Curse of Weyrmouth Read online

“He's had an accident,” finished Abdul.

  “I thought I heard somebody scream,” said Eve quietly. “But I wasn't sure.”

  “Where did you find the robe?” asked Abdul.

  Tim led the way to an alcove under the great tower, and pointed to a dark patch on the floor. Two sandals lay in the patch, half submerged. There were more dark smears on the wall.

  They look like the outline of a person, thought Abdul. No, that's just ridiculous.

  “Has anyone called the police?” he asked.

  People looked at each other, heads were shaken.

  “I'm not sure that we need–” began Tim.

  “Oh come on, mate,” someone else cut in, “he's right, this looks bad.”

  As a minor row began behind him, Abdul went up to the wall and ran a fingertip tentatively over the stonework. The sticky substance was unpleasant, and smelled of rotten meat. He took out a tissue to wipe it off, then paused.

  “Guys?” said Abdul, holding up a hand.

  The bickering stopped, amateur actors turned to stare.

  “What is it now?” asked Tim.

  “I thought I heard something.”

  Abdul leaned closer to the wall, careful not to touch the stained surface with his ear.

  Someone in the distance, screaming.

  “There's nothing behind there, just solid granite,” said Tim.

  “I know,” said Abdul, “it's the base of the tower.”

  “So what?” asked the director.

  Abdul shrugged.

  “I still think we should call the police.”

  And tell them, he thought, that God has disappeared from the cathedral.

  Chapter 10: Interludes

  The morning after the attacks, Erin and Louise spent an hour discussing their respective ordeals. They spent some time focusing on Park, but reached no conclusions except that they did not trust him.

  “You are still taking the job?” asked Louise, when they had run out of speculation.

  Erin nodded.

  “Like I said at the interview I really need a job – I'd take almost anything,” she confessed. “But if anything too weird happens again, I guess I'll have to bug out.”

  Louise nodded, sipped at a cup of tea.

  “Would you be prepared to conduct a little experiment?” asked the director.

  Erin guessed what she had in mind.

  “That vulcanite brooch again?”

  Louise put down her tea, opened a drawer, and produced the item of jewelry. It now bore a paper label with two letters written in Biro – EC.

  “You don't have to do this, of course,” said Louise. “But apart from being fascinating in itself, it might just help.”

  “You're spit-balling, though,” said Erin with a wry smile.

  “If that means improvising wildly, then yes,” returned Louise.

  “There was something those ghosts said,” mused Erin. “I'd almost forgotten. I think they called me the Many Born.”

  Louise looked past Erin for a moment, and slowly said, “'I have been here before, but when or how I cannot tell.'”

  “I'm guessing that's a poem?” Erin said.

  Louise nodded.

  “By Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Victorian artist and poet. Belief in reincarnation is widespread. Central to some major religions, of course. And the ancient Greeks believed in it – some of them, at least.”

  “But I could just be hallucinating, right?” asked Erin. “I mean, there are thousands of people who think they were Cleopatra in a previous existence – surely they can't all be right?”

  Louise laughed.

  “True, I can't see the Queen of the Nile being occupied in a timeshare basis by a few thousand souls. But from what you said, your past lives were those of ordinary people.”

  Erin shrugged.

  “Whatever. Let's do your experiment.”

  She reached forward as Louse held out the brooch. As Erin's fingers brushed the cool, smooth surface, she felt a wave of emotion. There was no visual sensation this time, only a deep sense of anguish. Someone she loved was in danger.

  Shuddering, Erin pulled back, and stared at her fingertips.

  Nothing there. What was I expecting, some kind of psychic scar?

  “You got something?” asked Louise.

  Erin tried to sum up the feeling.

  “I guess it was the woman whose reflection I saw the first time,” she said. “She was worried about someone – her husband, I think.”

  “Anything else?” asked Louise, turning the brooch over in her fingers.

  “I got a vague sense that the guy was planning to go to the cathedral. He wanted to stop something – something terrible was going to happen.”

  Erin shrugged.

  “That's about it – sorry.”

  “Don't apologize,” said Louise, putting the brooch back into her desk. “It's fascinating. It might also be useful. There have been stories about the cathedral, constant rumors that it's somehow linked to the Weyrmouth Curse.”

  “Curse?” asked Erin, raising her eyebrows.

  “Not something locals like to talk about with outsiders, as a rule,” said Louise. “But there are plenty of written accounts dating back centuries. It all seems to start with the building of the cathedral tower in the early fourteenth century.”

  “This curse, it involves the ghost boys?” asked Erin.

  “No, that's the odd thing,” admitted Louise. “There are a few alleged sightings of ghostly children in the cathedral areas, but the curse is generally linked to natural disasters, horrific crimes, industrial accidents – that kind of thing.”

  Erin frowned.

  “Surely these are things that might happen in any big city?” she pointed out.

  Louise shrugged.

  “According to some, Weyrmouth has had more than its fair share of disasters, and weird events linked to them. As I say, locals aren't very helpful. But between us, perhaps we can unearth some hard data?”

  “While carrying on with our regular work?” asked Erin.

  Louise laughed.

  “Why not? Aren't we girls supposed to be good at multi-tasking?”

  Erin decided to confide in Louise about the strange pictures she had received the day she arrived.

  “Have there been any more like this?” asked Louise, flicking through the images. “They do look as if they've been doctored, somehow.”

  Erin shook her head.

  “I've just had regular emails and stuff. So whoever sent them might have given up trying to scare me.”

  “You're making a natural assumption, there,” said Louise. “But perhaps trying to scare you off was a good deed, considering what's happened.”

  “I'd never considered that,” mused Erin. “So there could be two rival forces at work – one good, one evil?”

  Louise made a noncommittal sound. She held up the phone. It showed the front of the Premier Inn with the blurred reflection of what Erin had taken to be a dog.

  “Now is that a distorted image of a large animal?” asked Louise. “Or the accurate image of a weirdly deformed animal?”

  Erin took back her phone and stared at the picture. The creature reflected in the glass doors of the hotel seemed more clearly defined that it had when she had first seen it.

  It was late, the light was bad, I was tired, she told herself.

  Then she jumped in fright and dropped the phone. It took her a while to explain to Louise just what had shocked her so badly.

  “It turned its head, and looked at me,” said Erin. “Looked straight out of the screen.”

  Louise studied the image.

  “It seems to have moved a little,” she said. “You know, that reminds me of something – something I read about years ago.”

  Louise jumped up and went to her bookshelves, eventually picking a fat volume with a battered cover.

  “What's that?” asked Erin.

  “Myths and Legends of the British Isles,” Louise explained, putting the book
down on her desk and starting to thumb through the dog-eared, yellowed pages. “A minor classic, if you don't mind Victorian prose. Ah – here it is! Come and look!”

  Erin got up and walked round the desk to study the illustration Louise was pointing to. A crescent moon indicated that it was night. A man was running along a country lane, looking back over his shoulder. His hat had just blown off.

  “Evidently terrified,” Louise observed. “See what's chasing the poor soul?”

  Erin bent closer. In the distance, she could make out a cloaked figure in a broad-brimmed hat striding along. The figure's face was in shadow. Around it was a group of four-legged creatures – it was difficult to tell how many, the picture was so old and faded. The creatures were running, low to the ground. They were like distorted greyhounds, but with something of the hyena about them.

  “What are those things? They look like the dog in the picture.”

  “Wish-Hounds,” said Louise. “Also called Yell-Hounds. They have many names. They pop up in many countries' legends. They tend to be sinister, often deadly. Some say they are the hunting dogs of the Devil, others link them with pagan deities like Odin. Other legends say the huntsman is King Arthur, of all people, and that his hounds only hunt bad people. They're a lot like real dogs, in that they can be very loyal or very unpredictable and dangerous, depending on which source you go to.”

  “And they're on my trail,” said Erin, feeling a knot of cold fear in the pit of her stomach.

  “We don't know that for sure!” insisted Louise, putting a slender hand on Erin's arm. “As I said, they're ambiguous, not necessarily evil. They might not be what we're dealing with at all.”

  Yeah, let's go with that, thought Erin. They might even be on my side. Like good little doggies.

  Something on the page opposite the illustration caught Erin's eye.

  “Hey,” she said, pointing, “what's this about the Wish-Hounds being linked to the Neutral Angels? What the hell are Neutral Angels? Sounds like they've developed an electrical fault.”

  Louise frowned in puzzlement, then gave a slight laugh.

  “Oh, that's one of this particular author's pet theories. He was a bit of a crank, Launcelot Canning, but very thorough. Very Victorian in his obsessive compiling of data. You've never heard of the Neutral Angels?”

  Seeing Erin's expression, Louise shoved her chair over to the bookcase and, after a few moments, took out a slender booklet.

  “Proceedings of a learned society, I guess?” hazarded Erin.

  Louise nodded as she flipped through the journal.

  “The Royal Folklore and Mythology Society, to be precise – ah, here it is.”

  Taking the booklet Erin read that 'the Neutral Angels were deemed by some early Christian thinkers to have refused to take sides in the war between God and his former deputy, Lucifer. While Lucifer became Satan and was cast into Hell with his followers, the Neutral Angels – said to be relatively few in number – fell to Earth and were condemned for wander among mortals doing mischief until the End of the World, when they will be judged along with all other sinners.'

  “Wow,” said Erin, “my mom would love this. She's into all the crazy evangelical stuff – angels, demons, exorcism, speaking in tongues.”

  “I'm guessing she's one of the reasons you're in England now?” asked Louise.

  Erin nodded.

  “She's your British stereotype of a Bible-Belt American – gives most of her dough to big-haired preachers on TV. Dial 555-S-U-C-K-E-R to buy Tammy and Ron a new Cadillac. She drove me crazy with that stuff. After my dad died, there was no stopping her.”

  “She would probably say all this was God's way of bringing you back to the fold,” said Louise.

  “Am I supposed to believe,” began Erin, old anger surging up, “that an all-loving God would let these rogue angels wander around messing with His Creation?”

  “Ah,” said Louise, with a wry smile, “isn't that a variation on the old chestnut – why do bad things happen to good people?”

  Erin laughed, with a touch of bitterness.

  “Guess so,” she said. “Anyway, we shouldn't go making things even more complicated. Devil dogs, maverick heavenly beings. Ghost-children are bad enough.”

  Louise gave a small shudder.

  “Yes, we shouldn't read too much into things.”

  “Can I borrow these?” asked Erin. “Just in case there is something useful? I kind of feel that dog thing has got my number, you know?”

  “Of course,” said Louise. “Be my guest.”

  Back in her apartment, Erin worked her way through the Royal Society item on angels, which referred to the Bible and other ancient writings. Meanwhile, the eccentric Canning referred to beings 'which by some are thought neither to have stood fast when the rebel angels fell, nor to have joined with them to the full pitch of their transgression'. He went on to describe these beings’ powers over mind and matter. Canning also claimed that 'these creatures are said to have taken on mortal guise to the extent that they can enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, and even procreate'.

  “Whoa!” said Erin. “Too much information! They've got superpowers, are indestructible, and they get wild, too? Unfair!” Erin knew she was trying to joke herself out of a bad place. It did not really work. That night, she dreamed of Wish-Hounds chasing her through the rain-swept, deserted streets of Weyrmouth. Behind the pack, she glimpsed a figure with a shining face. Then the dark beasts brought her down, and she awoke to a bleak winter's dawn.

  ***

  Park sat in his darkened home, pondering his options. Salome lay curled on his lap purring contentedly. A glass of fine brandy was at his elbow. Outside, night had turned to day. Park felt scruffy, unwashed, in need of sleep. But he had things to do.

  “What is truth, Salome?” he asked quietly, scratching his pet between her ears. The purring grew louder. “What if we've been wrong all along?”

  Reluctantly, Park picked up the cat and placed her gently onto the hearth rug. Salome made a noise of mild resentment before turning round a couple of times and going to sleep again.

  “I wish I had your knack for reducing life to its simplest components, my dear. Rest, play, eat, repeat.”

  In the dawn light, the neatly furnished room looked bleak, characterless. His fine paintings and rare books might have been props.

  Like a film set, not a real person's home, Park thought. Is that what I am, merely a character in someone else's drama?

  Negative thoughts dogged him as he took off his rumpled suit, showered, changed into a dark suit identical to the first. He went to a small Japanese cabinet in the corner and unlocked it. Inside were a disparate array of small bottles, paper packets, pendants, and stranger items. Park gathered up most of the objects and put them on top of the cabinet.

  “Into battle, suitably armed and armored,” he murmured, surveying the results of decades of research into the occult. He put the bottles and packets into various pockets, then put a Solomon's Seal pendant around his neck, concealing it under his shirt. He surveyed himself in the mirror.

  You've aged ten years in the last few weeks, he thought.

  His phone chimed, startling him. It was Tim, the director of the Cathedral Mystery Play. It took a few moments to calm the man down and get him to make some kind of sense. But Park already knew what Tim was trying to tell him. He did his best to sound surprised.

  “Disappeared, you say? That is most disturbing. And his family and work colleagues know nothing? Well, yes, I would say it is a police matter now. I will of course do everything I can to help.”

  Park ended the call, looked back at his reflection. The black cat jumped up onto the cupboard, began to walk back and forth, soliciting caresses.

  “So much suffering, Salome,” he said. “So many lies. All for a higher purpose, of course.”

  But what is that purpose?

  The question haunted him through the day as Park struggled to reconcile his conscience with his new-found understanding of
the Curse of Weyrmouth.

  ***

  Ten days had passed since Erin accepted the post of deputy director, and she was starting to get the hang of Weyrmouth Museum. She had experimented several times with both the brooch and the mirror, but all she got was a vague sense of anxiety. Erin began to wonder if the strange phenomena of Weyrmouth came in waves, and that this latest one was over.

  It had taken her a while to find somewhere temporary to live. She had rented a cramped apartment not far from the museum. As well as being within walking distance to work, it was cheap. She had considered holding a housewarming party, but the thought of inviting Mike Smith made her decide against it. He was still nursing a grudge. This particular morning he had been a little more surly than usual.

  Get over it, boy, Erin thought. I'm your new superior, and I will kick your ass if you keep giving me disrespect.

  Saffron Weldon, by contrast, had welcomed Erin as if they were long-lost sisters. As usual, when Erin arrived, Saffron had already made her a mug of instant coffee. But, Erin did not have the heart to tell the girl just how foul a brew Saffron had made.

  “Gee, thanks!” she said, taking the mug and wondering how she would dispose of the noxious fluid today. Several times, Erin had managed to dump the coffee in the Ladies' toilet, but was almost caught the last time. Pouring it out of a window was possible, but had the risk of scalding a passing pedestrian. It had become a running gag between Louise and Erin that as a kid, Saffron had been given a terrible superpower – to make any beverage undrinkable.

  “Ooh, before I forget, I must ask you, because it's quite urgent and Tim said we should use our initiative,” uttered Saffron.

  Erin stood patiently by the reception desk. She had soon learned not to try and hurry Saffron towards the point of one of her monologues. If she interrupted her, the admin girl would simply reset like a faulty machine and start the whole one-sided 'conversation' again.

  “Anyway,” Saffron continued, “the point is that God went missing so Noah got promoted, and that meant we needed a replacement Noah – not a bad idea, he was far too old for me, it was a real sugar daddy vibe, I thought. Anyway, Gabriel replaced Noah, and he's a sweetie, but that left a vacancy for someone tall and striking with an air of authority and a good voice. And when Tim said we should go and find someone, I naturally thought of a man, but then I realized that you're a lot like a man – in a good way, I mean, not that you're not feminine of course …”