That night I literally fell into bed. I was changing the dressing and applying the ointment that Doctor Halfpenny had given me, when I slipped on one of the used bandages, toppled sideways and crashed onto the bed. Feverish, perspiring heavily and weak, I made no attempt get up.
In truth, I was so exhausted that I just lay there and let sleep have its way with me, although my night was anything but restful.
My dreams were strangely lucid, vivid to the point where I could feel everything about me, smell it, taste it even. I was sitting still and motionless on the drum in the cellar back in the Jolimont Street house, observing bottles dropping off the shelves and smashing upon the floor.
A grinding sounded, as of stones moving over each other, and the floor opened up to reveal a pit into which I fell, tumbling, rolling. I tasted the dirt from the floor as it got stuck in my mouth, felt it rubbing against my teeth. The wind whistled past me as I dropped further and further down, plunging through the blackness marked only by clumps of jagged rock reflecting a gruesome, unholy light coming up from below.
Did I not say my dream was lucid?
The sound of the wind changed to a howling, a screaming chorus of inarticulate words, jeering at me as I plunged into an enormous cavern. I thudded to the floor, uninjured yet dazed, and I took stock of my surrounds.
I tried to stand, only I found that my feet slipped upon a thin film of clear slime. Carefully I tried once more, stooping with my arms out to keep balance as I looked about.
All about was barren, dirty rock, covered alternately in dust and the same curious slime. At first it appeared that there was no order to the place, but then I saw that the uneven surface upon which I was standing was actually paved with gigantic slabs, cut sharply, with an alternating number of sides per slab.
The tessellation may have been perfectly set at one stage but now, in such a state of disrepair, the odd angles and moved earth cracked and thrust the jagged edges upward at cruel angles.
A gangrenous glow issued from lanterns carved into the rock walls, ornate with glaring, ghoulish faces that seemed to follow me as I stumbled about, slipping and rolling on the uneven surface.
Not a soul was about, yet I had the distinct notion that something had brought me here, for what purpose I cannot say, and that same something was watching me, a curiosity to the realm, fumbling about in the gloom.
Unseen eyes peered at me from a ruinous structure that dominated the cavern.
I made my way toward this edifice, climbing up huge, smooth stone steps that came up to my waist, each one, and I stood at the top, covered in slime, panting to regain my wind.
Made out of gigantic slabs of rock, it was clearly made for giants. Archways rose so high that the tops were lost in the gloom toward the top of the cavern. Corridors ran so wide that ten men could march at arm's length from each other.
There were no doors, nor windows, only those enormous arches separating one chamber from another. Not a breath of air moved about the place, despite the continued howling and sighing that permeated the cavern.
I came to an atrium, the centrepiece of the monument, and passed by two pillars of black stone inscribed with heavy lines depicting strange symbols in an iconography that I have never seen. The closest I might come to is that of Egyptian hieroglyphs, only these were more convoluted, twisted and savage in nature.
I traced one with my hand, feeling the grooves, the smooth, polished stone, the embossing. With a shock I drew my hand away as I realised that what my fingers had caressed was a stylised scene of torture – a poor soul, bound hand and foot to a large slab, being speared by some monstrous curved blade.
The evil! The unspeakable horror! I screamed, yet my voice was not in my throat. It sounded from afar, joined with the mournful chorus that came from the obsidian rock.
I turned to run, to get away from that place, to leave those accursed walls with their immoral engravings, to put as much distance as I could between myself and the howling voices, only my path was arrested by a form. For a fleeting second my mind saw the beast that was stalking me through that ancient construction.
Its gruesome, unholy features have been etched into my mind so that, while I am writing this, my hands tremble and I fear I must reassure myself that it truly was just a dream. It filled the space between the pillars, holding its arms out wide, its cruel, clawed hands ready to catch me should I try to skip past it.
That gut turning stench filled my nostrils, burnt my lungs, brought tears to my eyes. I made to run around the beast, use the wide doorway to my advantage, but it moved just as fast, its claws mere inches from me.
Giving up on that route, I wheeled an ran pell-mell across the atrium, blindly falling over skulls protruding from the masonry, heading toward the centre of the atrium in which stood, like a leering, black monolith, a stone slab, reminiscent of the sacrificial scene depicted on the wall.
With a jolt I came to my senses, sweat-soaked through my nightclothes. Even with my leg baying for my attention, it took a cold bath and a solid cup of coffee to assure me that the realm of my dreams was only a figment of my over-active imagination, inspired by my fever.
For the rest of the night I huddled at the kitchen table, shunning sleep and doing my best not to think of the nightmare I had endured.
I knew I should have been resting, the good Lord knows I was exhausted, but the coffee, the pain in my foot and my aching back prevented any further sleep, and my desire to have no more of such horrific dreams drove me from the house as soon as the sun crept over the horizon.
Walking the streets that morning was an odd experience. They were the same lanes and roads that I had taken every day, yet, perhaps it was the morning air, or my injured state, there was an unsteady vibration rocking my nerves.
Though the morning air was very cool, I was in a sweat. In spite of my injuries, I was walking as briskly as I could, avoiding the piercing glances of the pedestrians. Could it be that their eyes, like those of the offensive gargoyles from my nightmare, were following me?
The shadows were still long when I reached the library. I entered quietly, quickly, finding a desk toward the back where I would not be disturbed by the daily traffic.
Driven by a desire to understand what was going on, the book shelves became my hunting grounds for the day.
For the morning and past lunch time, I examined documented cases, stories and even mythology, surrounding aggressive, violent spirits. I discovered a trove of legends, ancient tales passed down through cultures, one generation to the next, to finally be collected and documented in the pages I now thumbed.
My first foray led me to what is called a Domovoi, a benevolent house spirit, that hides in the recesses and corners of a building, protecting it and its inhabitants from harm. The owners of the house would welcome such a creature, not in fear, but in gratitude for its services. Considering the cuts and bruises I suffered, not to mention the mess in the cellar, such a good-willed creature would surely not be my aggressor.
Then I came upon fair-folk, hobs and goblins, creatures of the Earth that make themselves known to through their actions. The stories certainly showed a more sinister side to them, yet their intentions were more mischievous than violent. Being corporeal rather than ethereal, it put them to the bottom of my list since neither the professor nor I saw any trace of a body except the enormous footprints left in the dirt.
Poltergeists, noisy ghosts that create a clamour and throw things about, was my next stop. In my time with the Professor, I have not dealt with such cases. Certainly they are rarer than the typical hauntings we are used to Documented cases and stories show that much of their activity is localised and destructive, somewhat like an insolent child seeking attention.
The bruise on my back told me otherwise: whatever hit me wanted to hurt me, not have a chat. The being that brought me to that strange, demented realm in my dream had no benevolence to it.
I searched on. Trolls. Imps. Elementals. Familiars. Demons. The further I looked, the darker my studies became. The books I took off the shelves were older and more fragile, their yellow pages had not felt breath upon them for decades.
Late in the afternoon, after a quick bite to eat, I sat down and plopped open a large, stiff book on Kabbalah or, more precisely, a Study in Unorthodox Esoteric Kabbalah and Its Rituals, having found it as a bibliographical reference in a book on paganism.
The pages were torn and worm eaten, yellow like mustard. The text within was written by a rheumatic hand in faded brown-red ink. At first I thought that it was written in another language entirely, so faint was the shaky cursive.
“Lilith attempts to bring her Offspring, maleficent and foul as they be to all righteous folk, into Civilisation to respire and grow and be among us. Vigilance and Purity are our tools against her vile Descendants and their wicked Ways. Be vigilant, you, of the Signs.
Of this Evil Lilith may be guilty withal more Evils lie on the other side, in Sitra Akhra, for which she cannot be condemned, for they are themselves condemned for their crimes.
In Sitra Akhra hides Samael, wrapped in a cloak of Darkness, and from Sitra Akhra his Minions fly forth to our World, through Conjurers, Sorcerers and Necromancers, and to Sitra Akhra will they deign with the Souls they shall devour. Be not among them, you.”
I turned the page carefully, noting down my findings. When I looked down the page I gasped for at the bottom was a diagram, some kind of geometric star, with a particular rune placed at each point. The runes matched those that had been embroidered into that cloth in the cellar!
“The symbols serve as Protection against the Horde when arranged as such or when arranged so, as a Yoke to bridle the dark one's Ambition so as to serve the Conjurer. This Binding can be entwined in a Shroud, engraved permanently upon a Board or cast into a Plaque, depending upon the ritual, depending upon the Conjurer, depending upon the Entity.”
“Be vigilant, you, of the Responsibilities that come with the Binding, for such an undertaking is not without Peril to your Soul.”
The cloth! The cloth was the binding!
I had to get the book to the Professor and show him what I had discovered before all else! Being so old and fragile, I was concerned that it may not be allowed to leave the confines of the library.
Nevertheless, I was determined to at least ask.
Mister Blake, the head librarian, was surprised to see me. Slow and precise, he looked up from his tea, down at the book in my arms, took out his watch, flipped open the cover, closed it once more and straightened his back.
“Good afternoon, Mister Blake.”
“You're about four hours too early, by my watch. And I keep it in step with the clock in the town square,” he said, drooping his luscious eyebrows over his eyes. “I certainly hope you aren't playing truant from your Professor?”
I shook my head, “No, Mister Blake. I am supposed to be resting. I had, er, an accident yesterday.”
“Some accident,” he replied, fishing out a newspaper from underneath his tea cup. “Although I can understand if you are trying to make yourself scarce by hiding in a library.”
“Hiding?”
He tapped the paper.
I picked it up and stared at a grainy image of, I am ashamed to say, me, with my pants around my ankles, shirt undone, lying on the floor of Doctor Halfpenny's surgery with a startled look in my eyes.
I read the headline:
Assistant Injured in Clandestine Opium Den!
“I – I was at the doctor's,” I stammered. “They barged straight in. How can they say this? It's a lie! Mister Blake, I have never used opium. I – I...”
For a few seconds I forgot how to breathe.
“I have never asked you what you get up to with that Professor. It's none of my business, for starters, and I'm sure I wouldn't understand a word of it if you told me,” he said as I finally exhaled. “And, luckily for you, I'm not one to put any credence in what gets printed on this mush. You may be clumsy – Lord knows how many books you've dropped – but I know you're not a patron of Chi-Su.”
“Th-thank you, Mister Blake.”
“Unluckily for you, most of the townsfolk don't share my enlightened opinion. I was late arriving today, for I was detained at every corner on the way here to engage in conversations.”
“Oh.”
“I'm a practical man, you know, and I have a reputation for being an upstanding citizen.”
“Oh.”
“Whether this,” he said, patting the paper, “is the truth or not, you will need to find a way to salvage your reputation, or find yourself a new occupation. This library cannot be seen to be harbouring riff-raff.”
His words rattled around in my ears as my eyes focused on the page:
Yesterday, at a quarter past one in the afternoon, a certain 'scientist' and his assistant were seen exiting hurriedly from a house in Jolimont Street. Several witnesses claim that they were acting in a strange manner, with one limping, having sustained an obvious injury to his leg.
It has been speculated that the pair were using the house in Jolimont, owned by one Mister Gordon French, as a clandestine opium den.
“Opium den? It's nothing of the sort!” I cried.
“Hush! This is a library!”
“I'm sorry, Mister Blake, I am! How? How can they write this?”
In a fit of opium induced stupor and hallucination, a common ailment among consumers of laudanum, it is alleged that the assistant wrecked the room in which they were partaking, injuring himself in the process.
Neighbours say the pair came often to 'chase spirits', quite possibly a euphemism for smoking or drinking narcotics.
“They can write it because they protect themselves with words like 'alleged' and 'opinion',” he replied. “Rumour can be disguised as fact with the insertion of quotes or a nameless witness. Hence my distrust of anything written on this rag.”
To test this assumption, this journalist has gained legal access to the cellar and has found, among the mess, items indicating to the positive, including powders, spilt liquids and broken bottles. All evidences will be handed to the constabulary when the matter is forwarded to their capable hands.
“The constabulary? Mister Blake, I have done nothing wrong! We have permission from Mister French to be in there.”
“And just what were you doing in there, hmm?”
“Observing. Recording. Measuring. What we always do!”
Mister Blake creaked forward in his chair, “Let an old man give you a word of advice: your story had better be watertight if the constabulary are indeed involved.”
“I will tell the truth. I have nothing to hide!”
He pointed to the paper, “The truth? This is the truth! This is what people will believe. Truth is as malleable as gold and shines just as brightly when rubbed the right way.”
I shook my head, unsure of what to say.
“Go. Go back to your Professor. Straight away. Talk to no one. If he has any sense, he will construct a story to save your reputations.”
“Yes, Mister Blake.”
“Until then,” he sighed. “I must ask that you stay away from the library. Guilty by association and all of that. I'm sorry. That is how it has to be.”
My world slipped away as my head nodded, my arms picked up the book and my lips moved on their own, “Yes, Mister Blake. Sorry, Mister Blake.”