The Grimswell Curse (28 page)

Holmes had lowered his hand. His gray eyes showed his dismay. “There are things I must know—things you must tell me. You... you were never married, were you, Miss Grimswell?”

The rocking chair began to creak again.
“No.”

Holmes ran his hand through his black hair. “But you were in love with Lord Douglas Shamwell, were you not?”

Again her eyes filled with tears. “Yes.”

Holmes turned to me, his eyes showing an unfamiliar desperation. “Madam, I must ask you a question which may seem impertinent— which
is
impertinent—but I must know the answer. Rose’s life may be at stake, as well as other lives. Have you... have you ever had a child?”

The chair ceased moving, and her eyes widened. When it came at last, her laughter was pained and savage. “
No
.” She sobbed, then covered her face with her forearm and the sleeve of heavy wool.

Holmes’s face was red. “Forgive me, I—”

“I was pure and good, but that was not what the Devil wanted—he wanted someone as foul and luxurious as himself, someone who would couple with him and give birth to his spawn. Their bodies are white— they writhe about one another like serpents.
I have seen them.”
She lowered her arm, her eyes fixed on Holmes. “He would only mate with another demon, a female, because they were really only one—only
the
same—and their... their get was the same.” She turned to gaze out the window. “It took me a long time to understand that. I was so hurt, so upset, I... I tried to kill myself when I found out about them. I wanted to die.” She raised her fists, letting the sleeves of her robe drop and revealing the ragged red scars on her wrists just below the palms. I felt a visceral shock, as if a knife had slid into my own belly.

“Oh, God—how awful I felt. It was worse than anything. My life since has been nothing but pain, but not that dreadful agony, that gaping wound. I... It was only later—long afterward—when I saw that thing they had created, that I truly understood. It never had anything to do with hurting me or finding me wanting. The Devil is
one.
He takes different forms, but he is always the same. The Devil mates with the Devil, and the Devil is born again and again. They are all the same. They truly are.” She smiled and nodded weakly.

I felt nauseated, and my hands were cold. I could think of nothing to say. She was, after all, hopelessly insane. Holmes had gone very pale, but he had not taken his eyes off her. His hands gripped the chair back again, the tendons standing out.

“I have been a fool.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The Devil... had a child, a son, and the child... was exactly like the father.”

She smiled and nodded.

“And just like the mother. And they were all the Devil.” Holmes seemed to be talking to himself.

“Yes.” She nodded eagerly. “You understand it
perfectly
.” Her eyes were red, her face streaked with tears, but she seemed childishly pleased.

Holmes glanced at me. “Can we go?” I asked. My voice shook slightly.

He stood abruptly. “Yes.” He stared down at Jane Grimswell. She had begun to rock and was staring out the window through the bars. He hesitated, then touched her shoulder. “Thank you, Miss Grimswell. I have hopes that your cousin—that Rose—may yet be saved.”

She shook her head sadly. “You cannot beat the Devil, Mr. Holmes. No man can.”

“Nevertheless, I shall try.” He picked up his top hat, and we started for the door.

“Mr. Holmes?”

“Yes, madam?”

She was staring at us both. “I shall pray for you all the same. I... oh, I hope you will succeed.”

“Thank you, Miss Grimswell.”

We stepped outside, and he closed the door. I felt almost dizzy, my hands still cold and clammy. “The poor tortured soul,” I muttered. “She is totally mad. Constance did not tell us she had tried to kill herself.”

Holmes said nothing. We started down the hallway. The low moan was still coming from behind the same door. “Lord, this is a dreadful place!” I wanted to run down the stairs and get outside, but I restrained myself. “We have come all the way to London for nothing.”

Holmes gave a fierce, savage laugh and stared at me.
“Hardly.”

H
olmes had some further mysterious visits to make that evening, but I went home and slept that night in my own bed. Tried to sleep, rather—the visit with Jane had been very disturbing, and Michelle was still back in Dartmoor.

The next day, we all returned to Grimswell Hall late in the afternoon. Dartmoor was a welcome sight, the air clean and bracing after the stench of London. The ride to the hall was spectacular, the terrain so varied—the sweeping, barren expanses of the moor, the streams of cold clear water, the patches of stunted woods with twisted black oaks, their leaves gone, the marshy dark mires where man or beast trod at their peril, and the black granite tors atop the hills set against the luminous sky. However, as we drew closer to our destination, my spirits sank.

Michelle took my hand. “Is something wrong?”

I shrugged, then glanced at Rose Grimswell and Holmes. “No.”

Michelle frowned. She knew me well: she could read me like a book.

Soon we were following the drive through the trees, the massive edifice of dark stone ahead. We stepped down, and the heavy oaken doors of the main entry swung open. George stepped forth to greet us. The familiar grin seemed lackluster, and his eyes had an odd, strained look. “Welcome back, gentlemen and ladies.” His eyes flickered about, rested on Holmes, and then he reached out to slip something into Holmes’s hand. Michelle and Rose had gone by and did not see this.

“Well, it’s about time.” Digby’s voice had a weary drawl. He wore a checked Norfolk suit of a hideous brownish-green shade. “I thought you had
all
ended up in some bog or another.”

“Heavens!” Constance exclaimed. “Don’t even joke about such things! And how are you, Mrs. Vernier? Are you quite recovered?”

Michelle smiled, a glint of humor showing in her eyes. “Oh yes, I feel much better. I had quite a chill.”

Our excuse for not returning the night before was that Michelle had fallen into a bog during our trek. Since we wished to get her warm and dry as quickly as possible, we had gone to a nearby inn. As it was late and the weather foul, we had decided to spend the night there, and then Holmes and I had business in Grimpen during the day. This was the story we had all agreed upon, and we had a note sent to the hall late the day before.

Digby gave Rose a petulant smile. “I’m growing rather weary of being left out of all these outings. I might as well be back in London.”

“An excellent idea,” I murmured. Only Michelle heard me, and she stifled a laugh.

Rose took his arm and smiled. “Come now, Rickie, would you really have wanted to rise at six in the morning yesterday?”

Digby shrugged. “Perhaps not, but—”

“Tomorrow we shall all go for a walk after breakfast, and you will be included, I promise.”

“Splendid. The day was not entirely wasted. I met the delightful widow at the farm down the road. Something of a mystery, what she’s doing in so godforsaken a place. Well, tomorrow I’d like to hike up to Demon Tor and finally have a look at the view.”

Constance opened her mouth, then closed it. She shook her head. “All this exercise—it cannot be good for a body.”

We went upstairs to dress for dinner, but first I stopped by Holmes’s room. “What did George give you?” I asked.

“Ah, you saw that, did you? It was a note asking me to meet him by the menhir down the road at nine.”

I frowned. “That sounds dangerous.”

Holmes smiled sardonically. “No one is safe with a murderer on the moors, but I shall be armed.”

I hesitated, then sighed. “I shall come with you.”

“Very well, Henry.” He drew aside the curtains and stared outside. “The clouds are lifting. It should be a beautiful evening.”

So it was. The stars were dazzling, far brighter and more numerous than in London. We could see them in a band overhead between the trees as we strolled down the drive, our boots striking the hard granite underfoot. Holmes wore a woolen overcoat, a bowler hat and gloves. His left hand held his stick, and his right was in the pocket where I had seen him place his revolver. Somewhere nearby in the trees came the wavering hoot of an owl, a disembodied voice overhead. The wind was faint, just a touch on our faces.

Soon we left the trees and followed the path onto the moors. A bright moon, almost full, was low in the eastern sky; it cast our shadows before us. The moor was a great silent presence, grass and heath reduced to a dark rolling plain, the distant hills and tors silhouetted against the bright night sky.

I shook my head. “One should not have to worry about murderers on a night like this when all of nature is so splendid.”

“Man brings his own darkness wherever he goes, a darkness with none of the beauty of a Dartmoor night.”

Abruptly, a strange cry rose through the night, almost human in its yearning, yet alien all the same. “Good Lord,” I said, “what...?”

“A fox, Henry. That is the mating cry of a vixen, and if I am not mistaken—look there.” He raised his stick and pointed to where a small dark shape with a bushy tail trotted across the moor. “A male, no doubt. To him that cry was a siren song.” To our left came a series of high-pitched, staccato barks. “And that is another male replying.”

The wind picked up briefly, then died down. Out from under the trees the sky was truly magnificent, a vast starry expanse dominating the dark plain. The misty belt of the Milky Way split the sky, fading where it met the moon. Some stars were blue diamonds, others yellow or red. One reddish star was particularly brilliant.

“Do you know that star?” I asked. “The bright red one there.”

“That is not a star, Henry, but a planet—Mars.”

“The god of war,” I murmured.

“Yes, and a reminder of our combat. Curious. The planet itself is nothing more than a point of reddish light. Man gives it the connotations of blood, war and strife.”

“Blood and strife,” I said. The moors seemed as far from London and its teeming masses, vehicles, buildings and noise as one of the planets above us. Despite the danger which might await us, the quiet beauty of the wild landscape moved me.

“I should like to come back here when our business at the hall is finished, perhaps for a walking tour with Michelle. I hope... I hope Dartmoor is not ruined for me by...”

“It will not be. Dartmoor is older and vaster than mere man. I only hope man himself does not ruin it.”

“You think we have that power?”

“I know we do. Did you not hear me discuss with Miss Grimswell how the ancient stones have been pulled down and used to build a farmer’s fence and the like? Farmers try to fence off the moor. There are a few small woods in Dartmoor, but the large oaks were cut down two hundred years ago, the wolves all slaughtered about the same time.”

“Frankly, I am glad this evening there are no wolves on the moor.”

Holmes gave a snort of laughter. “There you are wrong. There is a creature far worse than a real wolf loose on the moor.”

“Surely you cannot mean a werewolf?”

“No, something far worse. The werewolf is an interesting invention, but he is all bestial savagery with no cunning or intelligence. This creature is a man, but he is missing something essential. His heart is that of a beast—no, worse than that. He willingly kills his own kind. No animal, no wild beast, does that, so I am wrong to say he has the heart of a beast. He has the heart of a reptile or amphibian, something cold and unfeeling and primitive. Or perhaps, worse yet, he is one of those rare monstrosities who enjoys killing, who enjoys slaughtering his own kind.”

“Oh, dear God,” I murmured.

Holmes stopped and seized my arm. In the moonlight I could see his white face with the beaked nose under the bowler hat. “Forgive me, Henry. I had no right to ruin so beautiful an evening with my dark reflections. I should have kept them to myself.”

“You think our adversary is that black?”

“I know he is.”

“But no one at the hall seems capable of—”

“We are not dealing only with the people at the hall. No, our adversary, as you rightly called him, does not live at the hall, although he has his ally there.”

“How can you—?”

Holmes raised his stick. “There is our destination.” The menhir stood before us, a slab of blackness with the moon and stars behind it.

I took a breath and tried to regain some of the simple joy for the night’s beauty, but it was futile. I was afraid again. “But he is a man—not a monster?”

Holmes sighed. “You have not been listening. He is not a supernatural being, but that does not make him less loathsome or frightening. He is something worse. If he was a different species or a supernatural creature, then his evil might be more comprehensible.” He drew in his breath, then cried, “George! Are you here?”

The murmur of the wind stirring the heather and bracken was all we heard. A bird flew by, a dark shape overhead, and from its hoarse cry I recognized it as a raven.

Holmes sighed. “I feared this.”

“Feared what?”