man is confronted by death, his instinct to survive takes over, and he will do anything to cling to life—actions that he could scarcely imagine previously, let alone undertake. The beast lurks beneath all our breasts, no matter how outwardly civil we appear.”
I knew of that lust for life of which he spoke, and the Reverend’s words took me back to the Western Front, and I recalled lying in the shell crater, my ears ringing, my body bleeding, with the torn limbs and entrails of men and horses bubbling up from the muddy water like a witches’ soup.
In front of me was a door I did not want to push, yet even as I considered ending the conversation and seeking out some cheerful, empty banter at the other tables, I knew that I would not be satisfied until I learned his fate.
“And what did you do, Sir, when faced with your own demise?” I whispered.
The Reverend was silent for a few seconds. Then his face loomed out from the gloom, the firelight twisting his emaciated features into a satanic mask.
“You must remember I was desperate, Bentley. All the while the demon tormented me, I neither ate nor slept. I was insane! Ravenous! I had to eat or die!”
The Reverend tugged angrily at his black leather gloves, which seemed reluctant to come off. As I was about to offer my assistance, I saw to my horror that he was not, in fact, divesting himself of garments, but of his very hands!
Slowly, he raised his wrists into the firelight and proffered them for my reluctant inspection. Emerging from the starched cuffs of his shirt were two ugly stumps, the splintered, gnawed tips of radius and ulna still visible among the liver colored mince of the flesh. Despite having witnessed many disfigurements as I r
ecovered from my injuries in the military hospital, I shrank back in disgust and fear, a small girl seeing the spider descend on its silken thread.
“My God, you…” I left the sentence unfinished.
The Reverend nodded, a thin, barbed wire smile twisting across his fleshy lips.
“I ate my own hands, Bentley, like a madman chained to the walls at Bedlam. It was a simple enough choice at the time—become a corpse, or become a cannibal. As you can see, I chose the latter.”
The Reverend placed his arms back into his lap, and I saw him wince as he thrust those terrible stumps back into the shiny black prosthetic hands. I lit another cigarette, inhaling far more deeply than was necessary in an effort to calm my pulse, which was banging loudly in my ears.
“And was that how you placated the demon?” I asked. “I know that once it escapes its magical bonds, it is unwilling to return to the astral dimension without exacting a hefty price.” All thoughts of discretion were gone, and I was eager to know how this man had endured—even if this meant betraying my own travels on the left-hand path.
Yet even as I spoke, something was bothering me, a nagging doubt at the edge of my mind which hovered shyly, unwilling to come into full view. Now that I had seen his ravaged body, the veracity of his account was undeniable. But, still, men do not step from chalk circles and live to tell the tale.
At the moment, I recalled the symbol the Reverend had passed to me. Pulling it from my waistcoat, I held it up into the light, frowning as I struggled to recall its meaning. Then it came, and I felt the blood drain from my face, despite the warmth of the flames.
“I have it! This symbol denotes Sacrifice!” I cried, too shocked to care any longer if my words were heard. “Pray do not tell me that you given yourself to Malphas, Sir, for if this is true, you are truly lost!”
