Ghosts, Gears, and Grimoires Read online

  “Very well,” was the terse response from Mr. Spence. He strode purposefully out of the room before calling back through the doorway, “Just get on with it.”

  I thought Madame’s glass might shatter in her hand, such was the way she held it. John carefully pried it from her and got her to sit down. They spoke in agitated, yet hushed tones. I could not tell what was being said.

  John at last stood up and sighed. “If you’re very sure about this, then, of course, I will help.”

  He moved across to the automaton and traced his hands across the markings etched into the body. “I have it,” he called to Madame.

  “You know what to do,” she said, in a quiet voice.

  He pulled out a small knife and began scratching at one of the marks on the back of the figure. My view remained poor, but I could see that he was obliterating a few small symbols here and there. He was purposeful in his work.

  Without warning, the Turk’s hatch opened and Madame Juno loomed above me. “I’m sorry, child, that you’ve seen this. In all the upset, I completely forgot that you were there.”

  I slowly stood up. “I’ve not heard or seen a thing, Madame,” I said.

  She gave me a weak smile. “You’re a good girl, and a terrible liar. I want you to know that this séance will not be pleasant. This man’s wife died. In fact, she was murdered, and, well, he wants his wife back.”

  “I’m sure he does,” I replied. “Grief can make you think funny.”

  “That is true. However, I think we can agree that trapping his wife’s spirit in a machine is not for the best.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That would be very bad.”

  Madame Juno reached out and gently touched my cheek with the back of her hand. “I don’t think we’ll need you for this one, but just in case, there is any problem I want you to have this.” She handed me a piece of paper. There were various symbols on it and a language I did not understand. I knew I could easily get the Turk to write it out on a sheet of paper.

  “I won’t let you down,” I said confidently. I stretched a bit, allowing my muscles to feel that nice ache of release before hunkering down in my little hideaway once more. Above me, Madame closed the hatch and gave it a couple of reassuring taps.

  Madame Juno took her place at the head of the table before nodding to John. He walked across the room and unlatched the double doors. As a group of people outside them came closer, I was able to see Mr. Spence once more, along with four other men I vaguely recognised but could not place.

  They each took a seat and silently looked to Madame to begin the proceedings. The only noise was the drumming of Mr. Spence’s fingers across the top of the table.

  Madame Juno closed her eyes. I’d seen her do so many times, but every single time it gave me goose bumps. She breathed slowly and drew herself up in the high-backed chair. Then, after a long pause, she expelled the air from her lungs in a long sigh and snapped her eyes open.

  She looked across to Mr. Spence. “Your wife did not die here, despite her body being found in this place. Do you recommend another location we should try?”

  I waited for Mr. Spence to become agitated again, but to my surprise the strange wheezing noise coming from his body seemed something akin to laughter.

  “You are as good as I’ve been told,” he said. “We should try over my house. After all, it was our marital home and I’m sure she is connected to it. It is only five streets over.”

  Madame nodded to John, who left the room briefly. He returned and announced they would be in place within minutes.

  The room remained in silence. Mr. Spence continued to grin inanely. I tried not to look at him, he unnerved me. The atmosphere was broken when a sharp rap on the door was heard. It proved to be a member of the crew who brought word that we were now in place over the Spence house.

  Again, Madame began her routine, seeming to fall within herself. Her breathing was heavy at first, and then became so shallow she appeared somewhere between serenity and death. Slowly, she opened her eyes and spoke. Her voice echoed, and her breath was visible, although the room was warm. “Anna, your wife, is here. She is happy.”

  Mr. Spence leaned forward. “Call her forward, so that I might trap—I mean, hold her—within the automaton.”

  Madame was quiet for a moment, as if she were passing on the message silently. “She is already here,” she said. “She is not alone.”

  A single tear rolled down Madame’s face. “She is with her true love...my son.”

  “Ridiculous,” yelled Spence.

  He stalked across to the automaton and took a sheet of paper from inside his coat. He began to read aloud.

  I cannot tell you the words, because—to me—they sounded like a series of gibberish noises. In a different situation, it may have been hilarious, but since he was just a little in front of my hiding place and I could see his face clearly, it was, quite frankly, scary.

  The lights within the room shimmered and, in the center of the table, an apparition appeared. It was a strange thing.

  Its neck was elongated, as if it had been hanged. Its body shape seemed to morph between male to female. Finally, the face was a contorted amalgamation of man and woman. Despite this, it seemed somehow wonderful.

  Mr. Spence roared, “What is this monster before me? I paid you to find my wife, not this grotesque creature.”

  Madame spoke with her own voice now, and it rang with tearful joy. “You are a fool. It says much about you that you cannot see them for what they are. You have never known true love if you cannot see how beautiful this creature is.”

  “What in all the hells is it?” he asked.

  “Two spirits, joined together as one. This is what love eternal looks like. They are inseparable.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he growled.

  Again he began with the strange noises he had read aloud before. He found a rhythm in them and the spirit seemed to be dragged toward the frame of the automaton. If Mr. Spence had hoped to split the ghosts of these two, he failed.

  The shimmering creature floated straight through the automaton and into my Turk. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I screamed.

  It’s not that I didn’t see the beauty in what they had become, but I feared they might be after a third.

  I squirmed about in the machine, unable to get either out or away from them. The misshapen face came close to mine and broke into a smile that immediately put me at ease. My mechanical contrivance clicked into life and, without any of my doing, it began to write something which I could not make out.

  “What is this?” I heard Mr. Spence ask as he gathered up the paper. “Poppycock, utter rubbish,” he yelled, as he crumpled the paper and threw it aside.

  John obviously picked it up, because he said, “It says, ‘Robert Spence, my husband, killed me and framed my lover.’”

  “Repeat that and I will kill you,” said Spence coldly.

  He inspected his automaton. He started in the front and worked his way around, pulling a notebook from another inside pocket. He seemed to be comparing the symbols to whatever he had written down.

  He mumbled, “She is still my wife. I possess her. She was mine, and only mine, in life. It is the same in death. No one leaves me.”

  John coolly replied, “‘To have and to hold.’ Not to have and own.”

  “She is mine. I paid her fool of a father. I have a certificate of ownership.”

  John was aghast. “A marriage certificate is not a symbol of ownership. Besides which, the vows state ‘until death do us part’. I think that plays some part here.”

  Spence waved his hand at John, dismissing his words.

  Madame Juno stood and walked around to my hiding place. She gave three light taps on the side of the Turk’s head. This was the signal to get the machine to write a designated message.

  In my earlier panic I’d dropped the sheet of paper she had given me, and now searched frantically to find it. In such a cramped space, it was difficult to turn around and look.
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  Outside my mechanized shell I heard Madame stalling for time.

  “You obviously drove her to an affair with someone who would offer her love and kindness. I, for one, am relieved to find that my son has found eternal happiness. Can you not find it in your heart to let her be happy?”

  Spence was still running his fingers along each and every glyph and marking on the automaton. “Ridiculous, I say,” he answered. “She was mine. She is mine. I told her she would not be shared. I told her she was not to leave the house. How many times did I have to discipline her? Countless is the answer, and, in the end, it was her disobedience that made me angry. It was her own wanton behavior that made me—”

  “Made you do what?” Madame Juno interrupted quietly.

  I found the notes under my cushion and quickly figured out how the Turk should write it out. They weren’t words I understood, but given what Mr. Spence had been reading earlier, I figured they must mean something.

  “Ah, so this is what is wrong with my automaton. Someone has tampered with this symbol,” declared Spence. I looked up from the sheet of paper to see him pointing to the area that John had scratched at earlier. “This etching would have held her within the machine. It would have trapped her there forever and made her obedient to me.”

  John spoke now. “My God, man, this is your wife you are talking about, not a servant.”

  “Spare me your pathetic wittering, you sad excuse for a man.”

  Spence stepped forward, pressing his face toward John’s, as if daring him to strike him. The other guests formed a semi-circle behind John. It was only now that I recognized them, despite their refined dress. As a brawl looked to be starting, I realized they were sturdy members of the crew, who now backed John and Madame Juno up.

  Spence clicked a switch on his cane, and a glittering blade appeared. He slashed it left and right before him, forcing the others back on their heels. Behind him, the apparition appeared again, and I swear on my dear old Mum’s life that it winked at me as it phased into the brass body of the automaton.

  Spence was none the wiser, until the creature jerked forward and smashed its metal arm down across his right shoulder. He instantly turned and attempted to skewer his assailant. The metallic savior merely looked at him.

  Can a faceless thing show utter contempt? I don’t know, but that is what I felt passed between man, machine, and the entwined spirit.

  The room had frozen. The crew were shocked, not thinking to take advantage.

  I quickly got to work operating the mechanisms within the Turk and, within seconds, the message was being written before the group.

  The automaton had been emptied now. The twin spirits had left its shell. Spence grabbed at the paper, probably assuming it was a message from his departing wife.

  “I recognize this as similar to the incantation used to summon Anna,” he said. He scanned the sheet. Behind him the crew moved to grab him. Madame Juno held up her hand and shook her head. They obeyed and waited.

  “Don’t you see,” said Mr. Spence. “She wants to be back with me. She knows her place.”

  His hair was disheveled now. He had the look of a madman. His eyes seemed to dart all over the room, his body movements jittery. He began to recite the incantation.

  Again, they seemed just like noises to me. They were almost guttural this time, but there was a slow rhythm to them.

  There was something familiar to the words. I struggled to place them. I would hate to call it a tune, but the words, the rhythm of their reading—it was similar to some kind of music I’d heard before. It did not bring back good memories.

  Then it hit me; the funeral march. There, almost like some ancient version of a dirge, was a melody about death.

  The room shuddered. An intense odor stung my nostrils. It was similar to the smell of coal dust in the engine room. The lamps burned brightly, but a deep, intense darkness formed around each of us.

  I sweated. I shivered. I heard screaming. It was my own voice.

  Then, I heard John, Madame Juno, all of the crew, also screaming. I threw back the hatch to the Turk and scrambled out.

  I tried to run from the room, but clawed hands held me. A single sharp nail ran down my back. I was spun around and saw that all of us were in the grip of a many-armed creature. I know now it was a demon.

  It had more arms than I could count, each ending in a hand with razor-sharp claws. Its main body was a gelatinous blob of grey flesh. Five red eyes looked out from its misshapen head. When it opened its mouth, I saw more teeth than I’ve ever seen in my life. Row upon row of sharp incisors—each might as well have been a blade.

  John yelled as it scratched at his chest. Another arm held him as it withdrew the hand that had ripped at him. I could see blood dripping from its claws. A long tongue, eel-like, but forked at the end, slipped out from its jaws and tasted the blood.

  It seemed to slosh the blood around its mouth, thinking on the taste. Then, it tossed John across the room.

  Again and again it did this, until only Mr. Spence and I were left. It came to me first. Now that it had let so many go, it had spare hands, and very many of them held me.

  A spare claw moved to my chest. It tore an opening in my shirt and then, above my left breast, it cut into me. I groaned in pain as it seemed to probe its fingers deep into my flesh.

  There was a burning sensation as it slowly withdrew its claws and moved them back to its gaping maw. It licked at the blood.

  It spat on the floor beneath me, and then hurled me across the room. For once, my size made me grateful as John and another crew member caught me and ensured a safe landing.

  We all stood now, transfixed, as the creature repeated the tasting of blood with Mr. Spence. He howled and screamed, kicking with his feet, but to no avail.

  The demon licked at its bloody fingers once more, then appeared to quiver. Again, it licked at the blood, as if suddenly starving.

  Spence was held with just two hands now, the numerous others flew at him, each trying to get at his blood before even those two arms dropped him, such was the feverish manner in which the creature attacked him.

  He screamed and rolled onto his front, grabbing at the wood floor. The writhing arms pulled him towards the creature. I winced as I saw his fingernails break as he desperately tried to stop himself being taken closer and closer to the creature’s maw.

  I moved to help him, but Madame Juno restrained me. “He is being judged by a higher authority than we are,” she said.

  “But we can’t—” I protested frantically.

  “He brought this on himself. That incantation merely asked for everyone here to be judged. This vile creature,” she motioned to the demon, in case I thought she meant Spence, “craves the guilty. The more heinous the crime, the more ravenous the creature gets. See how it feeds like a dog that’s not eaten in a month or two?”

  “But what did he do?”

  “He killed his wife and let my innocent son hang for his crime.”

  The conversation was ended by Spence’s screams. He’d been gathered into the demon’s chest now, and the claws and teeth ripped his body to pieces. I tried to look away, but, to my great shame, I was transfixed by the horror of it.

  The darkness spread out into the whole room. It not only engulfed the daylight, but all noise was gone too.

  Then, there was a strange buzz in my ears before the room returned to normal. The only signs of Mr. Spence were his cane and the blood-stained floor.

  Madame Juno was helped to the table and given her chair. John ran for some more wine and dished it out to everyone. I spilt some of mine as I drank; such was the shaking in my hands. I noticed a lot of the men were just the same. No one spoke.

  The silence was finally broken by a tick-tock sound. At first I thought nothing of it. Just a clock I assumed—though I had never noticed one in the room before.

  It was John who first noticed. “Dear God. It cannot be.”

  We all looked across the room to see the automaton
picking up Mr. Spence’s cane. Clumsily, it fiddled with the handle.

  “It’s him. It must be. It’s his spirit. Quick, grab him,” cried Madam.

  The men rushed forward. The demon had given them a new tolerance of what was shocking. Unperturbed by a possessed statue, they dived forward. Five of them piled onto the brass humanoid.

  It was strong, but, like a young foal, it seemed unsure of how to use its limbs or, in this case, its strength.

  Madame Juno stunned me by pulling a blade from beneath her skirts and striding forward.

  “Flip him over,” she instructed.

  They fought to turn the machine onto its front. Many were still groggy from the blood lost to the demon, but they held the automaton down as best they could. Many a time they were almost shaken off, but they simply pushed it back down.

  The automaton lifted its head and shoulders.

  “Get it down,” cried Madame.

  I leapt forward, knowing I had little weight but hoping my velocity might momentarily knock it down. Thankfully, it did.

  Madame Juno quickly reapplied the symbols John had removed. Her hand worked like an expert craftsman as she engraved it with etching after etching.

  “Right. Stand back, all of you,” she said.

  I was left sitting on the machine’s head. John kindly helped me to my feet and I nervously joined the rest of the crew.

  The automaton lifted itself up and stood now at its full, imposing height. In its hand was the cane, blade now protruding menacingly.

  “Drop the blade,” ordered Madame calmly.

  It seemed to stare at the stick in its hand for an age.

  “I said, drop the blade.” Madame added more authority to her voice.

  It did as it was told.

  She handed it a pen and told it to sit at the table. She placed some paper in front of it and told it to write freely.

  I looked at the words. I’ll get you for this you evil witch. I’m no one’s possession. I’ll kill...

  “That is quite enough,” scolded Madame Juno.