P. Elrod - The Hanged Man

When Brook had removed lantern far enough down the hall, she took Fingate’s trembling hand and guided him toward the chair. The room was perilously black, her eyes creating phantom shadows where the mirrors stood. Or were they truly imagined?

“Are there more of those creatures in the mirrors?”

“They’re beyond them, not in them-there’s a world of the damned things. They bring them through, but with care. They pick only young ones, train them.”

She kept her voice calm, the same as she would for a Reading interview, but the possibility of more such things running loose made her blood run cold. “Who does? Who might ‘they’ be?”

“Who might you be?” he returned.

“My name is Pendlebury and I serve in Her Majesty’s Psychic Service. I thought I might break some mirrors. Any objection?”

“Er-not at all. But it will take time, whereas killing me would only take an instant and put an end to the whole issue.”

“I’m going to make noise and there will be flying glass. Keep your eyes closed. You too, Fingate. Ready?”

Alex inched her way around the creature’s body, slipping once on what she presumed to be blood, and felt for the mirror next in line on that wall. She put the gun muzzle between the bars and fired, the flash blinding, the sound making her ears ring.

Would that light and the noise bring more of the beasts?

The curtains must have been closed for a reason; she methodically made a full circuit and draped the things back again. Then one by one she returned the same way, shooting through the velvet. She reloaded twice, and a third time when the work was done. Her ears hurt and the pale pungent smoke clogged the air, making her cough.

Alex had a sudden urge to see the destruction, but held it in check. She felt her way toward the door.

“All done, Mr. Brook.”

He did not reply.

The lantern was well down the hall, and Brook wasn’t with it. His walking stick was propped against the bricks.

Not good.

She hurried forward, calling his name. Loudly. If the row in the mirror room hadn’t brought anyone, then neither would shouting.

What had drawn him away?

Had another of those beasts taken him silently from behind?

She opened her senses again. Brook’s emotional spoor hung lightly in the area by the lantern. He’d been alert and worried, but nothing problematic lingered. She’d have to trust that he’d left for a good reason and would catch them up. Her responsibility now was to get Benedict and Fingate to safety. She took the lantern.

Fingate had defeated the last lock and was helping the prisoner from the chair. The man was stiff and unsteady, but willing. This time he had no objections to light.

“Brave girl, taking on eighty-four years of bad luck,” said Benedict. He staggered and Fingate supported him. Their reflections wavered in the glittering glass shards scattered wide over the floor.

She took a quick look at the dead beast. It was different from the one she’d killed earlier, far larger and naked, its rough flesh gray in the faint light. However, it was identical in regard to being a hole in the air. She sensed no emotional or psychical trace from it.

Her one instinct had been to kill the thing on sight. Granted, when faced with something so monstrous that was a normal reaction, but was it not more normal to flee in terror? That hadn’t happened earlier with the flying squad. They’d gone after it like a pack of hounds trying to bring down a bear. None had hesitated.

“Can more of those creatures come through?” she asked.

“This gate’s closed for now,” said Benedict. “It will set them back; they won’t be pleased with you. If you’d just shoot me it would end things for them.”

“I’d rather shoot them .”

Benedict paused his progress, smiling. “Oh! I like you! What an excellent idea.”

His manner was all too similar to Sybil’s. Would he start babbling strange predictions, too?

She helped get him into the hall, going back the way they’d come. “Who are they, Benedict? The men behind this? Have you names?”

“Only what I call ’em, which is not fit for a lady’s ears. You think a carpenter gives his name away to his box of tools? I’m an instrument they use.” His legs were stiff and dragged. “Ohhh, pins and needles, needles and pins, ’tis a happy man that grins.”

“They’ve not taken good care of you.” She took the walking stick as they passed and gave it to Benedict. Had Brook known they’d need it? Where the devil was he?

“The level of service in this establishment has dropped considerably in the last month. Maybe they found another me.”

“Another Seer?”

“I’m not a Seer. I’m a Conduit.”

“Conduit, then.” Whatever that might be . “Like you?”

“No, silly girl, another me . There must be dozens of us out there. Poor fellows.”

Fingate glanced uneasily at the man, then asked, “Where’s Mr. Brook?”

“I don’t know. We’re on our own. Let’s go back to the opium room. I’ve an idea. Benedict, what are those beasts? How many are there?”

“That’s a good question. A positively gargantuan question. If there’s dozens of me running about then there could be hundreds of them.”

Dealing with mad people was not a topic covered in her Service training. It seemed to call for constant improvisation for half-understood subjects. “How many have been brought through in that room?”

“I couldn’t say. They’d render me asleep for it. Otherwise I’d scream a lot and they didn’t like that.”

“The beasts or your captors?”

“Both, I expect.”

“How many times were you rendered asleep?”

“Every night, of course. A man needs his rest. Whether they put me in the chair every night, I don’t know. Whether they brought small ones through every time, I don’t know. It’s a bit like fishing, but you want a tiddler, not a monster.”

“What are they called?”

“Ask me something I do know! And ask later, I’m bloody tired. I should be in bed. A lovely dreamless bed. With a nice cup of cocoa. Hallo, there’s an odd smell. Who’s burning rope?”

The inhabitants of the opium chamber were not disturbed by their second intrusion. A man smoking from a water pipe seemed amused, but only in a distant way.

Just as well .

“That one, Fingate.” She marked out a likely fellow who’d fully succumbed to the narcotic. He’d slipped from a bench to the floor, eyes closed, mouth slack.

“What about him, my lady?”

“Get his clothes off. Mr. Benedict can’t go about in just a robe and slippers.”

Undressing an unconscious man proved to be a two-person job. She attacked the buttons; Fingate did the lifting and pulling. Benedict balked at removing his dressing gown in front of a female, and she had to promise not to look while he changed.

Though evening clothes often had the extraordinary effect of improving the looks of any man whatever his state or station, Benedict’s transformation was not entirely convincing. His tangled hair and untrimmed beard set him apart from the mob. Fingate found a discarded hat that almost fit, and Alex filched a white silk scarf from its oblivious owner along with a half mask. When they’d finished, Benedict was as anonymous as they could make him, given the circumstances.

She was wobbly-headed from the hemp smoke and glad to quit the place, but halted short in the hall: the drumming had stopped. It seemed unlikely the revelry had ended. Out east, once such festivals got under way, it could be days before the celebrants yielded to exhausted satiation.

Alex held the reticule close, her other hand on the Webley inside. Benedict was steadier on his feet, but winded from the unaccustomed exertion, leaning on Fingate.