Sins of the Father Read online

  The creature turned and looked at me, blood and gore dripping from its face. My finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Bastard!” A blur of black and white shot past and I just managed to stop myself from firing as Flora leaped onto the creature, clawing and kicking like a crazed harpy.

  The monster batted her hands away and bit her just above the wrist. She screamed, and that cry broke the paralysis holding the crowd in place. Two men rushed forward and pulled her away. The moment she was clear I stepped up and put two bullets into its wretched face. The corpse’s head exploded, sending vile fragments in all directions. The body gave a single twitch and went still.

  “Scott.”

  I turned at Flora’s voice and managed to grab her as she broke free and tried to run back to her brother.

  “You don’t want to see him.” I wrapped my arms around her. She kicked and punched but I held tight, even when her foot found my shins. She twisted to one side and I pulled her back, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  She let out a moan and went limp in my arms.

  I managed to get her to one of the few chairs left standing before she slipped completely from my grasp.

  “She all right?” Abel Smith, who’d owned the Brass Rail for as long as anyone could remember, peered down at me.

  “I pray so.” I bent to the wound. It bled steadily but slowly, assuring me the creature’s teeth hadn’t opened any major vessels. She’d need stitching, but not too much.

  “Fetch a doctor,” I told Abel. “And some clean rags and whiskey.”

  “Lickity split.” The ex-sailor limped off, his wooden leg thudding a steady beat on the floor.

  “Flora. Wake up. C’mon.” I patted her cheeks, wishing I had some smelling salts. Flora groaned and turned her head, but her eyes remained closed.

  “Holy Mother of God. Henry, come here. Hurry.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Several men were kneeling around the bodies and Ben was waving for me to join them.

  “Hold your horses,” I muttered. I looked back at Flora. She was in no immediate danger. Leaving her alone for a minute wouldn’t hurt. I took out my handkerchief and pressed it against the gash in her arm.

  “I’ll be right back,” I whispered to her. Wondering what could be so urgent, and feeling more than a little sick at the thought of seeing Scott’s mangled remains, I made my way to where Ben waited with an anxious expression.

  “I’ve got to wash Flora’s—”

  “You’ve got to see this first.” Ben took my arm and dragged me forward. “Look.” He pointed at the two bodies.

  I didn’t want to. I’d seen more than enough of the walking corpses to last a lifetime, and the short glimpse I’d had of my old friend still lingered vividly in my mind’s eye. Another would be too awful to bear. Just moments before, Scott Marsh had been alive and happy. Now he was nothing more than a cold lump of flesh, torn to pieces and sprawled in a puddle of his own blood. Not the way a good man should die, and certainly not a friend. If not for Ben’s insistence, I would have returned to Flora’s side without even casting my eyes downward.

  But I did look, sliding my gaze past poor Scott as fast as possible. Then I saw what had Ben so frantic and all other thoughts tumbled away, carried off by a flood of terror worse than any I’d ever experienced.

  Within the shattered remains of the man’s face were abnormal fibers ranging from strands as thin as sewing thread to cords the thickness of shoelaces. Unlike the pale, rotten flesh around them, the color of the foreign tissue was more yellowish-green than gray or white. Some of them, damaged by my bullets, oozed black fluids.

  Curiosity, ever my bane, trumped fear and I crouched down. With my face just above the wounds, I discerned a salty, putrid odor beneath the stench of decay and death, an odor oddly reminiscent of the fishing wharfs in the afternoon sun while the ships were unloading.

  One of the alien filaments twitched and the man’s jaws gave a half-hearted snap, closing with a hollow clack.

  I fell back, my hands slipping and sliding in cold fluids. Everything around me grew hazy and the room tilted. I fought a losing battle to retain my consciousness. As blackness closed in around me, one last thought screamed in my head.

  Demon!

  Chapter Four

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  Grateful for any reason to look away from the depressing scene playing out before me, I turned toward Ben.

  “And what might that be?”

  Ben nodded his chin toward where Flora stood by the shrouded body of her brother. After much arguing, I’d agreed to sneak her into the morgue after hours so she could spend a few minutes with Scott before he got embalmed in the morning. I’d allowed Ben to accompany us because I feared she might get hysterical again and I’d need his help to drag her out.

  “It’s not your fault, sport.”

  I bit my lip, a habit I’d picked up at some point during the two days since Scott’s death. How could Ben say that? It most definitely was my fault, and none of Ben’s repeated assurances to the contrary would change my mind. Not because I hadn’t been able to kill the monster in time to prevent Scott’s death, but because none of the previous night’s events would have happened if the two things people had taken to calling the Dead Men hadn’t shown up.

  Looking for me.

  “Bhhook.”

  There’d been no mistaking the word the second time. The creature wanted a book. And I had a terrible certainty which book the thing wanted.

  The one dropped by another monster. The one I’d foolishly brought home after my attack. Currently it resided in a locked cabinet in my house. I’d meant to take it out and have a look at it, but so far there hadn’t been any time.

  It must be important. That thing sent those creatures after me to get it back. It knew I had it. And it knew where to find me.

  I couldn’t help stealing glances at the other side of the room. I half expected the two corpses to stand up, their shrouds falling away to reveal destroyed, bloodless faces, muscles propelled by inhuman tissue….

  Stop it!

  I forced my gaze back to Flora. Focus on the here and now. The real, not the imaginary.

  Even in her mourning clothes, Flora cast a spell that tugged at my heart. A simple black dress that probably cost her a week’s salary. A matching hat and veil hid her face and blended into her midnight hair, giving her the appearance of a shadow person, a being composed of pure grief temporarily granted permission to walk the earth. Beneath the veil her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks stained with tears. Scott had been her only living relative and they’d been near inseparable despite their vastly different temperaments.

  In many ways, she and Scott were the exact opposites of Ben and Callie. Flora was the fire to Scott’s cool water, a tornado of energy who made sure Scott didn’t spend all his time at home, reading or drawing. Callie served as a calming influence on her brother, whose temper and headstrong nature often got him into trouble. Ben lived for beer and always had a ribald joke or entertaining tale at the ready, while Callie preferred the quiet of a library or study, a warm cup of tea at her side.

  More than once I’d tried to convince Scott he should ask Callie on a date, but he showed no interest in her nor any other woman. In that respect he was as stubborn as his sister, whose tenaciousness was on full display when she insisted on visiting the morgue despite her own injury, which left her arm in a sling.

  The wound worried me no end. I’d gotten a good look at it when I helped her change the bandage earlier that morning. Purple and yellow bruising surrounded the angry red and black tracks where the doctor had closed the hole in her flesh with twenty stitches, in between sips from his flask.

  After wrapping a clean cloth around her arm and assuring myself – and her – that the doctor had done a better than decent job, I put on my sternest expression and attemp
ted to convince her she should remain at home. Of course, it did no good.

  “Either you’ll take me there or I’ll go myself and kick the bloody door down.” Blue fire flashed in her eyes and her body tensed, like a great cat about to strike.

  Ben shot me a look over her head and I nodded. Better to let her make the visit and then go home than spend half the evening in an argument we were bound to lose anyhow. Because when it came to Flora, Ben and I always ended up giving in. We were both too smitten not to.

  And that will eventually lead to trouble.

  She reached out and rested a hand against Scott’s chalk-white arm. Emotions churned inside me. Her loss was pure and guileless, my own dreadfully complicated. Scott had been more than a friend. He’d been a buffer. Anytime he wasn’t with us, Ben and I always ended up in a tense competition for Flora’s attention.

  Shame crept up my neck in a warm wave. At a time like this, I shouldn’t be thinking about my own desires. I couldn’t help it, though. All day I’d found my brain returning to questions inappropriate for a time of mourning. What would happen to my friendship with Ben if Flora chose one of us over the other? Or decided to date us both to see who she preferred?

  Worse, what if she rejected our advances altogether for those of another suitor?

  If there was to be a competition, I’d need to step up and throw my hat in the ring before Ben – or anyone else – did. But if I made my move too soon I might come off as a cad and ruin any chance to win her heart.

  Blast it! Now’s the time to be a friend. Flora needed a shoulder to cry on, not a date for the theater. In fact, perhaps I should encourage Ben’s not-so-subtle—

  The door to the morgue swung open with a bang and all three of us jumped. Two men entered unannounced from the front office.

  “Don’t move,” one of them called out.

  I caught sight of their blue uniforms and my heart plummeted into my stomach. Police, and they already held their batons in their hands.

  Damn it to hell. Now there’d be trouble. Not for Ben and Flora; they’d get a lecture about being in the morgue after hours but no one would go too hard on them because of Flora’s status as a grieving family member.

  I, on the other hand, would likely get a serious reprimand from the council for abusing my privileges and bringing civilians into the morgue outside of regular autopsy viewings. I might even lose my job, which I could ill afford.

  Before I could say anything, Inspector Patrick Flannery entered. He’d been heading up the investigation into the murders. Flannery wore a gray suit and a black derby hat, the same clothes every day, yet they never looked wrinkled or dirty. Perhaps he had a closet filled with identical suits.

  “Henry Gilman, come with us.” Flannery’s narrowed eyes bored into mine. Beneath his thick handlebar mustache, his lips tightened and his jaw clenched. The two officers stepped forward, batons in hand and matching scowls on their faces.

  “Me?” A sudden image came to mind. A dead body on the sidewalk, its throat covered in circular bruises. Had they somehow made a connection to me? I’d said nothing about it the night before, when the police finally arrived at the pub following Scott’s murder.

  “Shut yer damn pie hole and move.” One of the officers grabbed my arm and I pulled away. The officer raised his baton and Flora let out a gasp. Then her temper asserted itself.

  “What’s all this about? We’re paying respects to my dead brother and you come barging in like we’re criminals.”

  “Not you, ma’am. I’m here for him.” Flannery pointed at me. “Appears the apple don’t fall far from the crazy tree.”

  The inspector’s words gut-punched me. For a moment, the world swam around him and I fought to breathe.

  The dead men in the pub…they think I….

  “No.” The denial came out in a whisper. My body went weak and I offered no resistance when the two officers hauled me toward the exit. “No, I didn’t…it wasn’t me.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Everything went gray for a few seconds and then cold air on my skin brought me back to my senses. I would have stumbled down the stairs to the sidewalk and the waiting paddy wagon if not for the officers holding me up. The faces of the passersby were blurred, their hushed, startled voices blending into wordless murmurs overwhelmed by Flannery’s words repeating in my head.

  “The apple don’t fall far from the crazy tree.”

  Chapter Five

  “Dead people don’t walk into bars and start fights.”

  Inspector Flannery tilted back in his chair and lit a cigar, his third one since he’d entered the interrogation room. He blew a cloud of vile-smelling smoke my way and then let the chair fall forward with a bang.

  A ragged cough escaped me and I turned my head as far as I could. Best I could judge, I’d been subject to Flannery’s rude manners and hostile attitude for going on two hours. We’d arrived at headquarters after a bruising ride in the wagon, where every bump in the road slammed my back into the metal wall. I’d been brought to a tiny room that contained nothing but a table and two chairs. A beefy officer who stunk like he hadn’t bathed in days chained me to one of the chairs and then left me alone. After several minutes, Flannery had entered, cigar in mouth and pen in hand.

  And the questions began.

  Why were you there? What did you see? Why did they only attack you and your friends? What were they? What-what-why-why?

  I had answered as best I could, when not fighting for breath in the polluted air. Flannery didn’t stop his inquiries, but more than once his bushy eyebrows went up, and he frequently shook his head while scratching notes into a tiny pad.

  Now, as I prepared myself to answer the same questions for the third time, I began to suspect it didn’t matter what I said. Flannery would never believe I had nothing to do with the queer events at the Brass Rail. He’d keep going until I either broke or died from lack of air.

  “I know that as…well as you.” My words came out in a gasp as I struggled to breathe. I wished my hands were free so I could wave the noxious cloud away. “Doesn’t change the fact…that it happened.”

  Flannery tapped his pencil against the rough, stained surface of the table and stared, his eyes cold and calculating. The uncomfortable silence stretched on, and I found my attention drifting, captured by the thin line of gray spiraling up from his cigar. Up and up, expanding into an amorphous blob as it neared the ceiling, where it—

  “Heard you also had some sort of run-in the night before.”

  My body jerked. Damned if I hadn’t nearly drifted off, lulled by the hypnotic motion of the smoke and the long pause.

  He wanted me off guard.

  Careful, Henry. This one’s smarter than he lets on.

  I took a moment to collect my thoughts before answering. How had Flannery found out? Then I remembered the officers questioning Ben and Flora and everyone else in the pub the previous night. One of my companions must have mentioned my altercation in the alley. I cursed my loose lips. Hopefully, they’d kept quiet about the nature of my attacker and the dead body.

  “Yes.” I wondered how much to tell. Not all of it. That would land me in the nuthouse. But I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. I still bore the marks of the struggle. “I got caught by surprise. Bastard came out of the fog. Roughed me up but I took a shot at him and he ran off.”

  “Why didn’t you say something last night?”

  “No one asked. Besides, one has nothing to do with the other.”

  Flannery frowned, then his face relaxed and he leaned back. I did the same, expecting another lungful of fumes to be blown my way. Once again Flannery surprised me.

  “How did you do it?”

  “What?” The line of questioning made no sense. “Do what?”

  “You know damn well what.” The words exploded from Flannery and he slammed his meaty palm
s down on the table, sudden rage twisting his features. “You built those bloody abominations! Stitched the pieces together, filled them with parts from the bodies you stole and turned them into walking nightmares. You’re a damned lunatic, just like your father.”

  The violence of his words rocked me back in the chair and I nearly lost my balance in the process.

  “No.”

  “Can it, Gilman. I’m onto you. Decided to follow the family business, did you? I always knew you were an odd stick. Spending all your time playing with the dead. What kind of man does that? Oh, yes, that’s right. Your father.”

  “I didn’t do it.” I shook my head. “I’m not like him.”

  “We’ll see about that. Meantime, you can cool your heels in the slammer for a while.”

  Flannery’s fist caught me just as I opened my mouth to protest his accusations again. The world exploded in colored lights and a second pain blossomed in the back of my head. Everything tilted and went dark. When my vision cleared, I was sideways on the floor, Flannery’s mustachioed face looming over me.

  “Next time it’ll be my stick doing the talking. Get him out of here.”

  Flannery disappeared and the two nameless officers from the morgue took his place. One of them righted the chair and unlocked the chains. Then the other heaved me up by the arms, giving my shoulders a good twist in the process. They half led, half dragged me down a flight of stairs to the lockup and shoved me into an empty cell.

  The taller of the officers rolled the door closed and the iron bars slid home with a bang.

  I waited until the officers left before climbing to my feet. A quick glance showed the cell barren except for a chamber pot in one corner, which delivered an odor strongly suggesting it hadn’t been emptied since the last occupant used it. No window to freshen the air or relieve the darkness. The only light came from a single torch flickering near the stairs.

  My examination of my surroundings over, I took a seat on the far side of the cell, putting as much distance as possible between my nose and the awful smell. The damp cold of the stone floor and wall soaked through my clothes and numbed the aches in my body. I wished it would travel through me to my lips, which were swollen and split.