The Best Paranormal Crime Stories Ever Told (30 page)

“Yes!” I kept banging its head against the floor. “And it's gonna tell me who's behind these hits!”

Its eyes rolled back into its head, it convulsed a few times, and then its head shattered like dry plaster.

“Whoa!” said Tony.

I looked down at the mess. Nothing but crumbled dust, lumps of dirt, and feathers where the thing's head had been. Then its body started disintegrating, too.

“I think you whacked it, Vito,” said Tony.

Father Michael poured the whole rest of the bottle of wine down his throat before he spoke. “Well . . . I guess this means that Joey is safe now?”

“Not for long,” I said. “Whoever did this will make another one the moment he knows this one has been . . . Wait a minute!”

“Vito? What is it?” said Tony.

“Maybe it's not a
he
,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Think about it! Who would hit the Berninis
and
the Gambones? Who hates
both
families that much? Who wants all of us dead?”

“You saying the fucking Feds are behind this?”

“No, you asshole! I'm saying the one person who hates both families equally is behind this!” I grabbed a handful of the crap that had been Joey's doppelgangster a minute ago and waved it at these guys. “
Feathers!
”

“Vito, this is a very serious accusation,” said Father Michael, slurring his words a little. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Huh?” said Tony.

“Just fucking follow him,” said Carmine as I ran for the same exit that the Widow Butera had taken.

I kicked in the door of her apartment without knocking. I'd figured out her scam by now, so I expected the feathers, the blood sacrifices, the candles, the chanting, and the photos of Bernini and Gambone family members.

I just didn't expect to see my own perfect double rising out of her magic fire like a genie coming out of a lantern. I pulled out my piece and fired at it.

“
Noooo!
” screamed the Widow Butera. She leapt at me, knocked my gun aside, and started clawing at my face.

“Kill it! Kill it!” I shouted at the others.

Carmine said, “I always wanted to do this to you, Vito,” and started pumping bullets into my doppelgangster while I fought the Widow. Father Michael ran around the room praying loudly and drenching things in holy water. Tony took a baseball bat—don't ask me where he got it—and started destroying everything in sight: the amulets and charms hanging everywhere, the jars of powders and potions stacked on shelves, the cages containing live chickens, and the bottles of blood. My perfect double shattered into a million pieces in the hail of Carmine's bullets, and the pieces fell smoldering into the fire. Then Tony kicked at the fire until it was scattered all over the living room and started dying.

“It's a fucking shame about the carpet,” Carmine said as chickens escaped the shattered cages and started running all over the room.

“ . . . blessed are thou, and blessed is the fruit of they womb . . .” Father Michael was chanting.

“What else can I break? What else can I break?” Tony shouted.

“I'll kill you all!” the Widow screamed. “You're all dead!”

“Too late, sister, we're onto you now. You've whacked your last wiseguy,” I said as she struggled in my grip.

“Three husbands I lost in your damned wars!” she screamed. “I told them to get out of organized crime and into something secure, like accounting or the restaurant business, but would they listen?
Noooo!
”

“Secure? The fucking restaurant business? Are you kidding me?”

“The Berninis and Gambones ruined my life!” The Widow Butera shrieked. “I will have vengeance on you all!”

“Repent! Repent!” Father Michael cried. Then he doused her with a whole bottle of holy water.

“
Eeeeeeeeeee!
” She screamed something awful . . . and then started smoking like she was on fire.

I'm not dumb. I let go of her and backed away.

The room filled with smoke and the Widow's screams got louder, until they echoed so hard they made my teeth hurt . . . then faded. There was a dark scorch mark on the floor where she'd been standing.

“Where'd she go?” I said.

“She'll never get her fucking security deposit back now,” said Carmine, looking at the floor.

Tony added, “No amount of buffing will get that out.”

“What the hell happened?” I said, looking around the room. The Widow had vanished.

Father Michael fell to his knees and crossed himself. “I don't think she was completely human. At least, not anymore. She had become Satan's minion.”

“Huh. I wondered how she kept her good looks for so fucking long.”

“That's it?” I asked Father Michael. “She's just . . . gone?”

He nodded. “In hell, where she belongs.” After a moment, he added, “Mind you, that's only a theory.”

“Either way,” I said, “I'm kinda relieved. I know we couldn't just let her go. Not after she'd hit three guys and tried to hit me and Joey, too. But I really didn't want to whack a broad.”

“What a fucking pussy you are, Vito.”

“Carmine, you asshole,” I said, “the sitdown was successful. We found out who's behind these hits, we put a stop to it, and there ain't gonna be no new war. So now get outta my sight before I forget my manners and whack you just for the hell of it.”

“Did I mention how much fun it was pumping a whole clip into your fucking doppelgangster?”

My cell phone rang, making Father Michael jump.

“Damn.” I knew who it was even before I answered it. “Hello?”

“Vito,” said Joey, “I've been sitting here in my car, not going anywhere, just like you said, for a whole hour. Now do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

I looked at the scorched spot the Widow had left in the floor and tried to think of the best way to break the news to him. “So, Joey . . . would you still want to marry the Widow Butera if you knew she'd been trying to whack you and everyone you know?”

LILLIAN STEWART CARL

Robert Dudley, Master of the Queen's Horses, was a fine figure of a man, as long of limb and imperious of eye as one of his equine charges. And like one of his charges, his wrath was likely to leave an innocent passerby with a shattered skull.

Dudley reached the end of the gallery, turned, and stamped back again, the rich fabrics of his clothing rustling an accompaniment to the thump of his boots. Erasmus Pilbeam shrank into the window recess. But he was no longer an innocent passerby, not now that Lord Robert had summoned him.

“You beetle-headed varlet!” his lordship exclaimed. “What do you mean he cannot be recalled?”

Soft answers turn away wrath
, Pilbeam reminded himself. “Dr. Dee is perhaps in Louvain, perhaps in Prague, researching the wisdom of the ancients. The difficulty lies not only in discovering his whereabouts, but also in convincing him to return to England.”

“He is my old tutor. He would return at my request.” Again Lord Robert marched away down the gallery, the floor creaking a protest at each step. “The greatness and suddenness of this misfortune so perplexes me that I shall take no rest until the truth is known.”

“The inquest declared your lady wife's death an accident, my lord. At the exact hour she was found deceased in Oxfordshire, you were waiting upon the Queen at Windsor. You could have had no hand . . .”

“Fact has never deterred malicious gossip. Why, I have now been accused of bribing the jurors. God's teeth! I cannot let this evil slander rest upon my head. The Queen has sent me from the court on the strength of it!” Robert dashed his fist against the padded back of a chair, raising a small cloud of dust, tenuous as a ghost.

A young princess like Elizabeth could not be too careful what familiar demonstrations she made. And yet, this last year and a half, Lord Robert had come so much into her favor it was said that her Majesty visited him in his chamber day and night . . . No, Pilbeam assured himself, that rumor was noised about only by those who were in the employ of Spain. And he did not for one moment believe that the Queen herself had ordered the disposal of Amy Robsart, no matter how many wagging tongues said that she had done so. Still, Lord Robert could hardly be surprised that the malicious world now gossiped about Amy's death, when he had so neglected her life.

“I must find proof that my wife's death was either chance or evil design on the part of my enemies. The Queen's enemies.”

Or, Pilbeam told himself, Amy's death might have been caused by someone who fancied himself the Queen's friend.

Lord Robert stalked backup the gallery and scrutinized Pilbeam's black robes and close-fitting cap. “You have studied with Dr. Dee. You are keeping his books safe whilst he pursues his researches in heretical lands.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“How well have you learned your lessons, I wonder?”

The look in Lord Robert's eye, compounded of shrewd calculation and ruthless pride, made Pilbeam's heart sink. “He has taught me how to heal illness. How to read the stars. The rudiments of the alchemical sciences.”

“Did he also teach you how to call and converse with spirits?”

“He—ah—mentioned to me that such conversation is possible.”

“Tell me more.”

“Formerly it was held that apparitions must be spirits from purgatory, but now that we know purgatory to be only papist myth, it must be that apparitions are demonic, angelic, or illusory. The devil may deceive man into thinking he sees ghosts or . . .” Pilbeam gulped. The bile in his throat tasted of the burning flesh of witches.

“An illusion or deception will not serve me at all. Be she demon or angel, it is Amy herself who is my best witness.”

“My—my—my lord . . .”

Robert's voice softened, velvet covering his iron fist. “I shall place my special trust in you, Dr. Pilbeam. You will employ all the devices and means you can possibly use for learning the truth. Do you understand me?”

Only too well
. Pilbeam groped for an out. “My lord, whilst the laws regarding the practice of magic are a bit uncertain just now, still Dr. Dee himself, as pious a cleric as he may be, has been suspected of fraternizing with evil spirits . . . my lord Robert, if you intend such a, er, perilous course of action as, well, necromancy . . . ah, may I recommend either Edward Cosyn or John Prestall, who are well known in the city of London.”

“Ill-nurtured cozeners, the both of them! Their loyalty is suspect, their motives impure. No. If I cannot have Dr. Dee I will have his apprentice.”

For a moment Pilbeam considered a sudden change in profession. His beard was still brown, his step firm—he could apprentice himself to a cobbler or a baker and make an honest living without dabbling in the affairs of noblemen, who were more capricious than any spirit. He made one more attempt to save himself. “I am honored, my lord. But I doubt that it is within my powers to raise your . . . er, speak with your wife's shade.”

“Then consult Dr. Dee's books, you malmsey-nosed knave, and follow their instructions.”

“But, but . . . there is the possibility, my lord, that her death was neither chance nor villainy but caused by disease . . . ”

“Nonsense. I was her husband. If she had been ill, I'd have known.”

Not when you were not there to be informed
, Pilbeam answered silently. Aloud he said, “Perhaps, then, she was ill in her senses, driven to, to . . . ”

“ . . . to self-murder? Think, varlet! A fall down the stairs could no more be relied upon by a suicide than by a murderer. She was found at the foot of the staircase, her neck broken but her headdress still secure upon her head. That is hardly a scene of violence.”

Pilbeam found it furtively comforting that Lord Robert wanted to protect his wife's reputation from hints of suicide . . . . Well, her reputation was his as well. The sacrifice of a humble practitioner of the magical sciences, now—that would matter nothing to him. Pilbeam imagined his lordship's face amongst those watching the mounting flames, a face contemptuous of his failure.

“Have no fear, Dr. Pilbeam, I shall reward you well for services rendered.” Lord Robert spun about and walked away. “Amy was buried at St. Mary's, Oxford. Give her my respects.”

Pilbeam opened his mouth, shut it, swallowed, and managed a weak, “Yes, my lord,” which bounced unheeded from Robert's departing back.

The spire of St. Mary's, Oxford, rose into the nighttime murk like a admonitory finger pointing to heaven. Pilbeam had no quarrel with that admonition. He hoped its author would find no quarrel with his present endeavor.

He withdrew into the dark, fetid alley and willed his stomach to stop grumbling. He'd followed Dr. Dee's instructions explicitly, preparing himself with abstinence, continence, and prayer made all the more fervid for the peril in which he found himself. And surely the journey on the muddy November roads had sufficiently mortified his flesh. He was ready to summon spirits, be they demons or angels.

The black lump beside him was no demon. Martin Molesworth, his apprentice, held the lantern and the bag of implements. Pilbeam heard no stomach rumblings from the lad, but he could enforce Dr. Dee's directions only so far as his own admonitory fist could reach. “Come along,” he whispered. “Step lively.”

Man and boy scurried across the street and gained the porch of the church. The door squealed open and thudded shut behind them. “Light,” ordered Pilbeam.

Martin slid aside the shutter concealing the candle and lifted the lantern. Its hot-metal tang dispelled the usual odors of a sanctified site—incense, mildew, and decaying mortality. Pilbeam pushed Martin toward the chancel. Their steps echoed, drawing uneasy shiftings and mutterings from amongst the roof beams. Bats or swallows, Pilbeam hoped.

Amy Robsart had been buried with such pomp, circumstance, and controversy that only a few well-placed questions had established her exact resting place. Now Pilbeam contemplated the flagstones laid close together behind the altar of the church and extended his hand for his bag.

Martin was gazing upward, to where the columns met overhead in a thicket of stone tracery, his mouth hanging open. “You mewling knotty-pated scullion!” Pilbeam hissed, and snatched the bag from his limp hands. “Pay attention!

“Yes, Master.” Martin held the lantern whilst Pilbeam arranged the charms, the herbs, and the candles he dare not light. With a bit of charcoal he drew a circle with four divisions and four crosses. Then, his tongue clamped securely between his teeth, he opened the book he'd dared bring from Dr. Dee's collection, and began to sketch the incantatory words and signs.

If he interpreted Dee's writings correctly—the man set no examples in penmanship—Pilbeam did not need to raise Amy's physical remains. A full necromantic apparition was summoned for consultation about the future, when what he wished was to consult about the past. Surely this would not be as difficult a task. “
Laudetur Deus Trinus et unus
,” he muttered, “
nunc et in sempiterna seculorum secula . . . .
”

Martin shifted and a drop of hot wax fell onto Pilbeam's wrist. “Beslubbering gudgeon!”

“Sorry, Master.”

Squinting in the dim light, Pilbeam wiped away one of his drawings with the hem of his robe and tried again.
There
. For a moment he gazed appreciatively at his handiwork, then took a deep breath. His stomach gurgled.

Pilbeam dragged the lad into the center of the circle and jerked his arm upwards, so the lantern would illuminate the page of his book. He raised his magical rod and began to speak the words of the ritual. “I conjure thee by the authority of God Almighty, by the virtue of heaven and the stars, by the virtue of the angels, by that of the elements.
Domine, Deus meus, in te speravi. Damahil, Pancia, Mitraton . . .
”

He was surprised and gratified to see a sparkling mist began to stream upwards from between the flat stones just outside the circle. Encouraged, he spoke the words even faster.

“ . . . to receive such virtue herein that we may obtain by thee the perfect issue of all our desires, without evil, without deception, by God, the creator of the sun and the angels.
Lamineck. Caldulech. Abracadabra
.”

The mist wavered. A woman's voice sighed, desolate.

“Amy Robsart, Lady Robert Dudley, I conjure thee.”

Martin's eyes bulged and the lantern swung in his hand, making the shadows of column and choir stall surge sickeningly back and forth. “Master . . . ”

“Shut your mouth, hedge-pig!” Pilbeam ordered. “Amy Robsart, I conjure thee. I beseech thee for God his sake,
et per viscera misericordiae Altissimi,
that thou wouldst declare unto us
misericordiae Dei sint super nos
.”

“Amen,” said Martin helpfully. His voice leaped upward an octave.

The mist swirled and solidified into the figure of a woman. Even in the dim light of the lantern Pilbeam could see every detail of the revenant's dress, the puffed sleeves, the stiffened stomacher, the embroidered slippers. The angled wings of her headdress framed a thin, pale face, its dark eyes too big, its mouth too small, as though Amy Robsart had spent her short life observing many things but fearing to speak of them. A fragile voice issued from those ashen lips. “Ah, woe. Woe.”

Pilbeam's heart was pounding. Every nerve strained toward the doors of the church and through the walls to the street outside. “Tell me what happened during your last hours on earth, Lady Robert.”

“My last hours?” She dissolved and solidified again, wringing her frail hands. “I fell. I was walking down the stairs and I fell.”

“Why did you fall, my lady?”

“I was weak. I must have stumbled.”

“Did someone push you?” Martin asked, and received the end of Pilbeam's rod in his ribs.

Amy's voice wavered like a set of ill-tempered bagpipes. “I walked doubled over in pain. The stairs are narrow. I fell.”

“Pain? You were ill?”

“A spear through my heart and my head so heavy I could barely hold it erect . . . .”