The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1) (16 page)

“It’s been part of my life — ever since the war,” I said. “Monsters, demons, vampires – that’s my line. I can’t change it, so I might as well make a fast buck out. And give back a little pain.”

Darling cleared his throat. “All the world’s a stage,” he announced. “And all the men and women are merely players.”

Angelica nodded politely. “And speaking of that, you know where we’re headed? The swampy hideout of Sawney Bean himself!” She grinned at Weatherby. “You must know of that story, dear – about the murderous family of inbred hill-folk, who would capture and devour any passerby.”

“Sounds like the residents of Washington DC,” I muttered. I leaned back in my seat and looked out the tinted window.

The thin strip of road led under tall trees emerging from the soggy ground. Pools and puddles of fetid water rested under the boughs of the trees, clinging to the roots and mud. Shadows hung everywhere. There was something primal about the place that I didn’t like. I closed my eyes and felt the soreness in my arm where the Black Shuck slashed me. Something told me that the climax of this film was coming up – and I could only wonder if there’d be a happy ending.

We arrived at the film site late in the afternoon. It seemed to be dusk already, by the darkness that lurked under the tall trees and in the dark pools of water. The film crew had set up their camera in the back of a battered pick-up truck. It overlooked a small clearing, where Clarence Teller was laying out his scene.

As I got out of our car, I looked over the driver. He was a short man, with a thin nose and a pinched face. He looked like a weasel, and had greasy ginger hair. He pulled his flat cap down over his eyes and looked away. He seemed kind of familiar, and I had a strange feeling that I knew him from somewhere. He scurried back to the driver’s seat, digging a cigarette out of his pocket. I turned away. I had other things to worry about.

Clarence Teller stood in the center of the clearing and started giving out direction. “Now, this’ll be a bit of romance interrupted by a procession of ghosts. Angie, baby, come on here and stand with Patrick. We’ll get you from the back of that truck, and then have the ghosts come in from behind those trees, there.” He nodded to a bunch of extras, all wearing clanking suits of costume armor and fiddling with their halberds and swords. “Now, you don’t scream, but just watch them. I want fascination, not horror, to be the feeling the audience has for the Witch Queen’s court.”

I walked over to stand next to Weatherby. “I don’t like this place,” I said. “Trees everywhere, and the water. It seems like the set-up for a thousand ambushes.”

“Except it’s no earthly snipers or machine gun nests we have to worry about,” Weatherby pointed out. “But something entirely different. The Sawney Bean legend about this place bodes ill.”

“And that ain’t the only thing,” I muttered.

“Quiet on the set!” Teller’s business-like shriek made us all shut up. Teller nodded to the camera men, and they gave him a thumbs-up. “Okay,” he said, looking to the actors. Angelica wore a scarlet cloak over her flowing nightgown, and Darling had a top hat and held a prop broadsword gingerly. “Right…action!”

Weatherby and I fell silent and watched the scene. Angelica ran into Patrick Darling’s arms, and he held her close while looking resolutely into the distance. They started going through their lines, Teller nodding all the while. “Oh, Jonathan!” Angelica cried. “It was horrible! The gnashing of fangs, the flapping of bats wings – and that horrid woman who controlled them all!”

“Woman?” Patrick replied. “What woman?”

“It was…your mother! The duchess!” Angelica bawled.

“No…not mother. That’s impossible!”

I tuned out the turgid dialogue and looked into the trees behind them. I suddenly felt a chill run down my back, a little ice water slipping into my veins. It wasn’t like I felt when the Krauts were stalking us through some artillery-blasted forest or ruined French village. That was almost an anticipation of the coming battle. This was something different, like I was being hunted.

Something stirred in the bushes behind Angelica. This time, we knew it wasn’t some actor waiting for their close-up. I heard hooves striking the dirt and then the branches parted, like curtains before a stage.

A figure on horseback rode straight for the two actors, his dark forest-green cloak billowing about him. He stood head and shoulders taller than me, and countless swords, axes, and spears hung on his massive black steed, all near his large gloved hands. His face was shrouded in the darkness of his cloak’s hood, with only pinpricks of hateful red for his eyes. But above his head, covered with intricate carved runes, were a pair of large black antlers. Two snarling Black Shucks padded along after him.

Weatherby recognized him instantly. “Herne the Hunter!” he cried, dashing forward. I followed, going for my guns. Weatherby struggled to draw some tool or weapon from his frock coat. “A hunter’s spirit, who killed himself when he was banned from his favorite pastime. A dash of powdered lodestone should scramble his mind, allowing us a chance for victory!”

We ran to the middle of the clearing, before the cameras, and I started shooting while I moved. I pumped lead into the two black dogs, driving them back and giving Darling and Angelica a chance to run to safety. But Herne the Hunter charged up to meet us, and reached down. His great fingers, resembling the long gnarled roots of trees in his gloves, wrapped around Angelica’s slim waist. He started to lift her up, but Weatherby had other ideas.

“Do not take her!” he cried, tossing a small glass vial of silver powder into the face of the powerful phantom. “It’s me you want! I’m your target!” The vial shattered, and crushed lodestone went into Herne’s hooded face.

The ruse worked, but I wasn’t sure if Weatherby saw its outcome. Herne dropped Angelica roughly to the ground, and then swung a curling lariat of dried up vines at Weatherby. With an audible snap, the lariat wrapped around the boy’s shoulders and tightened. He had one terrified look at me, and then Herne started galloping away, dragging Weatherby after him. The boy went through the mud and water, staining his clothes. But I had a feeling that hunter would hurt more than his pride.

“Oh god!” Angelica Witt cried. “We’ve got to go after him!”

“Got that right, sister.” I hurried to the pick-up, the nearest vehicle. That familiar driver was at the wheel, and I nodded to him as I leapt into the back. The film crew hopped off, but they left their camera in the back. It was still running. There was no time to shut it off. “Start driving!” I shouted, reloading my automatics and he started the auto.

Angelica clambered in after me, holding the prop sword. She wasn’t thinking straight and I didn’t have time to tell her to get off before we started rolling after Herne the Hunter. The movie and reality seemed to be like dirt and rain – mixing together into incomprehensible muddy mess. Mud spurted up from the tires of the pick-up, and it bucked and jounced under my feet as it took off after Herne the Hunter.

“That poor boy…” Angelica whispered.

“Sister, you don’t know the half of it.” I raised both automatics as the pick-up rattled through the moors, the fetid water rising around the spinning wheels. “But that monster was going for you. Same as the hound back at Bly Studios. Someone’s got it out with you. Someone with access to magic.” I turned to look at her. “Got any enemies who happen to be wizards?”

“No! Of course not!” Angelica replied. She pointed up ahead. “Good Lord!” she cried. “Look!”

In the middle of the shallow pool of swamp water was a small island of dirt, topped with a cluster of ancient standing stones. They were weathered, jagged piles of stone, poking up from the dirt, and Herne the Hunter stood in the middle of them. Our driver slammed on the brakes, but the pick-up still careened forward and splashed into the muddy pond.

Herne looked up at me and Angelica, and then down at Weatherby. I guess he realized his mistake, because he raised his sword and hacked off the lariat. Weatherby came weakly to his feet. The poor kid was soaked to his skin and battered from his ride, but he pointed to Angelica and looked like he had gotten both barrels of a shotgun square in his chest.

“Take her away from here, Morton! Herne wants this! He’ll find some way to kill her! You must flee!” Weatherby cried.

I looked at Herne and readied my automatics. But Herne the Hunter wasn’t up for a fight. He hurled his spear into the middle of the pond, driving the barbed weapon deep into the mud. Herne then turned and rode away, his hounds racing after him. They vanished into the mist.

“Guess he didn’t want to tangle with me,” I said. “Can’t say I blame him.”

Weatherby shook his head as he came painfully to his feet. “It was a tactical retreat, Morton. He saw that Angelica, his target, is where he wants her. And now his servants will close for the kill.”

The water started to ripple. The large ripples extended outwards from Herne’s stuck spear and spread slowly through the water. By now, our pick-up was half in the water and half out, and the tide brushed against it. More ripples followed, and then a skeletal hand clutching a rusted meat cleaver reared out of the mud. I swore as more skeletons followed. They were waterlogged and misshapen, many with hunched backs and distorted skulls. Serrated butcher knives, hatchets, daggers and other makeshift weapons rattled in skeletal hands.

“The mutated family of Sawney Bean!” Angelica cried.

“Goddamn it,” I muttered. I started shooting, blasting down the skeletons as they charged for the car. “Weatherby!” I shouted. “Get over here, kid! I’ll cover you!” A stoop-shouldered skeleton swinging a pitchfork clambered onto the hood of the car, but I turned his skull to dust with a well-placed bullet. “And hurry!” I looked down at the driver as Weatherby started splashing through the pond. “Get us out of here, pal!” I told him.

He slammed down on the gas pedal, and the car started rolling in reverse. Great torrents of mud spat up from the wheels, and it didn’t go further. “Ah, Jesus!” he cried, in a strong Irish accent. I suddenly remembered how I knew him. “She ain’t doing much, man! She’s bleeding stuck!”

Weatherby was halfway through the pool, splashing water on his muddy trousers and cursing. His large antique revolver was in his hand, but that heater was more a hazard to him than anyone else. A short skeleton with a pair of curved daggers lunged at him, knocking the boy down to the ground while it tried to slash both blades across his throat. I swore as I jumped off the hood of the car and ran to him, pounding through the water as skeletal hands gripped my coat. I pulled my way through, crashing the handles of my pistols until any skull that came close enough.

I reached Weatherby and hauled him away from his attacker. “Kiddo, we got to find us a better line of work,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said, with a weak smile. “I think we’re doing just brilliantly.”

We started running back, and made it to the pick-up. Now the skeletons were thick around us, and my guns were low on ammo. Angelica swung the prop sword down at Sawney Bean’s children, using the heavy wooden blade to crack open a soggy skull. We clambered into the back, and I looked down at the driver.

“Come on, Neddy!” I shouted, remembering the driver’s name. “I’m a little tired of staying put!”

He finally managed to free the pick-up. It slammed backwards, knocking us all down and sending a few ragged skeletons sprawling. I came to my feet as the vehicle started rolling backwards at top speed, mud spraying crazily from the tires, and tried to pick off the skeletons that hung on. One thin skeleton with a flattened skull swung a scythe towards my neck, and I grabbed the handle of the weapon just before the rusty blade hit skin. I punched him in the middle of his misshapen skull, hard enough to break the bone and knock him off.

Then the pick-up was driving away faster than the skeletons could follow. I leaned back and breathed a sigh of relief. Weatherby sat down and looked at his suit. “Oh dear,” he whispered. “My father, he’d—”

“He’d be happy you pulled through in one piece,” I said. I handed him a handkerchief and he wiped the mud from his forehead. “You are all in one piece, right?”

“I believe so,” he said. “Though I am a little battered.” He looked over at Angelica, blinking his eyes after he had wiped them clean of grime. “And you’re all right, Miss Witt?”

“I am. Thanks to you.” Angelica smiled at him, and Weatherby turned red, even under the mud on his pale face.

Our pick-up drove back to the clearing, where the cast and crew were waiting for us. Clarence Teller ran forward, delighted to know we got his leading lady out all right – without becoming monster chow ourselves. He checked the camera as we stepped down onto the grass of the clearing.

“The camera was on the whole time,” Teller mused. “Oh well. We’ll fix it in post.” He turned to look at me and Weatherby. “I believe we’ll go back to Bly Studios for the evening. I’d loathe to be out and about in the night, with Herne the Hunter about.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you gentlemen have any idea who may have summoned that horned devil?”

“I just might,” Weatherby said. “If I could go back to London, maybe ask some questions to a few old – and I do mean old — acquaintances of my family, I might be able to ascertain the identity of whoever summoned the spirit.” He hung his head. “But we can’t leave Miss Witt, and the rest of you, I mean, unprotected.”

“Don’t sweat it, kiddo,” I told him. I looked at the driver of our car. The red-haired Irishman was trying to slink away. “I got someone who’ll be dying to do us a favor. Come on.”

We walked away from Teller and hurried after Neddy. I grabbed his shoulder. “Hey there, Neddy,” I said. “Long time, no see.” I pointed to the rest of the crew. “Been a while since you pulled that robbery in New York, but not so long since you did that one in London. Is this what bank robbers do here on their off time? Work in the movies?”

Neddy McCain let out a squeak of terror, like a rat in a trap. “Keep your voice down, for Christ’s sake!” He leaned in close. “I’m just lying low for a bit, all right? You ain’t gonna turn me in, are you?”