The Nimble Man

CHAPTER EIGHT

Tom Stanley stood above the grave of his recently departed mother and wept, hot scalding tears streaking his round, cherubic features. It was this way every time he visited, a deluge of sorrow for the woman who had meant the world to him.

He crouched upon his mother's grave and used the elbow of his jacket to rub imaginary fingerprints from her gray marble headstone. It had been set in place earlier that week by the groundskeepers of the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and Tom could not escape the certainty that they had marred it somehow. He paused, studied the gleaming marble, and then shook his head, buffing the stone again. His mother had been gone for a little more than two weeks, and already it felt like forever.

Strange shadows moved across the ground and Tom gazed up from his routine of sorrow, troubled by something he could not put a name to. The cemetery was strangely deserted this day, perhaps because the weather was so odd. Far off in the distance he heard what could have been the faint rumble of thunder. He wished that he had bothered to listen to a weather report before leaving the house. The sun was partially obscured by weird, shifting, gray clouds and a strange, reddish fog drifted just above the gravesites.

Like the red tide in the ocean, he thought. What the hell is this? Biologicial warfare in the city of Cambridge? He chuckled to himself, a bit giddy, a razor edge of hysteria bubbling just under the surface, as it had since his mother's death.

His gaze shifted back to the headstone. Loving Mother, he read through teary eyes, and couldn't have agreed more with the simple inscription. He doubted there had ever been a mother more dedicated to her child's happiness than Patricia Stanley.

Tom removed a silver flask from his coat pocket and had another jolt of whiskey. He had been indulging more since his mother's passing, to help ease the pain of her loss, and was beginning to worry that a problem was developing. That's all I need, he thought, helping himself to another large swig before screwing the cap back on and returning the flask to his pocket, another problem.

Widowed not long after his birth, she had always been there for him, playing the role of both mother and father. He could still hear her voice as she defended her only son from accusations that he had been responsible for the deaths of some neighborhood cats and dogs. These were echoes of a past that seemed only yesterday, but in truth was so very long ago. That was the nature of time, though.

Time was a teasing bitch, and he wished that he could treat it like all the other teasing bitches who thought they were better than him.

How dare you accuse my Tommy! his mother had wailed. To think my little boy could be responsible for such a thing is a sin!

He was sure she had always known that he had killed the pets. But she wasn't about to let them ruin her son's good name. And besides, they were only stupid animals, what harm had he really done?

Tom wished that she had been as understanding about the other killings.

Once again tears filled his eyes and he wondered if he would ever feel happy again, or if there would only be grief for him now, forevermore. He had been coming here every day since her burial, hoping to experience some sense of closure, but all he felt was the gaping hole left by his loss.

He stared at the ground beneath his feet, imagining the fine mahogany coffin nestled in the grave below, and the peaceful countenance of the elderly woman at eternal rest within. How he hated to think of her down there, alone, without him to take care of her. She had been rather fragile in her final years, and had needed more of his attention, but it had been the least he could do after the years she had devoted to him.

"Why did she have to die?" he asked aloud, dropping to his knees, the moisture from the dewy grass seeping through his pants. But it was a foolish question. He knew the answer. Tom leaned in and pressed his forehead against the cool marble of the gravestone.

She had to die, because she was going to tell.

Animals were one thing, but people were another all together. He wasn't exactly sure how she had found out about his nasty little avocation. Maybe she'd discovered the trophies he kept hidden in the footlocker beneath his bed, or even watched one of the special videos he'd made. He didn't know for sure, which was why it came as such a surprise when she ordered to him to stop or she'd inform the police.

"You made me so angry, Mom," he said, bringing a beefy fist up to gently pound the marble. He fished in his pocket for his flask again, and had himself another drink.

Tom had been doing his thing for years. The pets had been nothing but a warm-up to bigger and better things. He'd developed a real knack for zeroing in on the losers of the world, ones who would never be missed. Over time, he'd actually begun to think of himself as a kind of public servant, making the world a better place to live, one loser at a time.

How did she think he could just stop? Or that he would want to stop, for that matter?

The flask was empty, and he let it fall to the ground. "Why couldn't you understand?" he slurred, alcohol making his mouth a bit numb. He recalled her horror as he tried to explain why he did what he did, the immeasurable joy he received when he watched the light of life go out of their miserable eyes. But his mother didn't understand. She had begged him to stop, begged him to be the good boy that she always imagined him to be. But what his mother had asked of him was impossible.

Why? he asked again.

Tom pushed the troubling recollections from his mind and replaced them with thoughts of happier times — his memories of each murder — and immediately he felt soothed.

It was darker now, as if the sun had decided to pack it in early. The red mist continued to swirl about him. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen a fog so unusual. It was kind of creepy. Gripping the tombstone, he pulled his powerful bulk up, the bones in his knees popping in protest. It was times like these that reminded him there might come a day when he wouldn't be able to do what his mother so desperately wanted him to stop, that he would be too old. Just thinking it was enough to stoke the fires of his urge. It was as if a switch had been flicked inside his head, and he knew what he wanted to do — what he had to do.

It had been a little over two weeks since the desire was last satisfied. The memory of it flashed before his mind's eye. His mother was crying and carrying on, telling him that what he was doing was wrong, that he would go to jail, and who would take care of her then? She had been upstairs in the house they had shared since forever, changing the sheets on his bed, as she had every Tuesday for as long as he could remember. Dirty bedclothes in her arms, she had pushed past him, saying that he had left her no choice. She had to tell someone what he was doing, that it was all for his own good.

Tom had never thought of her as one of them — the losers that wanted to hurt him, to keep him down, but for a brief moment she had become the enemy. As she prepared to descend the winding staircase, he had thought about how dangerous it could be for an old woman to be performing the duties of a household. One terrible fall, and that would be that.

His left hand tingled with the memory of the act, and he brought it slowly up to his face, flexing his fingers. It had been the gentlest of pushes that sent the woman he had loved most in all the world tumbling down the wooden steps. She had landed in a twisted heap, her face covered with his dirty laundry.

She had still been alive. He'd gently pulled back the sheet that covered her face and found her wide-eyed and gasping, her neck bent in a most unnatural way. But the look in her eyes told him that death would soon claim her. He had seen that look many times before, and when it finally did come, the first tears of mourning had fallen from his eyes.

A horrible accident, the neighbors had whispered, and he had almost started to believe it was true.

Almost.

Tom wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his sports jacket and reached out to retrieve his empty flask. He slid it into a pocket, and told his mother that he would be back again tomorrow. The urge to kill was growing stronger. He placed a kiss upon his fingertips, and touched his mother's headstone.

As he turned away from the grave he noticed movement in the fog. It was a woman, slowly walking amongst the graves. Tom squelched the murderous hunger that began to urge him on. This is not the time or place, yet he continued to watch the woman who moved stiffly toward him.

And then he noticed the others. They were all heading toward him, walking through the strange, red mist. It was a strange sort of exodus from the cemetery and he wondered if there was anything was wrong. Puzzled, Tom fished through his pockets for the keys to his car and turned down the winding path that would take him to the parking lot.

A grave at the left of the path exploded, and Tom stumbled backward, reeling, as cold muddy earth and pieces of rotten wood pelted his face. The heel of his shoe caught the edge of a marker, and he went down on the grass.

The crowd was closer now and he prepared to yell to them, to ask for help. The words had almost left his mouth when he became distracted by motion in the darkness of the now open grave.

There was something, somebody crawling up out of the dirt. He guessed that it had been a woman, but only because it wore the tattered remains of a navy blue dress, and he could see a string of pearls still adorning the dry, leathery-brown skin of her throat. The woman hauled herself up out of the hole, rose stiffly to her feet, and shambled toward him with a gaseous gurgle.

He knew, then, of course. Knew exactly what he was looking at. But that did not stop his mind from attempting to rationalize. The poor woman had somehow been buried alive and had managed to free herself. That was the only explanation he would allow.

"Are you all right?" he asked, as she lurched closer.

The mist cleared. And he saw her.

Her hands were covered in loose flesh like gloves two sizes too big. She had no eyes, just two empty sockets that squirmed with life uncomfortable being above the ground.

Tom Stanley began to scream, just as his victims had done.

All around him graves exploded and he scrambled to his feet, lashing out at the decaying woman who blocked his path. The animated remains of the woman fell sideways, her skull striking a stone marker and shattering. He did not want to see what was inside the corpse's head and was thankful that the red mist obscured it from his view.

He screamed for help into the fog. There had to be other mourners nearby. From the corner of his eye he saw movement upon the ground. Hissing things clawed their way up from other graves and dragged what remained of them across the grass toward him.

A powerful hand came down upon his shoulder, skeletal fingers digging into his flesh. He spun out of its grasp and turned to see that it was the woman he had first noticed in the red mist. He tried to flee, hopping over the things crawling on the ground in the swirling fog. But she grabbed him again and he was forced to push her away, to touch her.

Her flesh was like wet clay.

"Bitch," he snapped, stepping back as she reached for him. Savagely, he slapped her hand away as the others slowly emerged from the crimson fog, all of them decayed and covered with grave dirt.

Part of him wanted to cry, to lie down upon the ground and curl up into a ball, begging for his mother's protection. But he knew he couldn't. He had to get away or they would get him for sure. It had to be the mist, something in the weird fog that made them come back from the dead.

They surged toward him, the noises they made horrible. He turned to run, but the ground erupted beneath his feet and he felt his ankle clutched in a powerful grip. He fell hard to the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs in an explosive wheeze. Tom rolled over, gasping for air, trying to free himself from the grasp of the pale hand that had reached up through the dirt and grass.

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

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

But one he knew better than all the rest.

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

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

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

He couldn't even scream.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The enemy had invaded their headquarters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magick.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The strength of the maelstrom increased, and for every inch of progress he made toward Ceridwen, he felt himself pulled back by three. The two sentries that had escorted him earlier cowered nearby, holding onto one another for dear life. One had managed to grab hold of an ancient vine beneath a cover of loose dirt and leaves, and was using it to secure them against the inexorable pull.

It had happened so quickly. They had decided to return to his townhouse in the world of Blight, and had used the magick of the ancients to open the door. He had not even considered the possibility that a threat might be present, not even taken basic precautions. Arrogant fool! Bloody amateur, he fumed, even as the screaming void dragged him closer. Walked right into that one like some novice.

The sentries cried out in fear and Conan Doyle lifted his gaze to see them sail above his head, still clinging to one another, broken vine trailing behind them like the tail of a kite, as they were consumed by the hungry whirlpool. Spells and incantations flooded Conan Doyle's mind, but he could not concentrate long enough to cast one. Then, as if some powerful beast had grabbed hold of him, he was violently torn from his purchase upon the ground, and he knew that his time was up.

He thought he heard the voice of Sanguedolce mocking him for his arrogance, but realized that it wasn't the voice of the arch mage that he heard at all, but that of his former lover.

"Is being sucked into the abyss part of your plan, good sir?" Ceridwen called to him over the din that filled the wood.

A tether of magickal force engulfed his body, suspending him in the air before the hungry void. His body crackled with an icy blue corona of supernatural energy.

"If it be so, I question the soundness of your judgment," the Fey sorceress yelled, as she emerged from her place of safety behind the great tree, her staff extended. She had changed clothes for traveling to the human world and now wore a hooded blue-green cloak and hand-woven trousers the color of sand. In the swirl of the vortex, her cloak fluttered and the effect created in her attire the illusion of the ocean crashing on the shore. The sphere of power at the staff's end glowed once more, ice and flame combined by Faerie magic into a cold blue fire, providing him his lifeline. She fought the pull of the trap, struggling to keep her footing.

The maelstrom increased its pull upon the forest, and he listened to the creaking moans of the trees as their tenacity was tested. Ceridwen fell to her knees, sliding across the forest floor, but still she held her elemental staff high, maintaining her concentration and preventing him from being drawn into the spiraling hole.

Conan Doyle cleared his head and found the invocation that would suit his needs. He spun around to face the insatiable gyre and uttered a string of powerful words. The mage extended his arms and felt the might of the ancients flow through him. The countering magick streamed from the tips of his fingers, and his spell began to knit closed the rip that had been torn in time and space.

The portal to chaos fought him, screaming and howling, but his magick was stronger. Sensing imminent victory, he roared the last of the incantation. The swirling maelstrom imploded with a thunderous clap of sound that knocked him and Ceridwen through the air, back across the ravaged clearing.

An eerie stillness came over the forest and Conan Doyle slowly rose, checking for breaks and injuries. He glanced up to find Ceridwen standing where the vortex had been, passing her staff through the air, verifying that the rift had indeed been closed completely.

"I'm fine," he said.

She turned and narrowed her gaze, looking at him coldly. "Plead your pardon?" she asked, confused.

"I said I'm fine." Conan Doyle brushed dirt and debris from his clothing. "Just in case you were concerned with my well-being." He knew he was being curt, but at the moment, her total disregard for his welfare was maddening.

"I see," she said, expressionless. Emotionless. She turned her attentions back to the spot where the maelstrom had been. "All trace of the entryway to your home, to your world, is gone. The last of the known gateways between Faerie and the world of Blight is no more."

Conan Doyle felt a tremor of something akin to fear in his heart. If Morrigan had been inside his home, the situation in his world had become most dire indeed.

"We shall have to build a new one," he said. The process was time-consuming, but there was simply no choice. "We'll return to the kingdom immediately and — "

"No," Ceridwen interrupted. "There is no time for that."

Conan Doyle glared at her. "What else do you suggest? If that was the last entryway, then we have to conjure another."

Ceridwen turned her back to him and began to walk away. "It was the last of the known entrances," she said, striding deeper into the dark wood.

"But I know of another."