I grew more and more desperate as my wife continued to languish upstairs.
A week before, she had been struck down by some mysterious and ravenous illness. Her cheeks lost their delicate bloom and became sunken and pallid, her eyes lost their bright luster and her voice was reduced to little more than a hoarse, rasping whisper. Her hands, thin and clawlike in her sickness, clutched feebly at the coverlet of our bed. I was at my wits’ end.
I had summoned our regular doctor three nights ago, but he had been unable to diagnose her affliction, let alone treat it. He referred me to a specialist, but that man examined her, only to confess himself as baffled as his colleague. As he closed his bag, he quietly warned me to prepare myself for the worst. My wife — my dearest, darling Emily! – might not survive for much longer.
Now I sat in the front room of our house, watching the rain fall against the windows. I could not bring myself to go back upstairs. I could not bear to see her life slowly, strangely ebbing from her. What was I to do? Two doctors had come and gone, saying that the case was beyond them, that there was no natural explanation that they could find.
If no natural cause could be found, then perhaps this illness was somehow … unnatural? Even supernatural? Something beyond the sphere of man and what he knows of the world?
But surely not beyond every man’s understanding?
I have already said that I was desperate.
I had heard Professor Martin Blackwell’s name spoken of before. He was quietly famous in a certain way, or perhaps even infamous. It was said, in hushed tones, that he was a man possessed of a vast and secret familiarly with the occult. He was sometimes described as the disinherited son of an ancient family, who had traveled the globe alone, delving into forbidden lore and bizarre rites. If my Emily was beyond the help of doctors of the natural world, then perhaps expertise in the supernatural was called for? I could only hope!
I sent for him, and waited by my Emily’s bedside as the hours crawled slowly by.
He arrived some time later. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with the chest and arms of a colossus. Black hair, heavily shot with gray, fell to his velvet collar. Deep, black eyes glinted above an aquiline nose. His clothing was quietly sumptuous, befitting his reputation as a kind of Bohemian esthete. In one hand, he carried a long black walking stick, with a silver head in the shape of a wolf.
“Professor!” I cried, wringing his hand; his hand was cold but the grip was strong. “I am so grateful that you came so quickly! You are by yourself, I see?”
“I almost always travel alone, if I can help it,” he said in a deep, serious voice. He placed his hat and gloves upon the hall table and said, “Please, before I see you wife, tell me everything I need to know.”
I hastily described Emily’s descent into illness over the last few days. How she suddenly became quite frail and seemed to be consumed by some unseen force and our doctors held out no hope for her recovery. And then how I, in turn, had become consumed by my deep concern for her.
He listened intently, nodding occasionally and jotting in a small leather notebook he took from an inner pocket. He turned several pages back and after a moment, looked up with a dark expression.
“Is your wife baptized?” he asked.
“Yes, I … believe so.”
“Do you know her astrological sign?”
“She was born on the twelfth of last month ….”
“A Scorpio, then. That should be of some help.”
“Professor, really, I have no idea why you are asking me this. What are you suggesting with these questions?”
“Please, sir! All will become clear soon. Now, you have asked for my help and you must let me work. Your wife’s life depends upon it! I am ready to see her, now, and I pray that we are not too late!”
Upstairs, Emily seemed to be only fleetingly aware of me as I watched the Professor work. He took her pulse and laid the back of his hand upon her forehead. She murmured something I could not quite hear as he opened her mouth to look under her tongue. He pressed her fingernails and made a close examination of her throat and her hair. He seemed satisfied with his findings, whatever they were.
He nodded and, without a word, took a short length of red cord from one pocket and a pair of wooden beads, one black, one green, from another. He strung the beads onto the cord and wrapped it three times around Emily’s thin wrist, tying an elaborate knot. He quietly said something as he did this, a chant I could not quite make out but sounded vaguely like Latin. He then took a stick of blue chalk from yet another pocket and with it, drew a kind of curved, seven-pointed star on the headboard with quick, deft strokes. Once he was done, he drew an identical symbol over the bedroom door.
“Professor, is all of this truly necessary?”
“I would not be doing it if it were not!” he hissed. He then motioned me back downstairs.
Once again in the parlor, he took a seat in a leather armchair and rubbed his long, white hands together nervously.
“It is even worse than I feared,” he said, as I poured whiskey into a tumbler in an attempt to steady my nerves. He declined my offer of one for him, saying that he would need to keep all his wits about him for the rest of the night. He added, “If we act quickly, it may not be too late to save your wife, body and soul.”
“Good God!” I ejaculated. “Please, Professor, tell me what is going on! What are the beads for? And that curious star?”
“They are only temporary measures, and I hope they will be enough. We have a long night of work ahead of us, sir, you and I.”
“Tell me!”
“Have you ever heard the name of … Edgar Richardson?”
“Richardson?” I repeated.” No, I do not think that I have. Who is he?”
Professor Blackwell’s face tightened grimly.
“I first encountered him seven years ago, during the adventure of the Somerset Coven.”
“I have never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have! I had to strive mightily to keep the whole scandalous business out of the newspapers! But nevertheless, it was there that I first learned what he was – and what he was capable of! I only just barely escaped with my life. He is a dangerous, and powerful man. He belongs to that world which is unfamiliar to sane and decent men such as yourself. His is a world of darkness and blood and evil. In the ranks of black magicians of the occult, he is the blackest! I have reason to believe that Richardson is far, far older than he appears, though he looks to be no older than you or I, he is, in fact, ancient. As far as I have been able to deduce, he saw the fall of Rome, he survived the Black Plague, and somehow escaped the French Revolution with his head still on his shoulders. He has somehow prolonged his life by feeding upon the energies of his unknowing victims – and your wife, I am afraid, is the latest in his long line of such unfortunates. Now, you say she is not acquainted with him?”
“But how would she be?”
“A very excellent question, sir! But still, there is every indication that she is now under one of Richardson’s vile spells. I have seen it before, and would know the signs anywhere.”
“You have seen this before?” I was taken aback.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes. My own wife … but no. Now tell me, has Emily brought home any new, unusual jewelry recently? Or any strange and unfamiliar items or articles?”
“No … nothing that I have noticed. Why?”
“That is how the spell works, you see. There must be an item which Richardson has enchanted to buttress the sinister psychic hold he has over her. But you say she has brought home nothing?”
“No,” I said. “So, perhaps … perhaps then you are mistaken?”
“It
is only one of the ways in which Richardson works his evil sorcery.
If she does not have something belonging to him … then he must have
something belonging to her!”
“But what, pray tell?”
“It could be anything – a handkerchief, a ribbon, or – God forbid! – a lock of her hair.”
“Oh, God!” I said, my heart fluttering, my knees weak. I was thrilled with horror. “How ever would he have gotten hold of something like that?”
“Only the first of many questions facing us tonight.”
“What are we to do?”
“We must find it!” he declared, sweeping to his feet. “And we must act quickly. Now it so happens that I keep a close eye on Richardson’s movements, and know that he has recently returned home from a trip abroad where he must have been seeking to fill in certain gaps in his evil knowledge. ”
“How do you know this?”
“I have my ways. You brought me here because I know certain things, and this is one of them. He does not live far from here! Now, sir, are you prepared to act?”
“What are you proposing?”
“We must search his house, and together we shall find whatever it is he has somehow stolen from her and the spell will be broken! Are you with me, sir?”
“Yes ….”
“To save your wife’s life?”
“Yes.”
“To save Emily’s very soul?”
“Yes!”
“We must hurry, then! There is no time to lose!”
“I have some scruples about bringing you along,” said he; we had gotten into a cab together, planning to stop several streets away from Richardson’s house and walk the rest of the way. “But you have a heavy stake in all of this, of course, and your assistance may be invaluable.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I will need your to help find whatever it is that Richardson has stolen from your dear wife. We must penetrate his lair, recover whatever it is that he is using against her, and then make good our escape. I can only hope that it can all be accomplished quickly, but –“
“But what?”
“But we must prepare ourselves for the worst! Now, sir, I implore you – be on your guard! Now I must warn you that you may see things in this house that you cannot explain. But stay close, and listen to what I tell you. Emily’s life and soul may depend upon it!”
“Of course!” I said.
A short while later, the cab dropped us at an intersection and we walked for several dark and silent streets, buttoned up against the thin rain, until we reached the house of Edgar Richardson. It was a pleasant, two-story villa on a quiet side-street, and it seemed impossible to believe that a dangerous sorcerer could live in this an innocent and ordinary area. The windows were unlit.
“Are you armed?”
“No. Are you?”
“Of course.” He brought up his wolf-headed stick and, with a quick twist, withdrew two feet of a bright steel blade that had been hidden in the length of the stick. He smiled and slid it back into place. “And I am armed in other, more subtle ways as well. Are you ready?”
“I am!”
“Then … onward!”
How far I had travelled in so brief a period of time! And in how many ways! An hour ago, I was an ordinary man, no more than a concerned husband and now –! Now I was on a quest to turn back an ancient and powerful evil that threatened my poor wife! I watched my new companion dash across the street and realized that I had placed my fate — and Emily’s! — into the hands of this stranger. This was the point of no return. There was no going back for me now.
The Professor vaulted the wall with an athleticism I would not have credited him with. I clambered over and landed in the soft earth of the other side and we crouched in the shadows.
“I have reconnoitered his lair twice before, once under cover of darkness and once in the daylight, disguised as an out-of-work gardener looking for a position. There are some French doors along the left-hand side of the house and they may have been left open. But if they have not, I am sure that you do not object to some housebreaking?” He smiled wolfishly.
“Not if Emily’s life and soul depend upon it!”
“Brave man! Come! Let us put an end to this ugly, dangerous business!”
We ran across the lawn to the house itself, a building like so many others in this neighborhood; plain and solid and unassuming. But knowing something of the occupant, I could not help but see the house as some kind of disguise, and it was all strangely foreboding now. We crept around the corner, keeping our backs to the wall, moving as silently as we could manage, until we reached the French doors. They were locked. Professor Blackwell snarled and took a ring of skeleton keys from a pocket, and succeeded in opening the door in seconds.
The room was black and unlit. I had no idea what could be lurking in the shadowy corners of the room.
“I shall strike a match,” Blackwell said quietly.
I tried to brace myself for whatever I might see. What did I expect? The den of a wizard, adorned with skulls and black candles and crumbling scrolls of esoteric knowledge?
As the match threw its sudden, feeble illumination about the room, I saw that we were in a study not dissimilar to my own, not far away from here. There were a few books on the small desk, and a couple piles of papers. There were some candlesticks, an empty coffee cup, and a green-shaded electric lamp. Tall bookcases, a framed landscape or two, and the bust of a philosopher completed the decor.
“Much as it was on my last … visit,” the Professor murmured. “All part of the mask he wears. I know for a certainty that there is a vast underground level – how far it extends, I do not know. What he and his coven do there is perhaps best not to contemplate.”
“So, our search begins here?” I asked.
“No, no of course not. He would never keep anything incriminating in so obvious a place. His secrets are kept … elsewhere. This way!”
He blew out the match and crept to the half-open door of the study on tip-toe to then peer down a short, gray hallway. He nodded to me as he drew his wolf-headed sword, discarding the black wooden sheath and stepping into the hall. I followed, dreading what we might find as we continued deeper into the house . We made our way slowly down the corridor until we reached the front foyer, a lofty room paneled in dark wood, with a floor of black and white tiles. There was a set of stairs leading up to the second floor, and a few arched doorways, some of them curtained off, leading elsewhere.
“There,” the Professor pointed to a sturdy black door on the opposite side of the hall. “That is where he truly works. That is where our search begins!”
With the soundless step of a cat, he crossed the hall and tried the door.
“Locked,” he whispered grimly. His eyes held a hard luster as he reached back into his pocket for the skeleton keys. “With any luck, it will only be a physical lock with which we must contend –“
The electric light in the hall sprang to life, illuminating the scene sharply. My companion and I whirled as a harsh voice came from the top of the stairs.
“What in the hell is going on down there?”
A figure descended the stairs, slowly and cautiously. It could only be Edgar Richardson! He was a man with a thin face, the flesh seemingly stretched tight across the bones, and a long, drooping moustache. He wore a long black robe – whether a dressing gown, or the habiliments of a wizard, I could not tell. He held a fireplace poker in one hand and glared at Professor Blackwell.
“We face one another at last, Richardson!” Blackwell dropped the keys and brandished his sword. “I always knew that one day I would hold you to account!”
“Jesus, not you again!” Richardson startled.
“Do not look into his eyes, sir! He will try to mesmerize you! Do not look into his eyes! I warn you!”
“All right,” I said, doing my best to avoid Richardson’s gaze, “now tell me why you have attacked my wife!”
“Why I have what?”
“Release this man’s wife from your spell, you monster!” the Professor commanded. “Release her immediately!”
“I have no idea what the hell you are talking about,” Richardson said. “Sir, I don’t know what he has told you, but he is a complete and utter madman, you must see that.”
“Lies! Do not listen to him! He is trying to bewilder you with one of his spells!”
“I own a grocery store around the corner from here,” Richardson began angrily.
“The … the Broad Street Market?” I asked. I had been by it a few times. It was large and very well-known and he were opening a new one nearer to my house.
“Yes, that’s the one. This maniac slipped on some ice outside the store a couple of years ago and has been out for revenge ever since. I think he must have hit his head. He thinks that I am some kind of evil wizard and only he can stop me.”
“A couple of years?” I asked. “Not … seven?”
“Lies! All lies! You are a Wizard of the Seventh Order, a High Priest of Demogorgon, and a Keeper of the Inner and Outer Enochian Circle!” The Professor leveled his sword at Richardson’s chest. “This blade was blessed three times under a full moon, you know,” he said coolly. “I have waited too long to send you to meet your master in Hell!”
At that moment, a policeman entered through one of the archways, followed closely by a man in a long white nightshirt.
“Drop that thing!” the policeman ordered. The Professor let go of his sword after the briefest hesitation and it fell to the tiled floor with a clang. “Now what in the hell is going on here?”
“This man broke into my house!” Richardson said in a high voice. “And not for the first time, either!”
“Your earthly justice is of no use here,” the Professor murmured. His voice shrank as he tried to go on. “This man is beyond the reach of any court, and …. only … I …. can ….” And his shoulders slumped as he finally lapsed into silence.
“I called for the police when I heard them breaking in, sir,” the man in the nightshirt told Edgar Richardson.
“Thank you, Jeffrey.”
“And who are you?” The policeman turned to me.
“I … met Professor Blackwell earlier this evening,” I began.
“Professor? Is that what he’s calling himself now? He’s no professor, sir. And he’s no stranger to the police. He’s been in and out of the asylum half a dozen times.”
“He … told me that this man killed his wife?”
“Is that what he told you?” the policeman said with a gruff laugh. “This guy’s never been married, sir.”
I looked over to the hunched figure of Professor Martin Blackwell. He looked very small and pathetic now. He said nothing.
“All right, you two are coming down to the station. Let’s go, gentlemen. March.”
They kept me at the station until sunrise, locked in a cell with the Professor.
“But
he is a powerful, dangerous man,” he whispered from the far end of
the hard bench. His head hung down between his shoulders, his hands
wedged between his knees. “The police have no idea what they are
dealing with. Only I ….”
“I am not listening to you,”
I said.
“They took my sword.”
“Shut up.”
When an officer eventually came to tell me I was free to go, the Professor glanced up and then looked away quickly. Richardson was not pressing charges against me, I was told, but I would probably be called as a witness in the Professor’s upcoming trial.
I looked back at the Professor one last time. Earlier, he had seemed so strong, so magisterial. Now he sat hunched and slumped on a bench next to a drunk and it was hard to tell the difference between the two.
I made my way home almost in a daze, unable to fully comprehend the events of the long night. Richardson ran grocery stores? The Professor was a delusional maniac? How had I allowed myself to be dragged along on this mad adventure?
When I finally mounted the stairs to our bedroom, I found Emily sitting up in bed, propped up on pillows, with the faintest color coming back into her cheeks. She smiled.
“Where have you been all night?” she asked. “I was getting worried!”
“You have recovered!” I cried, taking her in my arms and kissing her forehead. “Oh, my darling! You are recovered!”
“Well of course I have,” she said. “It was nothing serious. Just a little touch of ‘flu.”
“But … but I was so, so very worried about you!”
She shook her head and laughed, “Why are you always so dramatic about everything?”
Rory O’Brien lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife, two black cats, and a Treeing Walker Coonhound. He is the author of three novels, Gallows Hill, Summerland, and The Afflicted Girl, all available from The Merry Blacksmith Press. Find him online at www.roryobrienbooks.com
Keep your eyes open for more great stories in Rory’s upcoming collection Senor Lugosi and Other Stories. Coming soon!