“At least it’s warm in here,” said Fisher. “Where do we start?”
“Good question. Apparently there’s no obvious focus for the hauntings. The ghost comes and goes as it pleases.” Hawk looked about him. “I suppose … we check the rooms one by one until either we find something, or something finds us. Then we … do something about it.”
“Such as?”
“I’m considering the matter.”
“Oh, good. I feel so much more secure now.”
And then they both spun around, weapons drawn in an instant, as the sound of approaching footsteps suddenly broke the quiet. It only took them a moment to realize that something was descending the main stairs at the end of the hall. Hawk and Fisher started slowly forward, their faces grim and focused on the situation at hand. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs, took one look at the garish vision bearing implacably down on them, and decided they’d gone quite far enough. A tall, heavy set woman wrapped in gaudy if somewhat threadbare robes crashed to a halt in front of them. She had a wild friz of dark curly hair above a face covered in so much makeup, it was almost impossible to discern her true features. Her mouth was a wide scarlet gash, and her eyes were bright and piercing. She had shoulders as wide as a docker’s, and hands to match. She looked large and solid and all too horribly real. She fixed Hawk with a terrible stare, held out a shaking scarlet-nailed hand, and spoke in deep sepulchral tones.
“Be still, my friends. You have entered an unholy place, and we are not alone here. The spirits are restless tonight.”
“Oh, bloody hell,” said Hawk. “It’s Madame Zara.”
“You know this … person?” asked Fisher, not lowering her sword.
“You know me, Captain?” asked Madame Zara, taken aback for a moment. She withdrew her hand and struck a dramatic pose. “I cannot say I recall the occasion. Though, of course, my fame has spread …”
“It was a while back, during the Fenris case,” said Hawk grimly. “I chased that spy right through her parlor. Madame Zara is a spiritualist. A medium. Or whatever makes the most money this week. A second-rate con woman and a first-rate fake.”
“Sir!” said Madame Zara, drawing herself up. This took a moment, as there was quite a lot of her to draw up. “I resent the implication!”
“I notice you’re not denying it,” said Hawk. “Last time we met, you were using ventriloquism and funny voices to fake messages from the dear departed. Including, if memory serves, entirely unconvincing yowls from a departed pet cat.”
Madame Zara thought about taking offense, considered that this was Captain Hawk, after all, and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. She shrugged, crossed her large arms over her even larger bosom, and fixed Hawk and Fisher with her best intimidating scowl.
“I have every right to be here, Captain. The Hartleys came to me, as one of Haven’s most prestigious mediums, wishing to establish contact with their dear departed uncle, Appleton Hartley. There were things they desperately needed to say to him, questions they needed to ask. Most definitely including, What happened to all the money he made? The will left Leonard and Mavis everything, but it seems that a few months before Appleton died, he liquidated his entire business, cleared out all his bank accounts, and took the lot in hard cash. According to the firm’s books, there should have been a great deal of money for the descendants to inherit, but there’s no trace of any of it anywhere. The family have been tearing this house apart, but the ghost won’t leave them alone long enough for them to get anywhere.”
By now Hawk and Fisher were nodding in unison. The case was suddenly starting to make a great deal more sense.
“So, the Hartleys came to me, the great Madame Zara. I was unable to contact the actual spirit of their dear departed uncle, due to … conturbations in the spirit world. They asked me to investigate and cleanse this house, and lay its uneasy spirit to rest.” Madame Zara gave Hawk and Fisher her best other-worldly look. It looked a lot more like indigestion. “I have made some headway. I am almost sure the revenant here is in fact that of a little girl. A child, lost and alone, reaching out to make contact.” She paused sharply, and jerked her head oddly. “Aah! She is here, now, with us! Don’t pull at my hair, dear …”
Hawk looked at Fisher. “I don’t know whether to kick her arse or applaud. Any minute now she’ll be asking if there’s anyone here called John.”
“I am a mistress of the mysteries! A conversant with powers and with dominations!” Madame Zara’s eyes bulged furiously as she leaned forward, reminding Fisher irresistibly of a bulldog with a wasp up its backside. “I am not to be trifled with!”
“I didn’t bring a trifle,” Hawk said to Fisher. “Did you think to bring a trifle?”
“Knew I forgot something,” said Fisher.
Madame Zara was about to say something really cutting when she caught a glimpse of something in the handsomely mounted mirror on the wall beside her. She looked at it sharply, and then relaxed a little on seeing only her own familiar reflection. Hawk admired her courage. If he’d seen anything like that looking back at him out of a mirror, he’d have fled the house and called in a really hard-core exorcist. And then, as they all watched in stupefied silence, the face in the mirror grew suddenly even uglier. Warts and boils and lesions broke out all over the face, pushing aside the heavy makeup, and blood and fouler liquids ran down the face to drip sluggishly off the chin. The eyes became bloodshot and bulged unnaturally from the widening sockets. The mouth stretched impossibly, blackening lips revealing sharp and pointed teeth. Curled horns burst up out of the bulging temples.
By now the real and unchanged Madame Zara was whimpering loudly, her entire bulk shaking and shuddering. All the natural color had dropped out of her face, leaving it as pale as a sheet behind the gaudy dabs of makeup. And then the demonic face burst out of the mirror, the fanged mouth reaching hungrily for the medium’s throat. Madame Zara let out a pitiful howl, gathered up her billowing robes, and crashed down the stairs like a runaway avalanche. Hawk and Fisher moved hurriedly out of her way, and Madame Zara hurtled down the hallway, running for her life. Hawk and Fisher watched her go, and then moved cautiously up the stairs toward the mirror, weapons at the ready. By the time they got there, it was just a mirror again, showing nothing but their own familiar faces. Fisher prodded the surface of the glass with a cautious finger, but it was stubbornly solid and normal. Hawk smashed the mirror with the butt of his axe anyway, on general principles.
“Seven more years bad luck,” said Fisher, kicking shards of glass off the stairs.
“Mirrors should know their place,” said Hawk firmly. “At least now we can be sure there really is something unnatural going on here.”
And then they both fell silent as the quiet house suddenly erupted with a cacophony of spectral sound. The wall beside the stairs boomed loudly, like a great drum, as though struck repeatedly by some huge immaterial force. The knocking traveled up the wall and along the next landing, where all the doors suddenly began slamming, over and over again. The noise was deafening, but Hawk and Fisher didn’t flinch. They held their ground and waited for something threatening to come their way. The pounding stopped abruptly, and all the doors fell silent. A low moaning began, distinct but eerily faint, as though its terrible pain and despair had traveled unknowable distances to reach them. The moan rose to become a howl, and then a scream, and finally maniacal laughter, full of dread and horror. Hawk and Fisher held their ground. The laughter broke off abruptly, and silence returned. Hawk cradled his axe in his arms, and applauded politely.
“Very impressive. Derivative, but nicely varied. What time is the next performance?”
Animal roars and screeches filled the air now, wild and ferocious, along with the thunderous growls of something very large and extremely hungry. Hawk and Fisher watched patiently until that, too, finally died away into silence again. Hawk looked at Fisher.
“I am not impressed. Are you impressed?”
“Even less than you,” said Fisher.
“After surviving the Demon War, this is strictly amateur hour.”
The roaring started up again. Hawk roared right back at it, and the original sound broke off abruptly, as though shocked into silence.
“Nice one, Hawk,” said Fisher.
And then they both looked around sharply as heavy footsteps sounded from the other end of the hall. Starting at the closed front door, they advanced slowly toward the stairs, and there was something of eternity in the pause between each increasingly loud impact. The floor and the walls and the stairs shook with each step, and the sound seemed to shudder in Hawk’s and Fisher’s bones. It was like listening to God walking across the sky with Judgment Day on his mind. Hawk and Fisher looked at each other, and then started back down the stairs to face the advancing footsteps, axe and sword at the ready. The thunderous footsteps moved slowly, inexorably, toward them.
Hawk and Fisher reached the foot of the stairs, and kept right on going. The sound of approaching footsteps hesitated, and then stopped. Hawk and Fisher stopped. It was now very quiet, as if the whole house were listening. There was a single heavy footstep in the hall. Hawk stepped forward to meet it. After a pause he took another step forward, and another. And the heavy footsteps retreated before him. Hawk kept going, Fisher now at his side, and the footsteps retreated rapidly toward an open door on the left. They no longer sounded loud or threatening, or in the least Godlike. Hawk and Fisher followed the footsteps through the door and into the main parlor, where they suddenly ceased.
Hawk and Fisher looked about them. The parlor was large, comfortable, and almost cozy in the dim amber light from the turned-down gas jets in the ornamental lamps. The heavy furniture had been pushed out of position into the middle of the room, and the edges of the carpet were no longer nailed down. Someone had been searching for something; apparently with no success. The room was silent. The disembodied footsteps were gone, at an end, with no trace anywhere as to what might have made them.
“Well,” said Hawk. “That was interesting.”
“Right,” said Fisher. “Whatever it was, I think we frightened it. I know we’ve always had a dangerous reputation, but spooking a spirit has to be a new high, even for us.”
“This may be just the overture,” said Hawk. “Feeling us out. Seeing what our weaknesses are. Everyone’s afraid of something. You wait till the headless body appears, with a great headsman’s axe in its hands.”
Fisher sniffed. “I’ve faced liches before. Zombies are easy to take out, as long as you keep a clear head. And make sure you’ve got some salt and fire handy.”
“Still,” said Hawk. “Dead men walking can be pretty upsetting. Salt and fire don’t always work. And then … how do you kill something that’s already dead?”
“We’d find a way,” said Fisher.
Hawk had to smile. “We probably would at that.”
“You know,” said Fisher, “you don’t have to hold my hand quite so hard, Hawk. I hadn’t realized you were so nervous.”
Hawk looked at her. “Isobel, I’m not holding your hand.”
Fisher’s face went blank for a moment as she took in just how far away from her Hawk was. And then they both looked down, to see the large disembodied hand firmly holding on to Fisher’s left hand. It looked very real and very solid, but the end of the wrist faded away to nothing at all. Fisher’s lips drew back in a disgusted snarl, and she clamped her fingers around the disembodied hand, crushing it with all her considerable strength. There was a sudden sound of bones crunching and breaking. The hand fought desperately to get loose, but Fisher just piled on the pressure, and more bones splintered and snapped inside her implacable grip. The hand suddenly melted away into unraveling mists, accompanied by a pained howling from somewhere far away. Fisher flapped her hand a few times, to disperse the last traces of mist, and then brought her fingers up to her face to sniff them.
“Sulphur. Brimstone. How very unoriginal.”
The howling died away. Hawk looked reproachfully at Fisher. “I think you’ve upset it.”
“Good. Teach it to sneak up on me like that. … Hawk?”
“Yes?”
“The eyes from that portrait on the wall behind you are following us around the room.”
“Just a trick of the light. All portraits are like that.”
“No, I mean really following us.”
Hawk turned slowly, following Fisher’s gaze, and there behind him, floating unsupported on the still air, were two disembodied eyeballs. They were bloodred, with huge dark pupils, and threads of something drippy hanging off the back, as though they’d just been wrenched out of the eye sockets. The eyeballs glared at Hawk, full of mute menace.
“You have got to be kidding,” said Hawk, and slapped both the eyeballs away with the flat of his hand. There was another agonized howl somewhere far off as the eyeballs banged together, compressing somewhat under the impact, and then caromed across the room to bounce off the far wall like two miscued Ping-Pong balls. Hawk started after them, struck by a sudden desire to see if he could get them going in different directions, but they both quickly vanished as he bore down on them.
“That must’ve hurt,” said Fisher.
“Well, at least now we can be sure someone here is keeping an eye on us,” said Hawk.
The door behind them swung open, slamming back against the wall with a deafening crash. Hawk and Fisher spun around, weapons at the ready. Facing them in the doorway was a tall, imposing figure, wrapped in an autopsy sheet that covered it from head to toe. Blood had thickly stained the gray cloth in a long line, where the body had been cut open from throat to crotch, and smaller stains marked the eyes and mouth, giving the figure a rudimentary face. A hand as gray as the sheet emerged slowly from under the wrappings, holding out a length of steel chain, from which blood dripped steadily onto the expensive carpet. Hawk and Fisher looked at each other.
“Traditional, but effective,” said Hawk. “Nice use of bloodstains, too.”
“And using the actual autopsy sheet was a good touch,” said Fisher. “Can’t say I see the point of the chain, though.”
“All ghosts rattle chains,” said Hawk. “It’s expected. It’s—”
“Traditional, yes, I know.”
They advanced unhurriedly on the sheeted figure. It made a low moaning noise that would have raised the hackles on anyone else’s neck, and rattled the length of chain noisily.
“Nice try,” said Hawk. “Are you frightened yet, Fisher?”
“Not in the least. You?”
“Not even close.”
“Good,” said Fisher. “Let’s see if it’s got anything else under that sheet that I can crush in my hand.”
The sheeted figure started to back away. Hawk and Fisher increased their pace. The sheeted figure turned to run, dropping its steel chain, which vanished before it hit the carpet. Hawk grabbed one edge of the bloodstained sheet and whipped it away, revealing a skeleton, which spun round unsteadily before coming to a halt. The skull chattered its teeth menacingly at Hawk and Fisher, then reached out with its bony hands. Hawk and Fisher hit the skeleton simultaneously with axe and sword, and after a few hurried and very violent moments, nothing remained of the skeleton but a pile of broken and splintered bones on the carpet. Hawk kicked at a few with his boot. Far away, something was swearing loudly. Hawk sniggered. Fisher looked around hopefully for something else to hit. The bones disappeared, along with the autopsy sheet Hawk had pulled off.
“You know, this is getting to be fun,” said Hawk. “I wonder what he’ll come up with next?”
“Something quaint and archaic, no doubt,” said Fisher. “This Appleton Hartley must have read the same Gothic romances as you. Maybe he’ll come in as a nun next. Nuns are big in haunted palaces and the like.”
“A cross-dressing ghost? I think he’s got enough problems as it is.”
One by one the lights began to go out. The blue flames of the gas jets died away to nothing, and the few lit candles sputtered out. A heavy gloom f
illed the parlor like a dark tide. The only illumination now came from the streetlights outside the sole window, and even that was slowly fading, as though something were blocking it out. Hawk and Fisher moved close together.
“Everyone’s afraid of something,” said Fisher. “And you and I have good reason to be scared of the dark.”
“That was the Darkwood,” said Hawk. “This is nothing compared to the long night.” But his voice didn’t sound as sure as his words. Some things could never be entirely forgotten.
“It’s getting really dark, Hawk. No light anywhere.”
“Put the lights back on, or I’m going to set fire to something,” said Hawk loudly. “I mean it.”
“He really does,” warned Fisher. “And some of that furniture looks quite expensive, and very easy to set fire to.”
“I’ll burn your whole damned house down, if I have to,” said Hawk, his voice calm and certain again.
There was a pause, and then the gas lights flared up again, and the light in the parlor returned to normal. Hawk and Fisher breathed a little more easily.
“I thought so,” said Hawk. “This house was Appleton Hartley’s pride and joy; you only have to look at it to see that. He filled it with every expensive piece of bric-a-brac that took his fancy. He’s been defending his home against the dreaded Leonard and Mavis, and their attempts to tear it apart in search of the missing money. He couldn’t risk us damaging it.”
“Fine,” said Fisher. “Nicely reasoned, as always. What do we do now?”
“I think it’s time we all sat down and had a little chat,” said Hawk. “Appleton Hartley! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Or we’ll think of some really destructive things to do to your furnishings and fittings.”
The ghost of Appleton Hartley walked in through the open door, his head tucked under his arm. It would have looked quite impressive, if the head hadn’t had to squint its eyes to see where it was going. Apparently the viewpoint from hip level was disconcerting him. The late Appleton Hartley was wearing the best Sunday suit he’d been buried in, and it didn’t fit him any better now that he was dead than it had while he was alive. The headless body lurched to a halt before the somewhat bemused Hawk and Fisher, and the head’s face looked briefly seasick.