The Nimble Man (A Novel of the Menagerie) (18 page)

The dead were closer now. He could see their horrible faces
and knew them all. They had come for him — all the losers he had killed
over the years — and they had brought along friends. They shuffled
closer, smiling, mocking him as they always had done.

Tom lay back upon the moist earth, overwhelmed by their
number, throwing his hands over his face, curling himself into a tight little
ball. "Mommy!" he shrieked, his eyes clamped shut against the horrors
bearing down on him, and he felt a cold, gentle caress upon his cheek. Opening
his eyes, he saw that they still loomed above him. He knew them all, each and
every one.

But one he knew better than all the rest.

She knelt at his side, her head bent oddly to the left as
she smiled at him.

"Mommy?" he asked, certain that his prayers had
been answered and she had come to save him from the monsters that wanted to
make him feel so small. He reached up and pulled her into his arms. "I
missed you so much, Mommy," he said. He felt the cold flesh of her face
press tightly against his cheek, and she moved her head to plant an
affectionate kiss upon his lips.

He tried to pull away but her lips pressed firmly against
his, and her teeth, so incredibly sharp, had found his tongue. She tore it from
his mouth. Tom could no longer speak.

He couldn't even scream.

Dr. Graves fought his way back into the world of the living,
his spectral energies forcing through the membranous covering that separated
the physical plain from the realm of the dead.
Like being born again,
he
thought as he materialized in the room designated for him on the second floor
of Conan Doyle's Beacon Hill townhouse. The insistent tug of the afterlife was
severed by his manifestation in the material world.

The room was filled with mementos of the many adventures he
had undertaken during his life. Souvenirs were displayed about the room,
multiple framed newspaper headlines a reminder of what he had been to the
world. His ghostly eyes scanned the objects and headlines, remembering the
details of his achievements. It had been a good life — a full life
— and a familiar, bitter question rose in his mind.
Would it be so bad
to let go?
To finally succumb to the pull of the stream?
Each time
he visited the afterworld, it was harder to return, to fight against the
current of the gate, and the reality of what lay beyond it. The ultimate
mystery awaited him there, one that had baffled the human species since they
had first walked erect, and one that he hungered to solve.

But there was another more personal mystery that required
his attentions first, before he could even think about giving himself to the
stream. Graves' eyes fell upon a particular headline, and he felt the same
insatiable rage, the same desire for justice that filled him each time he read
it.
"Dr. Graves Dead! Famed Adventurer Shot! Identity of Killer Still
Unknown!"

It was a comfort, surrounding himself with memories, and a
tether to his past, but it also served to fuel the rage and frustration he
still felt at his inability to solve the mystery of own murder. He would find
the one who killed him, the one who stole away his life. But until that time
came, Dr. Leonard Graves would do what he had always done: fight to keep the
world safe from harm.

The ghost returned his attentions to the case at hand. He
had to speak to Conan Doyle. In his mind's eye, he again saw Yvette Darnell as
she was pulled away by the soulstream.
What was it she said about the fears
of the dead, just before the gate drew her in?

"Something calls to them, trying to drag them back .
. . to their bodies."

Graves was startled from his musings by a clamorous din. He
presumed it was only Squire beginning yet another of his frequent home
improvement projects, but this was hardly the best time for such endeavors. Walking
was an affectation for a specter, of course, but still Graves preferred it when
inside the house. He found it unsettling to simply propel his ectoplasmic form
along by the force of his will, and he was certain others did as well. So
though he did not bother with the door, passing instead right through the wall,
he did so by striding from his room into the corridor as though he were an
ordinary flesh-and-blood man.

At the last moment, the oddness of the clamor he had heard
troubled him further. What if that noise was not Squire's doing? As he emerged
into the hall, he willed himself to be unseen.

And then he froze. What he saw there in the corridor filled
the ghost with dread.

The enemy had invaded their headquarters.

Coppery-skinned creatures moved about the hall, excitedly
speaking to one another in a harsh, guttural tongue as they kicked open doors
in a search for the townhouse's occupants.
Corca Duibhne
, he thought. Based
upon Eve and Conan Doyle's description, these could only be the Night People. Graves
watched as four of the leather-clad Night People emerged from the bedroom Conan
Doyle always kept ready for Eve. The creatures had an article of her clothing,
a silk blouse he'd seen her wear on more than one occasion, and were tearing
into pieces, each taking a swatch, bringing it to their upturned, piggish noses
and inhaling her scent.

How is this possible?
Graves wondered. The protective
wards Conan Doyle had placed around the house should have been more than
sufficient to prevent the infestation of these lowly creatures. But here they
were, moving freely about the premises.

The Corca Duibhne finished with Eve's scent, and began
cautiously moving toward the door to Dr. Graves' own bedroom. They could
neither see nor scent him, and so would pass right by him. He debated whether
or not he should confront them, and decided that it would be wiser, for the
moment, merely to observe. He had no idea, after all, how many of them there
were, and whether or not his comrades were in the house, or if any of his
friends had been injured.

The obvious leader of the quartet motioned for his brethren
to step back, preparing to kick open the door to his room.

Bastards,
Graves seethed.
They don't even have the
common courtesy to see if it's locked.

Since meeting his death, Dr. Leonard Graves had grown more
cautious, but it didn't mean that the reckless instincts of the adventurer were
completely gone. He couldn't help himself. Still invisible to the creatures, he
drifted up behind the Corca Duibhne and slid his spectral hand into the back of
their leader, ghostly fingers plunging into the thing's flesh.

The creature froze, a violent shudder passing through its
thin body. Then the Corca Duibhne whipped around with a ferocious snarl,
lashing out at its startled teammates, and they began to fight amongst
themselves.

Graves smiled, but his amusement was disrupted by the oddest
sensation, like a tremor passing through the very fabric of the world.

Magick.

The heavy wooden door at the end of the hall, which hid the
entrance to Faerie, exploded violently open, crashing into the wall behind it. Graves
floated back, his spirit pummeled by powerful, magickal emanations flowing from
the open door. The Corca Duibhne cowered.

A woman of obvious Fey descent stepped from the doorway,
supernatural discharge crackling about her statuesque form. She was dressed in
black leather and moved with a casual predatory grace that informed Graves that
here was the real enemy. Two men, also bearing the physical characteristics of
Faerie, flanked her, listening intently to her every word.

"That is the last of the passages to Faerie. With that
path sealed, there will be no interference from the Fey," she announced, a
smile slashing across her severe countenance. "I do so get a thrill when a
plan comes together."

Though he had no flesh to feel with, a chill went through
Graves. He had no idea if this witch knew it, but Conan Doyle was in Faerie
even now. If she'd closed all the doors between the worlds, Conan Doyle would
be trapped there.
This is not good, not good at
all
. He was
debating what to do next when he noticed that the woman was staring in his
direction. The Night People, still cowering in front of his bedroom door,
dropped to their knees under her withering gaze.

"What is that behind you?" she asked, eyes
sparking with menace as she pointed a clawed finger in his direction.

The Corca Duibhne leaped to their feet and spun around,
unsuccessfully searching the air for his presence.

Is it possible?
Graves wondered.
Can she see me?

With a sound like grease on a hot pan, thick strings of
magickal energy erupted from the woman's fingertips and Graves knew that the
answer was yes. The putrid yellow tendrils tore through the Corca Duibhne in
their path, leaving them squealing and writhing upon the floor.

With the speed of thought, Graves shot up toward the
ceiling, avoiding the attack. Though he was dead, ectoplasm did exude a kind of
spirit energy. Somehow, this sorceress could see that energy. He made a mental
note to ask Conan Doyle about the visual range of the Fey for future reference.

"Come to Morrigan, little spirit," the Fey
sorceress whispered, manipulating the tendrils of magickal power as an
extension of her grasp.

Morrigan.
Graves was certain he had heard the name
before, but he didn't have time to search his vast memory for all the facts. Best
to simply get out of there, and try to find out what had happened to the
others. He floated upward even further, beginning to pass through the ceiling. One
of the mystic tendrils snagged his ankle, and pain the likes of which he had
not imagined possible in the afterlife engulfed his lower leg and began to
spread. The air around his captured limb began to shimmer and wave and he saw
that where he had been touched by the witch's magick, he was becoming visible.

"There you are," Morrigan hissed, manipulating
more of the energies to take hold of him.

Ghosts were insubstantial, often unable to influence the
physical world at all. But the supernatural was something else entirely. Graves
sometimes had trouble touching a human being, or anything of the human world,
but monsters and magick . . . he could combat them. Unfortunately, this meant
that he was vulnerable to their touch as well.

Graves tried to block the pain, a trick he had mastered in
life and never expected to need in death. He was tugged toward the floor. More
tendrils converged upon him, sensing the air for his whereabouts, using his
gradually materializing foot for reference. He didn't have much time. For a
moment, he ceased his struggles. The string of magick that gripped his ankle
loosened, just slightly. With every ounce of his will, he tore himself away
from its grasp, and darted down through the floor to the level below.

The foyer swarmed with invading Corca Duibhne, and they
began to panic as Morrigan shrieked from the floor above them. Graves flowed
through the amassed Night People, who stumbled about the townhouse lobby,
banging into one another in alarm. Then he was through the battered front door
and out into the freedom of the night.

The neighborhood was deathly quiet except for the wails of a
dog howling in the distance. The animal was afraid, and Graves did not blame
him in the least. Things had grown worse since his departure to the spirit
realms. A thick, rolling fog, the color of dried blood, covered the ground and
blotted out any light from the sky.

The ghost rose above Louisburg Square, the pain pulsing
through his leg just starting to fade. He hovered above the rooftops and gazed
in awe at the city below him. The unnatural mist seemed to hold it captive, and
shapes that even at this distance he could tell were not human, shambled upon
the streets. He dove down toward them for a closer look and recoiled at the
sight. Corpses in various stages of decomposition were making their way through
the streets, all moving in the same direction, as if being drawn to something.

Graves could sense the turmoil of the souls trapped within
the moldering remains, and then he understood the final words of the psychic
Yvette Darnall. Something had dragged the spirits back to their putrefying
bodies, intent on using them for some insidious purpose that he had yet to
fathom.

Graves rose again into the air, watching the dead march down
Beacon Street through the blood-red fog. Conan Doyle was gone. He knew he had
to find his other allies, but first he needed to learn more about what was
drawing the dead back from the afterworld.
At the very least
, he
thought, as he watched them all streaming in the same direction,
I want to
find out where they're headed.

"Blast!" Conan Doyle bellowed above the shrieking
winds that had abruptly torn through the quiet of the forest. He planted his
feet firmly upon the moss-covered ground, fighting the sucking void that
attempted to pull him in. He had been trying to re-open the doorway from Faerie
to his home, but it was no longer there. In its place was a swirling vortex, a
churning vacuum that tugged at him, a magickal trap that would consume him and
anything else within the reaches of its voracious hunger.

Fighting the pull of the maelstrom, he threw himself
backward, landing hard on the forest floor.

"Arthur!" Ceridwen screamed, her voice barely
audible over the mournful wail of the vortex.

Struggling against the pull of the current, Conan Doyle
turned onto his stomach and sunk his fingers into the soft earth, trying to
drag himself away from that sucking hole in the fabric of Faerie. He saw
Ceridwen now, anchored to a nearby tree with one hand. In the other, she still
held her elemental staff. The flame within the sphere of ice that capped that
length of wood glowed like a miniature sun, aroused by the presence of
dangerous magicks.