Warlock Holmes--The Sign of Nine Page 17

  “I think… yes. If we hurry. First, we must find a way to convey Gennaro Lucca to safety.”

  “Luckily, we do have a wheelbarrow,” said Holmes. “Watson, Mrs. Lucca, why don’t you see to it. Don’t forget to help young Hopkins as well.”

  As we struggled to get Gennaro up, Holmes leaned in close to Leverton and said, “Allan Pinkerton cares about the social good, you say? Well I care about whoever needs my help. That is why I’ve inflicted this minor setback upon you today.”

  Nathaniel Leverton’s expression gave us little doubt that he considered this a bit more than a minor setback.

  “And I want you to tell Mr. Pinkerton that it is only because of my high regard for him that I do not turn this into a major defeat.”

  Leverton rolled his eyes. It was clear he thought Holmes’s words were pure bravado. Yet they were not.

  “After all,” Holmes added, “what is to stop me from peeling that black iron gauntlet off your belt and ensuring you and your employer never see it again?”

  Leverton’s eyes went wide with terror.

  “I am trusting you. I am trusting Allan Pinkerton. Pray do not make me regret my decision. I bid you good day. Which… um… which is not to say you will actually have a good day. I fear the next twenty-six hours are going to be… well… allow me to apologize in advance for the state of your trousers.”

  * * *

  Getting Gennaro Lucca patched up and safely to Italy with his wife in the time available was no small feat. There was no possibility that the news of Black Gorgiano’s death would precede them, so there was every chance the loyal members of the Ring of Red Faction would intercept and murder the two travelers. What hope had Holmes and I of negotiating the subtle and complex web of criminal politics in a land we knew so little of?

  Luckily for us, when subtlety failed we had other options.

  We sent Grogsson with them. If any of the local Mafiosi felt obligated to test his mettle against Torg… well… we wished him luck.

  To Mrs. Warren, we could only extend our condolences on the loss of five pounds a week. Then again, that’s what one gets for being nosey.

  Personally, I was rather pleased with the outcome. It felt good to rub the Pinkerton Detective Agency’s nose in it for a second time. I held this view for three more nights. Until a long-dead Persian taught me how unspeakably dangerous were the waters into which I had just thrust my toe. And how wrong I had been to do it.

  THE DETECTIVE

  FROM THE DREAM JOURNAL OF DR. JOHN WATSON

  THE AIR SMELLS STRANGE. CITY AIR, TO BE SURE, BUT NOT London’s. It’s cleaner. Drier. Almost dusty. It gives the impression of summer, though I cannot feel the heat. In the center of this basement room stands a circle of nine lawmen.

  Black Stetsons rest on their heads, probably seven feet from the soles of their black leather boots. The overcoats they wear are black, too. Or, they were. They are aged and weathered; one can hardly imagine the years and miles they’ve traveled. The eyes of the lawmen are dim and haggard above their black moustaches.

  They stand in a circle, looking down at a man who stands in the middle of the ring. Their hate for him is palpable. They’d kill him if they could. Which—I realize—means they can’t. All they can do is stare at him with impotent rage.

  “Well now, here we all are, eh, boys?” says the man. He’s American, though there’s just the hint of a Scottish brogue to his speech. He’s balding, with a dark beard in a severe cut. He must be in his forties, and yet there is a boyish quality to him, not unlike Warlock Holmes. His tone is jovial. “I’ll bet you fellers didn’t think anyone’d wake you up from that sleep of yours and put you to use. But that’s what we’re going to do, yes indeed! They’re havin’ a hell of a war, back east. And half of them is fighting for a cause you boys’d know a good bit about: they’re trying to keep men enslaved. And I guess that’s what you fellers’re for, eh? But here’s a bit of a catch: you’re meant to be slaves, too. Yep, you were supposed to help some dead Frenchie rule us all. Now, it’s too late for that, but I reckon I’ve got a use for you. You see, slavery needs new ground to flourish, or the Civil War’s gonna wipe it out. So the ten of us, we’re gonna make the West poison to the slaver. We’re gonna hold it over there, where it can’t live long. Yep! How ’bout that? Damned if Abraham Lincoln don’t bless the day he met me! All right boys, let’s get you presentable. Show me your ‘badges’.”

  The nine lawmen’s left arms move stiffly, as if against their will. Their pale hands reach forward into the circle and present black leather wallets. Each opens to reveal a gleaming badge in the shape of a triangle. Inside the triangle is an all-seeing eye, above the words We Never Sleep.

  The dream is pushing me forward now, into the circle. I have no idea why, until I break into the center and all the lies that have been woven around these creatures fall away. I see them as they truly are. Those nine things aren’t men. Had I thought them pale-skinned? That isn’t skin! It’s… more like… have you seen a wasp’s nest? Their gray spittle dried to papery solidity? They have no eyes, no mouths. Just gaping holes into their empty, papery heads. They are not men, but made to fool men. Tall, slender, crooked lies with dried, crackling skin in black robes.

  I know these creatures! One of them nearly killed me, just three days ago.

  I’m so shocked to learn their true identities, it takes me a moment to notice that their badges are not exactly as they appeared, either. They hold no wallets; each of the nine fiends have been branded with marks of ownership. Their left palms have been scorched with the eye in the triangle.

  I’ve seen that before!

  I’ve done that before!

  I once cut the hand from Alexander Holder, guardian of the Beryl Coronet, and burnt that symbol into his disembodied palm to try to save him from Moriarty. I drew that triangle and those words: the slogan of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

  My eyes fly to the man beside me in the center of the circle. That’s Allan Pinkerton! By God… What has he done?

  Holder’s words come back to me. I remember how he scoffed at the thousands of men in Pinkerton’s employ. He’d invited me to disregard them. Allan Pinkerton—he had said—had only nine true agents. Nine riders, clad in black. And woe to him that sees one.

  What has Allan Pinkerton done? And how? And why? To end slavery? Of course it’s a noble goal, but doesn’t he understand what he’s set loose? I am standing in a circle of mankind’s worst nightmares. Pinkerton seems to have control over them for now, but what if he slips? What if he dies? He’s only a man, as far as I can tell.

  But what an audacious man. It seems he’s Holmes’s equal for that, as well. Anybody who can behold the true visage of the nine can see the extent of Pinkerton’s daring—can see just what steps he’s taken to make his new agents “presentable”. They aren’t men and they aren’t marshals and they certainly don’t have facial hair—how could they; they don’t have faces. What they do have is playful little curlicues of black paint just above where they ought to have lips.

  Allan Pinkerton has painted goddamned moustaches on the greatest and most terrible magical beings this planet has ever known. I bet if I could see the tops of their heads, I’d find little doodles of cowboy hats.

  To borrow a phrase from the locals, the man’s got balls!

  I feel the dream beginning to slip from me. No! Not yet! I need time to look on the nine: time to know them.

  There is the least of them: Force, symbolized by the Sword. He is hardly more than an aspect of the other nine—a supporter and a catch-all.

  Next comes Unity, the Fasces. He is duty. Propriety. If we know what is expected of us, and obey that expectation, it is his touch we are feeling. As a soldier and an Englishman, I know this fellow all too well.

  There is Secular Command, the Crown, standing beside Religious Command, the Hieroform. The two are often at odds, yet how often have they come together to change the destiny of this world?

  Pain, symbolized by the
Cruciator, stands beside Fear, the Gauntlet—that’s the one who nearly ended me, just a few days ago.

  Wealth, the Coin, needs no companion. Because, really, what else do you need but wealth?

  And here is the strange thing about the hearts of men, and what drives them to commit terrors upon each other: the softest forces are the strongest. Here stands the prince: second of the nine. He is the Heart. He is Love. He stands at the left hand of their king, the greatest of them. It’s hard for me to know what his symbol is—it’s stranger than the others. A little black tableau. A family? I think it must be.

  He is taller than the others, and much, much stronger. He’s the biggest, blackest liar of them all.

  Hope.

  And with that glimpse of Hope, humanity’s strongest and most pernicious predator, the dream is over.

  Which is not to say I wake from it.

  THE SIGN OF NINE

  1

  HONK, HONK!

  Ah, that familiar bane to nocturnal regularity: Holmes’s accordion. The reader will forgive me, I hope, that I have not chronicled each and every instance when it stirred me from slumber. Neither have I seen fit to write of each barking dog, arguing cabman or overzealous sparrow that did the same. Yet all those secondary annoyances put together had not racked up nearly the score of Watson-wakenings as Holmes’s damned accordion could boast.

  To be fair, he had warned me. On the day we met he’d listed his flaws as a living companion and had dutifully included this predilection. He had certainly forgotten to mention a couple of other key traits (for example, the fact he was riddled with demons) but he’d been as good as his word on the accordion. He would often launch into honking, squealing song at whatever hour he felt he must. I’d learned not to mind it much, for I loved Holmes and he was always sorry to be a disturbance; he seemed as much a victim to this habit as I was. Yet that morning, he gave me a selection from my least favorite section of his repertoire: his incomplete tunes.

  You see, it wasn’t so bad when I could hear the whole song. True, “Davey, Get You Up and Kiss Me” was far from my favorite ditty, but at least I had the consolation of hearing its entirety whenever Holmes played it. Yet sometimes he played only tiny snatches of song, disembodied honks and chords that formed no cohesive melody. I’m sure anybody who has ever roomed with the second bassoonist for the Vienna Philharmonic could tell you what it’s like—to have their living companion constantly playing tiny parts of the world’s finest compositions. The man who can enjoy Wagner, having only heard the second bassoon part, has an infinitely superior musical ear to my own.

  Until that fateful morning, Holmes’s orphan honks had been much more vexing than his complete tunes. Yet, that morning I had failed to truly wake from my Xantharaxespowered dream. The veil was yet over my eyes when I emerged from my room, sometime between four and five in the morning, bidden by Holmes’s intermittent honking. Conscious choice had not yet displaced the strange felicity of imagination unfettered by waking reason. And so, with the secrets of magic burning in my blood, I heard Holmes’s song for the first time.

  The whole song.

  Honk, honk! went the accordion. And from a thousand other realities, a multitude of demons screamed out, in perfect unison, “O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!” (Oh, friends, not these sounds!)

  Though the words were the same, the meaning was different for every creature. Some sang because they felt hate. Some because they were trapped in a realm of constant pain. Some boasted of their powers. Some only wanted to express that they were hungry and wished they could get to where Holmes was so they could eat. How was it that these thousands of different creatures—who could not possibly have known each other—had chosen to sing of their troubles in exactly the same syllables, at different pitches but in perfect harmony?

  “Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen und freudenvollere.” (Let us make more pleasant and more joyful noises.)

  Honk, honk!

  Beneath us, I could hear the worms of the earth—the barely cohesive strings of thought and hope native to our world. They told of their fear of Holmes and the voices that sang in him. They pleaded for him to keep them out, for they were helpless to nurture the beings who lived on the planet they embodied, should the outsiders break in. They spoke in a rumble deeper than the shaking tones of whale song.

  Brrrmmmm-hmmmmm-hrummmmmm—

  Honk, honk!

  “Freude! Freude!” (Joy! Joy!)

  —hrmmmm-bmmmmmmmm-bmmmmmmm!

  Honk, honk!

  “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium!” (Joy, beautiful, divine spark, Daughter of Elysium!)

  And above it all, the all-but-inaudible trilling of the stars, as the celestial bodies above us spun in infinity. I could hear the changing tones of the invisible bonds of gravity that pulled them together as momentum swung them apart. How great the force that flung them through the void!

  Yet the thing that struck the most awe into me—and the most terror—was the fact that I knew that song. I had heard it at a concert not a year before.

  Brmmmmm-hmmmmmm.

  Honk!

  “Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!” (Divine being, we enter your sanctuary, drunk with fire!)

  Beethoven’s Ninth, the “Ode to Joy”.

  It was not the power of the thing that brought me to my knees, but the familiarity. Even the intoxicating grip of my dream could not shield me from the horror of it—could not stop me from understanding the ramifications of thousands of demons singing Beethoven. My eyes filled with tears. I knelt behind Holmes and held my hands up towards him. I don’t know if I was pleading with him to stop or simply overcome by the power of the song, but I trembled uncontrollably. My arms—pocked with innumerable needle-marks—had hardly the strength to raise themselves.

  Why couldn’t they sing something else? If I didn’t recognize the song, I could maintain ignorance of my true situation: that thousands of beings of immense power were fascinated with my world. My home. Why were they not fixated on their own weird little worlds? Why were they singing bloody Beethoven?

  The answer was plain.

  Holmes.

  That’s why: Holmes.

  At last, I understood. And that is why I wept.

  All these sounds I had never heard, Holmes always had. These were the constant truths and unwanted secrets that intruded into his mind at every hour of every day, usually as a cacophonous wall of noise. And, of course, he had no power to silence them. Silence reality? All the realities? No. He couldn’t.

  Or at least he had the grace not to.

  What he could do is pick up that damned old accordion and bully them. If they would not be silent, they would at least be harmonic. Why not put a happy smile on his face? And—with just a few accordion honks—why not throw his will out across all existences and force the discord of the multiple cosmoses to yield to him.

  Ode to Joy.

  Why not?

  I let loose a wracking sob. Holmes stopped with a jerk and spun around. “Oh! Watson! I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

  I made no answer. How could I? I just knelt there, my palms stretched pleadingly up towards him as I wept the tears of the helpless and the damned.

  “Well, you needn’t be so dramatic about it, John!” he grumbled. “I’m finished now and you’re welcome to go back to bed. Or here, look: I’ve put the kettle on. Tea always helps you forgive me. You do forgive me, don’t you?”

  He reached down and gently pulled me to my feet. “What’s wrong, John? You look terrible. By the twelve gods, you seem even more doomed than when you went to bed! Has something happened?”

  I had no power left to lie to him. In the face of the things I’d just learned, I had no wit to hide my deeds. All my worries and sins burst from my mouth in a flood.

  “I stole it, Holmes! I stole your amphigory and I stole your Xantharaxes! I’ve been using it for dreams. Oh, Warlock, I’ve learned so much! I can tell you about Moriarty! And Irene! I’ve see
n my Irene. But she’s off kissing some Pinkerton bastard, I think. Oh! And, Holmes, I saw Allan Pinkerton! You won’t believe what he’s done! We’re all in danger, Holmes! We’re in such terrible danger!”

  Holmes recoiled from me. “Wait, you’ve… you’ve what? You’ve been putting shredded mummy into the amphigory and injecting it? Why?”

  “To know what you do, Holmes! To know enough about Moriarty that I’m not so helpless next time! To see her! I want to see her!”

  “And that’s why you’ve been looking so wretched lately, John? Egad, I thought it was the flu!”

  “The flu? The flu?” I cried, and waved my needle-scarred arms at him. “How could this be the flu?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Chickenpox, then,” he said, furrowing his brow. “It seems I have been somewhat remiss. I should have paid more attention, I suppose. Yes… I’m sorry. Please excuse me.”

  He walked past me with the saddest expression on his face and went into my room. The muted brassy clangs that emanated from therein gave me to know he was reclaiming his property—that bizarre instrument of self-torture that had become so precious to me. I heard him deposit the runcible amphigory on his alchemical desk. Soon he emerged again and walked past me to the mantelpiece. He looked down into the Persian slipper and recoiled when he saw how much Xantharaxes was missing. He pulled the slipper free from the nail that held it in place and walked back to his room.

  I had no idea what I should do. Then again, my doctor’s training should have told me what I would do.

  Sleep.

  When you pull a bullet out of somebody, they sleep. As soon as that foreign irritant—the source of all their discomfort—has been removed, they cannot help it. The relief they feel is so profound, nature takes over.