Moorcock’s transformation was so strange and so abrupt that I hesitated, unable to formulate anything resembling a coherent response to this rather unnerving query.
“I’m sorry, Professor Moorcock, I don’t understand.”
“Not Moorcock,” it said, “Something else. Something far older. What say you to my offer?”
“No,” I said without wavering.
When I tried to elaborate, I found my ability to draw breath thwarted. I struggled for air, desperately opening and closing my mouth like a herring flailing on the slick deck of a trawler.
“What about now?” it said, grinning.
I fought and I prayed and I panicked and I tried to weep. But nothing would bring me air. As patches of hazy blackness obscured my vision, I nodded in submission.
With that, Moorcock collapsed. Shaking his head like a befuddled drunkard, he slowly rose back to his feet. “My God,” he said, “you must burn that tome, immediately.”
I shuddered at his suggestion. Once more, I couldn’t bear to contemplate the ledger’s destruction. The book was a foul thing, but one of exquisite splendor, and it hinted of shuttered secrets I despaired to learn. There were still too many unanswered questions. What had possessed Moorcock? With whom or what had I made a bargain? Could it be undone?
“No, I can’t. We can’t. There’s still much to learn from this text,” I pleaded.
Moorcock scowled. He lifted the foul ledger from his desk and held it over a candle’s open flame.
“No!” I yelled. Then, from Moorcock’s own eyes I watched my body collapse. I yanked the book away from the flame and placed it on the floor next to my still-breathing human husk. I sat in Moorcock’s chair. Then I returned to my own body and snatched the ledger before standing.
Moorcock regarded me with an expression that straddled the thin line between awe and horror. “What have you done, sir?”
“You have no right to destroy my property,” I replied.
Pointing at the tome, Moorcock said, “That thing is an abomination. You saw what it did to me.”
I tried to ignore his outrage. “Please, tell me what you learned. I must understand what just happened,” I begged.
He brooded behind his desk. “Get that thing out of my sight and never come here again.”
“Done,” I said. “But please, for the love of God, help me understand what knowledge you gleaned from your brief reading.”
Moorcock paused, then said, “Return to London and call on Sir Willard Hilton. Show him your ledger and inquire about the Dictionnaire Infernal. Good day, Mr. Brooks.”
With that, I grabbed the ledger, left his study, and returned to London by rail.
I was to meet Sir Willard Hilton in a modest pub about half a block away from the electric adverts illuminating Piccadilly Circus’s thoroughfare. I entered the establishment, happy to find shelter from the cold and rainy night.
It was always night for me. Since I’d birthed the ledger, I’d become a nocturnal thing, preferring the solace of shadow to the loud and arrogant face of the sun. Even the moon, whose source of light was the sun’s reflection, was something I shunned.
I collapsed my umbrella and removed my bowler hat, taking in the tiny pub’s ambience. The establishment was little more than an alcove, carved into the bone and sinew of London’s West End. The tables were roughhewn and discolored, pitted oak slabs from years of use and neglect.
“What’ll it be, sir?” the portly barkeep said.
“I’m just here to see someone,” I replied.
“Best you be seeing them elsewhere,” the man said, leering at me. “Only have space for paying customers.”
I balled my fists. Fantasies of ripping out the man’s throat filled my mind’s eye. I had to blink twice before I was able to regain my composure. “Fine,” I said. “A glass of whiskey will do.”
“What kind?” the man said.
“The kind that is cheapest,” I said, annoyed.
He harrumphed and poured my drink.
“Do you happen to know if a Sir Willard Hilton frequents this pub?” I asked.
He answered with a scowl. “You? Here to see Sir Willard?”
“What? Were you expecting someone different?” I said, insulted.
He rolled his eyes and then pointed to a table in the pub’s back left nook. I followed his arm to find a wiry-thin man with curly black hair that receded into a widow’s peak. He vibrated with nervous energy while he chatted up a curvaceous blonde. He clutched an overflowing pint of ale.
I grabbed my cheap whiskey and made my way to his table, interrupting him in midsentence. “Excuse me, Sir Willard, may I have a quick word?”
Sir Willard ignored me, sipping his drink.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, Sir Willard.…”
He held up his hand, never taking his eyes off the woman. “Piss off.”
“But Sir Willard, this can’t wait. It’s a matter of life and death.”
His head swiveled toward me. “I said: Piss. Off.”
Sir Willard’s stern tone and a glint of violence in his eyes told me that if I didn’t back off, the world-renowned explorer would very likely do me harm.
So I took my whiskey and sat at the bar, where I brooded. I had to get Sir Willard’s attention, but I couldn’t compete with his companion. Then I had a curious idea. There was no need for me to compete with her for Sir Willard’s notice at all.
My head slumped onto the table. In an instant, I was staring at Sir Willard from across a common table.
“C’mon, luv. My flat’s only a few blocks away. We can have a nightcap there,” Sir Willard said, winking at me.
I felt awkward inside this woman’s body. So I got straight to the point: “Sir Willard, I need your help. Professor Alastair Moorcock recommended that I seek your assistance about the Dictionnaire Infernal.”
Sir Willard’s jawed dropped. His eyes shifted past my feminine host and stared at my empty human husk.
“What are you?” he said.
I gestured toward my original vessel. “I’m the chap over there you wouldn’t speak to.”
He stood up and backed away from me, nearly stumbling over his chair. “No,” he said with a hint of panic in his voice. “What kind of thing are you?”
“I’m a man, just like you,” I said in a woman’s voice and without any trace of irony.
“But … but only demons are capable of soul displacement.”
And with that one sentence, I learned more about my predicament than I had in the last month.
“Tell me more,” I said.
“Not here. And not until you release your hold over Victoria’s body.”
“If I do, will you help me?”
He nodded, so I released her.
Adramelech is its name,” Sir Willard whispered, paging through the ledger. Candlelight flickered in his dank cellar study. His mahogany bureau was firmly rooted in the middle of the room like a citadel anchoring its power in the center of a far-reaching kingdom. The floor beneath and the walls surrounding the bureau had a complex series of circular and triangular warding sigils scrawled in chalk.
“Whose name?” I asked.
“The entity that holds your contract.”
“What entity?” I said.
“The thing called Adramelech. According to the Dictionnaire Infernal, references to Adramelech pre-date the founding of Christianity. They point to its origin as a Mesopotamian deity. According to the lore, worshippers appeased Adramelech through ritualistic human sacrifice. It is said that Adramelech’s acolytes frequently offered it burning children.”
I shuddered at Sir Willard’s words. What had I done? Then my thoughts became more urgent, more focused on solving my immediate dilemma. “And contract? What contract?”
“Your immortal essence for the ability
to project your soul into others,” he said.
“But … but, I was coerced,” I stammered. “I had no choice.”
“We always have a choice. You could have chosen death.”
I bowed my head in resignation. There had to be a glimmer of hope, a way out. “Is there any way that I can break this pact?”
He fixed his gray eyes on mine. “Tell me one thing: did you summon Adramelech or did it seek you?”
“The latter,” I said almost too quickly, my desperation roiling beneath a thin veneer of calm.
“I see,” he said. “Then, according to this tome, there’s still hope.”
“Thank the Lord,” I said. “Tell me what I must do.”
Procuring the hollowed-out bronze statue required a fair bit of archival work and logistical meandering, but the request was harmless enough.
After paying Sir Willard a princely sum to recover the artifact, he returned with word that his expedition had unearthed the item and loaded it on a steamship in the Levant. He’d promised that the artifact would arrive in London within the month.
When it arrived at my flat, enshrouded in black, I couldn’t help but experience a sense of deep foreboding and woe. The hidden statue had an uncanny aura that invoked dread in its beholders.
I had the deliverymen lower it into my cellar. They used a complex system of levers and pulleys. The hemp groaned and creaked with the effort. I scarcely believed the relic would make the passage without snapping the ropes that held its colossal heft at bay.
After they departed, and despite my trepidation, I removed the statue’s dark shroud. I trembled as I beheld the image of my nightmare cast in bronze—all those menacing eyes glaring at me, boring into the pit of my soul.
I immediately covered the statue back in its shadowy veil before the ghastly figure befouled my mind with more sinister visions.
And there it sat, awaiting Adramelech and whatever sordid purpose the fiend had intended for it.
The next several years passed at a glacial pace. Serving as Sir Willard’s acolyte, I dedicated my life to uncovering the esoteric mysteries of the obscene tome I’d transcribed in my youth.
Even with the meticulous warding in Sir Willard’s cellar, the book exacted a punishing toll on my constitution. Darkness became my permanent abode, and I a thing of midnight.
Each year, on the anniversary of my contract, Adramelech summoned me on pain of death, compelling me to scour the barrows for the corpse of an orphaned child. It was a gruesome task, digging into the loamy earth and exhuming the tiny coffin.
On one such night, I passed under the moon’s glowing crescent, its reflected sunlight scarring the blue-black sky like a cicatrix on unblemished skin. The light it cast revolted me—no doubt a consequence of the corruption festering in my spirit.
My method for selecting which body to disinter was a simple one. Before my nighttime jaunts, I would pore over the obituaries of rural newspapers for the names of recently deceased orphan children. On this particular year, my research led me to Bocking Cemetery in Braintree, Essex.
Stalking the lichyard in the service of my master, I meandered through a maze of tombstones and mausoleums without the aid of lantern light. There, I sought the grave of the Jameson boy. The ground was still muddy from the rainstorm that had soaked the land earlier that day.
It didn’t take long for me to locate the Jameson plot with its freshly turned dirt. Hoisting my spade, I began to dig.
A faint light glimmered through the distant hedges and oak trees. I ceased digging, fearful my illicit activity might garner unwanted attention.
The light grew brighter and drew closer. My heart pounded. Sweat slithered down my brow. To avoid discovery, I hid behind a gravestone and lay on my stomach.
The silhouette of a man passed through the trees. He shined a lantern in my direction. I held my breath, cowering.
He approached slowly.
I hugged the earth, clutching clumps of mud in a futile attempt to avoid detection.
A light blinded me from above. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” a gruff voice said.
I held my hands before my face, trying to blot out the glaring light. As my eyes adjusted, I saw the night watchman, his countenance grimacing in disgust.
“Stand up!” he commanded, waving a baton.
This was the end. If he turned me over to the authorities, I would be forever severed from that spellbinding tome. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. There was a way out, but it terrified me. I’d promised myself never to use that dreadful power again.
Now I had no choice. I locked my eyes on his.
In an instant, I watched my body slump to the ground. Wearing the night watchman’s skin, I sprinted back toward the tree line, my lantern swaying like a chaotic pendulum scything through darkness.
In moments, I’d passed through the oaks and hedges, and into Essex’s flat fields, running until the night watchman’s heart felt as if it were on the verge of bursting. My mind raced. It would take me hours to get him far enough away from the cemetery so I’d have enough time to unearth the body.
But I didn’t have hours. I had only until daybreak.
Then I stumbled upon my redemption.
It was no more than a black speck on the horizon. As I drew closer, the stone well jutted from the earth like a broken tooth. When I reached it, breathless, I stared down fifty feet into its gaping maw.
It was either his soul or mine.
I leapt into the well.
In half a breath, I was back in my own skin. I grabbed my spade and dug with a fury, using guilt as my fuel. I tried not to imagine the man’s frantic effort to keep his head above water in that black well. Despite my rationalizations, what I had done was unforgivable. But what choice did I have?
Hours later, I placed the muddy coffin onto a dolly and wheeled it to the midnight-blue Ford Model T waiting on the side of the country road. There, I loaded the small coffin into the backseat, covered it with an olive drab tarp, and then motored back to London.
With shame, I carried the coffin to my flat, removed the corpse of a freckled boy with strawberry-blonde hair, and placed it inside the repulsive statue. Then I positioned a brazier heaping with coals behind it, where I presented the burnt offering to my demented overseer.
I know not why Adramelech forced me to repeat this grim ritual year after year. It was as if through these unspeakable acts, the demon was honing my instincts and inuring my conscience to prepare me for something far worse.
I yearned to sever my contract, devoting every waking hour to study of the diabolical tome, scrutinizing it for a loophole. Sir Willard assured me from his extensive scholarship that the brazen statue was a crucial element of the remedy. Yet the puzzle remained.
Despite my wretched nocturnal existence, I resolved never to use my unnatural ability again, fearing that each use only served to spread Adramelech’s infestation of my immortal soul.
But through the toilsome years, I knew only failure and regret, until I convinced myself that the only way out was by the fiend’s own hand.
There was something troubling about the boy’s voice. Both haunting and familiar, it rumbled above the din of the boisterous pub like an echo in the crag lands. Under the guise of youth, it carried the weight of eternity on sonorous and ethereal wings. Of love and of loss twisted with a sense of despair in some cruel and arcane concoction not birthed of the natural world.
The pub’s denizens made merry, drowning their earthly worries in the false mirth of fermented barley. Each year, I came here to think, to reflect on the bargain. For thirty years I had come to commemorate the anniversary, finding solace that I still had more time. But today was different. Today, I sensed that the butcher’s bill was due.
“Logan,” the man-child said, the ken of my name betraying his deception of innocence. There was power in the kno
wing of names, but that power had long been lost to the kindred of men.
A storm was brewing outside. The smell presaging the coming of rain wafted into the pub each time another poor soul entered the establishment. If you were old like me, you could feel it in the hollows of your knees. The void of the space betwixt flesh and bone coupled with the creaking pain of age. The hackles on my narrow neck rose in warning to the gathering maelstrom.
What most didn’t know or realize was that another tempest was brewing. It had been building for three decades. And tonight, it would discharge its vast malevolence.
Girding for the inevitable, I swigged my whiskey in one last pathetic attempt to preserve my mortality. I then turned to regard my night caller.
“Can’t say I’m pleased to see you, Adramelech, but I’m sure you understand why.”
The child nodded in a manner unlike a child. Its smile taunted and tore at my soul. I could feel it rattle inside me like a rat caught in a cage with a serpent.
“Logan, let us speak of less unpleasant things. It’s true that your soul is now mine to rend. But you still have free will. What if I were to offer you a way to repay your debt that would free you of your obligation?”
I knew with every fiber of my being not to trust this spawn of the abyss. But hope was a powerful thing. As the autumn of my life fast approached, the horror of harvesting the rotten fruit of a dying tree had become more real.
“Say on,” I said.
Adramelech smiled, his eyes conveying an unsettling malice. “All I require is one final task. After that, I will consider your debt paid in full.”
I took a deep breath, downed my whiskey, and said, “Tell me more.”
I didn’t understand why this infernal thing wanted to be encased in the statue, but I was only too happy to oblige. If I could broil the beast inside the boy by burning the boy, I wouldn’t hesitate, especially to save my own soul.
So, as instructed, I hoisted the child who was not a child into the bronze statue and sealed it. I placed the brazier behind the statue, loaded it with coals, and heated it.