House of Corruption (2 page)

He sped to his room at the corner of the cloister’s ground floor. He lit an oil lantern and turned the wick up, the light revealing stacks of books and papers and arcane items strewn upon shelves and heaped in corners and scattered across his unmade bed. He plucked through bowls and packets, opened drawers under the table, tossed bottles and sheaves of papers aside as he dropped to hands and knees to search his collection.

He found a sheet with his long, looping handwriting and fingered at a column of dates. He focused on the last, checked his pocket watch, a calendar on the wall, then at his pocket watch again.

His hands trembled with euphoric rush.

It was true.

Six weeks and two days.

The beast’s first assault, three months earlier, ended with mangled, half-eaten sheep strewn about the stables. The next attack—six weeks and four days later—claimed five goats, with only the bloody scraps of entrails to mark their passing. The monks and their House Guard tried snares, doubled sentry routines, intensified their prayers, and still the offending animal left its message: a gnawed foreleg from the groundskeeper’s prized Arabian stallion.

In a drawer Savoy found the leather pouch. He tugged open the drawstring. Six bullets poured into the palm of his hand.

Damn Cambridge’s narrow minds—

I was right!

***

“
Rapidamente!
” shouted a monk.

For many years the monks cultivated three acres of gardens to the north of the monastery, using the balance of the land to raise livestock. A high wall of stone surrounded the lot of it. Though the growing parish of Belém huddled just beyond, the gaslights of the town did not penetrate, leaving the pasture dark and shapeless.

In a swath of noise came three cows, five horses tugging at ropes, a mule-drawn wagon filled with crates of chickens and rabbits, a herd of sheep floundering before shepherds who slapped any who dared wander. Monks and acolytes drove the livestock through the pasture, forcing them to keep them moving. Those older men on the fringes carried bright lanterns like so many stars, while younger boys kept within their light in tight orbits.

A snap of bone echoed behind them, the bloody cry of a lamb that had wandered into the dark. Boys began to cry and men dared glance back, stricken, clutching at rosaries or crossing their chests. 

“There!” someone cried. “It is there!”

They urged the animals faster toward the east gate. They crossed over a makeshift bridge of hewn beams where, beneath, ran a trench surrounding the pasture just inside the wall. The trench was deep, heaped with hewn logs and branches, husks of dead shrubs and grass and wicker, broken casks, shards of old tables and chairs, torn cloth, used paper, firewood—filled to the brim and soaked with oil. Every monk and acolyte, even some of the locals, had taken shovels and dug as they could, contributed whatever fuel they could, emboldened by Artémius Savoy’s knowledge of such things.

It is real
, he had told them.
Do not give this devil any advantage.

Now, beyond the bridge, the monks and their livestock spilled through the east gate and onto the cobblestone street of Rua dos Jerónimos, the air rattling with hooves and sandals upon the stones. Shutters opened from tightly bunched flats lining the other side of the street. Heads peered outside, annoyed, but before anyone could complain a monk cried out:

“The devil! The devil! It is here!”

Shutters slammed closed. Bolts slid tight.

Four uniformed men, the monastery’s House Guard, lifted themselves to sit on the top of the wall—two elderly men on either side of the gate—and pressed the butts of their Cadet rifles into their shoulders.

As the last man passed through the gate, Jorge and three other acolytes struggled to dismantle the bridge, tugging at the poles, heaving them into the trench. The heaviest pole refused to slide off the far bank, lodged in the stubborn earth. The boys dropped to their bellies and reached, straining, but the pole did not budge.

“Leave them,” said Rogé, the oldest.

“He said they must all go in,” Jorge said. “If it comes this way, we cannot let it—”

“It will not,” said another, Daniel.

“It is enough,” Rogé said.

“But he
said
!” Jorge said.

A heavy whuff of breath echoed from the heart of the pasture. The boys froze, staring into the dark with wide eyes. “That old man says many things,” Rogé said, his voice quivering. “I’ll not wait any longer.”

The acolytes retreated through the south gate, to the safety of the monks crowded on the other side.
He said
, Jorge thought, his heart fluttering madly against his chest. He regarded the wooden poles still leaning half-in, half-out of the trench.

Do not give this devil any advantage.

He drew back four steps, ran, and leaped the trench.

“Fool!” a guard said.

“What are you doing?” Rogé cried.

Jorge landed on the far side, his feet thudding into the soft earth. He knelt, cupped the end of the pole in his hands and lifted it, gasping, straining at its weight. The pole resisted, caught against branches.

“Come back at once!” someone shouted.

“Almost—!” Jorge started.

“Come back,” Rogé said. “They will throw the torches.”

“Throw the torches?” a monk cried in panic.

“No, wait!”

“Torches?” many voices erupted, confused, the word spreading.

“Wait!”

“
Torches!
”

Monks threw dozens of flaming brands through the gate and over the wall. Many landed square into the trench. As fire touched oil, greasy flames burst into life. Fire raced down the trench in both directions, burning high and fast with tongues of dirty smoke. Jorge raised his sleeve against the acrid smoke and heat, coughing, but he did not stop. With a final effort he pushed the pole into the trench. When a lick of flame dropped he took three steps back to start his leap back over the trench.

“Jorge!” someone cried, distant.

He paused, confused. The other acolytes stood at the gate, horrified. Rogé stared first at him, then to the dark, then back to him in terror.

“I am fine,” Jorge said.

“Run,” Rogé said.

“I can leap it. Do not worry.”

“
Run!
”

The dark exhaled a wild, heavy breath.

A massive portion of darkness separated itself from the night, its teeth reflecting the firelight like bloodied pearls. It came like an immense wolf but, as their eyes made contact, it rose up on its hind legs and extended its arms with long, spidery claws. Jorge stared at the monstrous beast, breathless, recalling inked images in old books of Lucifer and his bestial minions, wreathed and writhing in flame.

I shall be late
, he thought,
for vespers
.

The creature fell upon him.

Rogé screamed and monks pulled him back through the gate; the two elderly guards discharged their rifles simultaneously with a crack of smoke. The creature’s shoulder splashed with blood. It detached its mouth from Jorge’s throat, dropped his remains and retreated along the trench. When flames burst in a cloud of sparks the animal recoiled, snarling. The guards fired again. Bullets grazed the animal’s arm and rib. The thing did not seem to feel it, pacing angrily along the rim, snarling and spitting at the oily curtain of fire.

“You see?” a guard shouted. “
O Diabo!
”

The guards fired a third volley. The creature dropped to all fours and bayed a loud, feral cry. The echoing sound sent monks to shuddering, acolytes to crying and neighbors to toss in their beds and dream of monsters. For years those who witnessed such a scene would whisper of the
lobis-homem
: The wolf that stood like a man.

“
Deus
,” someone cried. “Protect us!”

***

Savoy examined the six bullets, the silver and platinum alloy flecked with garlic and aconite and other rare herbs. From under the table he removed his Remington Army revolver and pressed the bullets into the chamber with a last, whispered prayer.

Pray always
, an old priest once told him,
but keep a pistol handy
.

Good advice.

Stuffing the revolver in his robe he left his room and hurried across the courtyard. He felt the fool, his handmade bullets a madman’s errand, but it was the right thing to do. It had to be. He had made it his life to study those things others refused to believe. Superstitions had their foundations in truth, and truth could be found in silver and wolfsbane and garlic.

He entered the Chapter House and slowed his pace, the vaulted chamber dense with silent midnight. He wished he had brought his lantern—someone had forgotten their duty to light the evening sconces. Faint light flickered through the narrow windows, illuminating rows of oak chairs that faced the dais at its head, the altar empty of cloth or candlestick or book. Dominating the center of the room crouched the rectangular tomb of Alexandre Herculano, each corner snarling with the head of a lion. Saint Bernard and Saint Jerome watched from their stone posts on either side of the main door.

Savoy had visited that room only once (the reading of the Rule came so infrequently) but he knew a doorway to the pasture waited along the far wall.  His nostrils caught a whiff of smoky air. The outer door had been left open. By the acrid smell and growing light Jorge delivered his message—a curtain of fire now surrounded the pasture, keeping the animal at bay. Cornered, he could deal with it directly. He felt irritated at the clumsy act of whoever had left the door open; it was a dangerous omission, for then
anything
could—

He stopped short.

The door was not open. It lay in pieces, metal hinges squealing on broken boards. Massive, dirty prints spotted the floor at his feet. Its elongated toes reminded him of a timber wolf or mastiff, but such creatures did not roam the hills above Lisbon. This was an animal never classified, never catalogued, never displayed in museums to gather dust. This was a thing that should not exist.

Lycanthrope
.

The musky fragrance of blood filled his nostrils. He froze.

“I can see you,” he lied.

The dark behind Herculano’s tomb took a breath.

“I have sworn to protect the brethren.” Savoy motioned the cross with his left hand while he removed the revolver with his right. “If you are not of the order, I would request...” The dark behind the tomb moved. “These bullets are anathema.” With his thumb he eased back the hammer. “They will harm you. Stand down.”

A long-fingered claw emerged from the upper edge of the tomb’s lid, then a shaggy, muscled shoulder and lupine head lifted up, a single eye glaring—

Dear God.

“Stand down!”

The animal bolted from its hiding place. Its gore-flecked muzzle drew back to reveal sharp, grinning teeth, its muscles expanding and contracting under bristled hair the color of bloodied ivory. It may have been a wolf but its sinewy limbs and throat were unnatural, horrifying. Its nails gripped the stone floor as its powerful legs launched it forward—first on four legs, then rising to charge on two.

Savoy pulled the trigger, the pistol cracked—

Missed.

He considered first the exit into the monastery’s interior, then the open door to the pasture. He was a dead man on the open field, and he had no intention of leading such a demon deeper inside. He never, in his wildest imagination, expected such a powerful thing. What senile old fool would stand alone against such a creature and...do what? Kill it, stuff it, take a photograph?

He retreated—running down the aisle toward the pulpit, desperate, cursing himself for thinking he might confront this thing with empty threats and handmade bullets.

The Beast pursued. It ripped away chairs in its wake, growling, racing up the aisle after him. Savoy scrambled up the pulpit steps, leapt over the dais gate; he slipped and fell, crushing his shoulder against the edge of the altar. He felt no pain, his heart pounding panic as he scrambled backwards past chairs and footstools and hymnals until he was flat against the back wall. He could go no further.

The animal stopped beside the altar on its hind legs, quivering as neither wolf nor man but both. Savoy gaped. He could have faced a bear or rabid dog and knew, instinctively, they were but dumb animals following their nature.

Yet this?

This thing was deliberate, aware, regarding him with pale, human eyes. The two locked gazes. What sort of man, Savoy thought, would allow himself to become such an abomination?

“Do not do this,” he whispered.

The creature crawled onto the altar.

Savoy lifted his revolver and squeezed the trigger.

VEXAMEN

The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray

and they fall … but who can tell the mischief
 which the very virtuous do?

–
William Makepeace Thackeray