The Royal Occultist Primer

T H E R O Y A L O C C U L T I S T P R I M E R P a g e | 1


“THE QUEEN’S QUEEN’S CONJURER” CONJURER” FOLLOW CHARLES ST. CYPRIAN, ROYAL OCCULTIST AS HE DARES TO BATTLE THE FORCES OF DARKNESS FOR GOD, KING AND COUNTRY!

Formed during the reign of Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist, or 'the Queen's Conjurer' as it was known, was created for and first held by the diligent amateur, Dr. John Dee, in recognition for an unrecorded service to the Crown. The title has passed through a succession of hands since, some good, some bad; the list is a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history and including such luminaries as the 1st Earl of Holderness and Thomas Carnacki. In the wake of the Great War, the title and offices have fallen to Charles St. Cyprian who, accompanied by his apprentice/assistant Ebe Gallowglass defends the battered and dwindling British Empire against threats occult, otherworldly, infernal and divine even as the wider world lurches once more on the path to war...


TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Who is the Royal Occultist? 1920: “Krampusnacht”

1921: “Sign of the Salamander” 1922: “The d’Erlette Configuration” 1922: “Iron Bells” 1923: “Wendy-Smythe’s Worm” 1924: “Deo Viridio” Preview: The Whitechapel Demon About the Author


INTRODUCTION: WHO IS THE ROYAL OCCULTIST?

The Royal Occultist is the man--or woman--who stands between the British Empire and its occult enemies, be they foreign, domestic, human, demonic or some form of worm of unusual size. If there are satyrs running amok in Somerset or werewolves in Wolverhampton, the Royal Occultist will be there to see them off. The current Royal Occultist is Charles St. Cyprian, who's best described as Rudolph Valentino by way of Bertie Wooster. In the same vein, his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass, is Louise Brooks by way of Emma Peel. St. Cyprian is the brains and Gallowglass is i s the muscle; he likes to talk things out, and she likes to shoot things until they die. Together, they defend the British Empire against a variety of gribbly monsters, secret societies and eldritch occurrences. St. Cyprian and Gallowglass made their first appearance in 2010 in the short story, “Krampusnacht”. They have since appeared in close to thirty short stories, in a variety of anthologies and magazines. The first novel, THE novel, THE WHITECHAPEL DEMON, was DEMON, was released in 2013 by Emby Press and is available via Amazon.com via Amazon.com and Smashwords. and Smashwords. The Whitechapel Demon sees St. Cyprian and Gallowglass go up against a secret society of murderists and an other-dimensional other-di mensional doppelgänger of one of history's most notorious killers. The book serves as an introduction to the world of the Royal Occultist as well as delivering deliv ering an exciting adventure for new readers and old fans alike to enjoy. The Royal Occultist site: http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/ site: http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/ You can keep track of the latest Royal Occultist news via the series' series' Facebook page. A page. A number of the Royal Occultist stories are also available in audio format via Bandcamp. via Bandcamp.


NOTE: "Krampusnacht" was published by Miskatonic River Press in 2011, in HORROR FOR THE

HOLIDAYS, which is available at Amazon.com. It was reprinted in 2013, in the PSYCHOPOMP CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, also available at Amazon.com.

KRAMPUSNACHT It was 1920, Christmas was in the air, and Oswald Rawdon was terrified. He huddled in the large wingback chair, a cup of tea clutched in his trembling fingers. The last of the Rawdons nervously slopped brandy-laced tea onto the knees of his trousers as he started suddenly at the sound of wood crackling in the fire. “Nervous are we, Ozzy?” Rawdon’s host said. “Try not to ruin the carpets, please.” “I’m sorry Charles,” Rawdon said, swallowing a mouthful of tea. “It’s just, I hear it everywhere.” Charles St. Cyprian nodded in sympathy, and took a sip from his own cup. “Perfectly understandable, old boy, considering the kind of life you’ve led.” Rawdon froze, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at the dark-haired man opposite him. The two men were a study in contrasts for all that they were of an age. Where Rawdon was a thin stretch of Teutonic paleness, St. Cyprian was dark and sharp-featured, with a Mediterranean exoticism to his features. Both men were dressed well, though Rawdon’s suit showed distinct signs of hard living. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rawdon said. “The kind of life I’ve led?” “Don’t be dense, Ozzy.” St. Cyprian put his cup aside and pressed his fingers together. “You’re a bit of a bastard, is all.” “How dare you!” Rawdon shot to his feet, the cup falling to the floor. Tea immediately soaked into the Turkish carpet, and St. Cyprian groaned.


“Now look what you’ve done,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Do sit down Ozzie. Your reputation as a complete and utter pillock is well deserved and you know it.” “Fine,” Rawdon said, flopping back down in his seat. “Fine! But you don’t have to say it with such relish.” “Hardly relish, chum.” St. Cyprian sighed. “Granted, you’re no Crowley, but you do tend towards the troublesome.” “If I’m so much trouble, then why did you even agree to see me?” Rawdon spat. Outside, the sound of church bells gave voice to the late hour. “He’s got a heart made of nutmeg and cinnamon,” a new voice interjected. Both men turned as the speaker, a young woman, walked into the sitting room, dropping an armful of wooden boards and a hammer onto the floor as she did so. “Me? I’d have left you to the tender mercies of the-” “Don’t say it!” Rawdon barked, clapping his hands to his ears. “Tea, Ms. Gallowglass?” St. Cyprian said, gesturing to the teapot and the extra cup and saucer sitting on a low table nearby. “Don’t mind if I do, Mr. St. Cyprian.” Ebe Gallowglass said. Dressed in a frayed Guernsey and a man’s trousers, she looked less than ladylike, with her short, dark hair, cut into a curl edged bob, and slim, straight limbs the colour of cinnamon. A swath of freckles spattered across her sharp Egyptian features, and her grin was almost feral. Filling a cup, she knocked it back a moment later. “I’ve got the windows braced with birch boards and the upstairs chimneys blocked with sprigs of mistletoe, holly wreaths and holyrood. Oh, and the carollers have f inally wassailed off.” “Excellent,” St. Cyprian said. “See? You can uncoil now, Ozzy. We’re safe as houses.” Rawdon lowered his hands. “Do you really think you can keep it out?” He looked nervously at the fireplace that dominated one wall of the sitting room, blazing merrily away. It was the only light in the sitting room save for the odd candle or three resting in the branches of the Christmas tree that occupied one corner of the room. “Keep it out? No.” St. Cyprian stood. “Direct its method of ingress, however?” He went to the fireplace and used the poker to shift the cherry-red logs, the three steel rings on the fingers of his left hand clinking against the metal of the poker. “Certainly,” he continued, with all the assurance one expected of the Royal Occultist. Formed during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had been known) had passed through a succession of hands, starting with those of diligent amateur Dr. John Dee. The list was a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history, and culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian. His position was an open secret, and the rather cluttered house on the Embankment that served as the hereditary abode of the office was e qually open to any who might need a consultation. It had been that way since the tenure of Sir Edwin Drood in the earliest days of


the late Victoria’s reign, and St. Cyprian saw no reason to disrupt tradition, no matter how much he might occasionally wish otherwise. Thus, Rawdon’s breathless appearance on his stoop this Christmas Eve was not surprising so much in and of itself, though the fact that it was Rawdon who was doing the calling had thrown St. Cyprian for a turn. He hadn’t seen Ozzy Rawdon since the end of the War, though he’d kept abreast of his activities via the usual outlets of Society gossip. Rawdon was a rum one, no two ways about it. He was a gambler, a professional lout and a war hero. St. Cyprian stabbed the fire again. A cascade of sparks swirled upwards. Still holding the poker, he turned. “Ebe, be a dear and get me the container on the third shelf of the second bookcase there.” “The one with a cat’s head or the one shaped like a jolly fat man?” she said, sipping on her second cup of tea. “The one shaped like a fish.” “That’s supposed to be a fish?” Gallowglass said, peering at the shelf in question. “Get it, please.” St. Cyprian turned back to Rawdon. “Now, Ozzy, I’d like you to spill those guts of yours in the figurative sense, while we scheme to prevent the literal.” “There’s not much to say,” Rawdon said, licking his lips. “That’s a lie,” Gallowglass said, handing St. Cyprian the container. “And I still say that this looks like a cat.” “Possibly a cat-fish, then?” St. Cyprian murmured. “And Ozzy isn’t lying, are you Ozzy? Ozzy never lies. Ozzy just bends the truth into new and more advantageous shapes.” St. Cyprian opened the container and took out a pinch of powder. Flinging it onto the f ire, he looked at Rawdon. “I want the unbent truth, Ozzy.” “Fine way to treat a man who saved your life!” Rawdon said. “Ozzy, it’s because you saved my life that I didn’t turn you away the minute a certain word tripped from those bud-like lips of yours.” St. Cyprian frowned. “In itself, that tells me everything I need to know, really.” “You don’t know anything,” Rawdon protested. “I know you, Ozzy. And I know what’s after you. What I don’t know is why it’s chosen now to bring you to bay.” St. Cyprian stabbed the poker into the fireplace again. Then he pulled it loose and examined the smouldering tip. “Now, I say again, why exactly is the Krampus after you, Oswald?” The fire gave a pop, and Rawdon jumped in his chair. He visibly fought to control himself. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I’ve been bad.” Rawdon stared down at his hands. “That’s why. I’ve always been bad, and it’s always been after me and now, now, it’s finally caught me.


“It was my gran who first put it on my trail, I’m sure of it, Bavarian biddy that she was. Did you know she was a Kraut, Charles?” Rawdon shook his head. “Hardly matters now. Besides, go back far enough, and most of the great families of fair Albion are either Frogs or Krauts.” “Or Punic, in my case,” St. Cyprian murmured. “What?” “Nothing. Go on.” Rawdon grimaced. “Jokes on the block, Charles?” “Not our necks getting the chop, now are they?” Gallowglass said. As Rawdon shot a glare at her, she held up the teapot. “More tea, Mr. Rawdon?” Rawdon looked at his cup on the floor, and then shook his head. “Gran always told me that the Kra-the Kra-the gentleman in questionquestion -would get me if I didn’t mend my ways.” “Krampus. You can say it, Ozzy. He already knows where you are, after all.” St. Cyprian stirred the fire again. “The word originates from the Old High German word for ‘claw’, which is appropriate given the demeanour and personality of the fellow.” fellow.” He looked at Gallowglass. “Anything to add, apprenticeapprentice -mine?” “Oberstdorf,” Gallowglass said, tapping her chin. An ability to store and recall seemingly trivial facts was just one of the many talents which she had discovered as she assisted St. Cyprian Cyprian in his investigations into obscure matters. “They’re supposed to have a similar sort of chap. Except that he doesn’t work for Father Christmas, I don’t think.” “Neither does this thing,” Rawdon said harshly. “Is that experience speaking?” St. Cyprian Cypria n said. “It’s been after me since I was eight, Charles. I’ve read up on the subject quite a bit.” “You mean, when you weren’t trying to forget about it with opium, heroin or alcohol.” St. Cyprian raised a hand. “No judgements intended, Ozzy.” Rawdon made made a face. “I’m sorry that I’m not as brave as you, Charles. Not every man can face his demons head on,” he spat. “Got you there,” Gallowglass said. “Shouldn’t you be making us some more tea?” St. Cyprian said. “Like a good apprentice?” “Whoever said I was a good apprentice?” “You’ll be an unemployed apprentice if you don’t pipe down,” St. Cyprian said, glaring at her. Gallowglass stuck out her tongue and hefted the teapot. “There’s still a dreg or so in here, milord,” she said. “If you’re thirsty.” “Stop talking about tea!” Rawdon snapped. “I don’t want to die, Charles!”


“Few of us do, Ozzy.” St. Cyprian handed the fish-headed fish -headed container to Gallowglass. “Make yourself useful and put this back.” He looked at Rawdon. “You said your grandmother put it on your trail?” “She’s the one who first mentioned it to me, at any rate.” Rawdon shrugged. “Put the thought in my head. I stole a cookie from the kitchen, and she said the K -Krampus would punish me.” He had to force the word out. His hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly. “That I would know he was coming by the clattering of his bell s and the scratching of his-ah-his his-ah-his claws.” “And?” St. Cyprian said. “And? And what? And I heard it!” Rawdon said squeezing his eyes shut. He ground the heels of his palms palms into his sockets, as if trying to wipe the images from his mind. “I heard it. Just a whisper of sound. It might have been anything. Bells on a carriage. Leaves on the roof.” As if to emphasize Rawdon’s statement, from somewhere upstairs there came the sound of shutters being rattled violently. He started, looking around wildly. “What was that?” St. Cyprian glanced at Gallowglass. “We’re edging towards midnight. Get the Pentacle.” “That old electric thing of Carnacki’s?” Gallowglass said. “Think it’ll be any use?” “I wouldn’t ask otherwise,” St. Cyprian said. “Go on, Ozzy.” “The scullery maid.” Rawdon ran his hands through his hair. “I was fourteen. And she was quite pretty.” He looked at them. “It wasn’t my fault she got pregnant!” “Immaculate conceptions occur where you least expect them, I’m given to understand,” St. Cyprian said. “You heard it again?” “Gran was dead by then and good riddance. But I heard it all the same. Louder.” He shook his head. “Father put her out, of course. Scandal, you know.” “Yes. I know.” St. Cyprian’s face was like stone as he turned to the fireplace and jammed the poker into the wood again. Soot tumbled down from within the chimney, and St. Cyprian’s eyes narrowed. If Rawdon had noticed St. Cyprian’s tone, he gave no sign. “Do you remember that Felstead fellow? The Christmas Truce?” “Vaguely. I was elsewhere at the time.” St. Cyprian said, recalling the whirlwind months following the death of his predecessor Carnacki at Ypres. He could still see Carnacki’s bloody fingers shoving the trio of rings that now decorated his hand through the mud of the trench towards him. He looked down at them, twisting his wrist so that the nearly invisible characters engraved on the rings caught the firelight. “You heard it then? During the truce?” he said. “First Christmas I didn’t,” Rawdon said. “The first Christmas I was free of those damn bells.” His smile was crooked. “I didn’t hear it much, during the War.” “But when you came back?”


“Old habits,” Rawdon said, making a loose gesture. “A man can’t be blamed. Especially one who went through what we went through.” “The bells again, I trust?” St. Cyprian said. “And the claws. Scratching over the windows and in the chimneys.” Rawdon paused, head cocked. “I say, do you hear that?” “Yes. Go on.” “But“But-” “It’s been seen to, Ozzy. Go on.” St. Cyprian tossed another log onto the fire. “Drinking, gambling. The usual.” Rawdon wrapped his hands together and squeezed the air from between them. “Harmless fun.” “Vice and sin,” St. Cyprian said. “Gossip as well, if I recall. How much did Lord Pettigrew pay you to keep silent on his son’s doings?” “Enough,” Rawdon muttered. “A man has to earn a wage.” “Most men do it honestly.” “You’re one to talk Charles!” Rawdon said, pushing himself up out of his chair. “You’ve never met a lie you didn’t embellish!” “All in the name of necessity,” St. Cyprian said, after a moment, clinking his rings together gently. It sounded hollow, even to him. Rawdon grinned mirthlessly. “Necessity depends on perspective.” “So it was your perspective that the younger Mr. Pettigrew was a threat?” St. Cyprian said. Rawdon jerked, and St. Cyprian nodded. “I have contacts at the Yard, you know Ozzy.” “He intended to kill me! He said his father had disowned him!” Rawdon Rawdon protested. “So you killed him first?” “No!” Rawdon shook his head. “I mean, I-it I -it was self-defense!” self-defense!” “Perhaps the Krampus doesn’t see it that way,” St, Cyprian said. “You know, you could have solved all of your problems by simply changing your ways, Ozzy.” St. Cyprian felt a momentary surge of pleasure at Rawdon’s visible flinch. “Given up the dirty deeds and damnable deals and done something with your life.” “Easy for you to say.” “Easy enough to do,” Gallowglass said, returning, a heavy electrical apparatus electrical apparatus in tow. St. Cyprian winced as she drug it across the floor, leaving scratches in the wood. “If you’ve got the minerals.” “Minerals?” “Stones. Rocks. Testicular fortitude,” Gallowglass said. “One electric pentacle, as requested Cap’n.” She tossed tossed off a lazy salute to St. Cyprian.


“At ease,” St. Cyprian said. “My predecessor created this device for situations such as this, when contact with an untoward manifestation could result in death. Or worse.” “Manifestation?” Rawdon said. “Monster. Spectre. Long-legged Long-legged beastie,” Gallowglass said. St. Cyprian frowned and shot a glare her way. She shrugged in response. “A manifestation of hostile intent,” St. Cyprian said as he sank to his haunches and began to arrange the diverse apparatus of the device, which was composed of a central generator and five vacuum tubes. He swiftly stripped a section of the rug away from the floorboards, revealing a dark pentacle scored into the wood. St. Cyprian set the generator in the center of the pentacle, and arranged the vacuum tubes at the corresponding points of intersecting triangles. “If you-come you -come here Ozzy-if you stay within the pentacle, you should be safe.” “Should be?” Rawdon said. “It’s not an exact science, I’m afraid.” “It’s not a science at all,” Gallowglass Gallowglass said, snapping open the cylinder on a WebleyFosberry revolver and spinning it experimentally. She loaded the pistol with brisk efficiency, and then flicked her wrist, popping the cylinder back into place. “A good apprentice keeps her comments to herself,” St. Cyprian said, situating Rawdon beside the generator. “Don’t move, no matter what happens.” “I was just pointing out the flaws in your reasoning, Mr. St. Cyprian.” Gallowglass rubbed her cheek with the pistol barrel. “Duly noted, Ms. Gall owglass.” Something banged loudly across the roof. Rawdon started, his eyes widening. “It’s here!” “It’s been here for some time, ti me, Ozzy, scampering across my roof and testing the runes on the windows.” St. Cyprian flipped a switch on the generator and the t he vacuum tubes began to hum and spark. “Stay within the pentacle.” “Soot,” Gallowglass said, simply. St. Cyprian turned, loosening his tie and shrugging out of his coat. Soot tumbled down the chimney, and he could hear metal scraping against the brick. He strode swiftly to the fireplace and reached up, taking down the short-bladed sword mounted there. Roughly two feet in length, and wide, the sword was a xiphos a xiphos-a -a weapon that had been in St. Cyprian’s family for centuries, and had purportedly been carried car ried by an ancestor in the Peloponnesian Wars. Unsheathing it, St. Cyprian swung it experimentally. It cut the air with a near-silent hiss and he nodded. “Rag,” he said.


Gallowglass plucked a rag out of her back pocket and tossed it to him. The fabric was smeared with the juice of the holly bush. St. Cyprian rubbed the blade with it until the former was glistening. He sighted down its length. The fire coughed and sputtered as chunks of brick and more soot fell into it. He stepped back, rolling up his sleeves. “I trust you took the proper precautions?” he said, glancing at Gallowglass. “The bullets were prepared according to Alpine tradition.” Gallowglass cocked the pistol. “They should do the trick right enough.” “Should being the operative word.” St. Cyprian frowned. “We only have to hold it until midnight. Then, it should depart.” “There’s that word again,” Gallowglass said. St. Cyprian glanced at her. “Should,” she elaborated. Smoke suddenly billowed out into the room, carrying with it a foul odor, like wet dog and rotten meat. The trio gagged as the smell swept over them. And then, with a clatter of rusty bells and a shower of sparks, the Krampus erupted from the fireplace, howling like a lonely wind coiling through the Bavarian peaks. It was a black shape, outlined by the flickering dregs of the fire at its back. It was so large that there was no conceivable way that it could have squeezed down the chimney. Chains draped it, and cowbells dangled between its oddly-jointed legs and off of its bony shoulders. Curving horns swept up nearly three feet off of its vulpine skull, and its hair was matted and fil thy. The carpet sizzled beneath its cloven hooves as it stepped forward, jaws working soundlessly. Eyes like red sparks rolled madly in its sockets as it swung its head back and forth. Rawdon made something that might have been a hastily strangled whimper. The Krampus’ jaw opened, revealing a forest of curved teeth that sprang like iron nails from the black gums. A long, impossibly red tongue slithered out of from the depths of the beast’s gullet and tasted the air. The Krampus snorted, and it stamped a hoof. Wood splintered beneath the carpet as it trotted forward. “Stop right there,” St. Cyprian said, stepping in front of the beast, arms spread. The Krampus reared back, head cocked. It gave an interrogative snarl. The sound might have contained words, but sounded for all the world like a distant avalanche. “No. No, I think not.” St. Cyprian gestured with the sword. “In fact, I think yo u’ll return back the way you came, friend.” He said it with a bravado he didn’t entirely feel. St. Cyprian had seen worse things than the spectre before him, but none so close, and none so foul. The Krampus was simply wrong. If Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus, however you referred to him, was everything joyous about the season, then the Krampus was everything that was terrible and tragic and ill-fitting. The bells in his chains were funerary voices, and his breath was a fog on the air, showing ghostly images of fallen fri ends and starving children. Of the unfortunate and the lost, those for whom the season was anything but happy.


A dozen ghosts were caught in the thick links of the Krampus’ chain, bound to the beast for all eternity. Sinners all. That was the Krampus’ remit, after all. Where Father Christmas rewarded the good, the Krampus was responsible for punishing the wicked. And at that moment, it’s eyes were solely for Oswald Rawdon. Ignoring St. Cyprian, the beast raised a hairy paw and pointed one filth -encrusted talon at Rawdon, who shrank back. Then, it howled like a locomotive and leapt! Straight over St. Cyprian’s head it bounded, its hooves digging divots in the carpet as it landed and flung itself at Rawdon. There was a fat pop and crackle and then the hiss of sizzling meat and the Krampus hit the ground in a rattle of chains, rolling to its feet like a kicked dog. Carnacki’s electrical pentacle had held. “I told you that it would work,” St. Cyprian said, raising his sword. “Now be a dear and shoot the bugger!” “Gloating doesn’t become you,” Gallowglass said. The Webley bucked in her hands and the Krampus shrieked as a bullet rubbed in bear fat and mistletoe creased its hip. It staggered, tongue flailing like a serpent’s head. Gallowglass fired again, stepping back to stay out of the beast’s reach. The Krampus lunged for her, but St. Cyprian moved forward, stabbing his sword down through a link in its chains and on into the floor. The beast yowled as it tried to pull itself free, and swung a thunderous backhand at the occultist. St. Cyprian hopped awkwardly back, losing his grip on the sword. Gallowglass fired a third time, and the Krampus shrieked again as a blossom of blood burst into existence on its breast. It reached out with an impossibly long arm, swatting the pistol from her hands, and sending her skidding sideways. Then it spun, eyes bl azing like twin torches. It grabbed the sword and began to jerk it fro m the floor. St. Cyprian darted towards it, sweeping up one of the birch boards that Gallowglass had deposited on the floor. He brought it down on the Krampus’ arm, eliciting a yelp. Claws tore at his waistcoat, severing buttons. He swung the birch board again, shattering it against the Krampus’ skull. The beast shoved him back and he slid across the fl oor, only stopping when he struck the wall. Shaking its head, the brute yanked the sword free and hurled it aside with a victorious growl. Then it turned back to the crackling pentacle and Rawdon, who cowered within. “No! No! Not me! I didn’t do anything!” Rawdon said, twitching like a rabbit in a trap. “I don’t deserve this!” The Krampus hissed and slowly trotted around the pentacle, eyes narrowed. Brass claws trailed across the invisible barrier, leaving a trail of sparks in the air. Rawdon turned with it, his eyes pits of terror. “Charles! Help me!” he shouted, pounding his useless fists against his thighs.


St. Cyprian pushed himself to his feet, head ringing. “Ebe?” he called out. “I’m fine,” Gallowglass said, scooping up her pistol. “Just knocked the wind out of me. Bugger’s not so tough.” “He’s not after us. And our precautions don’t seem to have been that effective,” St. Cyprian said, stooping to pick up the sword from where the Krampus had hurled it. The Krampus stopped its pacing and eyed them warily, its red gaze flickering like dying embers. St. Cyprian stopped moving, and motioned for Gallowglass to do the same. The Krampus could have killed them both, had it wished. But its prey had to have been judged and found wanting by whatever celestial court empowered the creature. The chains it wore were not symbolic, but real shackles, binding what had once been an old, wild nightmare of Pre-Christian times to the new ethos of this age. The chains rattled across the floor as the beast crouched, digging its claws into the fl oor. Its hulking shoulders hunched and the wood began to give with a series of rending cracks. And, as the floor gave way, the nearest of the vacuum tubes tilted, and, finally, toppled, shattering. The Krampus surged to its feet and lunged for the opening in the mystical barrier, its form twisting and billowing like a thread of smoke. “Get Rawdon out of there!” St. Cyprian said, throwing himself towards the closest bookshelf. A number of containers sat amongst the books. Some held dust, or a variety of foulsmelling pastes. All had proven useful, once or twice. As St. Cyprian shoved books out of the way and scrabbled for a solution to their problem, Gallowglass fired the Webley at the curling twist of Krampus-smoke, perforating it even as she tackled Rawdon out of the pentacle. The Krampus began to reform, a look of brute hatred on its face as it moved to pursue them. “Ha!” St. Cyprian barked, hanging off of the bookshelf. He hefted something that resembled a canopic jar and tossed it towards the pentacle. “Shoot it!” Gallowglass shoved Rawdon off of her and fired her last shot. The bullet shattered the urn and a dark substance spattered across the floor, mostly in the spot where the Krampus had broken the power of the pentacle. The Krampus turned back towards the opening, and then retreated abruptly with a howl. It turned in place, spinning so fast that its chains struck the barrier and cast off foulsmelling sparks. “What was in that?” Gallowglass said, getting to her feet. “A little concoction from the Tyrol region-rosemary, juniper and fat from a priest’s grave. It’ll only hold until it dries, but that should be long enough-ah.” St. Cyprian dropped down from the bookcase and held up a hand. Somewhere, church bells sounded the midnight hour. Christmas Eve had given way to Christmas Day.


The Krampus gave a long, low mournful howl as i t writhed in its makeshift cell. Smoke and ash drifted from its hairy shape and soon it was completely obscured, save for the hot glow of its eyes. And then, even that was gone, as if it had never been. Waving a hand to disperse the smoke, St. Cyprian moved to turn off the electric pentacle. Gallowglass stepped over Rawdon’s still-prone form, and grabbed a bottle of sherry off of the book case. Pouring herself a snifter, she said, “Well. A merry Christmas to one and all, I suppose.” “What-what-what-” Rawdon said, staring at the space where the Krampus had been. “It’s Christmas Day, Ozzy. The Krampus has returned to wherever it goes for another year. Which means that you’re safe, relatively speaking.” St. Cyprian stood, and helped Rawdon to his feet. He pulled the other man close. “You have a year, Ozzy. Don’t waste it.” Rawdon yanked his arm free. “What do you mean?” “I mean, I might not be around next year to save your wretched hide.” St. Cyprian’s eyes narrowed. “And even if I am, I may decide not to.” “What?” Rawdon blinked. “You never really answered my question, you know,” St. Cyprian said. “About young Pettigrew.” “It’s none of your business,” Rawdon said. “And I’ll thank you to stay out of it.” He straightened his coat. “Would that I could, Ozzy,” St. Cyprian said. Rawdon turned, his face a picture of confusion. There was an electric buzz as someone rang the front bell. Rawdon whipped back around. “What was that?” “The police, I imagine.” St. Cyprian motioned to Gallowglass. “Ms. Gallowglass, please show them in.” “The police? What is the meaning of this Charles?” Rawdon said. “What are you playing at?” “I had Ms. Gallowglass ring the police while she was upstairs seeing to our defences,” St. Cyprian said, pouring himself a glass of sherry. He held it up, and then took a sip. He didn’t look at Rawdon. “Was it really self -defense, Ozzy? Or did you murder him because he called you on your black ways? Either way, the truth will out.” Rawdon didn’t reply. A moment later, the police bustled in after Gallowglass, and Rawdon seemed to slump in their custody. He didn’t resist as he was led out and away. St. Cyprian didn’t turn around the entire time. When Gallowglass had seen them out and returned, he sighed and set his glass down. She cleared her throat, and he turned. “Are they off?” She nodded. “Think he’ll hang?”


“No. He has friends yet, and likely it was self -defense. Or it’ll be seen that way.” He looked up at the ceiling, noting the ash mark right over the pentacle. A reminder of the Krampus’ visit. “Think our visitor will be back for him next year, then?” St. Cyprian was silent for a moment. Then, softly, he said, “Well, Christmas is a time for miracles, they say.” And somewhere distant, just at the edges of his hearing, it seemed that he could hear the clatter of funerary bells, and the tromp of black hooves.


NOTE: "Sign of the Salamander" was published by Pro Se Press in 2011, in issue 3 of FANTASY &

FEAR, which is no longer in print.

SIGN OF THE SALAMANDER It was 1921, and the steam-boat Seeley left a trail of white foam behind it as it cruised down the dark length of the Nile, bound for Cairo. For one poor soul, however, that destination was forever unreachable. Sunlight streamed through the slats of the window into the tiny cabin, providing a shuddering spotlight for the body on the bed. The man, if it indeed had been a man, had been burned to a blackened crisp of shrunken meat. The heat that had done the dirty deed had touched only flesh, leaving both the bed linens and the man’s clothing untouched. Charles St. Cyprian wrinkled his nose as he sank to his haunches beside the bed. He extracted a handkerchief from his coat pocket and shook it out, then pressed it to his mouth and nose in a belated attempt to kill the smell. “Well?” someone said, brusquely. St. Cyprian glanced over his shoulder at the speaker. “Off hand, I’d say he’s dead, Morris.” Morris, the senior man from the Ministry of Esoteric Observation, made a disgusted sound. He was egg-shaped and dressed in civil servant white in de ference to the heat and clutched a yellowed pith helmet in his sweaty hands. “Obviously. What I was inquiring, Charles, was whether or not you knew the circumstances of said death.” “Ah.” St. Cyprian turned back to the body, briefly, and then stood, the st eel rings which encircled three fingers on his left hand winking in the sunlight as he ran them through his hair. “In that case, no.”


St. Cyprian, in contrast to Morris, was Mediterranean-dark and he was dressed nattily in a tailored cream-colored suit and waistcoat. The buttons of the latter polished so brightly that Morris’s disapproving reflection was easily visible in them. “No?” Morris said. “You have no idea how he died?” “I didn’t say that.” St. Cyprian brushed a nonexistent fleck of lint from his sleeve. “I said the circumstances escaped me.” “As do so many things,” another voice cut in. St. Cyprian turned, lips quirking slightly. “Ambry, old bean,” he said, with patently false cheer. The narrow whip of a man who had entered the room behind Morris flinched slightly at the jocular familiarity. “St. Cyprian.” Ambry was only a recent addition to Morris’ staff, but he’d already picked up on his superior’s distaste for St. Cyprian and learned to mimic it. “Going to pull a rabbit out of your—” “Ambry,” Morris chided, though not sternly. “Have you seen to the men?” he continued, referring to the troop of British Army regulars they’d brought on board when they’d arrived. “All picketed and accounted for,” Ambry said crisply. Like Morris he was dressed in civilian fashion, though much neater. His helmet fairly gleamed, and the polished butt of a service-Webley marred the otherwise perfect cut of his coat. “No one i s getting on or off this ship without our permission.” “Boat,” St. Cyprian said. “What?” Ambry raised an eyebrow. “It’s a boat, not a ship. A ship is an ocean-going vessel.” “You have a singular gift for useless information, St. Cyprian.” “And you are generally useless, Ambry, me old mucker. We make a good pair.” St. Cyprian clinked his rings together idly. Ambry grinned mirthlessly, his lips writhing back from too-perfect teeth. “Harsh words from a second-rate Svengali.” “That’s enough Ambry,” Morris said. “Charles…” “Were those windows always open like that?” St. Cyprian interjected, indicating the wooden blinds. “As far as I know,” Morris said, blinking. “Why?” “No reason. Just curious.” A muscle in Morris’ jaw had a bit of a merry dance, and St. Cyprian felt a flicker of pity for the bureaucrat. But only a flicker. “He burned to death. Se veral hours ago, at least.” “Twelve,” Morris grated. “But was it—” He made a sharp gesture. “Was it what? Painful?” St. Cyprian heedlessly stuffed his handkerchief in the pocket of his coat. “I imagine so, yes.”


“Magic!” Morris barked. “Was it magic?” he said, more quietly. Ambry made a face as soon as the word escaped Morris’ lips. St. Cyprian smiled. Ambry was a tight -button man. If it wasn’t Eton-approved, Ambry wasn’t a fan. Morris’ question was an important one, judging as it did the necessity of St. Cyprian’s presence here. As a man who’d read more dusty tomes than was good for him and knew how to draw the Yellow Sign properly, despite an education big on maths and small on occult practicalities, St. Cyprian was the closest thing to an expert on the subject that Morris had to hand. Then, he was the Royal Occultist. A certain amount of expertise in otherworldly matters was a job requirement. Formed during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had been known at the time) had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee and passed through a succession of hands since. The list was a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history, and culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian. As far as men like Morris and Ambry were concerned, the office was at its nadir. And as far as St. Cyprian was concerned, the same could be said of the Ministry of Esoteric Observation. He paused. No, that wasn’t fair. Morris was a solid enough man, if unimaginative. Ambry, on the other hand, was a polished bit of deep-sea political predator. Both, in their way, were exactly the sort of men the Ministry wanted in charge of the occult. The Ministry of Esoteric Observation was where magic went to die, in a nondescript building near Whitehall, with quotas, allocations and stuffy offices filled with moldering paperwork. It was a model of modern efficiency, and the men who worked for it prided themselves on their political and scientific acumen. Unfortunately, they had a bad habit of locking up dreadful tomes and sacred scrolls rather than reading them, thus necessitating the occasional consultation. They were never happy about it, and never shy about sharing that unhappiness. It offended them, in their callous little souls to have to rely on a relic of less enlightened times to get the job done. “Answer the question, St. Cyprian,” Ambry said, impatient. “Is this one of your problems?” “Oh yes.” St. Cyprian tapped the side of his nose. “I can practically smell it, old boy. Can’t you two?” “Certainly not!” Morris sputtered. He looked horrified by the very idea. Ambry frowned, but said nothing. “No? How unfortunate,” St. Cyprian said. “You should really look to expanding your senses, Morris. I know some tantric exercises that might interest you.” Morris snarled inaudibly, waving his pith helmet in a dangerous fashion. St. Cyprian looked at Ambry, eyebrows raised in innocent query. “My senses are fine at their current limits, I assure you,” the latter said, face blank.


“Well, a man should know his limits,” St. Cyprian said. He looked at Morris. “You’ll want me to be looking into this, then?” “Why else would I bother with this farce of a conversation?” Morris said. “Morris, you wound me.” “If only,” Morris said, slamming his hat onto his head. “Fix this, Charles,” he continued, meaningfully. St. Cyprian winced. Morris only used that tone when he was upset. “It would be helpful if I knew who he was,” St. Cyprian said to Morris’ retreating back. “Need to know,” Morris said, without stopping. Two men in khaki uniforms and helmets, Martini-Enfields in hand, fell in beside him. The Seeley was under official jurisdiction now and the holiday-makers were all bundled up in the common room. There wa s something to be said for bureaucratic efficiency. “But—” “You heard the man, St, Cyprian,” Ambry said, smiling smugly. “Now go do whatever little heathen hoodoo performance you’ve got cooked up so we can tidy this mess up, eh? There’s a good chap.” Without waiting for a reply, he trooped out after Morris. St. Cyprian was tempted to make a face at his retreating back, but manfully restrained himself. He settled for an indignant snort. “Need to know,” he muttered, turning in a tight circle, hi s thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Well I bloody need to know Morris, you puffed up twit.” “Morris being a tosspot again?” St. Cyprian turned back around, smiling slightly. “My dear Ms. Gallowglass. Tell me you have something for me?” “Other than a charming disposition and a ready smile, you mean?” Ebe Gallowglass said, leaning against the doorframe, her arms crossed and her fingers tapping against the crook of her elbow. She was dark and slim with short black hair, cut into a curl-edged bob. She wore a man’s linen suit, albeit one specially tailored for a woman’s frame. A swath of freckles spattered across her sharp features and her grin was startlingly white. Gallowglass was, for lack of a more appropriate term, his apprentice. It was a grim condition of the office of the Royal Occultist that its holders tended to have abrupt, often fatal, retirements. An apprentice, someone to carry on afterward, was a necessity and he had no doubt that Gallowglass would make a fine addition to the storied ranks, eventually. “Yes, as nice as those things are,” St. Cyprian said, pushing the thought aside. “Then no.” She pushed away from the doorframe and shoved her hands into her pockets. “The toffs in the common room want their money back, the crew has forgotten how to speak the King’s English, and the soldiers are under orders not to talk to anyone.” Gallowglass had the common touch. It was just one of the many talents which she had discovered as she assisted St. Cyprian in his investigations into obscure matters. She was coming to learn the tricks and traps that awaited a ‘consulting occultist’. Dealing with the locals


in a friendly and efficient manner was one of the more efficient tricks. Gallowglass, for her part, had a distressing inclination towards shooting first and questioning later. “We are adrift in an enigmatic sea, innit?” she said. “Funny, I rather thought it was the Nile.” St. Cyprian gestured to the body on the bed. “Opinions, my young apprentice?” “Apprentice is it now?” Gallowglass said. She gagged softly at the sight of the corpse, her nostrils flaring. “Bloody Nora.” “My sentiments exactly.” St. Cyprian took in the rest of the cabin at a glance. It was like every other cabin on the Seeley , brisk in its Spartan efficiency. A bed, a table, two chairs, one of which had a suit coat thrown over it, and a miniscule closet. He went to the table and ran his fingers across the mess of papers scattered across it. The pile was composed of maps, coordinates lists and blacked out dossiers. “In other words, need to know,” he said quietly. “What?” Gallowglass said. “Nothing. Thoughts?” He turned to look at her. “Someone set him on fire.” “Eyes like a hawk, my dear.” St. Cyprian frowned. “How?” “He fell asleep smoking?” “I’m beginning to know how Morris feels. Try again,” he said. “What kind of fire chars flesh, but leaves the clothing untouched?” It was Gallowglass’ turn to frown. “Spontaneous combustion?” “Close,” St. Cyprian said, smiling slightly. “Bugger me if I know then.” “Exactly,” St. Cyprian said, clapping his hands together. “Magic, in other words.” “No wonder Morris looked like he swallowed a lemon whole,” she said, making a face. “Still, if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be enjoying this serene trip down the River of Life.” “Unfortunate choice of words,” St. Cyprian murmured. They had been in Cairo when the call came, luckily. St. Cyprian had been looking forward to his annual dinner with an old friend at the Cairo Museum, but duty, not to mention the rather noisy gasoline powered trawler that had been pressed into Ministry service, had called. Morris had undoubtedly been hoping that the murder, if it was murder, had been committed by natural means. Insofar as a premature shortening of a man’s span could be considered natural. He’d probably planned to send St. Cyprian and Gallowglass on their way at the earliest opportunity. “Poor Morris. I am an eternal disappointment to him, I fear,” St. Cyprian said. Gallowglass pulled a chair, the one with the coat hanging off its back, out from the table and straddled it, facing him. “I don’t suppose that he minds. Man’s as dull as mud.”


“Your sensitivity is legendary in its own time.” “Speaking of mud, Ambry is lurking around as well,” she said. “I’m quite aware of that, thank you.” St. Cyprian made a face. “We’ve already had a chat.” “Bet it was scintillating.” “Hardly.” St. Cyprian peered at the body. “His clothing is untouched.” “And?” St. Cyprian gave her a look. “He could have some identification on him.” “In bed?” “We won’t know until we check, will we?” St. Cyprian motioned towards the bed. “After you.” “Me?” She pointed at herself. “Experience before enthusiasm,” St. Cyprian said. “Age before beauty,” she countered. “Who’s the apprentice here, I ask you?” St. Cyprian pulled a sil ver cigarette case out of his coat pocket and flipped it open. He proffered it to Gallowglass, who dipped her head and flicked one free with her tongue. Rolling it between her lips, she said, “Fine.” Sucking on the cigarette, she got up and went to the bed. “Do we know why this is so bloody important yet?” “Need to know, and we, unfortunately, fall into another category entirely.” St. Cyprian assumed her seat and tapped one of the cigarettes on the surface of the case. Stuffing it between his lips, he said, “Funny way for his hands to be, wouldn’t you say?” Gallowglass looked at the body’s blackened claws, which clutched emptily over its crumbling chest. “He was holding something?” “Possibly. Find anything?” he said, lighting his cigarette. Puffing, he eyed the match curiously. The flame seemed to flare momentarily before it went out. He looked down at the coat. “No.” She stepped back. “Nothing in his pockets. No valuables, no papers, no nothing.” “Did you check his coat?” St. Cyprian said, rifling through the pockets of the aforementioned coat. “Ah.” He pulled out a battered commonplace book. “That’s more like it.” “Could have done that in the first place,” Gallowglass said sourly. “Instead of making me touch a dead body.” “Probably. Consider it a learning experience,” St. Cyprian said, flipping through the notebook. Gallowglass mimicked his words silently as she reached into his coat for his matches. “Here we are.”


“Here where?” “The Nile. What did you call it before?” “The River of Life.” Gallowglass smiled briefly. “That’s what my mother called it.” “Wise woman,” St. Cyprian said. “Not so wise. She married my father after all.” Gallowglass looked at him. “Why?” “Fiat lux ,” St. Cyprian said. “That sounds familiar. Eliphas Levi?” Gallowglass said. She lit her cigarette, quirking an eyebrow as the match flared oddly. “At least you’ve kept up on your studies,” St. Cyprian said. “The Nile is the spine of the world-book, and Egypt, its pages.” “Definitely Levi,” Gallowglass said, shaking the match out. “That sounds like his kind of gibberish.” “Harsh words. But he was correct in a way…the land along the Nile is suffused with a sort of background radiation of a peculiarly strong variety.” St. Cyprian continued to flip through the notebook. “In its day, Egypt gave birth to a line of sorcerer-kings unheralded since the days of lost Mu.” “Big on dairy then, were they?” Gallowglass said. St. Cyprian closed the notebook with a snap and looked at her, frowning. “It’s not a joke. You recall our pal Nephren-Ka, from that incident in Seven Dials—what was it?—two years ago? He was of that sort.” “We handled him all right.” “Did we?” St. Cyprian said. A memory of blazing beast-eyes and snapping, withered jaws filled his mind’s eye. He shook his head, clearing it of the dreadful images. Gallowglass held her hands apart. “About that big.” “What?” he said, bemused. “Whatever he was holding.” “Obviously,” St. Cyprian said, using the notebook to point at a patch on the ceiling just over the bed. It was blackened, and the wood was warped and blistered in a radius approximate to that of the distance between Gallowglass’ palms. “Could have mentioned that,” Gallowglass said. “And yet I didn’t,” St. Cyprian said, standing. “Why did it burn the wood, but nothing else?” she said, peering at the ceiling. “Who knows,” he said, looking again at the table. “Boarding dates. Ticket stubs. Maps. Pieces to an unpleasant puzzle.”


“Isn’t it always,” Gallowglass murmured. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at the papers on the table. “Hang on a tic. He was coming from London.” She pulled one of the maps towards her. “And going towards…” “Heliopolis.” St. Cyprian lit a match. “Heliopolis? What’s in Heliopolis?” St. Cyprian didn’t answer. He held up the match, which crackled audibly. The flame on the end danced and bobbed, far larger than it should have been. “That’s curious,” Gallowglass said softly. “Indeed.” St. Cyprian blew out the flame. It resisted, for just a moment. “Something has been here. Something which has thrown off the elemental balance in this room.” “Something so big?” Gallowglass held her hands up. “Almost certainly.” St. Cyprian looked at her. “You said the guests were in the common room?” “Every moaning mother’s son.” “Good.” St. Cyprian went to the door of the cabin and held it open. “After you.” “You figure the killer is still on board?” “Indubitably,” St. Cyprian said. “I can guarantee it, in fact.” He stepped past her and led the way. “After all, he-or she-still needs to get to civilization.” “Cairo, you mean?” “It’s the most logical spot. From there our murderer can go most anywhere. Or he could simply lose himself among the teeming masses.” St. Cyprian glanced towards the shore and frowned. “Hmm.” “What?” Gallowglass said. “I thought I saw something,” St. Cyprian said. He shook his head. “Never mind.” They continued on towards the front of the boat. The Seeley was primarily a tourist-vessel, running from Cairo to all the usual spots and then back again. Week long trips to areas of interest for those with the money to spend. The dead man, whoever he had been, had booked passage like any other tourist in Cairo. His death had been reported to the colonial authorities by the captain, and by the usual unusual channels Morris from the Ministry had come to know of it and had responded with what St. Cyprian had at first considered unusual alacrity. Now he knew better. There was magic at work here, and he had an unpleasant suspicion that he knew the source. Morris had responded too quickly for it to be random. No, there was something going on. Something political. That thought brought a frown to his face. Politics and magic didn’t mix, but were mingled all the same by people who saw the latter as simply another weapon in their arsenal. In


truth, that was why Elizabeth had invested Dee with the authority of a royal, if secret, office. The Game of Nations brought with it constant conflict, and some of that conflict was bound to be sorcerous in nature. St. Cyprian himself had participated in the Great Game several times over the course of his career. As an apprentice to his predecessor in the years before the War, then on his own afterward. Thoughts of his predecessor made his frown deepen. Thinking of Thomas Carnacki always brought strong memories to the fore. Carnacki had been a bluff, tough man, with a scientific pragmatism that had gone a long way to making the supernatural world palatable to a young St. Cyprian. But thinking of Carnacki meant thinking of Ypres, and the bullet that had plucked Carnacki out of this world and sent him into the Realm Invisible, as if he were any normal man. St. Cyprian remembered Carnacki’s face, bled white, as he passed his responsibilities and a rather cluttered house on the Embankment to St. Cyprian. He looked down at the rings on his fingers. Every Royal Occultist had worn them, though where Dee had first procured them no record stated. All St. Cyprian knew was that he wasn’t the only person to wear a set…there were others. The American, Warren, for one. Soldiers had been stationed on both decks of the steam-boat, and keen eyes swept the shore from beneath helmet brims. St. Cyprian ignored them as he led Gallowglass towards the common room. “Morris moved fast,” Gallowglass said, glancing around as an officer in a tan shako barked orders to the ship’s crew. The latter moved swiftly, f ar more swiftly, perhaps, than they would have for their own captain. “I’m sure he had his reasons.” “I did,” Morris said, meeting them at the door. He dabbed at his gleaming brow with a grimy handkerchief. “Care to share them, Morris?” St. Cyprian said, a halo of smoke rising from his cigarette to encircle his head. “No.” “Pity.” “Have you discovered what happened yet, or were you simply lonely for our company?” Ambry said, following his superior. “Yes,” St. Cyprian said, smoke curling out of his nostrils. “He burned to death, as I said.” “Oh, how unexpected. The charred corpse was burned to death. Your reputation will remain intact,” Ambry said. “Charles,” Morris began. St. Cyprian thrust his hand out over the water, letting the Egyptian sun play over it. “He burned to death, Morris.”


Morris hesitated, rubbing his handkerchief over his mouth idly. “Ah. I see. Unfortunate.” “And?” “We’ll handle it from here, I think.” Morris made to gesture to the closest of the soldiers when St. Cyprian’s hand flashed out, seizing the other man’s wrist. A moment later, Ambry had the barrel of his service Webley pressed to St. Cyprian’s head. “Release him!” he snapped. “Still my jurisdiction I rather think, what?” St. Cyprian said, ignoring the pistol and its wielder. “What have you done, Morris?” “Get your hand off of me.” Morris jerked free of St. Cyprian’s grip. The latter inclined his head. “You know I’ll find out eventually, old bean. What have you done? What did you unleash?” Morris twitched as if stung. St. Cyprian plucked his cigarette out of his mouth and eyed the cherry tip speculatively. “No matter. I think I know the answer. Frankly, there’s only one reason I can think of that someone from the Ministry would be going to Heliopolis, Morris. And it’s not for the scenery.” After a moment, Morris gestured sharply and the soldiers stationed to either side of the door to the common room trooped inside, leaving him, A mbry, St. Cyprian and Gallowglass alone on deck. Ambry still had his weapon out, and was eyeing St. Cyprian speculatively. “Sir? he said. “Holster your pistol, Ambry,” Morris said. “What?” Ambry looked at him goggle-eyed. “Holster it damn it!” Morris snarled, pushing past St. Cyprian. He leaned over the ship’s rail, staring hard at the waters of the Nile. “The Eye of Atum,” he said, after a moment. “The whosis?” Gallowglass said. “One of the Crown Jewels,” St. Cyprian said, frowning. “Not one I’ve ever heard of,” Gallowglass said. “One of the other Crown Jewels.” St. Cyprian shook his head. “One of the dangerous ones. Like the Seven Stars or the Jade Frog.” “That’s a matter of perspective,” Morris said, without turning around. “It’s a bloody state secret is what it is,” Ambry said. “Sir, I must protest!” “Protest noted and summarily dismissed,” St. Cyprian said, pushing past Ambry. “Who was he? Your man. Who was he, Morris?” “Phipps. Pipps. Phillips? Something like that, I believe,” Morris said. “Not really important at the moment, is it? Not if someone has the Eye.” He turned, face beaded with sweat. “Not if someone knows how to use it.”


“Oh, they do.” St. Cyprian sucked on his cigarette, rolling it from one side of his mouth to the other. “Of course, they wouldn’t be able to, if someone hadn’t brought it back here.” “Why not?” Gallowglass said. “Its powers are finite if it’s too long away from the place of its—ah—birth, I suppose you’d call it,” St. Cyprian said. “But when it’s hot, it’s hot, as the saying goes.” “How much damage can a rock do?” Gallowglass said, hopping up onto the rail. “Ask Cain and Abel,” St. Cyprian said. “The Moors supposedly gave it to Elizabeth,” Ambry said, in a dry, detached voice. “She gave it to John Dee and he turned the Armada to kindling.” Gallowglass looked at St. Cyprian, who nodded. “Dee thought it contained a salamander—a fire elemental.” He looked at Morris. “It fl ickered and went dull after Dee used it for God knows how many centuries, until Edwin Drood brought it back t o Heliopolis and then turned around and squeezed it dry in the Tunguska incident.” “Drood was a good man. A loyal servant of the Crown,” Morris said. “Better than some,” Ambry murmured, glancing at St. Cyprian. “It killed him. Carnacki thought it burned Drood to ashes where he sat in a Soho garret,” St. Cyprian said harshly, glaring at Ambry. “Just like it di d to Dee, albeit more slowly. An all consuming flame that eventually devours even it wielder, leaving only ashes. The sign of the salamander.” “Balderdash,” Morris said, twisting around. He jabbed a finger at St. Cyprian. “If we had used that stone during the War—” “How many thousands more would have died, burnt to nothing for a few extra miles of sour earth?” St. Cyprian grated. “Or would you have turned it on the Bolsheviks, maybe? Kept the Tsar’s foolish fundament on his throne by unleashing a fire-devil on starving serfs?” “We would have done what was necessary,” Ambry interjected, stiffly. He stepped closer to Morris, as if to bolster the older man. “For the good of King and Country.” “The rallying cry of the rear echelon,” St. Cyprian said, glaring at Ambry, who returned the expression. “It’s a moot point, I fear. Your predecessor refused, as much good as it did him. Poor stubborn Thomas…” Morris said, shaking his head. There was real regret in his voice, though whether for Carnacki or for what might have been, St. Cyprian couldn’t say. “Carnacki was a dilettante at best. It’s likely just as well that he didn’t—” Ambry began. “Quiet,” St. Cyprian said with deceptive mildness. Ambry, with the instincts of a born civil servant, looked at him warily. “I was simply stating—”


“You were being an ass,” Gallowglass said. “Do yourself a favor and shut your gob, yeah?” Ambry shot her a look, but subsided. St. Cyprian said nothing. He remembered Carnacki’s refusal, and the bad feelings that had lingered through the months leading up to the war. While he’d been a true son of the Empire, Carnacki had had his limits. Wholesale slaughter was one of those, as was suicide, both of which you risked when the Eye was open. Running his hand over his head, St. Cyprian said, finally, “Carnacki was right to refuse. Invoking the fires of Atum is a dangerous thing. An abominable thing.” He glared at Morris. “Why now?” “Need to know,” Morris said. “Bollocks to that,” Gallowglass said. Morris shot her a pained look. “Regardless, that’s the way of it. Decisions are made and tasks are undertaken and it is up to us to ensure that those tasks are successful.” “Hail Britannia,” St. Cyprian said. “I want to know, Morris. Or I’ll be forced to find out.” “You’ll keep your nose out of it is what you’ll do, Charles,” Morris said. “You’ll do your job and nothing more. Just like all of us.” “My thoughts exactly, old boy. My thoughts exactly,” St. Cyprian said, stepping past him and wrenching open the door to the common room. Gallowglass watched him and then turned to look at Morris and Ambry. “He’s really quite nice, when you get to know him,” she said, blowing a plume of smoke into the latter’s features, eliciting a spate of coughing and wheezing. Then, she flicked her cigarette into the Nile and followed St. Cyprian. “What are you up to?” she murmured, drawing close to him as he entered the common room and confronted the group of passengers. “Solving the case,” St. Cyprian said, without looking at her. “Eyes open.” “Always.” St. Cyprian was the center of a maelstrom of questions a moment later. They were shouted in a variety of accents, regional and otherwise. There were a dozen passengers, besides the unlucky thirteenth, only half of whom were from England. All of them were angry, though. A motley lot, if there ever was one. “Ladies and gentlemen, please!” he said, raising his hands. “Please! I assure you, we’ll be in Cairo before you know it, and you’ll all be free to continue your trips as you see fit!” He lowered his hands, and his smile became sharp. “Well, all of you except the murderer, that is.” That elicited another barrage of questions. Gallowglass sidled towards the bar, keeping one eye on the crowd. It wasn’t likely to turn nasty, but stranger things had happened. This wouldn’t be the first time that St. Cyprian’s plans had resulted in someone trying to shoot, stab or otherwise render him extinct.


“Yes, you heard correctly. Murder. How about that? Just like an Agatha Christie novel. Is anyone Belgian by chance?” St. Cyprian said, clasping his hands behind his back. “No? Well, I suppose we’ll just have to muddle through as best we can.” “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Morris hissed, entering the room, soldiers to either side of him and grabbing St. Cyprian’s arm. “Fixing things, Morris,” St. Cyprian said, looking at Morris’ hand, then at his f ace. Morris hastily released him and stepped back. “Even as you ordered.” He looked at the gathered holiday-makers and clapped his hands. “Now. To begin, we know the victim died at dusk.” “How do we know that then?” Ambry said, standing off to the side, looking amused. “Empirical analysis,” St. Cyprian said. “Something you’d know little about.” The smile slipped from Ambry’s face. St. Cyprian went on. “There were only two moments when the murder weapon could have been used. Dawn and dusk. Since he was dead by the former, it must have been the latter.” He looked at the crowd of blank faces and smiled. “Careful,” Morris said sharply. St. Cyprian ignored him. “Now, I’ll need everyone to line up against the far wall, please,” he continued, bouncing a book of matches on his palm. “We’ll just check the aetheric resonances and see what there is to see, hmmm?” “Aetheric resonances,” Ambry said. “How scientific of you St. Cyprian.” “Sarcasm creates negative energy, Ambry,” St. Cyprian said, before Morris could answer. He swiped a match to life, watching it burn. The f lame curled and twisted, doubling in size after a moment. “Ah. There.” “A match? That’s your plan?” Ambry said. He looked at Morris. “Is this re ally necessary?” “Everything I do is necessary,” St. Cyprian said, rotating his fingers and letting the flame ripple. In a way, it was simple. Magic, like firearms, left residue on the wielder. It seeped into your pores and left its mark on you. And the more powerful the magic, the more residue which remained. “Sir, I feel I really must protest,” Ambry said. “There are better ways to conduct an investigation like this. In Cairo, would be a start.” “The murderer is still on this ship, Ambry me old chum,” St. Cyprian said as he walked down the line of scowling passengers—past the irate novelist and her mousey daughter, past the angry young Socialist, with his carefully chosen laborer’s clothes, past the portly gadabout in his fine suit and the physician, mumbling imprecations in Austrian, past the elderly archaeologist, the bright young thing and her less glamorous cousin and the former colonel with the bulldog face. Then there was the young heiress and her fiancé, the latter of whom had eyes only for the brunette with the French surname who glared at the heiress. “Parlor tricks are no sure substitution for a proper investigation,” Ambry said. “Sir?” he continued, looking at Morris. “We’re only a few hours from Cairo. Surely-”


“Charles?” Morris said. There was a real question there. St. Cyprian decided to answer it. “In a few hours, our murderer might decide to use the Eye on us. Or on the city in order to distract us. But here, now, he’s got nowhere to go,” St. Cyprian said, holding the match up as he walked back and forth, up and down the row of passengers. “Or does that frighten you, Ambry?” “Hardly frightened. I merely wish to conduct a proper investigation,” Ambry snapped. “Something you’d know nothing about!” “I know quite a bit about a lot of things, Ambry. More than a few of which would surprise even a cynical little bureaucrat like you.” The match popped and speared out as St. Cyprian turned, going back down the line. “Ms. Gallowglass, would you be so kind as to get the windows?” he said, not looking at her. “The windows?” Morris said. “Sunlight, Morris,” St. Cyprian said. “But that will—” Morris began. St. Cyprian held up a hand and he f ell silent. Morris had worked with two Royal Occultists, and knew better than to press the odder points. His assistant wasn’t as experienced. “This is a waste of time,” Ambry said, bluntly. “He wouldn’t be so foolish as to have it on him would he?” “Who said it was a he?” Gallowglass said as she moved to the windows in front of the group and grabbed the cords to the blinds. None of the pass engers moved. One or two looked contemplative. Most of them just looked confused. Ambry hesitated. “I just assumed…” “You know what they say about assumptions, Ambry,” St. Cyprian said. “They make an ass of you.” “And me,” Ambry finished automatically. “Exactly,” St. Cyprian said. He watched the flame of the match, carefully lighting a second off of the flame of the first as it burned down to his fingertips. “Sunlight,” he said again. “The very stuff of Atum. Variously his blood, his breath, his seed or some such. And the Eye drinks it in the way a motorcar requires petrol. But not just any sunlight…no, the Eye requires the sacred sunlight of Heliopolis.” The passengers began to murmur among themselves and Morris’ face went through a variety of interesting expressions. “Charles!” he said. “Give me some credit, Morris,” St. Cyprian said. “Undoubtedly the Ministry will be forcing some form of contract of silence on these good people in regards to the events of this unfortunate trip. Besides,” he went on, bestowing a crooked smile on the socialite, who grinned and whispered to her cousin. “It’s not like any of these upstanding citizens will believe what happens next.”


“Next?” Ambry said. “Patience. Don’t you want me to explain what happened to your man?” St. Cyprian said. “Get on with it, St. Cyprian,” Ambry said, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Of course. The Eye of Atum drinks in sunlight, as I said. Better to say that it gorges on it. With the proper training, the right frame of mind, a man can use the stone t o devilish ends. Without the proper training however, he is at its mercy. Once the gem has been replenished, even the softest drizzle of light can render it deadly.” He glanced over his shoulder at Morris. “Your man found that out the hard way. No doubt he was under orders to keep it wrapped up, away from the light. Maybe he couldn’t resist unwrapping it…I’m told that it’s quite hypnotic, in its way. Or maybe someone asked to see it.” “What are you saying?” Morris said. “His blinds were open, Morris. Likely at the exact moment the sun went down last night. A last flare of light, then, poof. No more civil servant. And no more Eye.” “It was destroyed?” Morris looked alarmed. “Hardly. Merely plucked from the charred remains of its caretaker after the sun had set and it was no longer awake. Two steps to the left, please,” St. Cyprian said, gesturing to the socialite, who wriggled aside with a laugh. “And to the right, sir,” he said, indicating the excolonel. “And you sir,” he said, looking at the portly man, who now stood alone. “Watch the flame.” He held up the match, and it flared straight at the man, who cried out and flinched back. “This is outrageous!” he blustered. “I could have been burned!” “Entirely possible, yes.” St. Cyprian glanced at Morris, who was frowning. “Even the light of the tiniest fire is drawn to it, no matter how well it’s protected.” “Drawn to what? What are you talking about?” the portly man whined. He pushed at the air with his hands. “What’s going on?” “Why, I should have thought that would be obvious—I’m implicating you in murder, sir,” St. Cyprian said, blowing out the match. “What?” “Now see here,” Ambry began. “You were in the victim’s cabin when he died. The item he carried has left its residue on you. Marked you with its scent.” St. Cyprian ignored Ambry and tossed the spent match at the accused. “You can’t be serious,” the man said. He stepped past St. Cyprian and gestured pleadingly to Morris and Ambry. “What is he saying? Who is he?” “Sir, you can’t simply—” Ambry started, turning to Morris.


“Charles?” Morris said, interrupting them both. “Fire doesn’t lie, Morris,” St. Cyprian said. “This is preposterous! I didn’t kill anyone!” the portly man snapped, his face flushed. He whirled. “Your little stage-tricks prove nothing!” “Stage tricks?” St. Cyprian blinked. “A hit sir, a palpable hit,” Gallowglass murmured. “Morris, once we open those windows, we’ll have the proof,” St. Cyprian said, ignoring her. “But first…” “First we’ll take him into custody, is what we’ll do,” Ambry said, stepping forward. “His Majesty’s special service has things well in hand, St. Cyprian. Thank you for your service, but we can handle this from here.” “Wait a moment, Ambry,” Morris said, still looking at St. Cyprian. “Are you sure, Charles?” “As sure as you’re standing here,” St. Cyprian said. “Sir, I simply cannot allow this to continue,” Ambry said, turning to Morris. St. Cyprian suddenly lunged forward and dug his fingers into the portly man’s ample midsection. There was the sound of cloth ripping and St. Cyprian tumbled to the floor, clutching a length of folded material and the front of a fine waistcoat. “Ms. Gallowglass! Now!” “My pleasure,” Gallowglass said, wrenching open the blinds. “Let there be light!” And then, there was. The flare was brighter than the sheen of the sun on polished metal, spiking out and striking the eyes of e veryone present. The man, no longer portly, wrapped his arms around the specially co ncealed belt strapped around his muscular midsection. He launched a kick at St. Cyprian, who rolled aside and bounced to his feet. “Seize him!” Morris snapped, pointing. The soldiers had only just moved to obey when there was a sudden storm of hornet-sounds, and the windows were punctured in a shower of shattered glass. One of the soldiers pitched forward, choking on his own blood. St. Cyprian suddenly remembered the movement he thought he’d seen earlier on shore, and realized with chagrin that he hadn’t been imagining things. “We’re under attack!” Morris yelped. Outside, Enfields spoke in response, but it was a tepid sound compared to the initial barrage. St. Cyprian briefly wondered how many soldiers really were on this boat-too few, like as not. “Too late!” the portly man snarled as he ripped the belt from about his middle and hefted it like a sack. “Too late!” He swung the belt, driving them back. He snatched up the dead soldier’s Enfield and swung it back and forth. “Stay back, all of you.” “Easy does it, my friend,” St. Cyprian said, eyeing the dangling belt. It had a heavy canvas pouch on it, which bulged with a rounded shape. The Eye, obviously.


“No friend of yours, Charles!” the man spat. “Or did you forget that you just tried to kill me?” “I surmised that you had protected yourself, old chap. Brilliant belt, by the by. Ingenious, even.” St. Cyprian stood slowly, arms spread. “Now, who are you? Who are you working for?” “You don’t recognize me? I’m crushed Charles. Simply crushed.” An accent had crept through the man’s words, roughening his syllables. He reached up and dug his fingers into the doughy surface of his second chin, ripping it and most of his face away in a crackle of spirit gum and mortician’s plaster. A new face, thin and lupine, glared hatefully at St. Cyprian through the shredded tangles of false flesh. “Now do you recall me? Count Grigori Petrov,” he said. “At your service.” “Petrov!” St. Cyprian said, starting forward, fi sts clenched. Memories of snow and blood swirled to the surface of his mind. He could feel the warmth oozing away from him as he ran through icy street, the dog-like yelps of his pursuers not far behind. It had been a cold night in Copenhagen the last time he’d seen Petrov, just before the War. Carnacki had been busy trying to contain what the Russian had called up, and that left his apprentice to the task of catching Petrov before he could escape. The wily Russian had turned the tables, however. St. Cyprian had barely survived. He made to lunge, but the Enfield came up and he stopped. Petrov tossed aside his ruined mask. “Pfaugh. Glad to be out of that, y ou have no idea,” he said grinning. He had a narrow hatchet face beneath a mop of graying hair. “Hello again, Charles. You look well.” “I thought the Reds would have hung you by now, Grigori,” St. Cyprian said. He cut his eyes to Gallowglass, who nodded slightly. “When the Revolution was won, they disbanded the Okhrana quite forcibly,” he continued, referring to the Russian Imperial secret service. Petrov had been an Okhrana agent for nearly as long as St. Cyprian had been alive, though his talents lay in more esoteric territories than simple spy-hunting or rabble-rousing. Petrov was rumored to be a seer, among other things. He had a gift for hexes and curses, an d could read the skeins of fate in a bowl full of entrails. “Oh no. Not me. It is not my destiny to die in a ditch with a Bolshevik bullet in my head,” Petrov said, baring his teeth in the grin of one who knows. He patted the belt. “Especially not now.” “Destinies can change,” St. Cyprian said. “There are men all over this ship, Grigori. There’s no escape.” From outside the common room came a high-pitched ululation and another spatter of rifle-fire, similar to that which had shattered the windows. Petrov laughed. “You especially should know by now, Charles, that there is always an escape! I made arrangements with some—ah—local porters to aid in my disembarkation from this fine vessel.” Petrov laughed again. “The Bedouin are always happy to do a favor, especially if it nets them a boat full of fat, wealthy captives!” he said, gesturing to the stunned passengers.


“Bedouin?” St. Cyprian said. “Is that who’s out there?” He made a surreptitious gesture. Gallowglass began to creep forward. “A few, a few. Mostly they’re mercenaries. Criminals and desert rats.” “Your kind of people, then.” “Ha! Oh Charles, I’ve missed your wit!” Petrov said, but then caught sight of Gallowglass sidling towards him. He swung the rifle towards her. “Hello, you are new,” he said. “Am I? Nice of you to say,” she said, checking her movement. Petrov frowned. “Arab?” “Sod off,” Gallowglass said. “Arab,” Petrov grunted, satisfied. Gallowglass quirked an eyebrow. Petrov continued, “You serve him?” “Who says he doesn’t serve me?” Petrov laughed and looked at St. Cyprian. “Oh I like her, Charles. She’s an, ah what do call it, a pip?” “Mostly, she’s an annoyance,” St. Cyprian said. “You’re on a boat, Grigori, and as annoying as your friends on shore are, you’re not getting off.” “Tut-tut Charles. Who said all my friends were confined to the shore?” Petrov looked at Morris and Ambry. “Isn’t that correct, Mr. Ambry?” Ambry suddenly spun and shot the remaining soldier, plugging the man through and through with a single snapped-off shot. As he folded up, Ambry grabbed Morris, who gave a squawk of indignation. “What the devil are you doing?” he said, glaring at his subordinate. “My duty,” Ambry said. He extracted a pistol from within Morris’ coat and stepped back, holding both weapons. He glanced at Petrov. “Five years. Five years working my way into the Ministry. Ruined, because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut,” he snarled. Petrov nodded and chuckled. “Forgive me comrade, but I do so enjoy my little jokes.” Petrov gestured with the rifle. “Besides, you’ve served your purpose.” He patted the belt. “The Eye belongs to us now. Won’t your masters be pleased?” “Forgive you?” Ambry said, glaring at the other man. “Five years!” “Traitor,” Morris snarled. “You bloody traitor!” “Not so, not so,” Petrov said. “Dear Ambry is a sworn son of your dreary little empire. Aren’t you Ambry? Born in London, weren’t you?” “Blackpool,” Ambry said. “You told me you were born in Lewisham!” Morris said accusingly.


“He lied,” St. Cyprian said. “I always knew you were a bit of a prig, Ambry. This is beyond the pale, however.” “Quiet!” Ambry snapped, gesturing with a pistol. “One good thing about being outed? I won’t have to listen to your blather any longer!” “Eventually, we knew you’d bring it out of hiding,” Petrov said, clearly relishing the way the conversation was going. “And we made sure that when you did, we would be waiting!” “Who’s we?” Gallowglass said. “Your lot went the way of the Dodo when the Tsar got the chop.” “Just because the Tsar is gone, does not mean that I sit idle,” Petrov said. “I have new friends now. Men of vision, who seek to turn this mad world back onto the path of sanity. And with this stone, we will do great things indeed.” “Like what?” St. Cyprian said. “That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” Petrov said, patting the belt. St. Cyprian hesitated. Petrov was practically begging to gloat. And St. Cyprian needed to know who he was working for. “At least tell me who put you up to this. Who bought your loyalty?” Petrov grimaced. “It is an alliance of convenience, Charles. Tit for tat, as you English are wont to say.” His expression became sly. “Have you ever heard of the Order of the Cosmic Ram, Charles? Because they’ve heard of you, and they quite despise you.” St. Cyprian froze. The Order of the Cosmic Ram was as unpleasant as they came—a group of militant occultists, with designs on the throne of Great Britain. He had run afoul of their schemes several times over the years, since the end of the war, most notably during the affair of the Maida Vale Mummy, when a rancid little mummy-enthusiast named Gladstone had employed a rather nasty set of Roman remains to bump off several men who’d crossed the Order. “What do they intend to use the Eye for, Grigori?” Petrov tapped the side of his nose. “What do you think, Charles?” “Quiet! It’s none of his concern,” Ambry growled. “Kill him.” “Indeed,” Petrov said, smiling. “Goodbye, Charles.” He looked at Ambry. “If you want him dead, shoot him. No sense in wasting the Eye’s energy on him.” Gallowglass, who had been watching the exchange silently, suddenly thrust her hand into her trousers pocket. It emerged gripping the heavy Webley -Fosbery revolver she habitually carried. Her thumb caressed the hammer and she pointed it at Petrov, who swung around in surprise. “The Eye,” Gallowglass said. “Put it down on the floor and raise your hands.” “No. No, I think not,” Petrov said, hugging the belt close. “Drop it!” Ambry barked, turning a pistol on Gallowglass. St. Cyprian tensed. “I won’t ask again,” Gallowglass said. “Ebe,” St. Cyprian began.


“Drop it, woman!” Ambry said. “You first,” Gallowglass said. “I’d listen to him,” Petrov said, chuckling. “Ambry is a dead shot.” “So am I,” Gallowglass said. “This,” she went on, in a conversational tone, “is a WebleyFosbery automatic revolver, produced by Webley and Scott of Birmingham. Its single-action, centre-fire and has a six-shot capacity, of .455 caliber. The fi rst shot is, due to the recoil mechanism, quickly followed by the next five. Which means that if you twitch, it’s going to turn your noggin into a red mist, innit?” “Ebe, if you shoot that blasted cannon, there’s a good chance you could damage the Eye. And if that happens…” St. Cyprian said. “If that happens, we all burn.” Gallowglass hesitated. She glanced at St. Cyprian. Petrov gave a bark and the pistol in Ambry’s hand followed suit. Gallowglass threw herself aside and fired her own weapon, eliciting a howl from Ambry as he dropped Morris’ pistol in response to the bullet caressing the edge of his wrist. The other five shots sent him scrambling for cover. St. Cyprian leapt forward, crashing into Petrov and slapping his palms into the Enfield, knocking it spinning from the other man’s grip. Petrov howled and swung an awkward punch at St. Cyprian, who stepped back. Petrov staggered off balance and St. Cyprian grabbed for the belt. Petrov jerked back, but too late and the belt was sent flying. It struck the floor with a thump, the flap flying open. A gem the size of a man’s palm rolled out, leaving a scorched trail across the wood. It was all the colors of the sun, vicious and vibrant and it winked angrily as it rolled towards a patch of sunlight. “No!” Petrov shrieked, diving for it. St. Cyprian grabbed Gallowglass and threw her aside. “Everyone down!” he roared, even as the Eye of Atum blinked. There was the smell of burning pork and an agonized cry spiraled up, momentarily silencing the gunfire outside. Then, horribly, a laugh. St. Cyprian got to his feet, his face pale. Petrov stood as well, clutching the jewel to him as fire swept around him like a snarling, snapping cloak. There was a vague shape to the flame, something hunched and alien that hurt his eyes to look at. “Hell,” St. Cyprian swore. “Shouldn’t that have burnt him to a crisp?” Gallowglass said as they got to their feet. “I’d hoped it would.” “It is…more intense than I expected,” Petrov said, in a voice like crumbling ashes. “So powerful. It almost hurts.” He turned and St. Cyprian stumbled back, raising a hand to his fa ce. Petrov thrust out an arm and the fire spun down its length, licking out towards the occultist. He dove one way and Gallowglass the other.


“Ha!” Petrov’s laugh was like logs snapping in a fireplace. “Run, Charles! Let me see you run!” He turned, sweeping the cyclone of fire after St. Cyprian. Heat caressed his back and he fell with a sharp yelp of pain. He struggled out of his suit-coat, rolling across the floor in a desperate bid to snuff the flames. Gallowglass, meanwhile, had scooped up a fallen rif le by the barrel and took a batter’s stance. She whistled, and Petrov turned. “Eh?” The rifle smashed across his face and burst into flame. Gallowglass dropped it with a yelp as Petrov staggered, dazed. St. Cyprian saw his chance, and took it. Rising to his feet, he lunged, his burnt coat wrapped around his arms like an awkward pair of gauntlets. He crashed into Petrov and they smashed through the door and out onto the deck. The flames crashed towards him, close enough to singe his hair, but parted as he fastened his fingers on the gem. Even through the coat he could feel it pulsing like a sore wound. Petrov shrieked imprecations, stamping his foot, burning a print into the polished wood. Sweat rolling down his face, St. Cyprian took a step forward. Then another. A third, pushing Petrov back towards the rail. The flames surged forward and fell back, not touching him, but pressing close. His skin dried and cracked from the heat and he began to feel like an over-cooked sausage. “What are you doing?” Petrov hissed, trying to wrestle the Eye out of St. Cyprian’s grip. Flames hunched and roiled around them, like a creature in a trap. “You were never very observant, Grigori,” St. Cyprian said through gritted teeth. Fire clawed at him as the gen seemed to shriek and it folded around his hands. The coat burst into flames and crumbled off of his arms. More flames lashed out, scorching the deck, and then St. Cyprian drove his knee up into the space between Petrov’s legs and hauled back on the Eye, drawing the fire around it. Petrov gave a strangled bark and the gem popped free of his fingers. It was like yanking on a tree root. The flames crisped his shirt-front and caressed St. Cyprian’s knuckles as he set his legs and used every bit of strength remaining in him. Grunting in agony, he twisted and pulled the fiery carapace away from its host. As it left him, Petrov staggered, then fell, his eyes rolling up into his head. Blisters bulged on St. Cyprian’s hand as he raised the stone, drawing the fire around and around like a streamer, listening to it scream. In his head was the howl of every fire in the world, from tiny campfires to the mighty blazes that had leveled Rome and London. It spoke in hissing sibilants, promising him power if he would but unleash it. Even so, he could feel the raw, naked heat baking his flesh. It consumed even those who could control it. Such was the nature of the thing that had streaked down through the atmosphere and punctured the sands of Egypt.


He saw its history in pain-inducing flashes. Scenes of a city being raised over a great crater. Of a second city and a third as each was burnt hollow by the thing that nestled within. Of wars fought and an empire founded on a lick of devil -flame. St. Cyprian stumbled to the rail and lifted the stone. On the shore, men in motley clothes darted, peppering the Seeley with rifle-fire. They could have been Bedouin, or Russian or any one of a hundred nationalities. Egypt was full of such men, in the wake of the Great War. Hands weeping pus from his burns, St. Cyprian commanded the stone, and there was a vast great sigh, and then a smell like a hot day just before a summer’s rain. Fire lashed out, forming in the air even as it struck the shore and scoured it clean. Men screamed and then vanished, leaving behind only twinkling motes of ash. The water of the Nile erupted in a great splash, driving him back in a cloud of steam. He looked, and saw another boat approaching. That was how Petrov had been planning to get back to Cairo, then. Men clutching weapons waited on the deck. Bullets plucked at the rail and the deck as an antique bombard gave a belch, sending up another plume of water. They were trying to drive the Seeley towards shore. And they would succeed, unless he did something about it. The jewel seemed to purr in his hands. It wanted to be used. Needed to be used. Was this what Dee had felt as he’d smashed Phillip’s Armada to flotsam and jetsam? Was this how Drood had felt at Tunguska? It was like there was a sun inside his head, burning him up even as it protected him. A corona of poisonous invincibility. Only the mental training he’d received was keeping that power from turning on him, even as it had turned on Morris’ man. A moment of hesitation, a moment of doubt, and he would be just another blackened skeleton to add to the pile. He only had moments to act as it was. He had to empty the Eye, to purge it of its newly filled power. That was the only way to be sure. He raised the Eye but then stopped as a pistol gave a soft ‘click’ behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. Ambry flinched back, but kept his revolver trained on St. Cyprian’s head. “Drop it, St. Cyprian,” he said. “You don’t have to do this, Ambry,” St. Cyprian said. “Oh but I do. And I’ll enjoy it, if it comes to that.” Ambry’s voice was toneless. “Put the Eye down.” “I can’t do it. You know what someone like Petrov would do with something like this.” “And someone like that ponderous clod Morris is any better?” Ambry spat. He shook a bloody fist. “Do you know how easy it was to convince him that we needed to re-power that thing? That we could use it quell the uprising in Egypt?” “Quite easy, I should imagine. Morris has always been a bit of a romantic, where magic is concerned,” St. Cyprian said through gritted teeth. The fire hummed and surged inside him,


demanding to be released. It would crisp Ambry like an ant in the sun. But not before the gun went off. Ambry was fast. He’d seen that for himself. “He’s about as romantic as a potato,” Ambry said. “But he’s no fool. That…thing is too powerful not to be used. It can change everything. It can set the British Empire back on its proper course.” “It changes nothing. All it can do is burn,” St. Cyprian said flatly. “Do you think you’re powerful enough to control it?” “Petrov is. That’s why the Order of the Cosmic Ram sought him out, and rousted him from whatever oriental hellhole our agents discovered him in. He knows the ways of such things.” “Petrov is a lunatic,” St. Cyprian said. “And so are you, if you think he’ll honour any bargain he made with your Order.” “Maybe so, Charles, but what are you?” Petrov said, pulling himself to his feet with a bit of help from the deck rail. He looked shaky and weak, but his eyes blazed with hunger. “Only the mad prosper in this world.” “The stars are right; the world is wrong,” Ambry said. “We will shear the fleece of history and weave a new tomorrow. The Order will set the course of the Empire right.” He lifted his pistol. “And you will not stand in our way.” Before St. Cyprian could reply, a pistol spoke and Ambry seemed to leap to the side. He spun, clutching himself and smacked against the rail. He looked down at his hand, then up at St. Cyprian. “Five years,” he said. Then he was gone, over the rail, as if he had never been. Morris, followed by Gallowglass, smiled victoriously at St. Cyprian and saluted him with his still-smoking Webley. “I never liked the little prig anyway. Give them what for, Charles,” he rasped. “And you stay still,” Gallowglass said, pointing her own weapon at Pe trov, who’d frozen in a half-crouch. The Eye snarled in St. Cyprian’s grip and he turned back to the approaching boat. How many men were aboard it? A dozen? Two? Thirty or more? Enough to kill everyone aboard the Seeley certainly. “No! It’s mine!” Petrov, recovered, howled, crashing against him. Gallowglass fired, and both men followed Ambry into the Nile a moment later, wreathed in alien fire. The water bubbled and boiled around them as they sank down, wrestling for possession of the Eye. The Nile seemed to be trying to spit the abominable thing that had entered it out, and the water surged and heaved. A monstrous, reptilian shadow seemed to circle them, its tail lashing in anger. Petrov howled like a sick dog, bubbles bursting from his mouth as his fing ertips scraped along the facets of the jewel. St. Cyprian’s grip was strong, however. In truth, he didn’t know whether he could have released the jewel if he’d wanted. They rolled over and over through the water, and St.


Cyprian’s vision began to go black as his lungs began to burn. He forced himself to focus and a moment later a vast bubble of heat exploded outward and Petrov vanished. St. Cyprian didn’t bother to check whether he was dead. Instead, he focused his attentions on the approaching boat and thrust the Eye through the dark water. There was no time left. He had to act. He screamed and the Eye shuddered in his hands. Something seemed to erupt from it, freed for the first time in years, fully free to indulge in its most fervent desire. Something made of flame and heat that tumbled up out of the Nile and skated across the surface of the water, leaving a boiling trail in its wake. It was shaped like a blind man’s idea of a lizard, all unearthly angles and sputtering spines of hissing fire. It grew and shrank, like any flame, as it sped towards the boat. Men leapt overboard with screams of fear as it struck the vessel. There was a shattering flare of noise, light and heat and then, silence. The gem lost its terrible brilliance, becoming dull and dark. St. Cyprian floated to the surface, still clutching the dim jewel. Part of him yearned to drop it to the bottom of the Nile, but the other part-the sensible part-knew that would be a mistake. A boat-hook snagged him and he was pulled onboard by sailors and soldiers, who stepped back as Gallowglass rushed to his side. She gave a hiss as she saw him. His hair had been burnt to a bristle, and his hands and face had the look of a man who had been lost in the desert for weeks. His clothes too had been burnt to blackened rags. He smiled wearily at her. “You could have shot Petrov, you know,” he said, spitting out a mouthful of river water. “Didn’t know if it would work,” she said. “How do you feel?” “How do I look?” “Like an overcooked roast that’s been dunked in the loo.” “That’s how I feel.” He looked at the stone, then allowed it to drop from his hand. It rolled across the deck, coming to rest at Morris’ feet. Morris frowned and stooped. Hefting the Eye, he peered at it, then looked at St. Cyprian incredulously. “You’ve drained it! You bloody fool! It’s useless now!” “You could always go back to Heliopolis, Morris,” St. Cyprian said. “It might do you good to get your hands dirty.” “You—” Morris began, then shook his head. “Why?” “It was too dangerous, Morris, and you damn well know it.” He sighed. “The Egyptians built an empire on the ashes it left behind, and it burned them from within. Dee knew that, even if some of his successors didn’t. That stone was left inert for good reason.” He smiled slightly. “Look at it this way, Morris—I was simply doing my job, just like you ordered me to.” St. Cyprian looked away, his head hanging in exhaustion. “I’ll defend the Empire to the death from any threat. External…or otherwise.”


Morris frowned, and then looked away. And in his hand, the Eye of Atum lost the last of its color as it closed once more.


NOTE: " The d’Erlette Configuration " was a free Halloween giveaway for 2013.

THE D’ERLETTE CONFIGURATION “Well, that is certainly a cursed puzzle box,” Charles St. Cyprian said. He eyed the small cube of wood which hovered four feet above the fl oorboards of Phillip Wendy-Smythe’s study. The facets of the box were inlaid with brass and gold and it glowed with an unhealthy radiance that put St. Cyprian in mind of a wound festering in the air. The air throbbed with a wordless hymn of subtle banality, caused, perhaps, by some mechanism within the floating lock puzzle. St. Cyprian sucked meditatively on the cigarette protruding from his lips. He expelled smoke through his nostrils and then sucked some more, his eyes never leaving the floating box. “Yes, definitely a cursed puzzle box,” he reiterated. “I know it’s cursed, Charles! My question is how do we stop the blasted thing from inhuming my immortal soul within its dashed facets?” Wendy-Smythe said. The plump man wrung his hands in growing panic. He mopped at his florid features with the sleeve of his oriental dressing gown, nearly dislodging the stained fez which topped his round head. “I can feel it clawing at my very spirit. Like hooks in my brain, flaying my ectenic self from its earthly vessel,” he wailed. “Right, yes, but my question is—why did you solve the dratted thing in the first place, Phillip?” In contrast to Wendy-Smythe, St. Cyprian was tall, dark and slim, and dressed in one of Savile Row’s finest sartorial creations. “That is a genuine d’Erlette Configuration after all. I can tell by the filigree…it’s not some child’s plaything. Unless I’m wrong about my cursed puzzle boxes, which I’m not,” St. Cyprian continued, with the surety of a professional. That surety was born of often painful experience gained in the investigation, organization and occasional suppression of That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know— including vampires, ghosts, werewolves, ogres, fairies, boggarts and the occasional worm of unusual size—by order of the King (or Queen), for the good of the British Empire. Formed


during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee, and passed through a succession of hands, culminating, for the moment, in the Year of Our Lord 1922, with one Charles St. Cyprian and his erstwhile assistant, Ebe Gallowglass. “Like you weren’t wrong about that ghost last week?” the latter said, from her perch on the arm of the chair on the other side of the study. She gently spun the cylinder of the WebleyFosbery revolver she had cracked open on her knee. St. Cyprian’s assistant wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Soho dive or a smoke-filled betting shop. “Ghosts are tricky,” St. Cyprian said, not looking at her. The facets of the box were beginning to shift and spread into something rather unpleasantly non-Euclidean. “What about that thing in the basement of Great Ormond Street the week before that,” Gallowglass asked. “What about it?” “You said it were a rat. Only it weren’t. It had too many teeth and too few legs,” Gallowglass said, giving the Webley’s cylinder a spin. “Yes, thank you Ms. Gallowglass. Your observations, while correct, are not pertinent at this juncture,” St. Cyprian said, glaring at her. She stuck her tongue out at him and went back to inspecting her pistol. St. Cyprian straightened his necktie and sniffed. “Besides which, this is neither a ghost nor a hairy whatsit. This i s a unique artefact of eldritch origin, and one which we are lucky to see in full—ah—flower, as it were.” He glanced at Wendy-Smythe and said, “No offense meant, old thing.” Wendy-Smythe made a noise somewhere between a wail and a whimper in reply. St. Cyprian ignored him and clapped his hands together. “Right, yes, well, first things first, we’ll need a pentacle for Phillip here. And then something to deal with whatever decides to crawl out of that box in…” He fished a pocket watch out of his waist coat and opened it. He glanced at Wendy-Smythe. “When did you finish fiddling with the cursed artefact of infernal facets and eldritch design, Phillip? Two-ish or thereabouts, wasn’t it?” He snapped the watch closed without waiting for a reply. “Approximately twenty minutes, then. Give or take.” “Give or take,” Wendy-Smythe said in a strangled voice. “This ain’t an exact science, Phillip,” St. Cyprian said, looking back at the box. “And if it were, you still wouldn’t know,” Gallowglass said. She snapped the revolver closed and slid it into the shoulder holster beneath her coat. St. Cyprian whirled, mouth open to protest. Before he could, Gallowglass hopped off of her perch and said, “One pentacle coming right up. I’ll go get the kit out of the Crossley.” St. Cyprian studied the box with the air of a billiards player lining up a shot. “I did warn you about playing with this grisly little device,” he said. “I couldn’t help it,” Wendy-Smythe moaned. “It called to me, whispered sweet nothings about the hidden knowledge that would be revealed unto me should I but solve a child’s puzzle. I just wanted to know—to see!”


“I hate to point this out, old thing, but this is really just the powdered werewolf teeth all over again, ain’t it?” St. Cyprian gave Wendy-Smythe a stern look. “And that dratted business with those canopic jars two months ago—you remember that?” “Yes,” Wendy-Smythe said weakly. “Do you? Because I don’t think you do. A man who remembered unleashing a phantom clowder of angry Egyptian cat spirits might not be so eager to play with an obviously demonic puzzle-box.” “I did write a dashed swell letter of apology about the cat-thing,” Wendy-Smythe muttered. “And those werewolf teeth weren’t real anyway.” St. Cyprian patted the other man on the shoulder and turned back to the box. The hum had grown louder and more piercing. It sounded as if there were a nest of hornets trapped in the box. The light which emanated from the box had grown stronger, shrouding the room with a sickly haze, and strange shadows squirmed just out of his eye -line. “What’s in it, Charles? What have I awoken?” Wendy-Smythe whispered. He shuddered where he stood. “I can hear it whispering even now, in a voice like the rustle of leaves in a growing wind. It is a voice of doom—insidious and triumphant!” “Really...what’s it saying?” St. Cyprian said. He watched the shadows hump and congeal about the box like a gauzy halo of smoke. There were shapes in the shadows, like contorted human figures, writhing and spinning. It was almost hypnotic, in the way a serpent’s gaze was said to be. More than that, it was exceedingly disquieting, even for him. The air was charged with a foul anticipation, as if some great beast were crouched, waiting, just out of sight. Part of him wanted nothing more than to turn around and walk out, leaving Wendy-Smythe to his fate. Unfortunately, he had a job to do. Besides which, for all his faults, Wendy-Smythe was a friend, of sorts. “It’s telling me what awaits me—it’s saying that I’ll have all of the answers I desire. Every mystery will be solved, ever crumb of secret knowledge mine to devour after I have been transfigured by He Who Comes,” Wendy-Smythe mumbled. “Yes, it would say something like that wouldn’t it. Tearing the whatsit off the face of the world and all that rot,” St. Cyprian said. Before Wendy-Smythe could reply, Gallowglass kicked open the door of the study and staggered in, swinging an obviously overburdened Gladstone bag. She dropped it on the floor and gave it a kick. “Brought the kit,” she said. “And in one piece, if only just,” St. Cyprian said. “Whatever would I do without you, Ms. Gallowglass?” “Die,” she said simply. She sank to her haunches and opened the bag. She extracted a mouldering satchel, on which strange sigils were sewn, and plucked a piece of chalk from it. “You want to do the honours, or you want me to do it?” “You’re the one with the artist’s touch. Don’t get too close to the box though. Remember what happened in Myrdstone, what?”


“That wasn’t my fault,” Gallowglass said sourly. She extracted several short sections of polished wood and began to assemble them into something resembling a snooker cue. Once it was complete, she attached the chalk to the tip and began to scratch out a circle around the hovering box. She gave no notice to the shadows that clustered about her, and they in return, shied away. There was something about Gallowglass which put off the more ethereal types, St. Cyprian had noticed. In the same way dockside roughs would cross to the other side of the street when they saw her coming towards them, ghosts, spooks and spectres would waft out of her path with unseemly haste. As Gallowglass drew the protective pentacle, St. Cyprian went to the bag and withdrew several more objects. Wendy-Smythe hovered over his shoulder and darted nervous glances at the floating puzzle box. “As to your earlier question, it’s like this, Phillip,” St. Cyprian said, as he removed a pair of thick, metal gauntlets, with bunched sleeves of chainmail. Strange, jagged symbols had been scratched into the metal of the gauntlets, and they were dark with age. “That’s less a puzzle box than a door, of sorts. And what you’ve done is unlocked that door, at the behest of a glib-tongued prowler on the other side. Now, said prowler is scratching at the door with his various and sundry limbs, and nudging it open. So what we need to do is wedge the door shut, get the key back in the lock and bob’s your uncle.” He held up a small vial containing an oily liquid and gave a swirl. “Not very quick on the draw, your average threshold lurker. Takes them time to slough off one dimension and enter another, rather like a snake shedding its skin. Normally, you’d have been bally hypnotised or otherwise indisposed, only able to watch in mounting horror as your doom approached with all the alacrity of a moderately lazy garden slug. Lucky for you, you’ve had a bit of experience with the secret rhythms of the world and all that, and you managed to shake it off and call me.” He anointed the gauntlets and the sleeves with the oil. “Old Comte d’Erlette—he of the aforementioned d’Erlette Configuration—was a rum fellow. Wrote that ghastly Cultes des Goules grimoire back in 1702, and came to bad end soon after, as those fellows often do. Before he joined the Choir Invisible, however, he paid for the construction of a number of these nasty little toys—word has it a French toymaker of dubious reputation was involved, but that’s neither here nor there, one supposes. I say, how are we coming, Ms. Gallowglass?” St. Cyprian called out, over his shoulder. “It’s trying the eat the chalk,” came the reply. “Well don’t bloody let it; that stuff expensive,” St. Cyprian said, without turning around. The chalk was made from the powdered bones of martyrs, and there weren’t as many of those as one might think. Wendy-Smythe gibbered tinnily, his eyes bulging in horror as he watched Gallowglass at her work. St. Cyprian reached up and gently slapped the other man. “Pay attention, Phillip, this is for your benef it, not mine.” “What—what—what...” Wendy-Smythe babbled, looking down at him. “It’s just a bit of ectenic distortion, nothing to fear. Think of it as the warning growl of a predator on the hunt,” St. Cyprian said. He finished anointing the gauntlets and set the vial back in the bag. “Now, where was I—oh yes, puzzle boxes. At any rate, d’Erlette had a number of these little booby-traps devised, for some insane reason. He was French, so there’s really no


telling. Maybe something spoke to him in the dark, or maybe he swore an oath, or maybe he was just a nihilistic prankster. Regardless, the boxes are bad juju. There’s no telling what sort of horror is lurking in there—a pandimensional sadist perhaps, or some form of tentacle-waving feaster from the stars. It’s a bit like Christmas...you never really know what you’re going to get. Help me get these on, would you Phillip?” He gestured to the gauntlets. “What—what are you going to do?” Wendy-Smythe whispered. The hum from the box had grown painfully loud now. There was grinding, screeching quality to it, as if massive gears were turning somewhere. The box had lost all shape, and become a jumbled mess of facets which moved and slid about seemingly at random. Eerie squamous shapes flitted between the facets, and a sound like teeth chattering filled the room. Gallowglass looked as if she were caught in a hell-born wind, her coat flapping as she finished the last sigil of the pentacle and stepped back, chalk-stick extended like a spear. “You sure about this?” Gallowglass muttered as St. Cyprian stripped off his coat and stretched like a runner preparing for a marathon. “Not in the least,” St. Cyprian said, as Wendy-Smythe helped him pull on the gauntlets. The chainmail sleeves stretched to his shoulders and were connected behind his neck by a leather strap. He flexed the fingers of the gauntlets. “Wish me luck!” Then, without further hesitation, he stepped towards the outer edge of the pentacle. A wave of heat caressed his face, and he smelled a foul odour, like an open crypt on a summer day. Things moved out of the corner of his eye, shapes which were at once vast and miniscule, but always incomprehensible. They swam about him as the light from the puzzle box became a harsh, eye-searing violet in hue. The floating box seemed to recede as he reached for it, shrinking from his touch. Steam rose from the gauntlets as the holy oils did their work. Sweat rolled down his face, and the smell grew worse as he reached for the jumble of facets that made up the d’Erlette Configuration. It was like pushing his arms into hot treacle, but he succeeded and grabbing hold of something solid. Whatever it was squirmed and thrashed in his grip as he began to bend and twist the shimmering facets back into the shape they’d once held. They fought against him, and soon, his arms were trembling with effort. He caught glimpses of what lay within the facets, an impossible space full of abominable architecture which folded in on itself again and again, and a-glow with a violet radiance that caused his stomach to churn. There was a shape there, far away, but striding closer with every second. He could feel the floorboards beneath his feet tremble with the phantom tread of the figure. It seemed to fill the audient void, blotting out the light as it moved, loped, squeezed itself through the grotesque encrustations which blotted the world beyond. It spoke as it moved, blighting the air with its voice. It roared and whispered all at once, and St. Cyprian squinted against the resultant waves of pain that threatened to eclipse his senses. He fought against the unwilling facets, shuffling them back into place. It was as much an effort of faith as it was any skill at puzzle solving. Steam billowed from his gauntlets now, obscuring his vision. The heat pressed against him in invisible coils. His clothes began to char and smoke in places. The shape had almost reached him. It stretched out towards him, and a


writhing mass of dark things exploded into the world, slithering about his arms and lashing at him with stinging force. “I say, a bit of help wouldn’t go amiss,” he yelped. The tendrils gripped him, and his feet began to slide towards the pentacle edge as he was drawn towards horror that lurked within the facets. They were strong, and he knew that if he resisted, the Configuration would spring open once more, releasing the thing that now pressed against the other side. “Any time now, chaps!” Gallowglass was suddenly behind him, her revolver balanced on his shoulder. “Hold still,” she shouted as she took aim at the thing within the facets. The Webley-Fosbery roared, and St. Cyprian went momentarily deaf. Gallowglass emptied the cylinder and the tendrils retreated in confusion. Something that might have been a shriek of frustration reverberated through the room, and the pressure on the facets lessened. Panic lent him speed, and he worked quickly, heaving the box back into shape. As it shrank, the violet light faded, and the throbbing hum grew weaker and weaker. The grinding noises faded, and the monstrous tread began to retreat. Finally, as the light became merely a flicker, the box again resembled the simple child’s toy it pretended to be. It spun slowly between his palms, grudgingly shrinking back to its former proportions. Finally, the d’Erlette Configuration grudgingly settled in his hands. An unpleasant smoke rose from it, and his gauntlets had been charred black. Ash flaked away from his arms as he set the box down carefully in the center of the pentacle and backed away. The leather strap the held the gauntlets on had burnt to a cinder and he removed them with an exhausted shrug. They crashed to the floor, and lay smouldering. “Thank you, Ms. Gallowglass,” St. Cyprian said, plucking at his ruined shirt. “Your intervention was most timely.” Gallowglass holstered her pistol. “I don’t think I hurt it.” “Probably not. Gave it a shock though, I daresay. Enough to make it retreat.” He sniffed and looked at Wendy-Smythe, who had collapsed into a chair, his expression that of a man who had taken a flight over hell. Wendy-Smythe looked at him, and then past him at the box. As they watched, the d’Erlette Configuration settled into its old shape with a final despondent ‘click’, and sat silently smoking on the floor. “You’re welcome, by the way,” St. Cyprian said, after a moment.


NOTE: "Iron Bells" was published by Pill Hill Press in the 2011 anthology, THE TRIGGER REFLEX,

which is available via Amazon.com. It was reprinted in 2013 by Emby Press in the anthology, BOTH BARRELS, available from Amazon.com.

IRON BELLS For Robert Barbour Johnson, HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Arthur Machen, HG Wells and all of the things that have learned to walk that ought to crawl.

It was 1922 and the Minister of Transport for the London Underground was at a loss. Sitting in the parlour of a particular house on the Embankment, surrounded by curios from strange shores and books that smelled of unguents and oriental oils, he tried several times to begin. Finally, he simply came out with it. “Fifteen dead,” the Viscount Peel, the Minister, said as he dabbed his lips with a napkin. He folded the napkin carefully, placed it on his saucer and looked at his host. “We’ve called it a crash and roped off the area, of course.” “Of course,” Charles St. Cyprian said, sipping his tea. In contrast to Peel’s long, quintessentially English face and aristocratic style, St. Cyprian possessed hard olive features and a Mediterranean exoticism to his dress despite its Savile Row origins. “It wasn’t. A crash, I mean,” Peel added unnecessarily. “Of course,” St. Cyprian repeated. He put his cup down. “What does the Tunnel Authority say?” “They assure me that the-ah-the seals are undisturbed,” Peel said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Is that the correct word? Seals?” “Seals, sigils, symbols, if you will. Runes, even, if you prefer,” St. Cyprian said. He spoke with a certainty that one would expect of a man occupying the post of Royal Occultist. Formed


during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had been known) had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee, and passed through a succession of hands since. The list was a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history, and culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian. “Care for more tea, Viscount?” he continued, making an offhand gesture with the tea pot. “No. Thank you, Mr. St. Cyprian. The—ah—the Authority recommended that I contact you. A Mr. Morris, in the Ministry, spoke quite highly of you and you’re particular...talents.” “Is that what Morris called them?” St. Cyprian said. “Talents?” “Highly? Us?” said the third person sitting in the study. Ebe Gallowglass was, for lack of a better description, St. Cyprian’s assistant. Dark-skinned and wielding a startlingly white smile, she would have been referred to as an apprentice in earlier centuries. In 1922, she was simply an annoyance of the most vocal kind where men like Peel were concerned, dressed flamboyantly in men’s clothes and bearing a revolver with the smug self -assurance of a merchant seaman. “That’s a laugh and half,” she continued, scrubbing a thumb across the spatter of freckles that occupied the bridge of her nose. Peel frowned. “Unfortunately, he was slightly more vulgar. Still, I have high hopes you can deal with our little matter.” “Fifteen people is a little matter?” Gallowglass broke a biscuit between two fingers and nibbled it insouciantly as she met the Viscount’s glare with a bland gaze. “Bloody hate to see a big one.” “I apologize,” St. Cyprian said, smiling sli ghtly. “Ms. Gallowglass is afflicted with terminal impudence.” “Impudence is fatal now?” she interjected. St. Cyprian glanced at her. “For you? Quite possibly.” He turned back to Peel. “Do go on Viscount.” “Hmp. Yes, well.” Peel looked at St. Cyprian. “Morris said that you would need the area left as is. The Tunnel Authority have seen to sealing it off for you. One of them-Stanhook, I believe his name is-will be waiting on you. Solid fellow. Bit queer, but then all those Tunnel fellows are a bit, you know, eh?” Peel made a shaky gesture and shook his head. “Considering what they have to deal with, I do believe they’re allowed a bit of oddity.” St. Cyprian snapped a biscuit in half and swallowed the larger piece almost without chewing. “Worm that gnaws, wot?” “Er, yes, rather,” Peel said hesitantly. From the unhealthy sheen of his face, St. Cyprian figured that the Viscount had only recently been filled in on certain pertinent details regarding London’s Underground. It was a strange world down there, in many ways a funhouse mirror version of the city above. Right down to the inhabitants. “Have a biscuit, Viscount,” St. Cyprian said kindly, pushing the plate towards Peel in order to hide his shudder. “We’ll have it sorted, never fear. The Office of the Royal Occultist has long had a working relationship with the honourable gentlemen of the London Tunnel


Authority.” After the biscuits were gone and the tea had been reduced to dregs, St. Cyprian and Gallowglass found themselves trooping down the stairs into the maw of the Embankment Underground Station. Two uniformed police constables had been stationed above to turn back the hoi-polloi, but they stepped aside for the duo, nodding respectfully. One tapped the brim of his helmet. “So,” Gallowglass said as they stepped onto the platform. Colourful posters lined the curving brick walls, boasting the merits of the zoo or Hampton Court. “So?” St. Cyprian said, stepping to the edge of the platform and peering into the tunnel, his hands in his pockets. “What’s so scary about the Underground then?” Gallowglass said, joining him. She lit a cigarette and handed him the lighter. St. Cyprian popped open his silver cigarette case, selected one and lit it. The brand was unique; hand-rolled by a Moro woman in Limehouse and delivered to her customers by armed courier. “Depends who you ask,” he said, blowing smoke through his nostrils. The platform was empty, thanks to the Metropolitan’s finest above, and eerily quiet. Their voices echoed strangely, fleeing into the tunnels and cascading away into unseen depths. “Funny. I thought I was asking you,” Gallowglass said, snatching the lighter back and bouncing it on her palm. “I’ve never heard of the London Tunnel Authority.” “Really? Old firm, that lot.” “How old?” “Their charter goes back before the Great Fire, I should think.” St. Cyprian glanced at her. “Before you ask, it was the first Great Fire, when our fair city was Londinium.” Gallowglass whistled. “Old firm too right. So who are they?” “Canaries in a coal-mine,” St. Cyprian said, smiling bitterly. “Only slightly more expendable.” “That clears everything up, thank you,” she said sourly. “Glad to be of service, assistant mine.” St. Cyprian tossed his cigarette onto the platform and crushed it under his heel. “Speaking of assistance...I do believe our ride i s here.” The low little shape scooted up the line towards the platform with a loud clackety-clack, the large spotlights mounted on the front, sides and back railing blazing away despite the relatively well-lit condition of the platform. It paused in a shower of sparks and a metal gangplank extended, connecting the platform with what was revealed as a heavy-duty hand-car with a chugging, chuffling gasoline engine mounted on the rear. Three men rode the car, dressed all alike in boiler suits and hard-hats with lamps mounted on the brims. Two had Thompson sub-machine guns clutched in their gloved hands, with extra ammo drums clipped to the harnesses they wore. The third man had a Mauser pistol hol stered on his hip and a Webley revolver in his hand.


It was the latter who opened the side gate on the hand-car railing and beckoned St. Cyprian and Gallowglass forward. “Mr. St. Cyprian? Ian Stanhook, night-manager for the Thames Section. Glad to see you sir. Damn glad. Care to come aboard?” “After you, Ms. Gallowglass,” St. Cyprian said. They boarded quickly and the hand-car set off with a squeal even before Stanhook had gotten the gate shut. “Glad you could come out sir!” Stanhook shouted over the growl of the engine as they whipped through the tunnels. “How bad is it?” St. Cyprian shouted back. “Not as bad as Tunnel 18, but worse than Charing Cross!” Stanhook said, holstering his Webley. “Don’t know what it’s all about really though!” “How are the seals holding?” “Bit of leakage sir, but that’s natural!” Stanhook said grinning. “We can handle the odd vagrant, no worries!” “You don’t think this is one of their lot then?” St. Cyprian said, ignoring Gallowglass’ inquiring look. “You’re sure?” “Sure as we can be where they’re concerned!” Stanhook said. He gestured to the rail. “Hold tight, we’re heading to the sub-platform now!” Abruptly the hand-car took a sharp turn and then it was hurtling down a slope. Gallowglass repressed a squeal of frig ht. A moment later she glared at St. Cyprian who was grinning openly at her. The hand-car slowed in a burst of sparks and the engine’s roar died to a grumble. Ahead of them, a solitary underground carriage sat on the track. More boiler-suit men occupied the platform, most carrying weapons. Once the plank was extended, Stanhook led St. Cyprian and Gallowglass up onto the platform. Another man took his place on the hand-car and it reversed course with a shriek, hurtling back up the tunnel. “We’ve still got a few checks to run this evening,” Stanhook said by way of explanation. “We can’t let anything deter us from our appointed rounds, can we?” He took off his helmet and ran a hand through his sweaty mop of hair. He was a short man and built spare, with a wilting grin and a long face. “So what exactly is it that you do down here?” Gallowglass said. Stanhook looked at St. Cyprian, who shrugged. “Well, we see to the integrity of the Underground,” Stanhook said. “Keep the tunnels free of vermin and such.” He lit a foul-smelling cheroot with a match and sucked in a lungful of smoke. “We also see to certain sewer lines and cellars and such.” “Vermin,” Gallowglass said. “Mostly vermin,” Stanhook said, nodding. “Not rats,” Gallowglass said, looking at St. Cyprian. “Sometimes rats,” he replied.


“Of unusual size,” Stanhook said, spreading his hands. He dropped his hands and nodded to the carriage. “This wasn’t rats of any description though, I’m afraid.” “No, it wouldn’t be,” St. Cyprian said, striding towards the carriage with his hands in his pockets. Gallowglass and Stanhook hurried to catch up. The doors were open and the smell of carnage was heavy on the recycled air. The guards on the doors steadfastly kept their eyes turned away. St. Cyprian gingerly stepped inside. “Mind the blood,” he said tersely. Gallowglass cursed as she caught sight of the pitiful, mangled scraps of once-human meat that occupied the length and breadth of the carriage. Instinctively, her fingers found the butt of the Bulldog revolver holstered beneath her frock coat and she stroked the Seal of Solomon carved there on the ivory grips. “What the devil happened in here?” “The devil indeed,” St. Cyprian said, hiking up his trouser cuffs and sinking to his haunches near one of the more intact bodies. His face had gone gray and assumed a pinched look. Memories of Ypres, never buried too deeply, surged to the surface of his mind like hungry sharks. He closed his eyes for a minute, trying to push back against the flashes of blood and wire. He’d taken two bullets, but there were other wounds than just the physical. When he opened his eyes, he took a breath and began to examine the corpse. “Parallel slashes. No, more like rips than slashes. This wasn’t done by claws so much as brute strength.” He glanced over his shoulder at Stanhook. “You’re certain there was no leakage around the tunnel seals?” “Yes,” Stanhook said, nodding jerkily. “They’ve-ah-they’ve been quiet lately.” “They?” Gallowglass said. “Good.” St. Cyprian ignored her and looked around, his dark eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “All of the blood is on the inside, did you notice that?” He stood and sniffed the air. “And the smell...” “It smells like blood,” Gallowglass said, tapping her fingers against her pistol. “Who’s ‘they’?” “And only blood. No odour of the unnatural. No musk or must or mildew. The doors weren’t forced, the windows are unbroken and the roof hasn’t been breached.” St. Cyprian gestured as he spoke. He blithely ignored the glares his assistant tossed his way and turned to Stanhook. “What are you saying?” Stanhook said. “Inside job,” Gallowglass said, shaking her head. “Someone-something was on here with them.” She looked around, her olive features strained. “Christ.” “Not even close,” St. Cyprian said. He looked at the floor. “Footprints, Stanhook, from bare feet. I assume you followed them?” “We tracked them to the stairs going to the street. Then they just...stopped.” Stanhook frowned. “They were human enough looking, if a bit big.” “So where did he-did it-go then?” Gallowglass said.


“Home, I assume,” St. Cyprian said. “He put his shoes on and went home.” He turned in place, patting the air with his hands. “There’s something here. Something we’re not seeing.” “Shoes?” Stanhook said, blinking. “Yes. That’s why the tracks vanished, you see. He put his shoes back on.” St. Cyprian waved a hand. “That’s not important. What is important is that we find this individual.” “You think we’re dealing with a man, then?” Stanhook said. “And not one of them?” “Them, they, those,” Gallowglass said. “Who are they?” “They are not our concern,” St. Cyprian said. He cast a look at Gallowglass and her mouth shut with an audible snap. “Double your patrols, Mr. Stanhook. Watch the joins and set up some unscheduled line work in the deeper sections until we get this sorted.” “And him?” Stanhook said. “What do you think-” “It’s not one of them. That’s all that matters.” “What about this?” Stanhook said, indicating the carriage. “A terrible accident. No survivors.” St. Cyprian paused, and then said, “Destroy the carriage. No sense in riling them up with something that smells, however faintly, of food.” Stanhook gave another jerky nod. “Right. You’ll call us in if there’s any problem?” “Indubitably,” St. Cyprian said. “Until then...” “Double the patrols. As you say, sir. No fears, we’ll see to it,” Stanhook said, pulling his Webley and checking the cylinder. He spun it shut with a slap of his palm. “We always see to it, in the end.” There seemed to be little else to say. Before they left the carriage, St. Cyprian borrowed a pair of pliers from one of the boiler-men and extracted a handful of teeth from the mess. Borrowing a canteen next, he washed the teeth clean and dried them with his handkerchief. Wrapping them up tightly, he bounced the package on his palm and led Gallowglass up the stairs and away from the platform. More bobbies met them at the exit, looking pale-faced and full of questions. They said nothing however, merely nodding in recognition. “Good old Metropolitan Section 13,” St. Cyprian said, returning the nods. “They can be counted on to see nothing, hear nothing, and do what’s required.” “Because if they don’t, Morris from the Ministry and his lot will have them out of uniform and on the dole or in the dock faster than they can spit,” Gallowglass said. “And speaking of hearing nothing...” St. Cyprian sighed. “I’m sorry. I was hoping not to have to give you this particular lowdown until farther along in our association. And in better circumstances.” They stepped out onto the street and St. Cyprian took a deep breath, as if seeking to expel the stink of dark places from his lungs. “Just give it to me straight, if you would,” she said, her dark eyes boring into his own.


“Straight eh? Fine. Here’s straight...there are things in the deep that walk that ought to crawl. Straight enough?” “Crooked as a corkscrew,” Gallowglass said, lighting a cigarette. She cast a nervous glance at the station they had just left. “Things?” “You grew up in Cairo. Surely you heard stories about ghuls?” he said. “I was too busy scrounging to listen to stories,” she said tersely. “Ever read any HG Wells then?” “Yes, I-hnh. Morlocks?” Gallowglass said, her expression moving f rom curiosity to incredulity. “Really?” “Very good. And no, not really.” St. Cyprian opened the handkerchief on his palm and spilled the teeth out onto the sidewalk. It was late enough that were no prying eyes to see as he took out a pen-knife and pricked his thumb. “But it’s as good an appellation as any. Morlocks, ghouls, mole people, all names for the same phenomena.” “What are you doing with those?” “I thought you wanted to hear about ghouls,” St. Cyprian said. He sniffed. “Just a bit of the old black Kush. Bits of the cruelly dead to roust out a murderer.” Blood welled out of the hole in his thumb and he deftly squeezed several drops onto each tooth. “Their presence has been noted in every country in the world and by every people. The Bible references ‘the ghouls that burrow’, as does a number of other holy-not to mention unholy-books. In Persia, in Russia and in China they hunt them with guns, dogs and fire. Here we have solid chaps like Stanhook and the London Tunnel Authority.” “So those seals you kept mentioning...” “One of the original duties of this Office was to the craf ting and maintaining of certain wards against unannounced visits from our neighbours far below,” St. Cyprian said. Squeezing out another patter of blood, he swiftly smudged a curving sigil on the pavement near the teeth, followed by three more, one at each of the compass points. “When they began the excavation for the Underground, it stirred the devils up something fierce.” He frowned. “They reported most of the deaths as being due to flooding or tunnels collapsing. Drood—no, Beamish—was Royal Occultist then. I’ve read his notes from that period.” He shook his head. “Not bedtime reading by any stretch of the definition.” He sat back on his haunches and looked up at her. “They’re everywhere, you see. They’re crawling and creeping right now beneath every major city on Earth, as well as under every hamlet and every backwoods village. Oh, some places are free of ‘em to be sure, but only because something infinitely worse is there instead.” His voice was flat and emotionless. “In the War, they dug up through the trenches and dragged the dead into the depths. That’s where I first saw ‘em. Poor old Carnacki pointed them out to me and showed me how to draw the Caudete Loop to warn them off. Likely they’d never seen such a banquet, the beasts. I-” He stopped and shook his head. “What are they?” she said. “Really, I mean. Are they people? Or something else?”


“What they are is not our problem,” St. Cyprian said. “Not now. Hopefully never.” “Sounds like our sort of problem to me,” Gallowglass said. “Not this. I-Hell.” St. Cyprian stood. On the pavement, the teeth were jumping like droplets of grease in a frying pan. Swiftly, he snatched them up and deposited them back in the handkerchief, tying up the ends as he did so. Then he held the parcel out, letting his arm move back and forth. The rattling of the teeth grew louder or quieter depending on the direction and St. Cyprian set off in the direction that caused the loudest noise. “So we’re listening to teeth now?” Gallowglass said. “To tell the tooth, I-” St. Cyprian began, and then stopped when he caught Gallowglass’ flat glare. “Not in the mood for puns?” “No. How is a colony of mole-people living under London not our problem exactly?” she said. “Since the Romans enacted the Treaty of Pompelo, to keep our race and theirs from going to war,” St. Cyprian said. “The ones the Tunnel Authority deals with are the equivalent to ye auld Scottish Border Reivers. They raid our world and we deal with them accordingly. Anything more could lead to...unpleasantness.” “You saying it’s not already unpleasant?” “I’m saying it could be worse!” St. Cyprian rounded on her, teeth bared. “They were here before our ancestors came down out of the trees and we caught ‘em by surprise once, just long enough to drive them underground, but they’re ready for us now, don’t thi nk they aren’t! There’s an awful secret wisdom down there in those millennia old catacombs...why else would wizard and shaman alike go down into the earth seeking knowledge?” He made a face. “We can’t win, don’t you see? The best we can do is hold the line. Once a year I go down with the Tunnel Authority and renew the seals on the walls of the Underground and in the sewers and cellars and we hope-we pray-that there’s no secret incursion in some East End cellar where they’ll gather and breed like rats.” “And if they do?” Gallowglass said quietly. “Then Stanhook and his ilk go in with fire and guns and burn them out. They seal the holes with brick and plaster and then I paint a certain marking on the wall and in five or ten or twenty years my successor will do the same again when they’ve worn the seal away or some fool builder has smashed it aside in order to re-do the downstairs.” He held up the handkerchief full of chattering teeth and smiled thinly. “But that in the carriage? That we can do something about. That is in our remit, most assuredly. Now, do you want to do something worthwhile or would you like to argue some more?” Gallowglass pulled her pistol and spun the cylinder. “Toothfully?” she said, grinning slightly, trying to lighten the mood. “I’d like a lie-down and a cuppa. But I’ll settle for shooting something.” St. Cyprian gave a laugh and turned away. “I rather think that can be arranged.”


“Where are we anyway?” “Highgate, I believe.” St. Cyprian held up his hand. “This way!” They moved at a quick trot through the darkened streets. Gallowglass kept her pistol down by her side, her thumb on the hammer. The rattle of the teeth grew louder and louder as they moved through the narrow streets of Highgate village. Finally, the teeth became so loud that St. Cyprian was forced to wrap them tightly and stuff them into his coat pocket. “I do believe we’re here,” he said quietly, gesturing to a house on the cusp of the hill. “You can see the city from up here,” Gallowglass said, gesturing to the expanse of London visible from the crest of the street. “Like the top of a termite mound,” St. Cyprian said, turning to the house. “Unfortunate choice of words,” Gallowglass said quietly. She had holstered her pistol, but her hands clenched nervously. “Considering, I mean.” “Possibly,” St. Cyprian said. “Care to do the honours?” He gestured to the door. “Why me?” “Well, you are my assistant.” “And that means I knock on doors for you now?” “No. It means that you stand in front of me when we’re about to enter someplace potentially dangerous.” St. Cyprian grinned at her, his teeth flashing in the darkness. Gallowglass made a disgusted noise and went to the door. She rapped sharply and stepped back, one hand beneath her coat. St. Cyprian stood behind her and to the side, his own pistol out albeit hidden by her form. The brief echoes of the knock faded. No lights came on. “Maybe no one’s home,” Gallowglass said. St. Cyprian held up a hand. “Or maybe they’re watching us through the window there. I just saw the curtains twitch.” “Want me to shoot the lock off?” “I believe the lock is on the inside of the door. And no, not at the moment.” St. Cyprian pulled his Webley and rapped the butt against the door. The lanyard ring gouged the brightly painted wood. “Open up in the name of the law!” “And what law are we, exactly?” Gallowglass said. “Law of the land. Law of the living. Law of the open the bloody door!” St. Cyprian bellowed. Lights came on down the street and somewhere a dog began to bark. “It would have been quieter to shoot it open,” Gallowglass said, looking around. “But less satisfying. Hsst.” St. Cyprian stepped back and holstered his pistol. The door opened. A pale, rotund face peered out at them, owlish eyes blinking behind wire-frame


spectacles. “Dear me, yes-ah-Officer...?” “Good evening sir. Charles Morris, with His Majesty’s Ministry. May we come in?” St. Cyprian said, smiling genially. “We-ah-who-” “My assistant, Ms. Havisham,” St. Cyprian said, waving a hand in Gallowglass’ general direction. “Wotcher,” Gallowglass said. “Havisham?” The round eyes blinked and the cherubic face retreated. “I-yes-of course, dear me, dear me.” “Havisham?” Gallowglass hissed, glaring sideways at St. Cyprian. “I only said it because I fully expect you to be left at the altar some day,” St. Cyprian said in a placating tone. He grunted as her knuckles dug into his arm. They stepped inside and were greeted by the glassy eyes of shelf after shelf of foreign curios and knickknacks. The owner of said curios was of average height but above average bulk, with an egg-shaped body and bent arms that ended in hands that clasped nervously. Slightly bowed legs added to the general impression of obesity and fragility he exuded. “What-ah-what Ministry did you say you were with?” he said, lips pursed. “Just the Ministry, Mr...” St. Cyprian said. “Dibny. Dibny Bunter.” A wide tongue made a quick visit, dabbing at the plump lips. “Is there some-ah-problem?” “Nothing a quick chat won’t clear up I shouldn’t think,” St. Cyprian said, patting Bunter on the arm. “I understand that it’s late, but i t is urgent sir, very urgent. A matter of national import, in fact.” “National...? Dear me, dear me. I don’t suppose you’d like a cuppa?” “Kill for one, Mr. Bunter. Murder a man stone-dead,” Gallowglass said. She was rewarded by a twitch of Bunter’s thick eyebrow. They followed the hobbling figure back through his cramped rat-warren of a home, dodging stacks of newspaper and empty boxes and ill-placed shelves. More ceramic and glass statuary guarded the approach to the kitchen and St. Cyprian caught himself trading stares with a garishly decorated clown for a moment longer than he felt was entirely healthy. The man was a pack rat. Their host began to rummage around in various cupboards as they took seats at the narrow table. “I’ll put the kettle on, won’t be a minute, no,” Bunter said, waddling back and forth. “Delightful Mr. Bunter, I’m sure. Now, might I ask whether you were out and about tonight at all?” St. Cyprian said.


“Tonight? Eh? No, dear me, no, I don’t go out, no,” Bunter said, blinking rapidly. “That’sno, oh no-that’s quite of the question.” He made pushing motions with his hands. Gallowglass glanced at St. Cyprian and they shared a look. “Mind if I nip to the loo?” Gallowglass said. “Is it upstairs?” “I-yes, dear me, mind the ah-upstairs, yes,” Bunter said, licking his lips, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. Behind him the kettle began to whistle. “To-ah-to your right? Left.” He turned and plucked the battered old kettle off the hob. “Yes, to your left, top of the stairs.” He looked at St. Cyprian. “Milk, Mr. Morris?” “No thank you,” St. Cyprian said. “So you say you weren’t out?” “I don’t go out,” Bunter said, watching St. Cyprian stir the tea to cool it. “It’s the bells, you see. I can’t abide the bells.” “Bells?” “The bells. This city is full of bells. Clanging and ringing and groaning. There’s so much...noise. So much noise. Even, dear me, even down-ah-down there,” Bunter said hesitantly, gesturing towards a door on the far wall. St. Cyprian looked at the door and frowned. It was, to all intents and purposes a cellar door like any other. Granted, most cellar doors didn’t have padlocks and strap-locks and pinned hinges. A tingle of the old fear rippled through him. The locks were open and there was a smudge of red on the frame. “Down there...you mean the tube?” St. Cyprian said. Something scuttled behind the plaster of the wall, though Bunter gave no sign that he’d noticed. “Runs right under the house, you know. Right under the hill. I can feel it, dear me, I can feel it in the soles of my feet.” St. Cyprian glanced down. Bunter’s feet were crammed into bedroom slippers. He looked up, watching the other man drop five cubes of sugar into his tea. “The iron bells,” Bunter went on. “Poe, you know.” “Poe?” “The American writer? Dear me, dear me, I do love a bit of Poe. Ghastly, grim and-ah-” “Ghoulish?” St. Cyprian said. Bunter froze, his face becoming waxy and mask-like. “Ah, ah, ah, yes, dear me,” he said. “Your tea is getting cold, Mr. Morris.” “Hear the tolling of the bells, the iron bells, what a world of solemn thought their monody compels...that Poe?” St. Cyprian said, stirring his tea. Bunter’s head bobbed. “How we shiver with affright at the melancholy menace of their tone,” he said idly, his eyes unfocused. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his face. In the dull light of the kitchen, he didn’t look so much cherubic as simian. He blinked and looked up. “Wherever is Ms. Havisham?” “Satis House?” St. Cyprian said. “Eh?”


“I said, they that dwell up in the steeple. The bell-ringers, you know.” “Yes? Dear me, dear me,” Bunter said. “Lovely poem, lovely poem. But he was right, old Poe. Horrid things, bells.” Bunter’s fingers writhed around his cup. “I can hear them when I sleep, tolling up from below. Far below...” “They are neither man nor woman, brute nor human-they are ghouls,” St. Cyprian said. Gallowglass stood in the kitchen doorway. She held a blood-stained pair of trousers dangling from the barrel of her pistol. Bunter looked up. “Ghouls? No. Dear me, oh no, I-” He caught sight of Gallowglass and his expression became glassy. “I say, that’s-that’s mine.” “Ticket stub in the pocket,” Gallowglass said, watching Bunter the way someone might watch a rattlesnake. “He was on the carriage.” “I know,” St. Cyprian said as he pulled the teeth out of his pocket and unwrapped them. They hopped and bounced out of the cloth, skidding across the table. Bunter shot back so fast his chair fell over with a bang and he backed up against the cellar door. “What-what-what-” he stammered. “A bit of the old whatsit,” St. Cyprian said, rising to his feet. “Necromancy I should say. Bad juju, but efficient enough when it comes to hunting down killers.” “I-kill? No! Dear me, I-” “You can’t deny the tooth,” Gallowglass said grimly. The teeth hopped and jumped at the edge of the table like hungry dogs trying to leap over a fence. Bunter’s lips writhed back from surprisingly large teeth and then he was lunging forward, nightshirt flapping. With a bellow, he flipped the table and spun, wrenching open the cellar door. “The bells! The bells!” he howled, bounding down into the darkness. “Bells?” Gallowglass said, looking at St. Cyprian after a moment of shock. “Classical reference,” he said. “I see an electric torch on the icebox there. Grab it and lets go.” “Down there? With him?” “No, upstairs. We’ll lock ourselves in the loo and wait for help.” St. Cyprian kicked the table aside and started for the stairs. He stopped just inside the door, listening. Gallowglass flipped on the torch and lit up the stairway. “Moved fast for a fat man,” she murmured, following St. Cyprian down the stairs. “Not so fat and not so much a man,” he said. He stopped on the final step and lifted up the ragged remains of a night-shirt. “Naked, though.” “Oh good. As if this wasn’t unpleasant enough.” Gallowglass panned the torch’s beam across the walls of the cellar. It was surprisingly empty, considering the state of the house above. Heavy bricks and flat paving stones were all that they could see.


There was a soft scratching sound all around them, like the midnight perambulations of hundreds of mice or rats. Gallowglass swallowed audibly. “Rats?” “Maybe. I think-” St. Cyprian was interrupted by a sudden rumbling. The floor shifted slightly beneath their feet, sending vibrations up through their legs. “What the devil was that?” Gallowglass said, swinging the torch-beam around. “The ten fifty-five Northern Line, I believe,” St. Cyprian said. “Poor devil was right...it does run right below his house.” In the darkness, something hissed. St. Cyprian spun, but too slowly. A pale fist thundered across his jaw and he fell, his pi stol sliding away in the dark. Gallowglass swung the torch around, catching the edge of a bestial white shape as it swung across the room towards her. Green cat-eyes glowed in the darkness and something snarled. Gallowglass fired twice, each shot lighting up the gloom. Bunter yelped and tumbled away. “Find my gun,” St. Cyprian said, rising into a crouch. “How about I find him first, eh?” Gallowglass snapped. A moment later she grunted as something crashed into her and threw her off of her feet. The torch hit the floor and spun. Worm-white feet danced in the light. “The bells, can you hear them?” Bunter growled, his formerly breathy voice gone guttural. “The iron bells, ringing in the depths, calling me down. Calling us down. But I don’t go far, dear me, no!” St. Cyprian listened to the pad of inhuman feet circling them. I n a spin of the torch, the light caught his pistol’s lanyard ring and he estimated the distance. “Why did you kill them, Mr. Bunter?” he said, hoping to distract the beast. “You don’t seem a bad sort, percussive obsession aside.” “I-kill? No. No!” There was a horrid slobbering sound. “When the iron bells ring, I go away! They’re ringing now...it’s so hard to think! Dear me, dear me, DEAR ME-” St. Cyprian lunged for his pistol. His buttons clattered as he slid across the floor and the butt slapped into his palm. He rolled onto his back and leveled the pistol as the white mass that was Bunter hurtled towards him, teeth bared and eyes wide and blazing. St. Cyprian fired and rolled aside. Bunter fell and stumbled past him. “I-I feel I’ve taken ill,” he coughed. One hairy hand clutched at his abdomen, where a red patch was spreading with swift finality. “Dear me, dear me...” He staggered back against the loose brick of the wall and toppled into it, rupturing it in a quiet explosion of brick dust and mould. Half in and half out of the cellar, Bunter stretched a hand into the darkness. “I think I’m dying,” he said, his rough voice pitifully small in the oppressive quiet of the cellar. “I can hear-” His thick fingers twitched and then, with a sigh, he was gone. “Is he-” Gallowglass began. “God I hope so.” With the back of his hand pressed to his mouth to stifle a coughing fit, St. Cyprian stepped towards the stunted body. His Webley was extended at the ready, and his


eyes were narrowed. “Light, please,” he said quietly. “I think he’s dead,” Gallowglass said, raising the torch. In the light, more than just Bunter’s shame was revealed. Wiry white hair clung to his body in thick patches. His feet were filthy and malformed, with oddly curled toes and wide soles. Even his face, now caught full in the light and freed of spectacles and shadow, was odd in a distasteful way. The jaw was shaped wrong and the neck was too thick. “Ugly bugger. No wonder he didn’t go out much,” Gallowglass said. “He’s not human,” St. Cyprian said. “Not fully anyway.” “So what is he?” “A changeling. They do that sometimes.” He swallowed. “They leave one of their own and snatch a child for a...a snack.” “So he’s-?” “Yes.” “He killed all those people,” she said. “He killed them, and he didn’t even know why, did he?” “No he didn’t,” St. Cyprian said, resting on his haunches. “Poor fellow was mad from the start. Trying to fit in, but never quite managing it until...what?” He made a face. “Something set him off. Re-ignited those atavistic impulses. Who knows, maybe they-” St. Cyprian stopped, his eyes widening. The scratching they had heard earlier had become louder now that the wall was down, but it was obvious now that it wasn’t rats of unusual size or otherwise, unfortunately. “What is it?” Gallowglass said. She ignored St. Cyprian’s frantic gestures to step back and drew closer to the wall. “Not rats,” St. Cyprian said harshly. In the light of the torch, something gleamed in the darkness behind the wall. Several somethings. The scratching grew louder and there was a flash of worm-pale flesh as something that might have been a hand reached through and tangled stubby fingers in Bunter’s blood-stained flesh. Almost gently, his body was drawn into the darkness where more hands waited. “No, not rats,” St. Cyprian repeated, taking aim with the Webley. Gallowglass grabbed his wrist. “You’ve got four shots left,” she said softly. She played the torch over the hole. The light reflected on the surface of more than four pair of eyes. Claws scratched on stone and eager panting filled the cellar as the rumble of a passing tube-train caused dust to drift down on their heads. From within the hole came the sound of meat being pulled from the bone and the slurping of marrow. “Why are they here?” Gallowglass said. “To take him back maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is that if they get out of there, they’ll kill us...” Slowly, carefully, St. Cyprian sank to his haunches and, with his pistol still aimed at the things beyond the wall, began to draw his finger through the dirt. Swiftly he cut the shape of a sigil in the dirt. From the hole came what might have been a disgruntled sigh.


Licking his lips nervously, St. Cyprian scraped another symbol, and then a third. The sigh rose to a growl. “That should do it. Back towards the stairs; keep the light on them,” he said, rising to his feet. “Whatever that was you drew, I think you made them mad,” Gallowglass said. “As long as they stay mad in there, I’ll live with it,” St. Cyprian said. “Keep going. Hop to it.” “I don’t hop,” Gallowglass said tersely. “Do you want to be eaten?” “Look at that! I’m hopping!” Gallowglass scrambled up the stone steps. St. Cyprian followed more sedately, his thumb on the Webley’s hammer and his finger trembling on the trigger. As he stepped through the door, he caught a last glimpse of them, watching him from the darkness, their eyes alight with cool, alien intelligence. Maybe they had been human once, but now...now they were something else entirely. Something malign and hungry. He had a brief image of termite mound cities, stretching down, down into the depths like a reflection of the city whose underbelly they clustered about. Of dim white ape-shapes bounding through filthy sewer pipes and through jungles of human waste and crouching on the platforms of forgotten ghost-stations. Of pale fingers prying at sewer grates and toilet pipes. We are here. We have always been here. And we always will be , those eyes seemed to say. Our children are among you already. And we will have back all that you have stolen. Then, one by one, they winked out, leaving him alone save for his fear and the stink of blood on the musty cellar air. Once they were upstairs, St. Cyprian replaced Bunter’s bolts and locks, his pistol close to hand. Gallowglass watched him, with her own recovered pistol cocked and ready. “We’ll call in Stanhook and the Tunnel Authority. Let them seal it up. Should have probably let them handle it in the first place,” he said. He turned to her, his face pale and sweating. “Was that them then?” she asked in a low voice, her eyes on the floor. “Yes.” St. Cyprian collapsed into a chair. His eyes were locked on the door, though his pistol was pointed at the floor. He wondered if they were down there looking up at him. “Yes, that was them. Our delightful neighbours to the far south.” “What was that he was going on about? Bells?” She looked at him, her eyes wide. “Was that them, do you think? Was that what he was talking about?” “I don’t know,” St. Cyprian said. He closed his eyes wearily. “But I wonder how many more poor buggers hear the same bells Bunter did...or will?”


NOTE: "Wendy-Smythe's Worm" was first published on the Royal Occultist site in 2012.

WENDY-SMYTHE’S WORM ‘This fearful worm would often feed On calves and lambs and sheep And swallow little children alive When they lay down to sleep…’ -The Lambton Worm, Folk song, County Durham

The egg hatched at midnight. The worm emerged, its still-soft scales rasping against the leathery edges of the egg, and dropped off of the display table to the floor of the study with a dull thump. It was the color of dried blood and already as long as a man’s arm. Eyes the color of rotting pears fastened first on the window, which looked out at the quiet Chelsea evening. Then, hunger prodding it, its eyes fixed on the softly snoring shape of the man in the chair near the crackling fire place and with an eager hiss the worm began to slither across the floor, its scales leaving gouges in the wood. As it undulated, its body began to stretch, growing longer and longer, until it was big enough to rear up behind the chair and curl around it. It opened its jaws, preparing to swallow the man’s head whole. The soft click of a pistol being cocked caused it to pause, however. The man in the chair opened his eyes and smiled. “Well, aren’t you the lovely beast?” Charles St. Cyprian was a lean man with striking olive features and hair the color of spilled ink. Dressed in an expensively tailored suit, he was the very model of the society set. He locked eyes with the worm and, almost gently, he brought together the strangely inscribed steel rings that encircled three fingers of his left hand in a quiet clink! “And big as well,” he said softly. “Bigger than I hoped, at least. Still, all part of the job, I suppose.”


The ‘job’ being the investigation, organization and occasional suppression of That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know, including vampires, ghosts, werewolves, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, bogles, barguests, boojums and other assorted unclassifiable entities, i ncluding worms of unusual size. All such creatures were the purview of the Royal Occultist, as were sorcerers, both foreign and domestic, and the occasional dragon. Formed during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had then been known) had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee, and the holders of the office had ranged from the heroic to the vil lainous, with a number of stops at marginal and ineffective along the way, culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian. The worm lunged. St. Cyprian dove out of the chair a moment before it struck and the Webley Bulldog revolver in his hand banged as he slid across the floor. The chair toppled backwards, and the worm with it, its coils squirming. It righted itself instantly and struck again, swifter than the snake it resembled. Fangs like knives sank into the floorboards as he rolled desperately aside. “Quick as well!” he said hurriedly. Scrambling to his feet, he fired his pistol again and again, neither shot having any more effect than the first, the bullets flattening themselves against the beast’s scales. The worm bunched and lunged, making a horrid whistling hiss that threatened his eardrums. He stumbled aside and then it was coiling around him i n one sinuous motion, its eyes wide with animal hunger. “Oh bugger,” its prey grunted as the coils tightened. Then, more loudly, “The bullets aren’t working!” “I told you so! Bullets cast from church bells or not, a revolver isn’t going to bloody well cut it!” a woman’s voice replied. A figure which had before now been crouched atop one of the large bookcases which occupied the study, rose and hefted a Moore & Harris double-barreled rifle. Dark and slim, Ebe Gallowglass was, as usual, dressed like some hybrid of a cinematic street urchin and a Parisian street-apache, with dashes of color in unusual places, and a battered newsboy cap on her head. The young woman sighted down the barrel, the tip of her tongue poking slightly out of one corner of her mouth. “This beauty, on the other hand…” she said, her finger brushing the trigger. Still trapped in the coils of the newly-hatched worm, St. Cyprian’s eyes widened. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” The worm struck, releasing its prey in the process. It arrowed across the room, smashing into the bookshelf hard enough to cause the ancient wood to crack and causing an avalanche of books to tumbled down, momentarily trapping the aggravated serpent. As it struggled to free itself, the bookcase shuddered and wobbled. Gallowglass jumped even as it fell on top of the worm. She hit the floor, the rifle going off with a thunderous roar. “Whoops,” she said, looking up, and then back at the bookcase. It wobbled, then, with a crack of splitting wood, the worm tore through the back of the bookshelf and reared up, twice as long now as it had been. Its eyes blazed with bestial fury as it pulled more and more of itself


out from within the fallen bookcase. She crawled backwards, reaching for the rifle where it had fallen. S t. Cyprian fired his useless revolver at the creature, trying to grab its attention. “On your feet, Ms. Gallowglass,” he said. “And be sharpish about it!” “No need to tell me twice, Mr. St. Cyprian,” she said, snatching up the rifle and cracking it open. She fumbled in the pockets of her trousers for new shells. “I can’t help but notice that the bastard is still growing, however.” “Worms grow,” St. Cyprian said, backing towards her as he emptied the spent shells out of his revolver. “That’s what they do.” “I see your knowledge of the occult is as helpful as ever,” Gallowglass said. “Folklore, actually,” St. Cyprian said, slapping the Webley shut. “You’re only an assistant, so I’ll forgive you not knowing the difference.” “Ta for that,” Gallowglass said, snapping the shotgun shut. The creature eyed them warily for a moment, a pinkish bifurcated tongue flickering out to taste the air and then, with a kettle-whistle shriek, darted towards them, jaws gaping. “Down, please!” St. Cyprian shoved Gallowglass to the floor as the worm snapped at them. Its ever-expanding coils toppled bookshelves and upended the writing desk near the window. “Ha!” Gallowglass barked, bringing the rifle to bear as she sat up. Both barrels gave a roar and the worm thrashed in agony as one of its bulbous eyes popped like a blister. It shrieked and the windows creaked in sympathy. Then, with a rumbling sigh, it flopped backwards, sinking into its quivering coils. “Good show!” St. Cyprian said. “The church bells thing was a good idea, I must admit.” Gallowglass watched the twitching form of the worm grow still. “Did f or him though, right enough,” she said. “Of course it did,” St. Cyprian said, straightening his tie. “I am the Royal Occultist, after all. It’s part of my job to know such things.” Gallowglass snorted. “Our job, you mean.” “Fine, our job,” St. Cyprian said, looking at his erstwhile assistant and apprentice. If she lived long enough, she’d have his job, and be welcome to it. Frankly however, St. Cyprian found the contemplation of his almost certain demise to be ghoulish at best and depressing at worst, so he was willing to avoid it as long as ethically possible. Gallowglass seemed only too happy to oblige. Idly, he wondered how his tenure would be remembered, after the fact. “Brief, but glorious in all likelihood,” he muttered. “What?” Gallowglass said. “Nothing,” he grunted as he looked down at the worm. Such creatures were thankfully rare these days. The whole of Albion had once been riddled with them, and it had taken a bevy of saints from George to Patrick to put an end to them. Lambton, Brinsop, Sockburn, lochs, bowers and ruined churches had all played host to worms of various sizes, and more than one


Royal Occultist had ended his days in a snaky gullet. There’d never been one within the walls of Londinium though, to his knowledge. “Bet Carnacki never forgot to include you in the hurrahs,” Gallowglass murmured. “Seeing as I didn’t meet Carnacki until the War, there weren’t many hurrahs to be had in our time together,” St. Cyprian said, as thoughts of blood and mud and Ypres caressed the underside of his mind. Pushing the fog of bad memories aside, he said, “Worms aren’t too dangerous, if you catch them early and young. It’s when they get to be the size of barns that you start having to lock up virgins.” They both turned as the doors to the study were opened and a number of figures stepped hesitantly inside. “Is-is it over?” the one in the lead said. He was a plump man, wearing an oriental dressing gown and a sweat-stained fez, and he carried an Enfield army revolver in one trembling hand. “Take a look and tell us, guv,” Gallowglass said, eyeing the plump man with irritation. “Be polite,” St. Cyprian murmured sotto voice as he stepped past her. More loudly, he said, “Safe as houses, Phillip, old thing.” Philli p Wendy-Smythe was an avowed orientalists and amateur occultist; he amassed dangerous things the way a child might gather sweets, and shuffled nervously at the edges of the secret set, joining and being expelled from secret societies at an impressive rate. He also had a tendency to spend his money unwisely on dangerous things, like worm eggs pillaged from some dark bower by unscrupulous sorts. “Of course, if you hadn’t noticed that there was something moving in there when you did, you’d be sliding down its gullet even now, like a fat little mouse.” “What happened to polite?” Gallowglass murmured. “I swear to you Chaz, it wasn’t supposed to hatch!” Wendy-Smythe said, pushing at the air with his free hand, as if to ward off unsaid accusations. “The gentleman I purchased it from said it was quite dead.” “Yes, and we both know that what ain’t dead can quite happily eternal lie, Philip,” St. Cyprian said. “Or, in this case, hatch at midnight on the dot, first of November, 1923 Anno Domini .” He extracted a silver cigarette case from his coat and pulled one free. Tapping it on the case he stuffed it between his lips and held up a finger. A flicker of flame suddenly danced on his fingertip, causing Wendy-Smythe’s eyes to bulge. Even the most minor of magics tended to have that effect on the uninitiated. “Toss-pot,” Gallowglass said, snagging the case and making to grab a cigarette of her own. St. Cyprian snatched it back before she could and stuffed the case back into his jacket. “Language, Ms. Gallowglass,” he said. Puffing on his cigarette, he eyed Wendy-Smythe. “Who was it who sold you the egg, Phillip?” “I-well, I didn’t catch his name,” Wendy-Smythe began, licking his lips. Gallowglass clicked her rifle shut loudly, causing Wendy-Smythe to jump. St. Cyprian glanced at her and then back at Wendy-Smythe. He leaned forward, smoke curling from his l ips and nose. “Are you sure, Phillip? Are you quite certain that you did not catch his nom? Because,


where there’s one worm, there’s bound to be more, and it’s my duty to see to the culling of such things…as well as those who threaten our shores by setting them loose, what?” “I-I didn’t know!” Wendy-Smythe squeaked. “Just like you didn’t know about the cockatrice that time, or that business with the essential salts, or the incident with that Karnstein girl?” St. Cyprian said mildly. Wendy-Smythe swallowed. “I-he said he got it from the ruins of Castra Regis, in Lesser Hill,” he said in a rush. “He said there were hundreds!” Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “I say, are you certain it’s dead?” “Quite certain,” St. Cyprian said impatiently. “Why?” “A-are you sure?” Wendy-Smythe said. “Only its eye is open.” St. Cyprian blinked and turned back to the worm. Its eye was indeed open, and fi lled with all the malice a wounded serpent could muster. The creature rose slowly, balancing on bloody coils as the gathered group could only watch, stunned. It lunged suddenly and St. Cyprian spat out his cigarette and grabbed Wendy-Smythe, hauling him out of its path. The worm’s jaws snapped shut on the arm of one of the portly man’s unlucky servants and the wretch was ripped into the air and flung high, his scream trailing after him. “Gallowglass,” St. Cyprian bawled, snatching the Enfield revolver from Wendy-Smythe’s unresisting hand and leveling both it and his Webley at the beast. He fired, trying to catch the creature’s attention as it went after the other servants, who were pushing and shoving, trying to flee the study. The worm whipped towards him, following the sound of his voice. He scrambled away as it slithered rapidly after him. “Shoot it again! Shoot it again!” “Now he wants me to shoot,” Gallowglass murmured, hurriedly reloading. She was forced to jump back as the worm’s tail swept towards her, nearly catching her behind the knees. “How much bigger is this thing going to get?” she shouted, climbing up onto the overturned desk. St. Cyprian didn’t reply. He was too busy climbing up one of the remaining bookcases, the worm snapping at his heels. He turned as he reached the top and saw the study’s light fixture-an old fashioned gas-lit chandelier, now modified for electricity-hanging crookedly by a broken pendulum. Gallowglass’s first shot earlier had hit something after all. The worm hissed like a steam engine and its scales tore splinters out of the bookcase as it slithered towards him. St. Cyprian jumped, tossing his pistols aside, reaching desperately for the chandelier. The worm dropped from the bookcase and sped beneath him. It rose up beneath him, its maw opening wide as if it intended to scoop him out of the air. St. Cyprian grabbed the chandelier and it broke loose from the ceiling i n a shower of plaster. Man and fixture crashed down, the latter smashing into the worm’s open mouth and driving the beast flat against the floor with a thunderous cracking of floorboards. Gallowglass’ rifle echoed the crash a moment later and the worm’s thrashing coils gave a frenzied spasm. The worm shrieked again and hurled itself towards the large picture window. It smashed through the glass like a scaly lightning bolt and vanished into the night beyond. As


broken glass pattered to the floor, St. Cyprian rolled over and pushed himself up with a heartfelt groan. “Ow,” he grunted. “Ow, ow, ow…” “Daft monger,” Gallowglass said, nudging him with her foot. “That was a dumb stunt if I’ve ever seen one.” “Don’t sell me short; I’m sure I’ll do something infinitely more stupid, given time,” St. Cyprian said, getting slowly to his feet. He rubbed his shoulder with a wince. “That said, ow.” “Serves you right,” Gallowglass said. She looked at the window. “He’s a quick one, I’ll give him that.” “My worm,” Wendy-Smythe bawled, fez askew. He thrust his head out the window. “It’s escaped!” “Good,” Gallowglass snarled. “Not good,” St. Cyprian groaned, grabbing his Webley from the floor. “If it gets away, no one in London will be safe.” “How is that different from normal, exactly?” “Well, it’ll be our fault, for one,” St. Cyprian said, heading for the door at a quick trot. “The game is a-foot, Ms. Gallowglass!” “A-crawl, more like,” she said, hurrying after him. As they reached the front door, he spun and pointed a finger at Wendy-Smythe, who had been following them. “You, Phillip, will dredge that memory of yours until you find the name of the fellow who sold you that egg, and have it on your lips the very minute we return.” “I-” “Do they still put people in the Tower?” Gallowglass said. “Or do we just execute them?” Wendy-Smythe went pale and began to babble as they stepped outside, closing the door in his face. “That was unkind,” St. Cyprian said. “Yeah,” Gallowglass said, smirking. “Fun though.” The familiar shape of St. Cyprian’s black Crossley hp 20/25 was waiting for them on the street. The car was the same make and model used by the Flying Squad of the London Metropolitan Police, a fact which its owner found amusing. After all, the Royal Occultist was a policeman of sorts, at least these days. They climbed in hurriedly, and the Crossley growled as lurched into motion, its headlamps pointed towards the northern bank of the Thames. The worm’s trail wasn’t hard to follow, thankfully. It slithered through the mostly dark streets, its scales flashing beneath the soft gazes of street lamps. Late evening party-goers, Bright Young Things dressed for masquerades and pajama parties screamed and scattered or simply stood and stared as the monstrous serpent swept past down Shawfield Street, its eyes blazing with a hellish light. The Crossley fairly flew in its wake, bumping over the sidewalk in


places as St. Cyprian spun the wheel, taking the corner and hopping onto Flood Street in pursuit with more enthusiasm than skill. “Do you have any idea where it’s heading?” Gallowglass said. “Where everything eventually goes in this city…to the Thames,” St. Cyprian said. “Is that more folklore?” “What of it?” St. Cyprian said. “Just pointing out that the church bells didn’t work,” Gallowglass said. “Thank you. Your attention to detail is noted,” St. Cyprian grated. “Like any injured animal, it’s seeking someplace to hole up and lick its wounds, the darker the better.” “And what happens if we don’t catch it?” “Then the Chelsea set better start rounding up virgin sacrifices, because once it reaches its full growth it’ll take more than a rifle to send it slithering,” St. Cyprian said, squeezing the horn and sending late-night revelers reeling drunkenly from the Crossley’s path. “Lovely,” Gallowglass said. “Do you have any idea how we’re going to stop it then? Because shooting it only seems to make it angry.” “I’m thinking,” St. Cyprian said. “Think faster,” Gallowglass said, pointing. “There it is!” The worm lunged across the Crossley’s path even as the car reached the Chelsea Embankment. It reared up, though whether in surprise or hostility, St. Cyprian couldn’t say. Its coils rolled over the Crossley, shattering a headlamp and bursting the windshield, peppering St. Cyprian and Gallowglass with glass. The Crossley groaned and skidded, its front bumper striking the side of a building as the worm slithered away. Swiping glass out of his face, St. Cyprian put the Crossley into reverse. Steam boiled from beneath the hood, mingling with oily smoke. Coughing, he stomped on the accelerator and hurled the car after the worm. The creature sped across the Embankment towards the welcoming embrace of the Thames. The Crossley bumped after it, and St. Cyprian jerked the wheel and let it spin, sending the automobile cutting across the worm’s path, too sharply for the beast to avoid them. Metal struck scales and the creature screamed again as it convulsively coiled about the Crossley. Metal buckled and the rest of the windows cracked as the creature’s thrashing carried the car up into the air. “This? This was what you came up with?” Gallowglass yelped, hanging on for dear life. “I panicked!” St. Cyprian said. “Get the jerry can out of the boot, quick!” As the Crossley bent and buckled beneath the strain, Gallowglass heaved herself into the back. Flipping around, she kicked her way through the ragged remnants of the roof and dropped onto the boot. The worm thrashed wildly and she was nearly thrown to the street. Meanwhile, St. Cyprian kicked his own door open, wincing as it was flung wide, snapping off of its hinges as the worm tightened its grip on the auto. One hand on the roof, he jerked his


Webley from his pocket and fired. The worm ducked its head towards him, blade-like fangs clashing together as he swung himself out of its reach. “Do take your time, Ms. Gallowglass,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Got it,” Gallowglass crowed, from the rear of the auto. She grabbed the side of the Crossley and swung the can, which sloshed with petrol, towards St. Cyprian. “Swap,” St. Cyprian barked, twisting around and tossing the Webley towards her. Gallowglass sent the jerry can wobbling and he barely caught it, nearly losing his grip in the process. The worm lunged, its fangs tearing through the canvas roof of the Crossley. St. Cyprian cursed and slammed the jerry can into its head. The worm turned, jaws gaping, and struck. St. Cyprian interposed the jerry can and the creature’s fangs bit into the metal, puncturing it. Petrol slopped everywhere, across the creature’s scales and down its gullet. It swung about, sending St. Cyprian spinning from his perch like a rag doll. Gallowglass fired the Webley. Fire blossomed as the bullet struck the can and sparked, and worm was wrapped in flames within moments. It let loose an ear-piercing shrill and whipped about wildly. Burning inside and out, the pain-maddened creature tried to hurl itself towards the Thames, but could not free itself from the wreck of the Crossley. It thrashed and squirmed, burning steadily and gradually, its wriggling became less pronounced. Its screams faded, disappearing into the soft snapping and crackling of the fire. Gallowglass picked herself up from where she’d been thrown and limped towards where St. Cyprian sat on the sidewalk. She sat down beside him and extended the Webley. “Good plan,” she said. “Thank you,” he said, pulling his cigarette case out of his coat. He opened it and proffered it to her. She took one and he lit it, then his own. He glanced at Gallowglass. “Feel like a day trip? Say to Castra Regis?” “Only if we take along a few more jerry cans,” Gallowglass said. “I think that can be arranged,” he said and snapped the cigarette case shut. Across the street, the worm gave one last convulsive heave and then, there was only the sound of the fire.


NOTE: " Deo Viridio” was serialized on the Royal Occultist site in 2014.

DEO VIRIDIO “For the god Viridius,” Charles St. Cyprian said, peering up at the crumbled and ancient archway, a lantern in his hand. The words had been inscribed when the stones that made up the archway had been set, and time had worn them almost to invisibility in September of 1924. “What?” Ebe Gallowglass said, flicking a cigarette butt into the briars that tangled around the base of a weather-beaten wall. The briars were not the only plant-life to have burrowed through the seemingly solid stones and the old stone behind the briars had been rendered black by some long ago fire. That fire, a result of an unlucky lightning strike according to the historical records, had gutted what had once been the house of a proud Lincolnshire family of note, leaving it a cracked and crippled ruin. “The inscription,” St. Cyprian said, pointing. “It says, ‘for the god Viridius’.” “Is that a clue?” Gallowglass said, peering up past the ruptured ceiling of the cellar and up through the skeletal remnants of the roof at the orange sky. The sun was setting and an evening breeze slithered through the ruin, causing the greenery to rustle and shift. What man had abandoned, in the wake of the fire, nature had reclaimed. Gallowglass, sitting on the blackened stone steps that led down into the cellar f rom above, shivered slightly and pulled her coat tight about her. She had dressed with her usual flair—like some hybrid of a cinematic street-urchin and a Parisian street-apache, with a flat cap on her head, and her sharp, dark features wreathed in smoke from her second cigarette. “Yes, and rather an obvious one, what,” St. Cyprian said as he reached out to touch the stone. At the last moment he pulled his hand back, thinking better of it. The ancient carvings on the stones of the walls seemed to grin and grimace at him in sinister humour. Moss and brambles poured from their gaping mouths, creating curtains of green on the fire -darkened walls. “But obvious dangers are still dangerous,” he continued. In contrast to Gallowglass, St.


Cyprian was dressed like an advertisement for Gieves & Hawkes, Savile Row, from his polished tie-pin to his equally polished Old Etonian intonation. “And obvious or not, it definitely falls within my remit, I’d say.” Gallowglass made a rude noise. “Our remit, you mean.” “Fine, our remit,” St. Cyprian said. That remit, such as it was, being the investigation, organization and occasional suppression of That Which Man Was Not Meant to Know, including vampires, ghosts, werewolves, ogres, goblins, hobgoblins, bogles, barguests, boojums and other assorted unclassifiable entities which were the purview of the Royal Occultist. Formed during the reign of Elizabeth the First, the office of Royal Occultist (or the Queen’s Conjurer, as it had been known) had started with the diligent amateur Dr. John Dee, and passed through a succession of hands since. The list was a long one, weaving in and out of the margins of British history, and culminating, for the moment, in one Charles St. Cyprian and his erstwhile assistant-cumapprentice, Ebe Gallowglass. “That’s better,” Gallowglass said. “Sure those will be enough?” She gestured with her cigarette towards the petrol canisters lined up like attentive soldiers near the stairs. Each one was full and the cellar stank of petrol fumes where it didn’t stink of damp, growing things. Before St. Cyprian could answer, she glanced over her shoulder and sucked meditatively on her cigarette. “Company...” Wood creaked somewhere above and a shadow spread across the wall of the cellar. “You’re losing your touch. I heard them five minutes ago,” St. Cyprian said. “Hard not to, the noise they’re making,” Gallowglass said. She smirked. “And I heard them when their car pulled up ten minutes ago.” “Oi, what are you doing down there?” It was a woman’s voice, at parade ground volume. “That doesn’t sound like a local,” St. Cyprian said, looking at Gallowglass. “And we were expecting more than one,” Gallowglass agreed. “I believe I asked a question. Shall I find a constable?” A young woman, with hair li ke the inside of a lit coal-furnace and a face like a thundercloud, glared down at them from the edge of the hole. She was dressed for outdoor labour and she presented a f airly intimidating figure, like Hera glaring from on high. The duo l ooked up at her without apparent concern. "Good God, I didn't know they grew gingers that big," Gallowglass murmured. St. Cyprian shushed her. "And who might you be?" he called up to the newcomer. "Bella Mae Jobson! And who are you? Because as certain as sin you don't work for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society!" "And how did you come to that conclusion, Ms.—ah—Jobson, was it?" St. Cyprian asked, mouthing the words ‘Yorkshire Archaeological Society?’ to Gallowglass, who shrugged in silent reply.


"Because I do, and this is my site and you’re not one of mine," she snapped. "I insist you tell me what you were doing down here." “Ah,” St. Cyprian said. “Well this is a bit of a rum do, and no mistake.” “Frankly, I’m happy to see her,” Gallowglass said cheerfully. “We’re not using her as bait,” St. Cyprian said sharply. “Well…I’m still not doing it,” Gallowglass said. “Are you going to answer my question, or shall I fetch a constable?” Jobson shouted, hands on her hips. “No, no constables are necessary Ms. Jobson,” St. Cyprian said, “Unless, of course, you’d like them to escort you off these premises?” “Oh here it comes,” Gallowglass said, pulling the brim of her cap down over her eyes. “What?” Jobson bellowed, her voice causing the birds nesting in the upper reaches of the ruin to burst into panicked flight. The greenery seemed to shift and hiss in a breeze. “Casanova, too right,” Gallowglass said, making pistols with her fingers and pointing at St. Cyprian, who made a face. “Quiet you,” he said. “What did you say to me?” Jobson bellowed again. “Not you, her,” St. Cyprian said, rubbing an ear. “I say, would you mind lowering the volume a bit, what?” Jobson spluttered and started down the ancient stone steps, shoving past Gallowglass, who grinned nastily at St. Cyprian as he was forced to take a step back by the approaching archaeologist. “Really, Ms. Jobson, were I you, I’d l eave right now and forget you saw anything,” he said hurriedly as she stomped towards him. “Don't be preposterous,” Jobson said, coming to a halt in front of St. Cyprian, her arms folded across her bosom. “Just who do you think you are?” “Charles St. Cyprian,” St. Cyprian said. “I’ll be the fellow who’ll be cleaning up your mess.” “Mess, is it?” Jobson snapped. “What the devil are you talking about? Are you one of those potty druids that have been scampering around my site for the last week?” “Druids,” St. Cyprian said. “Poxy robes, bloody masks, off -key chanting,” Jobson said. “Showed them Mother’s Helper and they scarpered quick enough,” she continued, slapping a hand to her coat pocket where the shape of a small pistol nestled. Gallowglass perked up and bounced silently to her feet. “I'll not be carted off my site. Who knows what could happen without the proper supervision," Jobson said, unaware of the other woman’s approach. “This site is invaluable!” “Good to know,” St. Cyprian said. “I wasn’t planning to take anything, however; in fact,


quite the opposite.” The look on Jobson’s face said quite clearly what she thought of that. Before she could reply, Gallowglass’ hand darted into the other woman’s coat pocket and snatched the pistol there, plucking it out and stepping back quickly as Jobson spun. “Tiny,” Gallowglass said, popping the small revolver’s cylinder l oose and emptying the shells into her hand. “Belgian, ain’t it? Yeah—eight millimeter with a safety on the left, thirty years old, or thereabouts—definitely Belgian,” she continued. She tossed the safely emptied pistol back to its owner and pocketed the shells. As Jobson gaped at her, Gallowglass twitched aside the edge of her coat, revealing the shoulder holster and the heavy shape of the Webley Fosberry revolver resting snug within it. A Seal of Solomon had been picked out in ivory on the butt. “I prefer something larger, me.” “Are we finished comparing artillery?” St. Cyprian said. “Wonderful. Back to the druids…how many days would you say?” “What—who—why do you want to know? Who are you?” Jobson said. “I thought we’d covered that—Charles St. Cyprian, and this is my assistant, Ebe Gallowglass.” “You’re not here to steal anything, are you?” Jobson said. “No, nor are we here to worship, enable or otherwise indulge,” St. Cyprian said. “We’re here to help.” He looked around at the green and black cellar and hesitated. The briars clicked together and something might have moved behind them. “For a given value of help,” Gallowglass added. She looked around and added, “Getting dark.” “And whiffy,” St. Cyprian said, waving his hand in front of his face. Jobson sniffed, and said, “What is that?” “Freshly cut corn stalks,” St. Cyprian murmured, looking around, “The forest floor after a rain and moldy hay.” He looked at Gallowglass and said, “Looks like we picked the right night for it.” “Right night for what; why are you here?” Jobson demanded. “As I said, we’re here to help,” St. Cyprian said. “And by help, I mean we’ll be finishing what God, in his infinite wisdom, started with that long ago lightning strike.” Jobson blinked. Her eyes widened as she saw the petrol canisters. “You can’t do that!” she shouted. “Can and will, actually,” St. Cyprian said. “Ms. Gallowglass, if you would?” “A pleasure, Mr. St. Cyprian,” Gallowglass said, hefting the first of the canisters and unscrewing the cap. She splattered the stones with more enthusiasm than coordination, the cigarette bobbing between her lips. Jobson and St. Cyprian couldn’t help flinching every time the red, glowing end of the cigarette dipped towards the sloshing petrol. “This is a historical site,” Jobson said. “You can’t just burn it down.” She fingered her


emptied pistol ruefully. “I won’t let you.” “That’s why I took the bullets,” Gallowglass called out, not looking at them. “Stone doesn’t burn at the temperatures we’ll be igniting,” St. Cyprian said. “I’m simply looking to ensure that certain matters stay snug in their holes.” “What are you talking about?” Jobson demanded. Gallowglass grunted and turned towards the stairs. “Cars,” she said, fingers toying with the pistol beneath her arm. She stopped on the top stair and cursed. “More company, Mr. St. Cyprian.” “The infamous potty druids,” St. Cyprian said. “Robes and Mayday masks,” Gallowglass said, crouching on the stairs. She drew her pistol. “Should I show them the colors?” “No,” St. Cyprian said, sinking to his haunches and placing a palm on the floor. “Though I daresay you might want to give Ms. Jobson her bullets back, what?” Gallowglass dug into her pockets without looking and held out a hand towards Jobson. Jobson looked at her blankly and then at St. Cyprian. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?” “Why did you come down here, Ms. Jobson?” St. Cyprian asked. “I was checking on the site,” Jobson said defensively. She climbed the stairs and snatched the handful of ammunition from Gallowglass. As she reloaded, she peered out over the edge of the ruined floor and cursed. They could hear murmuring voices, carried on the night breeze. “It’s them. What are they doing here?” “They’ve been coming here for generations. Before this place burned, before it was even built, I’d wager.” St. Cyprian looked up at her. “And I meant, why did you come out here, to this site?” Jobson frowned. “Well it should be obvious,” she said, gesturing towards the stone arch and the grimacing faces. “The Romans left a fair few stone footprints in Lincolnshire. I was on a dig in South Yorkshire when I heard about it. There could be what’s left of a whole temple beneath this drafty pile. More, maybe; a settlement even…” She hes itated. “Of course, it’s a good deal more overgrown than I’d been led to believe.” “More indeed,” St. Cyprian said as he rose to his feet, frowning. “The smell is getting stronger and there is a definite vibration. Did we bring the journal, Ms. Gallowglass?” “Left it in the Crossley,” Gallowglass said. “Pity,” St. Cyprian said. “I’d like to keep an accurate record of the manifestation’s time to occurrence and dispersal.” “What manifestation? What are you blathering about?” J obson said loudly. “Deo Viridio,” St. Cyprian said. “Viridius’ Due.” He looked at her. “That’d be you, I assume. Tell me, who alerted you to the presence of this site? Lincolnshire is a bit out of the


way for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, by my reckoning.” “A local man, sort of the town historian I gathered. He keeps up with the Society’s journal, mentioned some similarities between this site and the one in Hovingham. I’ve done a fair bit of work up there, so I came down.” Jobson frowned. “What do you mean, ‘that’d be you’?” “Asked for you by name, did they?” Gallowglass called down, “Bloody cheek.” “Bold, yes, but not unknown, with these sorts,” St. Cyprian said, “Killing black cockerels at midnight and fingers in the entrails, that sort of rot. Probably saw her face in a basin of blood or something. Did you disturb anything?” He directed the last at Jobson. “It was already disturbed,” Jobson said. “I’d just started taking notes and making sketches.” The murmuring had grown louder. Not-so distant lights washed across the lightningscarred walls and arches of the gutted house. “They’re coming,” Gallowglass said. “They won’t come close,” St. Cyprian said. “Not until after…” “After what; look, what’s going on?” Jobson said. Before either of the others could reply, a soft, insistent sound rose in the cellar, drifting through the arch and winding upwards. It had always been there, but now it was louder and more noticeable. St. Cyprian turned. “Enter the King, stage left,” he muttered. “How much do you know about Viridius?” “It means ‘green’, ‘fresh’, or ‘verdant’,” Jobson said automatically, “Probably a RomanoCelt variation on Jupiter; a minor fertility deity.” The sounds from below grew louder still as the words left her lips. The briars rustled, as if something invisible moved between them and the wall. “One who, by all accounts, was only worshipped here,” St. Cyprian said. He picked up a canister and continued splashing petrol over the stones. The fumes were strong, and Jobson’s eyes were watering. “The frontier did strange things to the Romans,” Jobson said. Her eyes were wide, and the sounds grew louder as she spoke, as if whatever was making them was growing excited. “Sounds like it’s still doing strange things,” Gallowglass said from the top of the stairs. “They’ve stopped.” “They’re just here to make sure we—you—stay put,” St. Cyprian said, pointing at Jobson as he grabbed up the last canister. “Why?” Jobson said, raising her voice to be heard over the noise. She had her revolver extended. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere, persistent and unceasing. “I’d wager the War threw off the normal routine,” St. Cyprian said. “Threw it off for everyone else, I don’t see why they’d be any different. No young people, you see. They’re very big on young sacrifices, these agricultural Johnnies. Young kings and queens, given up to corn -


wolves and harvest-lords; young blood makes the best fertilizer, I suppose. So they sent away for some.” A soft sigh went up from the moss and in the light of the lantern, the faces on the walls seemed to assume expressions of relief and welcome and eagerness. “One what,” Jobson said. “I told you—Viridius’ due.” St. Cyprian looked at her as he tossed aside the empty canister. “It’s September, Ms. Jobson, the Harvest Season, and time to give the god of the harvest what he’s owed for seeing to the land. They’ve done it twice before since the War’s end by my reckoning, but there’ll not be a third. Hence our presence, with petrol,” he said. “Fire’s usually the best bet in these matters. No disappearances or unexplained deaths between 1911, when the lightning struck, and 1919. Like a fire sweeping a field, Viridius was crippled; but now he’s back, and, I’d imagine, quite hungry after his long recuperation.” Jobson stared at him, as if trying to figure out whether or not he was mad. St. Cyprian, used to such reactions, simply snatched up his lantern and held it high to reveal the source of the persistent noise that had been clogging the air. Shoots and vines crept through the cracks in the floor, rising through the spreading petrol and entwining in a soft susurrus as they had been doing for the last few minutes. Clumps of moss and mould joined briars and flowering plants, bulking out the scarecrow thin shape, giving it form and mass. Seedpod eyes fluttered and a mouth filled with nettles opened and voice like barley in a breeze caused the stones to tremble. For a moment, the petrol stink was washed away by the smell of raw, tilled earth and rotting fruit. “What—what is that?” Jobson whispered, frozen in place. “Viridius,” St. Cyprian said grimly. The name struck the air like a gong and the thing shifted attentively, shaggy head turning, its mane of sheaves and husks rustling as it fixed them with an inhuman gaze. More barley words thrummed through the stones, carrying the scent of onions and sugar beets. A hand made of wheat sheaves and flowers stretched out in a gesture of command. It was used to command, for had not men always served it? “Get back,” St. Cyprian said, grabbing Jobson by the shoulders. “Ms. Gallowglass, three rounds rapid, the walking cornucopia if you please!” Gallowglass, crouched on the stairs, cocked and fired her Webley. The heavy bullet punched through the thing’s chest, showering the air with seed pods and wheat hulls. It barely staggered. It started forward and where it walked, things grew, spilling up through the stones like a living carpet of greenery. It spoke again, and the words, unintelligible, held the sound of a field of growing things in a storm. It wasn’t speaking in Latin, or even some ancient Briton dialect. Instead, it spoke seasons and smells and memories. Ancient images of the land as i t was and as it could be. Of long crumbled temples and the ancient standing stones they had been built over. History, one layer of soil on top of another and the folk of the land spilling blood one year after the next down the long winding road of centuries, quenching Viridius’ thirst. The god had made the crops grow


and made the land prosper and all it asked in return was a bit of blood, a bit of companionship, a harvest-Persephone given up to the Hades who walked behind the rows. Flowers sprouted in the cracks in the walls and floors, and from above, the prayers of the faithful fell down like rain. Wheat stalks punctured the few patches of black soil, and the scent of harvest time hung thick and rank on the air, mingling with the petrol fumes and creating a dizzying haze. Jobson yelped as the fingers of wheat closed gently on her wrist. Her revolver growled and the nettle-mouth creased in what might have been a smile as the bullets vanished into the torso. If the swords of the Romans had not harmed the god, what use hornets of lead, the voice seemed to say. A sound like the buzzing of insects and the soft rush of stalks bending in a wind caressed their ears and tugged at the deep, atavistic wells in their souls. There were bones in the stuff that made up Viridius’ form. Shattered and brown, they rode the undulating mass of briars and moss like grisly treasures turned up by a trowel. There were hundreds of fragments, thousands, each all that was left of a sacrifice, each the only marker they would receive. St. Cyprian swung the lantern against the shaggy head, hard. Glass burst and the thing shrugged him aside with one long arm. The lantern fell, rolling away, splashing oil across the giant. Viridius pulled Jobson close, its shape enveloping her. Gallowglass fired again, and her bullet struck the stones near Viridius’ leg-stalk, scratching a spark and lighting the oil that dripped from the limb. The wheat and brittle briars caught instantly and the sudden rush of heat was followed by a deep, rolling moan that caused the house above to groan in sympathy. The stones shifted and were shoved aside by more briars and n ettles that struck out at St. Cyprian and Jobson, stinging them. Viridius staggered, tearing at its burning matter. Jobson wrenched her free and fired again, as St. Cyprian jerked her back, away from the wash of flames. “Up the stairs,” he barked. Viridius screamed. The sound was like a green tree popping in a forest fire. Briars scuttled up the stairs, seeking to snag their legs and arms. St. Cyprian grunted as they bit into him and he fell onto all fours on the steps. The fire crawling across Viridius had reached the petrol. Flames crawled across the stones, obscuring the faces and shapes that grimaced there. St. Cyprian pulled at the briars, his fingers and palms being cut to ribbons in the process. Jobson bent to help him. Gallowglass stood at the top of the stairs, the Webley bucking in her grip as she put another round through the burning, roaring mass of Viridius. The roars grew fainter as the thing retreated back through the archway, stumbling blindly through the flames that pursued it. Its groans were echoed from above. The briars trembled and released St. Cyprian as the intelligence that had guided them fell back from the conflagration. Bleeding, the occultist shoved Jobson up the stairs ahead of him. Gallowglass was already above, her re-loaded Webley swinging about to cover the circle of robed and masked shapes that stood scattered throughout the ruins of the house. Faces masked behind sheaves of wheat and stiffened vines watched them as they moved slowly away from the smoke boiling out of the cellar. Already the floor was growing hot as the flames began to hungrily seek out new sources of fuel. None of the gathered


worshippers made a move to stop them. Instead, they simply watched and then, as if they’d been given a signal, they departed, trotting out of the ruins and making their way towards the vehicles that had brought them. As they made their way into the clear air, Jobson watched Viridius’ worshippers depart. “A bit anticlimactic,” she said, coughing as the smoke coiled about them. “What makes you think this was any sort of climax?” St. Cyprian said, limping towards the Crossley. When he reached the car, he leaned against it wearily. Gallowglass began to rummage through the boot for a first aid kit. J obson looked at St. Cyprian. “What do you mean? You burned that—that thing, whatever it was, up. It’s gone!” St. Cyprian winced as Gallowglass daubed at his hands with ointment. “What happens when lightning strikes a field or a forest, Ms. Jobson?” Jobson frowned. “It burns.” “And then what?” Jobson’s frown deepened. Then her eyes widened and she looked back at the column of smoke boiling out from the ruin’s innards. “It grows back,” she said softly. “Yes. It grows back, stronger—hungrier—than before. Let’s hope it takes more than nine years this time, eh?” St. Cyprian said.



THE WHITECHAPEL DEMON Formed during the reign of Elizabeth I, the post of the Royal Occultist was created to safeguard the British Empire against threats occult, otherworldly, infernal and divine. It is now 1920, and the title and offices have fallen to Charles St. Cyprian. Accompanied by his apprentice Ebe Gallowglass, they defend the battered empire from the forces of darkness. In the wake of a séance gone wrong, a monstrous killer is summoned from the depths of nightmare by a deadly murder-cult. The entity hunts its prey with inhuman tenacity even as its worshippers stop at nothing to bring the entity into its full power. It’s up to St. Cyprian and Gallowglass to stop the bloodthirsty horror before another notch is added to its gory tally, but will they become the next victims of the horror disguised as London’s most famous killer?

The Whitechapel Demon, the first book in 'The Adventures of the Royal Occultist', was published in 2013 by Emby Press. It is available both in trade paperback and electronic format from Amazon.com, Smashwords, Barnesandnoble.com and other online retailers. For a free PDF preview of the first three chapters, click HERE. The Whitechapel Demon is the first entry in an ongoing series, featuring Charles St. Cyprian, the Royal Occultist, and his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass, as they battle the forces of evil on behalf of the British Empire. The book serves as an introduction to the world of the Royal Occultist as well as delivering an exciting adventure for new readers and old fans alike to enjoy. For an overview of the Royal Occultist series, visit HERE. If you've read the book, and are interested in discussing it, or the world of the Royal Occultist, there's a dedicated forum at the Emby Press site HERE.

The Royal Occultist Primer

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