The Little Country by Charles de Lint
“—healing properties.” Taupin gave him a grin. “You won’t regret this.”
“I already regret it,” Denzil assured him as they set off along the Old Quay towards Henkie’s warehouse.
The woman who answered their knock was a breathtaking brunette whose only clothing was a sheet that she’d obviously only just halfheartedly wrapped about herself for the express purpose of answering the door, for it was also obvious, from the light that shone behind her, that she wore nothing underneath it. Denzil recognized her and couldn’t help being surprised to find her in this place.
Her name was Lizzie Snell, and by day, she was the mayor’s secretary.
“Hello, Brengy,” she said. “And Mr. Gossip. What brings you by at this time of night?”
“Is Henkie still up?” Taupin asked.
Lizzie blushed. “Well, he was when I left him.”
“I meant, can he see us?”
“Oh. I’ll see. Do you want to wait inside?”
She closed the door behind them once they’d come in, then wandered off into a labyrinth of bookcases leaving them in the company of a fifteen-foot-high painting of herself in which she wore no sheet to disguise her undeniably generous charms.
“Beautiful,” Taupin said.
“Yes,” Denzil said after one quick eye-popping look. He turned away and studiously looked at a pamphlet that he picked up from the table by the door. “He’s a gifted artist.”
Taupin laughed. “I meant Lizzie.”
Denzil read the title of the pamphlet—“The Care and Spiritual Welfare of the Penis: A Study by Hedrik Whale”—and hastily returned it to the table.
This night was proving far too long, he thought.
“Perhaps we should go,” he said to his companion. “It’s obvious we’re rousing him from his, ah, bed, and—”
“Go?” a deep voice boomed out. “Bloody hell. But you’ve only just arrived.”
Denzil blinked for a moment as he turned, thinking a bear had come trundling out from between the bookcases where Lizzie had disappeared earlier, but then he realized it was only their host—all three hundred pounds of him, wrapped in a bearskin. His own hairy legs protruded from underneath, appearing oddly thin. Lizzie came up behind him, dressed now in a loose Arab-styled robe.
“Tea for everyone?” she asked.
“Or something stronger?” Henkie boomed.
His voice, Denzil remembered as he fought the impulse to rub his ears, was always this loud.
“Tea would be fine,” Denzil said. “Wonderful, really.”
“I’ll have the something stronger,” Taupin said.
A half hour later they sat around a potbellied coal stove that stood in a corner of the warehouse given over to be a makeshift sort of kitchen. Lizzie and Denzil were both on their second cups of tea. Denzil had lost track of how much whiskey Taupin and their host had consumed. Amenities had taken up most of that half hour as Henkie and Taupin brought each other up-to-date on what they’d been up to since the last time they’d gotten together, but finally Taupin got around to relating the reason behind their visit.
“Oh, I never liked that Widow,” Lizzie said. “She’s always about his lordship’s office, complaining of this, wanting that.”
“Not to mention what a pissant Tremeer is,” Henkie added. “Bloody stupid constables.”
“Had another run-in with them?” Taupin asked.
Henkie nodded. “Don’t start me on it.”
Yes, Denzil thought. Don’t.
Happily, after a moment of dark brooding, Henkie turned to Denzil.
“Brengy’s got the right of it,” he said. “There’s the stink of magic in the air tonight.”
Not to mention the odor of unwashed bodies, Denzil thought. He stole a glance at Lizzie. How could she sleep with the man?
“But I think we can help you,” Henkie added.
“You see?” Taupin put in.
“How can you help?” Denzil asked.
“Well, it won’t be me, directly,” Henkie said. “We’ll have to ask Briello.”
Denzil could only stare at him. “Pardon?”
“My mate, John Briello.”
“The dead John Briello?”
“Who else?”
Denzil turned to Taupin. “I really think we should go, you.”
“Don’t be so hasty to judge what you don’t bloody well understand,” Henkie told him.
“Dead men don’t talk,” Denzil said flatly. “But whiskey does.”
Henkie’s eyes went hard. “Are you calling me a liar?”
All of Denzil’s instincts told him to back down, but that simply wasn’t his way. He pushed up his glasses with a stiff finger and met Henkie’s gaze, glare for glare.
“If you tell me that I can get advice from a dead man,” he said, “then yes, I’m calling you a liar.”
Henkie glared at him, then burst into a sudden laugh. “Oh, I like you, Denzil Gossip. You’ve a dry wit, and that’s rare in bloody brain-dead Bodbury, isn’t it just?” Turning to Taupin, he added, “But we’ll have to blindfold him.”
“Denzil won’t mind,” Taupin replied. “After tonight he’ll realize he’s been going all through his life with blinders on.”
Denzil shot him a hard stare and got to his feet. “I’ve got a friend to find and I don’t have time to—”
“Oh, do sit down,” Henkie boomed.
“Don’t take it so hard,” Lizzie said. “They’re just teasing you.”
“I’m not in the mood for jokes tonight,” Denzil said stiffly.
“Oh, but it’s no joke,” she assured him. “Briello really will be able to help you. I’ve heard him talk myself.”
“But—”
“I know it doesn’t make sense, but then not much does in this world, does it?”
“No more talk,” Henkie said. “Lizzie, get us a scarf to blindfold our friend here—you will allow yourself to be blindfolded?”
“Well, I don’t—”
“Good.”
“Don’t worry,” Lizzie said as she came up behind him. She took off his glasses and stuck them in the breast pocket of his jacket, then drew the scarf across his eyes. “I’ll make sure you don’t take a tumble.”
She took him by the arm and then led him off before he could frame another protest.
They walked across wood first—Denzil could hear their footsteps on the planking—then, after the creak of a door of some sort, they were outside, on cobblestones. Denzil could smell the sea in the air. The wind tousled his hair. Moments later they were in another building, then descending a stone stairway. Many stairs and turns later, he heard the creak of another door, and then the scarf was removed. He stood blinking in lantern light, feeling a little disoriented as he fished his glasses from his pocket.
He found himself in a cellar of some sort, only it had been fashioned after a Victorian sitting room. Taupin held the lantern, which cast a bright glow over the furnishings. The walls, not surprisingly, were festooned with Henkie’s artwork. Lizzie stood beside him, the scarf hanging from her hands, a reassuring smile on her lips. And Henkie—Henkie stood, still barefoot and wrapped in his bearskin, beside the preserved corpse of a derelict that was leaning up against the far wall.
Except for a somewhat withered look about its skin, and the stiff posture of its limbs, the corpse could almost pass as a living man, Denzil thought. Except a living man didn’t have a silver coin in each eye.
Denzil swallowed dryly, sure now that he’d got himself caught up in the clutches of a group of Bedlamites. He gave the door behind him a surreptitious glance, but while it didn’t appear to be locked or barred, he doubted he’d be able to get it open and flee before one or another of his captors brought him down.
He turned to Taupin, an admonishment taking shape on his tongue, but before he could speak, Henkie, who had been explaining Denzil’s problem to the corpse all this while, was just finishing up.
“So, old mate.
Denzil, unable to help himself, had to look at the corpse. And then his jaw fell slack.
For the corpse moved. The coins in its eyes blinked eerily in the lantern light as the dead man slowly turned its head towards him. The jaw creaked as it opened and the sound that issued forth was like the wind from an open grave.
But it was a voice.
The corpse could speak.
“I can see her,” it said. “She seems very small.”
“La, Jey,” Denzil murmured in a hoarse voice. He felt decidedly faint.
“I do believe the sea has her in its grip,” the corpse went on. “Out by New Dock. But she’s very small. The size of a mouse, seems, but that can’t be, can it?”
It turned its head towards Henkie, silver-coin eyes flashing again, and gave a dusty-sounding laugh.
“I’m one to talk about what can or can’t be—aren’t I just, Henkie?”
It was done with mirrors, Denzil was trying to convince himself. Or they’d drugged him. Hypnotized him. Driven him bloody mad. . . .
“You’re sure about that?” Henkie was asking. “She’s the size of a bloody wee mouse and floating in the sea?”
“Oh, yes,” that dry voice replied.
“In a boat?”
“No, she’s wet and shivering and won’t last long.”
Ventriloquism, Denzil decided. That’s how it was being done. And there was someone behind the wall, manipulating the corpse in some manner to make it look as though it could move.
“Thank you,” Henkie was saying.
“Do you have something for me?” the corpse asked.
“A new painting—it’s almost done.”
Now those dry lips actually smiled. Denzil couldn’t tear his gaze away from the sight.
“That will be wonderful,” the corpse said.
And then it went still.
“We’ll have to hurry if you want to rescue your friend,” Henkie said.
Lizzie started towards Denzil with the scarf, but he shook his head and crossed the room until he stood directly in front of the corpse.
“Rubbish,” he said, lifting a hand towards its face. “The thing’s not real. The dead can’t—”
Suddenly the corpse’s arm lifted up and dead fingers gripped his wrist.
“The size of a mouse,” it said, blowing a grave-cold breath in his face. “Now how do you suppose that came about?”
Denzil shrieked and jumped back. His glasses flew from his nose. He tripped over a table and would have fallen, except that Henkie caught and steadied him. In that moment of confusion, the corpse returned to its initial position. Denzil stared at it.
Lizzie, who had caught his glasses, handed them to him. With trembling fingers, Denzil got them back into place. He couldn’t seem to stop his hands from shaking, so he stuck them in his pockets.
“Come along,” Henkie said. “We don’t have long to help your friend.”
“But—but. . .”
The scarf came over his eyes, blessedly removing the corpse from his sight. Moments later they were leaving the room and beginning the trek up the series of stairways once more.
“It just couldn’t be,” Denzil kept muttering as he let himself be led along. “How could it be?”
It couldn’t. It was that simple. He’d imagined—been made to imagine—the whole ridiculous affair. There was no other logical explanation.
But he could still feel the grip of those dead fingers on his wrist.
Four Bare Legs Together
And, after all, what is a lie? ‘Tis but
The truth in masquerade.
—LORD BYRON, from Don Juan, canto XI
Lena listened to the dead phone for a few moments after Bett had cut the connection, then slowly cradled the receiver.
This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go, she thought.
She got up and hobbled over to the window to look outside. A misting rain was sprinkling on the Promenade, giving the surface of the street a shiny wet sheen under the streetlights. Beyond the stone wall separating the sidewalk from the rocky beach below, the waters of Mount’s Bay swelled and dropped on the timeless wheel of the tides.
Daddy had made a mistake, she realized. She really shouldn’t be here.
It wasn’t that she didn’t think she could get the job done. And for all her lack of success so far, not to mention the stupid accident with the bike, it was kind of fun. Just like a spy novel, never mind what Bett had to say about it.
But to be a part of a murder . . . to have foreknowledge, and not do anything about it. . . .
That didn’t sit right.
She didn’t know Clare Mabley, except from the files she’d read on the woman. She owed Mabley nothing. But that didn’t make a shred of difference to the way she felt at the moment. The woman didn’t deserve to die—not simply because she was Janey Little’s friend and she was interfering with Bett’s plans for Little.
She wondered if Daddy even knew what Bett was up to here. It was one thing to be ruthless in business. She could even condone a little strong-arming, if it became necessary and there was no other option, but not when it was directed at an innocent party. And it made her a little sick to understand just how much Bett would enjoy it.
Because he would enjoy it. She knew that much. Whenever she was in his presence, she could sense that core of controlled violence that lay just below the surface in him, straining to get loose. She knew enough about men to recognize that aspect in them when it was present. There were those who talked the tough talk, and then there were those who just did it, and they were the ones you really had to look out for. Because their violent impulses owed nothing to common anger. Instead they were born out of either an amoral view of the world, or worse, a sick need to hurt others.
In Bett, it was probably both.
Maybe the Order, through Madden, had made a mistake in sending him here.
She could still remember the night that her father had initiated her into the secrets of the Order. She was seventeen and had thought the whole idea of this secret group of old men and women who wanted to rule the world to be both goofy and terrifying. But it hadn’t just been old men and women waiting for her the night that the Order of the Grey Dove welcomed her into their ranks.
There were three generations represented in that church in upstate New York where they had gathered, men and women both. People old enough to be her grandparents—though her own, from both sides of the family, were dead and Daddy would never tell her which of them, if any, had been members. Then there was her father’s generation. And lastly, teenagers, only one of them younger than she was herself.
They were all masked—costumed, she’d thought at the time, like the members of some Elk Lodge getting ready for a parade, though if the Order was a lodge, then it was a sinister one. There had been blood, and she still didn’t know if it had been human as one of the other younger initiates had told her later, and there had been a ritual. And there had been the tattoo.
It would all have seemed ridiculous if it hadn’t been so deadly serious. And then, as years went by and she was initiated into the deeper mysteries, when she found that you could get anything—anything—you wanted, just through the use of your will, it hadn’t seemed frivolous at all anymore.
Did you want to live forever?
The Order claimed it was possible. Many of the older members avowed to be well over a hundred, though not one of them seemed more than sixty.
Was it prosperity you desired?
They were all wealthy and even though Lena had been born into wealth herself, who didn’t want more?
Did you want to wield power over others?
Through the proper use of your will, the Order’s secrets taught you how to control the sheep. And if sometimes more physical manipulations—such as the surreptitious use of drugs or other external machinations—were necessary, there was a kind of
Lena had thrived in that environment, for all that she maintained a somewhat distant and decadent attitude towards the Order. Why give them the satisfaction of thinking they controlled her as well? For she saw that as another aspect of the Order, how the elder members lorded it over the younger; viewed them, in fact, as another kind of sheep.
In many ways the Order was no different than society at large. One rose through its ranks the same as one did in the business world, or in the whirl of society.
Lena preferred to take what she could use, but played their game as little as possible. She had other uses for the knowledge that she’d acquired. Rather than being on the Order’s lower rungs, she elected to create her own little circles of power, making sure only that they didn’t interfere with any of the Order’s.
It only backfired at times like these, when her father, frustrated at his lack of control over his own daughter—and undoubtedly embarrassed when in the company of other members of the Order because of that same lack of control—sent her off on a chore such as this to prove that he could still govern her.
Usually she made the best of it, getting through the task as quickly as possible so that she could return to the social rounds of Boston in which she was a leader, rather than a sycophant. Unfortunately, this time Felix Gavin had to come along to complicate matters.
In some way that she still didn’t quite understand, he’d cut through the shield of debutante bullshit by which she held the world at bay, and walked straight into her heart, making her actually care what happened to someone else for a change. And the worst of it was, it didn’t feel bad. Except for the hopeless feelings she had for him.
So what was she supposed to do?
Sighing, she took her gaze from the world outside her window and looked down at her wrist. The grey dove, symbol of her father’s precious Order. Were those old men and women at all aware of the dark malicious streak that ran through Bett?
Probably.
But she still felt she should call her father.
She limped back to the bed and had the receiver raised in her hand, before she cradled it once more, the call unmade. Another realization had come to her.