Sherlock Holmes: Cthulhu Mythos Adventures (Sherlock Holmes Adventures Book 2) (33 page)

“Have we escaped surveillance?” Challenger asked. “If so, how? We could not have outraced the other cab.”

“We did not have to,” Holmes told him. “Our adversary will either be detoured or delayed beyond hope of recovering us.”

“Those lads?”

Holmes nodded. “The children of London are really quite resourceful, and intelligent in a cunning sort of way. The message I tossed was to Michael, the leader of the group we saw. They’ll stage some sort of distraction that will seem perfectly natural to the cabby and his fare. If we’re fortunate, Michael will be able to provide us with a description of them when he drops by Baker Street to pick up the payment I promised.”

“They are very much like savage tribes operating within the  civilized environs of London,” Challenger said. “Fascinating!”

“More like unseen mice in the wainscoting of society,” Holmes observed.

The address where the cabby dropped them in Soho was above a music-hall not far from Charing Cross Road. It was a low sort of establishment catering to the howling mob who thought two and six too much payment for even the pits. But it was in keeping with the tenor of a neighborhood that derived its name from a cry to hounds. Soho was, on the whole, to paraphrase Galsworthy, an untidy quarter, full of Greeks, Ishmaelites, cats, Italians, restaurants, theatres, signs with queer names, and dark faces looking out from upper windows. It could be safely claimed that of all the boroughs of that fantastic and terrible city called London, it was the one that dwelt most remote from the British Body Politic.

Here, in the realm of Will Hazlitt, England’s best God-damner and an eros-lost soul until his death in 1830, Challenger felt as if he had crossed some invisible boundary, entering a world lost from the mainstream of life. He often regaled acquaintances with accounts of his journeys into the lonely, often desolate, places of the world, but here, in the heart of London, he was confronted with the truth contained in a statement by that other Holmes: “No person can be said to know London. The most anyone can claim is that he knows something of it.”

Aleister Crowley opened the door of his flat, just a little at first, then wider when he saw his callers. “Please come in, Mr Holmes. Your friend as well.”

“Pardon this intrusion, Mr Crowley, but we come upon a matter of some urgency,” Holmes said,. “This is Professor Challenger.”

“How do you do?” Challenger said. He tried to look at the young, silk-garbed, smooth-faced man before him, but his gaze was captured by the contents of the room: Near Eastern wall-hangings, hookahs, antiques, relics, piles of old books and parchments, and paintings of the most decadent and bizarre craftsmanship. Nearby, a pipe smoldered, lazily venting aromas of rum and perique. The air was also heavy with the scent of sandalwood and other less identifiable odors. It was a startling change, completely out of step with the rather squalid surroundings of the area.

“Challenger?” Crowley mused. “The name is not unfamiliar.” He snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes, in the records of the CCC last year, brought up on charges for bodily ejecting a newspaper reporter from your house and giving him as bad a case of, as I like to call it, cobble-rash.”

Challenger scowled. “The blighter had it coming, insinuating himself into my residence on a pretense.”

“I have no doubt,” Crowley agreed. “Journalistic vultures!”

Besides, Challenger thought, the charges had been dismissed. The papers had garnered a few quotable, and misquoted, phases, for which he would have pursued legal action had it not interfered with his then plans.

“Mr Crowley,” Holmes ventured. “Does the name Laslo Bronislav hold any meaning for you?”

This time it was Crowley’s turn to scowl, making Challenger’s expression seem as clear as a spring day. “He is a devil! And I may be speaking literally here, Mr Holmes.”

“What do you know of him?” Challenger asked.

Crowley’s scowl took on a crafty cast and he looked from man to man. “Why do you ask after Bronislav? He is as well known within certain occult societies as he is unknown to the general public. Not that he belongs to any group, mind you. He pilfers them all for information from time to time, all the while remaining an enigma to them. He is a dangerous man. If you knew anything about him, you would be very circumspect in asking after him.”

“I admit to an ignorance regarding Bronislav,” Holmes said. “His name has not previously appeared in connection with any crime committed in England, the Continent or the Americas.”

“Bronislav is a very careful man,” Crowley pointed out.

“He impersonated you at the British Museum,” Challenger said.

Crowley’s eyes went wide. “I beg your pardon!”

“More accurately, he used your name to identify himself when consulting with Lord Cecil Whitecliff, the noted ethnologist,” Holmes explained.

Crowley shook his head. “I’ve never met Lord Whitecliff.”

“As I surmised when Lord Whitecliff provided us with a description at variance with what I knew your appearance to be,” Holmes continued. “I detected in his use of your name not an attempt to usurp your identity but something of a jape, an inner jest for his own amusement. He could have given any name, if his intent were merely to conceal his identity, but he chose one as meaningful to him as it was meaningless to Lord Whitecliff.”

“I have encountered Bronislav only a few times, the first being through the agency of Gerald Festus Kelly, an artist I met after the publication of my
Alcadama
in the Cambridge bookstore,” Crowley explained. “Bronislav does not say much, but what he does utter hints at knowledge totally unknown to even the world’s adepts. Most occultists, for all their pretended devotion to Lucifer or Belial or Whatever, are secretly sincere Christians in spirit, and inferior Christians at that, for their beliefs are just as puerile, but Bronislav is nothing like them. When I foolishly offered to sponsor him at the Golden Dawn, he laughed at me. He actually
laughed
at me, and called me a blind man with a broken cane! Words were exchanged, and that was the last time we spoke.”

“And when was that?” Holmes asked.

“Last year, I believe,” Crowley replied. “During break, after my return to London. You remember, Holmes, just before that unfortunate Alpine adventure of mine.”

Holmes nodded.

“May I enquire what Bronislav sought under my name?”

Challenger looked toward Holmes. At a nod, he unwrapped the object that fate and a dying sailor had delivered into Holmes’ hands.

“Good God, what a monster!” Crowley exclaimed when he saw the object. “But, oddly familiar…though I cannot say I’ve ever seen anything like it previously. A native fetish?”

“So it would appear,” Holmes said. “From some sort of ancient devil-cult operating in the Indian Ocean.”

“The Maldives,” Challenger added.

“Wait a minute,” Crowley cried, rummaging through a stack of antique folios. “I recall now…a reference Bronislav made at one of our encounters, one that so mystified me at the time that I searched it down, finally discovering it in a tome called
The Secret Empire
. Have you heard of it?”

Neither Holmes nor Challenger had.

“I can’t say I’m surprised," Crowley continued. “Ah, here it is. An obscure volume, to say the least, which I found only after much searching among the bookstalls one finds in the lee of the wall of Bethlehem Hospital in Moorfields. Listen to this, gentlemen: ‘
Know that in primal Albion monsters dwelt in the deeps of river and sea, calling themselves Orms, calling themselves gods. Men were cattle and slaves, making obeisance to them and such sacrifices as were necessary to propitiate the blood-lust of the Orms. When men learnt to rise against their water-borne masters, the Orms retreated to their dark places, to their secret places in the Sea called Red by the Hellenes in Egypt, in the Line Isles where the people built sacred mounds and temples
.’ That last, I believe, is a reference to the Maldives, which appear on maps as a straight line running north to south. Early travelers wrote about mounds and temples where sacrifices were made before the coming of Mohammed’s faith.”

Challenger frowned. “But in the Red Sea?”

“What we now call the Red Sea was known to the Greek geographers as the Arabian Gulf,” Crowley explained. “The Red Sea to them is what we call the Indian Ocean.”

“And this would be an Orm?” Challenger asked, gesturing to the idol.

“The Orms are part of the mythology of Britain, anciently called Albion,” Crowley said. “You might know them as Wyrms, Wyverns or, more commonly, dragons. There are dozens of places in Britain with connections to the mythology, as evidenced by their very names—Wormhill, Drakfeld, Ormby…well, it’s a long list.”

“What could any of that have to do with this idol or the dead sailor from whose care we received it?” Challenger demanded.

“Well, it’s all a matter of power, isn’t it,” Crowley said.

Challenger frowned, but Holmes remained inscrutable.

“What I mean,” the young man continued, “is that people like Bronislav are not explorers of the occult simply through a desire for illumination or to achieve a higher level of consciousness. They have no knowledge of spiritual ways, what I call thelema, nor will they ever possess that insight. They seek sacred objects, be it a scroll from the Alexandrine Library, a jewel form Atlantis, or that Orm-idol, all for the same reason another man might seek gold or high political office, for the power they may bring.”

“As the knights of old sought the Grail, or the True Cross?” Challenger suggested.

“Empowered by mythology,” Crowley replied with a nod. “The source of the mythology really makes little difference.”

Before Challenger could continue his questioning about belief and the nature of occult power, Holmes said: “Do you know anything further about Bronislav?”

“As I indicated, he really is rather an enigma, even within the occult circles of London and elsewhere,” Crowley answered. “He’s obviously from the Continent, but no one knows just where. He does not appear to be very old, yet he seems to have been around forever. He has no friends that I know of, and I believe I was the only one who ever extended a hand to him—obviously, everyone else knew better—but everyone seems to know of him, at least by reputation. He has a large house in Kensington, him and a servant. No one I know has ever been invited within, but rumor has it that it’s like a museum inside, filled with wonderful things.”

“I see,” Holmes mused. “Other than the slight he gave you and your dogmatic polarity, why do you consider him an evil man?”

Crowley frowned, but it was an expression born of perplexity and hesitation rather than anger. “You’ve a keen intellect, Mr Holmes, but your life is firmly rooted in the workaday world, so I am not sure I can explain it properly.”

“Yes, I live by observation and deduction,” Holmes admitted, “but even you might be surprised by what the world provides for the observant to see. Besides, what I believe or disbelieve is irrelevant. If you tell me truly about Laslo Bronislav, I will do my best to understand. Please speak freely, and frankly.”

“You know I believe in an occult world, a world of magick and hidden mysteries,” the young man began.

Holmes nodded.

“Bronislav is an embodiment of that occult world, though I cannot say quite what I mean by that,” he continued. “We believe in powers beyond sight; he lives with them. We work our ceremonies and incantations; his life is like one. We wonder; he knows. There is a certainty and confidence about him that I will never achieve, even with my admittedly vaunted ego, yet, there is also about him an aura of darkness and fear, a palpable sensation of evil. I sensed it when we met, but I tried to ignore it. It’s rumored he can project his astral body at will, can perform acts such as would have baffled even the mages of old Atlantis and Lemuria, and has carried out rites that even I would consider blasphemous, which is saying much. The damndest thing is, that although no one can give an eyewitness account of
any
of his powers and actions, I have no doubt that not only is there more than a grain of truth in all these whisperings and rumor mongering, but that it does nothing more than prick the surface of…of a skin of evil.” He grinned self-consciously. “And all this sounds like a load of tripe, I’m sure, Mr Holmes.”

“Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the eye is a severely limited organ, adequate to the basic task of living within our structured society, if only men would only choose to use it,” Holmes said. “But it may not be nearly as adequate when it comes to the greater world around us. No one can see the electricity which is beginning to replace gas, but we see its results, nor will disbelief prevent electrocution. An acquaintance in Germany recently wrote about an entity invisible when viewed under normal light, but which was rendered discernable to the eye when bathed in radiation of a certain wavelength.”

“Then you understand what I am saying?” Crowley said excitedly. “You don’t discount my beliefs.”

“I admit the possibility of the unseen,” Holmes answered. “But that is yet leagues away from an admission of belief.”

Unfortunately, Crowley could furnish them with no further information about Laslo Bronislav other than the location of his house in Kensington. Challenger wrapped the idol in its covering again and they made their way back to the street, where the trade of late-morning Soho was bustling.