The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

RETURN OF THE SHROUD

Professor Jacob Hearthstone listened to Dr. Taoka’s words, mentally translating them with a slight bit of difficulty. Though the Japanese language was second nature to Hearthstone, he still had trouble deciphering terms not used in everyday conversation, and such was the case with the surgeon’s medical jargon. But Hearthstone realized that words were not the important thing here. Anyone familiar with the niceties of Japanese culture could ignore the words, concentrate only on Taoka’s body language, and easily recognize the true intent of the surgeon’s visit.

Dr. Taoka was here to beg forgiveness.

Hearthstone closed his eyes and let Taoka’s quiet words engulf him. Cloaked in the surgeon’s explanations were effusive excuses beyond number. The professor sighed mightily, and Taoka began to speak faster.

The true hell of it was that the surgeon’s explanations made perfect sense. After all, Dr. Taoka had come to Hearthstone with high recommendations and an excellent reputation among the most conservative elements of the Tokyo medical community. But Hearthstone, unfettered from the chains of logic and reason during his bride’s long illness, had an increasingly difficult time processing information that should have made perfect sense.

The old man fought his suspicions, watching the surgeon’s lips twist as he stumbled over a particularly difficult explanation. Dr. Taoka was not a butcher, he told himself. The surgeon could not be an avenging murderer. He was exactly who, and what, he claimed to be.

And yet…

Taoka was skilled in the use of blades. Hearthstone had watched him from the gallery above the surgery, had seen him take the scalpel from the towel-covered tray, the tray that, covered, existed in shadow. With his own eyes Hearthstone had watched the surgeon put blade to flesh — the flesh of Hearthstone’s bride — and he had noted the familiar intensity that burned in the man’s eyes.

If man he was.

Hearthstone fought against his powerful memory, but a memory that cataloged even the most minor impression could not be dammed. Everything came flooding back. The blade. Taoka’s eyes. The cotton mask that had covered the surgeon’s mouth. Hearthstone had watched the thin material puff out with an exhalation; he’d seen it draw back with Taoka’s next breath.

The mask had drawn tight against a lurid grin. Of that, Hearthstone was certain. And at that moment, standing alone in the gallery, the sibilant hint of a Beethoven sonata issuing from stereo speakers below, Hearthstone had remembered another blade and another woman.

And the same grin.

At that moment, the surgeon made the first deep incision.

At that moment, screaming violins sliced the silence.

And now the surgeon spoke of infection and fever. The diagnosis was poor. Hopeless, really, but Taoka was trying desperately not to say that.

Trying desperately, Hearthstone thought, not to smile.

“Thank you, Doctor Taoka,” the old man said, his Japanese impeccable, his accent perfect. “This is awful news, of course, and I find myself terribly saddened by it. But I would like you to put the best face on your report. A happy face, if you please.”

“Professor Hearthstone… I’m afraid that I don’t understand.”

Hearthstone bent forward. “Sir, I would appreciate it very much if you would smile for me.”

Doctor Taoka was confused. Perhaps this was an American custom with which he was unfamiliar. He made to protest. But as his mind searched for a tactic that would not offend, his lips twisted unbidden into a perplexed grin.

Hearthstone thanked the surgeon and promptly shot him dead.

The first time they met, long before Hearthstone had ever seen Japan, the professor asked, “Are you demon or angel?”

“I am… The Shroud.” The answer came in a purring whisper. “I come for those who are evil. Those who are evil must suffer, then die.”

Hearthstone shivered, embarrassed to be frightened by such base melodrama. Silly to have come here, to headquarters, alone. The stranger had been waiting for him, had slipped from the shadows and whispered that he was an avenger, a ghost.

Don’t surrender to the fear, Hearthstone warned himself. Keep the madman talking until someone comes to check on you. Listen to his insane babbling, and kill him when the odds are in your favor.

Hearthstone turned to the window. Below, the San Francisco streets swam with fog, but it was a low fog. Across the street, it hung far below a theatre marquee bathed in the white glow of overhead lamps, a stark illumination that transformed the reaching gray tendrils into cottony puffs that resembled the cloudy floor of some Hollywood heaven.

Black letters on the marquee. Frankenstein double-billed with Dracula.

Ah, true melodrama. Hearthstone chuckled at that. “Sir, if it’s evil you’ve come for, I believe you’ve come to the wrong place. Messieurs Lugosi and Karloff are across the street.”

Silence.

“A small joke,” Hearthstone began, his throat constricting involuntarily as the stranger advanced, quiet as the evening fog. And then words spilled unbidden from the professor’s thin lips, driven by a pure, instinctive terror that he had never experienced previously. “A small joke… from a small, unimportant man. I deal only in narcotics, synthesized through methods I discovered while employed by some of our more adventurous captains of industry. Mere entertainments for the bored and the jaded, those who find no solace in the pleasures approved by modern society… I’m sure you understand. Perhaps you, sir… Perhaps you would like — ”

Laughter echoed from the velvet draperies that hung about the window. The inhuman sound forced Hearthstone to shrink away from the room’s lone source of light.

“Please understand,” Hearthstone begged, stumbling toward his desk, his eyes searching the room, “I am not a rich man, but if it’s money you want… ”

Mellow shadows pooled on the pine floor as The Shroud — now silhouetted in the gray glow of the window — moved forward. Planks complained as if punished by a heavy tread, but the self-proclaimed avenger was drifting toward Hearthstone like the wispy shadow of something floating outside on the night fog. The thing — Hearthstone’s instinctive fear told him that this could not be a man — came closer, its harsh laughter rising.

“A shadowshow for you, Professor. Without fee…”

Another sound. The swish of a cape on the hardwood floor. “Mister Lugosi,” the voice whispered, suddenly tinged with a familiar accent.

Red eyes burned in the darkness. Hearthstone reached out. fingers scrabbling across the stained blotter, and flicked on the desk lamp. The bulb flared, then exploded, and the brief instant of brightness momentarily blinded the professor.

The scent of ozone flooded the stuffy room. Hearthstone caught the sizzle of lightning and the slightest glimpse of a scarred neck spiked with twin bolts. “Mr. Karloff,” the voice enthused.

No longer the sound of a sweeping cape. Now heavy boots beat a slow rhythm across the pine floorboards.

Spots swam before Hearthstone’s eyes. He rubbed at them, blinking away tears. The spots danced, rotated, all but a single black globe that stared him down and made him sob.

“Anyone,” the voice whispered.

A black slit spread across the ebony circle and split into a grin.

“Anywhere… ”

Puddled against the wall.

“Anytime… ”

Slipped toward the window.

“Good night, Jacob Hearthstone,” said The Shroud. “And remember — next comes suffering.”

“Damn,” Professor Hearthstone said. “Double damn.”

He stared at Taoka’s face. The surgeon’s corpse didn’t grin. Rather it frowned, its thin lips blemished by a gout of blood that was already drying. And though the room was flooded with light, as were all the rooms within the professor’s compound, Hearthstone searched desperately for a single shadow.

None near Taoka’s bloody mouth. None in the corners of the room. None behind the satin draperies, nor beneath the lacquered desk, nor behind the rice-paper doors of the closet.

His bride had often asked him, “Why do we need all this light? You’ve already killed him, haven’t you?”

Always he corrected her without drawing attention to the correction, and always he pretended that yes, indeed, he was certain that he had killed the thing. ”It was a demon, and I am too much the cynic to believe that this world is cursed with the presence of only one demon. There may be others far more powerful than The Shroud.”

No, he would not remember. The path of memory was dangerous. Possibly fatal.

Hearthstone clapped his hands. Pulled himself into the present moment.

He stared at the dead surgeon. At the caked blood on his lips. At the corners of the room.

At the complete absence of shadows.

In the lore of San Francisco’s Chinatown, the incident was know as The Night Of The Axes. It was Professor Hearthstone’s finest moment. He had maintained a low profile for several months, partially due to worry over the strange nocturnal visit that had occurred at his headquarters, partially because his next move required careful planning.

Hearthstone had long coveted the secrecy that a Chinatown operation would afford his particular concerns. The police steered clear of the foreign population, and the professor felt that his business would go undetected if he could conduct it from a section of the city that was little known or understood.

The only problem with Hearthstone’s scheme was that there were others who already controlled the area. Namely the Wong Ching Benevolent Society, an organization known as much for its wealth as its ruthless behavior.

But within that equation lay the answer to the professor’s dilemma. If Chinatown understood wealth, then its occupants would understand him. And if the Wong Chings understood ruthless behavior, then ruthless behavior would be the order of the day.

Hearthstone recruited a pack of hale and hearty Irishman from one of the city’s more notorious waterfront bars and appointed a recently busted policeman named Thomas Clancy as their leader. Equipped with firefighting garb and axes, the Irishmen descended upon a restaurant called Sun Lim’s, which happened to serve as headquarters to the Wong Chings. When their axe blades grew dull and the tiled floors were well-oiled with Chinese blood, the merry Irish mob torched the building. They watched the flames dance, drinking strange Oriental liquor and singing a merry tune of their native land.

Then get ye a dozen stout fellows,

And let them all stagger and go,

And dig a great hole in the meadow,

And in it put rosin the bow.

The incident was reported in the local press as an accidental fire. Even in those days, the mayor feared civil unrest if the truth was widely reported. But the mayor needn’t have worried, for the true story was know by all in Chinatown. The tale terrified even the bravest members of the teaming populace. The word riot was not spoken, was not even thought.

This pleased Professor Hearthstone. He immediately launched the second phase of his operation, flooding the community with money and gifts to demonstrate the largess of the new regime.

In the shabby apartments and cellars of Chinatown, people began to speak happily of the collapse of the Wong Ching Benevolent Society.

In a lavish suite overlooking Grant Avenue, Professor Hearthstone set about learning the Chinese language.

And in the gutted ruins of Sun Lim’s Restaurant, a dark thing laughed.

“You should not have let him pass, Mr. Machii.”

The yakuza lieutenant, his shaved head lowered, stared at the kitchen floor. Hearthstone knew that the man would not comment until instructed to do so.

Another bumbler, Hearthstone thought. Not like in the old days, when the yakuza were the world’s best. No, those days were long gone. Today, too many yakuza were simple punks drawn from the bosozoku gangs. And they didn’t leave their bosozoku past behind, still caring more about motorcycles and hotrods and dirty magazines than matters of economics or honor.

“Dr. Taoka made the mistake of allowing his loyalties to fall into question,” Hearthstone continued. “I’m afraid that such questions must be dealt with in a harsh manner. We must act swiftly, even if our suspicions are tenuous at best. As we say in America, we must shoot first and ask questions later.” Hearthstone suppressed a smile. “Bang bang bang. Understand?”

An almost imperceptible nod from the yakuza; even a bosozoku could understand such a simple message. Hearthstone watched the man’s bristly eyebrows shift as he studied the floor — Hearthstone’s shoes, his own shoes, the elegant dish that lay on the floor between them, the raw, teriyaki-drenched filet mignon that filled the dish.

Was he afraid? Or was he thinking, measuring the distance, weighing the time that it would take to strike?

No. That was imagination.

“You will not make this mistake again, will you, Mr. Machii?”

The yakuza lieutenant bowed.

Hearthstone brightened, his mind focusing. Of course. A test. That was the sane man’s measure of loyalty. “And you will do something to restore my faith in your abilities, will you not?”

Machii did not hesitate. Still avoiding Hearthstone’s eyes, he turned to the kitchen counter and positioned a marble cutting stone. He placed his left hand on the stone, fingers splayed, and slipped a neatly folded handkerchief under the smallest finger.

The yakuza’s fingernails were stained with engine oil. The professor allowed himself a slight frown. No demon, this one. Only bosozoku trash.

A slim knife appeared in Machii’s right hand. A swift slash — no sound of blade meeting marble — and the yakuza’s left pinky was severed at the juncture of the proximal and middle phalanges.

Beads of sweat erupted on Machii’s forehead. Carefully, he folded the handkerchief over the severed finger. Once. Twice.

Hearthstone nearly laughed at the scene. A clean white shroud for a dirty little finger.

A shroud…

Machii peered into Hearthstone’s eyes. The professor backed away, fighting the memories that came flooding back.

Hearthstone held out a hand.

The yakuza snorted against the pain. His lower lip quivered. (Hearthstone watching.) Tightened into an agonized grin. (Hearthstone reaching inside his coat.) Parted as he took a very small breath.

His last breath.

His last grin.

A single slug exploded from the barrel of Hearthstone’s automatic, and the yakuza slumped forward. His severed digit slipped from the handkerchief and dropped into the elegant dish. A thick line of blood oozed over the filet mignon and puddled beneath the thin teriyaki sauce.

Hearthstone watched the yakuza’s face, stiffened when the man sank to the floor.

It wasn’t that the man’s death disturbed the professor.

Behind him, something had begun to growl.

She came each day to Hearthstone’s Grant Avenue suite, though she preferred to call the street Dupont Gai, or old Dupont Street, in the manner of the local population. She came with books tucked under one arm, ready to teach the Chinese language to Jacob Hearthstone.

Her name was Anastasia White, and she had grown up in Shanghai. Her father was a diplomat — of what nation she would not say. Her mother was not a topic for conversation, either. But Hearthstone judged that Anastasia’s mother must have been a true beauty, for the young woman’s complexion was a stunning creamy gold and her amber eyes were as delectable as spiced almonds.

Needless to say, Hearthstone played at being a poor student, ever eager to keep the beauteous Miss White in his employ. Soon they were working their way through the extensive menu at Madame Liu’s, Anastasia’s favorite restaurant, under the pretense that chatting with the waitresses was good practice for the professor; but before long there was no need of pretense. There were evenings at the opera and excursions to the cinema, though Hearthstone attempted to avoid the latter, especially when the night’s program included features starring Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. No sense, he thought, in rekindling unpleasant memories when romance was on his mind.

And then, on a rare, warm afternoon, Anastasia came to him in tears. “Professor, I’m afraid that I will be leaving San Francisco immediately. I’ve come to refund the balance of this month’s lesson payment, as I shan’t be able to instruct you further.”

“My dear, whatever can the matter be?” Hearthstone asked, strong concern evident in his voice. “And why so formal? This isn’t like you at all.”

“Please, Jacob. Don’t make this difficult.”

“But I must insist — ”

“Very well. A man has been visiting my apartment. A very disagreeable man. He has related several stories concerning his association with you, stories which I refused to believe until very recently. And then, just last night, he threatened to reveal our relationship to the most sordid members of the press. He demanded blackmail payments. When I refused, he… he forced himself… ”

Anastasia broke down, and Hearthstone moved to comfort her. “This… this man,” he said, his voice trembling as he remembered The Shroud. “You must tell me his name.”

Anastasia managed to collect herself enough to whisper, “His name is Thomas Clancy.”

A relieved smile twisted the corners of Hearthstone’s lips. Clancy. The busted policeman who had headed up the takeover of Chinatown. ‘You mustn’t worry, my dear,” he said. “I will handle this matter. Personally.”

Within the hour, the professor was standing outside a dingy saloon which, while located in the same city, was a world away from his Chinatown home. A blood-red scarf was draped around his neck. A target pistol was secreted beneath his camelhair coat. Four masters of wing chun gung fu stood at his side.

“I’m going in,” he said, his Chinese impeccable. “Alone.” His subordinates knew better than to argue.

Hearthstone entered the saloon. Yellow light swimming with smoke. The smell of whiskey and beer and the unwashed. A song ringing over loud conversation — the same song he’d heard during the destruction of Sun Lim’s Restaurant many months before.

When I’m dead and laid out on the counter,

A voice you will hear from below,

Sayin’ send down a hogshead of whiskey,

To drink with old rosin the bow.

In a dark corner, all alone, sat Thomas Clancy. Hearthstone elbowed his way through the crowd, one gloved hand on his hidden pistol.

Hearthstone sat down. Clancy grinned. The Irishman held a bowie knife in his left hand, and he was sawing it gently across the top of his right wrist. There were dozens of small cuts there, some scabbed over, some weeping blood.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Clancy whispered, “for a high ‘n’ mighty pris, she was awful lively ‘tween the — ”

The pistol thundered, time and again, until the chambers were empty.

Clancy still grinned. His voice came in a purring whisper. “Remember, Jacob Hearthstone, I come for those who are evil… Those who are evil must suffer… They must suffer, and then they must… ”

Clancy slumped backward. His jaw slackened and a bloody bubble formed on his lips.

Hands grabbed at Hearthstone’s arms. Someone wrestled the empty pistol from his grip.

The bloody bubble burst. A scarlet shadow poured from Clancy’s mouth and rippled across the scarred tabletop. It hit the floor and slithered over the professor’s shoes. Hearthstone screamed at the icy feel of the thing. The crowd screamed as well, but their screams were for him, for his blood.

The professor fought against his subduers, and he saw for the first time that they were policemen. Irishmen like Clancy. A punch thundered into his stomach. Clancy was a busted copper, but there was no such thing as a busted Irishman.

The professor hit the floor. Filthy sawdust caked his bleeding lip and stained his expensive camelhair coat. He rolled away from his attackers, desperately trying to gain his feet. He didn’t fear kicks or punishment. No, he feared the scarlet shadow that had slipped from Clancy’s mouth, the shadow that had to be The Shroud.

God. Where were his reinforcements? Where were the wing chun men now that he needed —

The Irishmen pulled Hearthstone to his feet and towed him into the alley behind the saloon — deeper, deeper — the professor’s eyes watching the street, drinking in the maddening scene with the sardonic humor of a true masochist, an unabashed cynic.

For in the street, he saw it. The shadowthing that was The Shroud. It expanded like a great net and ensnared the wing chun masters, whose punches and chops proved laughably ineffectual as the thing tightened its grip on their muscular bodies, crushing bones and reducing flesh to bloody pulp.

Then came the true horror.

Once more a snake, the scarlet shadow slithered across the bloodslick pavement. Encircled a creamy gold ankle. Coiled around a delicate calf, a perfect knee, and disappeared beneath the skirt of the woman with amber eyes.

The Doberman advanced, growling, its nails ticking against the tiled kitchen floor.

“Down, Dempsey… Good boy, Dempsey.” Hearthstone whispered, inching toward the center of the kitchen.

He glanced at Machii’s corpse. Damn. For the last few months, the yakuza had been feeding Dempsey, and now the dog thought that Machii was its master, thought that Machii was the one who provided teriyaki-marinated filet mignons.

Hearthstone almost laughed. If only his bride hadn’t loved the dog so much. If she hadn’t spoiled the animal, and if he hadn’t gone along with the spoiling… If only he’d complained about the price of filet mignon in the Japanese markets, then maybe Dempsey wouldn’t care a damn about the dead man on the floor… If only…

If only he hadn’t been crazy enough to think that Machii was The Shroud returned.

Hearthstone toed the expensive dish and slid it toward Dempsey. Slowly, slowly…

“Good boy. Good doggy.”

The dog began to pant.

Sniffed at the teriyaki-drenched finger that floated in the dish.

Parted its lips… and grinned.

After three months in the hands of incompetent prison doctors, Hearthstone was happy to join the general population in the penitentiary. His ribs had healed nicely, his back bothered him only when the weather was bad, and he soon accustomed himself to eating solid food despite the absence of several teeth which he’d left behind in a San Francisco alley.

Silly, really. The whole idea. Heal a man in order to fry him whole and hearty in the electric chair.

Though most death row inmates were not allowed to work or even move among the general population, an exception was made in Hearthstone’s case. After all, the warden had never before had the services of a full professor at his disposal.

So, Jacob Hearthstone, prisoner number 37965, was allowed to present lectures to his fellow convicts. These lectures took place in the prison library, and before long Hearthstone had insinuated himself among the library staff. In a few short months he was a member of that staff, charged with the delivery of books and magazines to the prisoners in their cells. This duty gave him a feeling of freedom and took his mind off the execution date which drew closer with each passing day.

Hearthstone wanted to move among the general population for one reason: he wanted to determine if he was a madman. His visits from the demon known as The Shroud seemed increasingly fantastic as time passed, and he often wondered if he had imagined the monster, conjured it up, as it were, out of thin air. As he moved from cell to cell he listened for any mention of the mysterious creature, and sometimes he ventured a question or two with inmates he knew and trusted.

In Hearthstone’s seventh month of incarceration a new prisoner appeared on death row, a transfer from a federal pen on the east coast. Hearthstone struck up a conversation with the man soon after, explaining that he was a pipeline to the library and could obtain materials that would help the new fish pass the time.

“Sure.” The man smiled at the suggestion. “Bring me anything you got on electricity, and bring me anything you got on the human soul.”

Hearthstone thought the requests odd, but he didn’t say anything, for he had learned that questioning a prisoner’s taste in even the most unimportant matters could be a fatal mistake. He’d seen a con killed with a sharpened spoon for daring to denigrate his cell mate’s preference for a certain brand of cigarette.

And apart from all questions of jailhouse etiquette, Hearthstone didn’t trust this man’s eyes. They were dark green and always moist, almost as if brimming with tears, two fathomless pools that swam on the con’s chalky, stretched visage. The eyes were part of the new fish’s mystery, and their peculiar cast made Hearthstone all the more eager to investigate him.

So he brought the man a stack of books. Books by Edison and books by Kant. And then he brought more. William James, Descartes. The new fish read them all. And soon they were talking.

Hearthstone called his new friend The Electric Man.

Before long, The Electric Man exhausted the prison library’s meager resources. “Just let me talk to you, Jake,” he said. “You’re a professor. You should know all the answers.”

Ignoring the vulgar familiarity, Hearthstone said that he was happy to indulge such a request.

“Okay, Professor. I been reading all this stuff, and it just don’t tell me what I need to know. I mean, I know about electricity. That stuff I can figure. The stuff about the soul is tougher, but some of it makes sense, too. But what I don’t get, what I don’t know anything about, is the two things together. Get me?”

“Go on… I’ll try to follow.”

“That’s jake. Now I’m gonna lay it out flat, and if you don’t want to believe me, you just say the word and I’ll never look at you again. But what would you think if I told you that the screws strapped me into the electric chair back east two years ago, and one of ‘em pulled the switch and gave me a real good ride, and nothing happened to me at all?”

Hearthstone thought of his fast-approaching execution date. “I’d ask you how you managed the trick.”

The Electric Man grinned. “Oh, it’s an easy one, y’see. All you got to do is get someone to come inside you, swim around in your blood, and steal your soul.”

Hearthstone grinned. “Where do I sign up?”

“It ain’t funny, Jake,” The Electric Man said. “You ever hear of something called The Shroud?”

“As it happens, I’ve met the fellow.”

“Uh-huh. I thought you had the look. Well, I’m the world’s greatest expert on the son of a bitch. I’ve had him in my head, and it wasn’t what you’d call a barrel of laughs.” The Electric Man shivered at the memory. “And ever since then I been tryin’ to figure it all out. Figure him out. But I just can’t do it. I got too many questions. And now I’m startin’ to think that it ain’t a thing you can answer. It ain’t like a puzzle where all the pieces fit.

“Look, Professor, I only want to know one thing: if that devil made off with my soul, and if they strapped me in the chair and it didn’t do nothin’ but curl my hair, do you think I’m ever gonna be able to die?”

Hearthstone said, “Before I can answer that question, you must tell me what you know of The Shroud.”

Hearthstone readied his pistol.

The dog’s grin gaped into a yawn, and then the animal dipped its huge head and sniffed at the food that the professor had pushed its way.

Hearthstone smiled. “Oh my, you’re jumping at shadows, old boy, jumping at every damn stimulus that fires those very old synapses… ”

Dempsey began to eat.

Hearthstone relaxed. Remembered.

The Electric Man’s voice: He came after me, y’see. Doesn’t matter what I did, doesn’t matter that other guys did worse… he just came after me. Told me I was gonna suffer, then die. Oh, he kept his word about that sufferin’ part. My wife, well, the first night he came around she seen him, and she got so damn scared she went into convulsions and almost bit her tongue clean off. Right on the livin’ room rug. Yeah, that was sufferin’ all right, and I ain’t even sure the bastard meant for that to happen. Then things got worse. He started stealin’ money from me — it’d just disappear right out of my pockets — and I couldn’t pay off my boys, and soon they was huntin for me.

The sounds of Dempsey licking meat, chewing, swallowing.

Yeah, came for me in the morning, he did. I was shavin’, looked up and seen him behind me. Well, the razor slipped and I cut myself. Bam! He was on me like a wild animal or somethin’ and then he wasn’t there at all — outside of me, that is — but I could feel him swimmin’ around in my blood, squirmin’ in my guts. The devil was inside of me!

The filet mignon was gone. Tentatively, Dempsey licked at the severed finger.

He makes me get all duded up — straw hat, corsage… everything. Makes me get my Tommy gun, y’see. Walks me out to a Cadillac, a Sport Phaeton, and there’s a dame sittin’ behind the wheel. Brown eyes that was almost gold, pretty, a dancer from one of my speakeasies. She don’t say nothin’ just smiles and drives me over to my boys’ digs and drops me off But that devil’s still inside me, seel He trots me upstairs. Makes me open up on my own boys. God, I seen some things… but this was awful. These was my friends. And I got mad — crazy mad — thinkin’ about what he’d made me do, thinkin’ about how he d hurt my wife.

The dog took the severed digit in its teeth. Flicked its head. Bit.

I started to fight the bastard then and there. I stuck my hand in front of the gun barrel and blasted a few rounds right through it, through my wrist, too— see the scars here? Anyway, I was screamin’ — my hand spewin’ blood all over me and all over the room and my boys, the awful stink swimmin’ in my head — screamin’ for the bastard to get the hell out of me. Willin’ him to get out of me!

Dempsey swallowed. Panted.

And then came the worst part. It was bad enough back home, lookin’ at my eyes in the mirror, lookin’ at the little cut on my neck, knowin’ that thing was inside of me. But it was even worse seein’ it wash out of me in all that blood. God, it was scrambled all over the floor like rotted guts from a slaughterhouse, and it pulled itself together… just came together like somethin’ out of a nutty cartoon. The damn thing crawled over the bodies of my boys and I started to let it have it with the gun… wracked the thing pretty good, wracked up my boys’ dead bodies, too, but I didn’t even care no more… and then it spun around when it got to the window, stood up, holdin’ out something black in its hand, a bloody thing that looked like a baby. And it said in that voice it has, ‘You live without it, dead man. You just try living without your soul…’”

Dempsey ducked his head against Hearthstone’s shoes and whined, begging for another finger.

So, there was a weakness in the fabric of The Shroud, a weakness that gave Professor Hearthstone hope. Perhaps it was simple fear, and perhaps it was something more complex — something that could not be named. Still, Hearthstone knew that if the riddle of The Shroud could be solved, death might not be inevitable.

Hearthstone considered all the possibilities as his execution date drew nearer. He thought of The Electric Man’s state of mind during The Shroud’s invasion of his body and decided that the gangster’s own fear had allowed The Shroud to control him. And then he remembered how The Electric Man’s own anger had grown - anger at what had happened to his wife, anger at what The Shroud had forced him to do to his fellows — boiling to a hateful rage that was pure and possibly quite insane.

When he finished his examination of The Shroud’s battle with The Electric Man, Hearthstone was confident that he could form a plan of attack should the demon reappear. He prayed that such a creature as The Shroud could not glory in silent victory. He concentrated on hate, and he was pleased to find that insanity was a prize well within his grasp. And on the night before his execution, the thing came, a nightmarish red-black pudding that sluiced through the bars of his cell and puddled on the brick wall, oozing a great, ugly grin.

“I have supped on your suffering, Jacob Hearthstone,” The Shroud said. “And now, as I promised, you will die.”

The professor’s only reply was a smile. He thought of Anastasia White. He closed his eyes and saw her. Straightened and heard his ruined back pop and complain. Gritted his remaining teeth and pictured bloody molars dotting the slimy cobblestones of a San Francisco alley.

“Tomorrow when you sit in the electric chair, I will be there,” The Shroud said. “I will be inside the man who wears the hood. Mine will be the hand that pulls the switch.”

Hearthstone wasn’t listening. He was deep inside his own head. He saw Thomas Clancy sitting before him, a bloody bubble on his lips. Saw the bowie knife clenched in Clancy’s left hand, the thin cuts on the Irishman’s wrist.

Suddenly Hearthstone stood and stepped close to the wall, confronting the scarlet grin, sucking the fetid breath that boiled from The Shroud’s mouth as if it were the finest perfume in all the world. He removed his glasses, slipped the cover from one of the ear pieces, and drew the rough metal across the back of his right hand. A trickle of blood seeped from the wound.

Hearthstone challenged The Shroud. “Come in, you bastard. If you dare… if you are not frightened.”

The scarlet thing was breathing fast now. It slid away, toward the ceiling, but the smell of blood was too great a lure. The shadow sprang from the wall, poured over Hearthstone’s hand, and burrowed inside his wound.

I know you, Hearthstone began. I know your amber-eyed bitch.

Great whistling gasps wracked the professor’s lungs. He felt claws scrabbling over his heart, fighting for purchase.

Nothing there, devil. No fear to hold onto. Only hatred, strong and pure.

The Shroud twisted in his guts. Hearthstone doubled over.

Oh, you’re good. But not that good. Because I remember. I met a man who fought you to a draw, and I learned well the lessons that he taught me.

Teeth ripped at his brain. A fist clenched his heart.

Hearthstone’s insanity pushed them away. I’ve had your bitch. I’ve pressed my lips to hers. Felt that creamy skin under my fingertips. And now I have you.

The Shroud slipped across the condemned man’s shoulderblades and down the bones of his arm. Hearthstone pressed his left hand over the wound on his right. Not so fast, he thought. Don’t leave me just yet…

The Shroud coiled inside Hearthstone’s forearm. The professor felt the thing shiver. Felt it shrink.

Hearthstone laughed. Your Irishmen were tougher than this. Your bitch had more backbone.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. A guard on bed-check duty.

“Now comes the real test,” Hearthstone whispered. “Let’s see who’s in control.”

Hearthstone parted his fingers. He willed The Shroud to extend itself in a thin coil that snaked between the bars, and then he unleashed the full power of his insanity, creating a dark monster in his mind, commanding it to grow in the shadow-choked corridor.

Part jaguar.

Part ogre.

Part Kong of Skull Island.

The shadowthing roared. The guard fired his pistol once and was batted against the brick wall by a huge black tail. He lurched to the center of the corridor, unconscious but still on his feet, and was smashed against the opposite wall by a shadowfist.

Keys rattled. Hearthstone’s cell door swung open.

Hearthstone stepped from his prison and joined his ebony escort.

Soon the prison corridors swam with blood.

Later, laughing uncontrollably, the professor wandered the deserted city streets. He twisted The Shroud into a gnarled knot, a feeble arthritic thing. Blew the devil up like a balloon until it was a fat ebony clown. Made the demon crawl on its belly, an armless, legless freak.

Tired of frivolity, Hearthstone ripped the thing’s umbilical tail out of his wrist. The Shroud twisted on the pavement, a red-muscled horror that whined like a skinned dog. Hearthstone stomped it, spat upon it, laughed at it, gloried in the way it shrank from the dim glow of the streetlights.

He kicked it down the street, watching it carom like a child’s ball. Chased after it, kicked again. It bounced from one curb to the other, then suddenly sprang claws and raced toward the gutter. Nails clicked on wet pavement, and a second later it disappeared into a drainage opening.

Hearthstone ran to the curb. “Run away, coward!” he shouted, his eyes yellow in the glow of the streetlights. “Run away from the man who turned an electric chair into a throne!”

Dempsey padded forward, secure on a leash that Hearthstone held in his left hand. In his right he gripped the automatic, which he’d reloaded while the dog gobbled a second filet mignon.

No shadows, the professor told himself. No shadows here. And no shadows on the night the thing died. No shadows then, either.

It had been a great change for him, of course. Leaving America. Relocating to Japan. But the country had seemed ripe for the plucking at the close of World War II, and he’d cashed in his chips in America and reinvested in the land of the rising sun.

It proved to be a wise course of action. Soon Hearthstone doubled his money. Then he tripled it.

He waited for someone to challenge him. No one did. Not the Americans. Not the Japanese.

Not The Shroud.

But did it matter where the shadows hid? His bride… the doctor… the yakuza… even the dog… they had all walked among the shadows at one time or another, had they not? And surely they had all bled. Was there not the possibility? Wasn’t it always there?

As long as he remembered.

As long as he pulled over the riddle of The Shroud.

It was.

So, best to be careful.

Eagerly, Dempsey pulled at the leash as they moved down the hall, but the professor held him back. “Easy, boy. Easy, Dempsey. ”

The money didn’t make him feel much better. He took a young bride, but she didn’t make him feel much better, either. He remembered The Shroud’s promise that he would suffer before he died. And one evening he looked at his bride and realized that he was making himself suffer.

His bride had beautiful amber eyes. She could have been a sister to Anastasia White. And he had slipped the ring on her finger, not The Shroud. He alone had brought her into his home.

Hearthstone felt the sting of prophecy. He knew that as long as he remembered the past, he would suffer each time he looked into his bride’s eyes.

Dempsey stopped at the end of the corridor. Scrapped at the closed door there.

“I don’t know if we should disturb her.” Hearthstone was unable to banish fear from his voice. “The doctor says she hasn’t much time left. ”

The past was always there. Hearthstone was carrying it around, all of it, locked in his heart. All those old failures scrabbling over his innards like the claws of The Shroud.

But there was a way to put an end to it.

He would collect all the pieces of his past, everything that he hadn’t destroyed. He would stare at them, make his peace with them. And then he would crush them under the heel of his boot.

And then, and only then, could he begin to live again.

With shaking fingers, Hearthstone opened the door a crack. Closed it and shrank away.

Shadows. The room was full of them.

In there, in the dark, she was sleeping. Though Hearthstone had instructed Taoka to keep the room well-lighted at all times, the good doctor had obviously disobeyed his orders.

The professor stared at the black line of darkness where the bottom rail of the door fell just short of meeting the plush rug.

Calm yourself, Jacob. The thing is dead.

No. Not as long as you remember. Memory makes everything alive.

Drawing a deep breath, Hearthstone reached for the knob once again.

The yakuza brought a dozen old Irishmen to Hearthstone’s country estate. The professor watched their executions on a gray morning, so early that the event didn’t seem quite real. Afterwards, he returned to his bride’s bed for a few hours, where he dozed and dreamed of the beating he’d suffered years before. Waking, he talked to her of the executions and of his memories. He was delighted to find that both events seemed unreal, as if they’d happened to another man.

Three doctors followed the Irishmen. They came of their own free will, under the assumption that they were attending a medical conference. It was only while waiting in the cabin of Hearthstone’s yacht that they realized something was amiss, for even after the passage of several decades each man recognized the others as old colleagues. None of them remembered Jacob Hearthstone, but he was considerate enough to relate his own memories of his stay in the prison infirmary. When the pleasantries were over, he introduced the doctors to three bosozoku with sledgehammers in their hands.

Hearthstone opened the door. Just an few inches. He slipped his hand into the darkness, his fingers fumbling for the light switch.

Hearthstone felt better after the Irishmen’s visit. Better still after his audience with the prison doctors. But on the day the yakuza brought Anastasia White to him, he knew that he was going to feel very fine, indeed.

Hearthstone flicked the switch. Light washed away shadow.

That was all he needed.

Light was the bane of The Shroud.

Pure, clean, electric light.

Electric…

A voice from the past — a memory he’d thought erased now — an observation by a man once on intimate terms with The Shroud: “And now I’m startin’ to think that it ain’t a thing you can answer. It ain’t like a puzzle where all the pieces fit.”

And then a thought: if hatred could banish The Shroud, if insanity could defeat him, could the same elements, stored deep in the heart for much too long, return him to life when they were finally purged?

Anastasia was still beautiful. Still slim. Still a stylish dresser. But there was a sadness in her amber eyes that was somehow beyond description. And worst of all, she refused to play Hearthstone’s games. She refused to reminisce about the old days in San Francisco; she ignored his queries concerning the fate of The Shroud.

Hearthstone’s bride rested on the small bed, her black hair fanning over white pillowslips.

Somewhere beneath that hair, dark shadows lurked.

Dempsey growled, snorting at the antiseptic odor of the chamber.

Silently, Hearthstone approached the sickbed. “My dear, won’t you smile for me?”

Anastasia’s silence was like stone. Hearthstone’s heart sank. She would give him nothing. She knew her life was lost, and she would make no desperate pleas, no bargains that he could betray.

She refused him satisfaction.

He stared at her, thinking of the days when he’d mulled Shroud riddles with such enthusiasm, thinking of all his hypotheses and conclusions…

…wondering at the fiery glow in her amber eyes.

Hearthstone’s bride did not move. He brushed her hair, let his fingers drift to the plastic oxygen mask strapped over her mouth. “My goodness.” He laughed. “Of course you can’t smile with this thing in the way.”

Hearthstone took the katana from its case, unsheathed the weapon, and showed its silver blade to Anastasia White. “I have been thinking about our friend The Shroud,” he began. “I’ve been thinking about the way it scurried through a sewer grate when I was close to killing it. For many years I thought it was down there, under the city, licking its wounds.” Hearthstone stared at Anastasia’s eyes, recognizing the gaze of an unexpected guest. “Now I don’t think that anymore… Oh, I think it’s licking its wounds all right. I still think that. But I think it found another sewer, one that runs with blood.”

His brides breaths came short and fast without the oxygen mask, and he prodded the corners of her mouth. “Smile… smile…”

“I’m not going to kill you, Anastasia. It’s The Shroud I want. It’s always been The Shroud.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. She could not keep her silence. “Leave him alone,” she begged. “He’s tired. He’s broken… You’ve beaten him once. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, never enough.” Hearthstone raised the katana, held it to her eye, thinking of the way The Shroud used human hosts, recalling the thing’s aversion to light and the way it had scuttled for the protection of a dark sewer. He remembered the prison cell where he’d tempted the creature. He remembered the insane hatred he’d used to defeat it.

But he hadn’t killed it.

It ran. It took refuge.

Anastasia White. The Shroud.

Hearthstone grinned. “Any port in a storm. Is that not the way of it, my dear?”

The professor prodded open an eye. Stared at the amber orb.

Blank. Nothing there. Anastasia was…

No. This was his bride.

He lifted his bride’s head and examined the white pillowslip. Next he drew back the sheets and blankets and checked them carefully. Satisfied he ran his fingers through his bride’s hair; but still found nothing there.

He sighed. Stepped back. Impossible. Taoka was dead. And Machii was dead. And Dempsey was loyal.

His bride…

Impossible. But something was here. He could feel it.

And whatever it was, it was more than a memory.

He pulled Anastasia to him. Parted her mouth and kissed her. He forced his tongue against hers, felt it squirm away.

Like that night in the prison, he thought. Like The Shroud, shrinking from my power.

Anastasia pushed at him. “He’s weak.” She sobbed. “He’s nearly dead, just leave him be. Let him die in peace.”

Hearthstone slashed Anastasia’s shoulder with the katana, then drew the blade across his palm. “Come on, you bastard,” he said. “It’s time to face your master.”

Hearthstone took the stainless steel scissors from the top of the dresser. He cut open his bride’s nightgown, then drew it apart.

He stared down at the purple scar that ran the length of her breastbone.

Black blood oozed from Anastasia’s wound. She pressed a hand against it, stemming the flow, her fingers trapping the creature that desperately wanted out. “You won’t have him,” she said, her eyes glowing with defiance. “Not while I’m alive.”

“Very well,” Hearthstone said.

His bride shivered as the scissors touched her sternum.

Anastasia shivered as Hearthstone drove the katana into her breast. She fell back, slipping off the short blade, collapsing onto the floor with hardly a sound.

Hearthstone dropped to his knees and pressed his wounded hand against Anastasia’s bloody chest.

Her heart wasn’t beating.

She wasn’t breathing.

She wore a slight grin that fell somewhere short of a smile.

“Come out, you bastard,” he whispered, his eyes everywhere at once: on the shadows that swam beneath the furniture; on Anastasia’s blood; on the hem of her silk dress, which ruffled under a breeze from the open window. Each image burned into his brain as if branded there.

“Come out, you coward.” He closed his eyes but saw the room, the blood, Anastasia’s dress. “Come out and let me forget.”

Hearthstone held his hand to Anastasia’s breast, whimpering in frustration, until her blood began to dry.

He sat there alone, but for his memories.

Hearthstone stared at his bride’s lips. At the scissors in his hand.

No, it couldn’t be.

He wouldn’t do this.

His bride was an innocent. She was not possessed. Neither was Dr. Taoka. Nor the yakuza, Mr. Machii. Nor Dempsey.

This was madness. Time had passed, so much time without incident. The Shroud was dead.

Dead to the world.

Dead, everywhere, but in Jacob Hearthstone’s memory.

Anyone…

The professor turned toward the mirrored wall and stared at his reflection. What he saw didn’t match his memories.

If he had to remember everything, why couldn’t he remember how to be the man he once was? Young, strong, confident…

Now he was none of those things.

Hearthstone laughed at the feeble old man in the mirror. Here was the true seat of memory. A withered receptacle, nothing more. “Wipe the slate clean, grandpa. Purge the hatred, the insanity. Make afresh start. ”

Hearthstone turned the scissors on himself and drove the blades deep into his chest.

Anywhere…

Blood coursed from the wound.

Anytime…

The shadows flowed over him, along with the laughter, along with a whispered promise.

Those who are evil must suffer, then die.

Hearthstone pressed cold fingers against the wound and felt warm blood pump from his heart. “Are you demon or angel?” he asked.

The answer came from the shadows.

I am… The Shroud.