Goblin Moon (13 page)

Theodor shook his head glumly. “Not likely—not
bleeding likely, cully. Those as have a mind to them
amusements
ain’t inclined to take satisfaction in no
milder entertainment. They’ll be up to their old tricks soon, if
they ain’t already, and when they does . . .” Theodor did not
finish the sentence, but he did not have to. They were all familiar
with the handiwork of those “gentlemanly” blackguards the Knights
of Mezztopholeez, and it was not a subject that any of them cared
to reflect on.

Particularly not Matthias, who pushed back his chair
and rose to his feet. “It may be as you say, but I for one ain’t
inclined to spoil my whole evening, adreading of something that may
never come to be. Come along, Walther, we got a job to do.”

With an apologetic glance in the direction of the
others, Walther followed his partner out of the tavern and into the
street.

The night was damp and windy, and the moon was thin
but waxing. Not a comfortable sort of night, thought Walther. He
felt all jumbled and jumpy inside; he started at every moving
shadow, and whenever a wisp of cloud passed over the moon, a chill
of fear crawled down his spine.

Matthias, on the other hand, was set on maintaining a
bold front. As he and Walther walked their rounds, the big red-head
swaggered on ahead, humming a tune under his breath and swinging
his nightstick jauntily—a performance that fooled neither of them
and only served to increase Walther’s nervous jumpiness.

When Walther hesitated at the mouth of an ominously
dim and malodorous alley, Matthias snickered nastily. “You’re an
old woman, Walther, and I never knew it.”

“And you’re a braggart and a blowhard!” his partner
countered “You can hum your songs and flourish your nightstick but
I ain’t fooled. You’re sick right through to the marrow of your
bones just the same as me, thinking what we’re like to find.”

“Maybe I am, and maybe I ain’t,” said Matthias. “But
if I am—where’s the sense in brooding on it?”

“I can’t
help
but think on
it, said Walther, with another shiver as a cloud passed over the
moon. “Them poor butchered girls. I lived among violent men all my
life, and I can understand a deed of passion or revenge. But the
Knights and their d----d heathenish rituals, it’s wicked, Matthias,
it makes my skin crawl. Why do they do it? No one knows. No, nor no
one knows who they be—not until one of them turns up dead. And no
one knows their number neither. There could be a hundred of them,
and nobody’s wife or sweetheart safe, no man’s sister, and no
child’s mother.”

“Mostly it’s whores,” Matthias pointed out. “The last
five girls they found was—“

“Some of the nicest girls I ever knowed is whores,”
Walther retorted.

Matthias shrugged that one off, just as though he
were not on a first-name basis with half of the girls on the
streets. He turned and entered the alley, swinging his truncheon as
before and humming that same annoying tune.

After another moment or two of hesitation, Walther
hurried to catch up with him. His eyes slowly adjusted to the
deeper gloom of the alley just in time to see the shadowy figure of
Matthias go down right in front of him, cursing fit to raise the
dead.

Walther stood where he was, extended a groping hand
into the darkness below. “You all right, Matthias?”

“I ain’t busted nothing,” came the reply. “But I
twisted my ankle and scraped my hands.”

“What made you stumble?”

“You know d—n well what it was made me stumble. You
been talking of nothing else since we left the Squid.” Matthias
rose painfully to his feet. “Help me to drag the body out into the
light, so we can see what we got here.”

Matthias took the shoulders and Walther searched
around until he found the feet. He was pleased to discover that the
corpse had thick ankles and was wearing a pair of men’s shoes. They
carried the body out of the alley and down a wider street until
they came to a circle of yellow lamp light. The corpse landed with
a heavy thump as it hit the cobblestones at the foot of the lamp
post.

“Just as I thought,” said Matthias, squatting down on
his heels, the better to examine the corpse. The dead man wore a
well-cut coat of crimson velvet; diamonds sparkled in the bloody
lace at his throat and on the buckles of his shoes. Evidently he
had been a man of some consequence. “Tongue cut and throat slashed
from ear to ear.” Matthias removed a purple velvet mask covering
the upper part of the dead man’s face. “And his brow marked with
the sign of a traitor, written in blood. One of their own they
feared might blab. Pity they got to him afore he was able to speak
out. We’ll take the pin for ourselves and leave the fancy buckles
for the Chief.”

Walther removed the diamond stickpin, gingerly, so as
not to touch the clotted blood staining the lace. But then he made
a discovery: “Look here—over his heart: a powder burn and a hole in
his waistcoat. Shot with a pistol, he was! That ain’t regular—that
ain’t the usual thing at all.”

“No more it is,” agreed Matthias. “No need to shoot a
man once you’ve cut his throat. And as for plugging him first and
cutting him afterwards, I never knew the Gentlemen to be so
merciful.”

It seemed a more thorough examination of the body was
in order, so the two constables set distastefully about the task.
In a pocket of the dead man’s flowered waistcoat they found a scrap
of bloody parchment. Four words were written there, in a flowing
aristocratic hand. Neither Walther nor Matthias could read, but
those four words they recognized, for they had seen them before
under similar circumstances: The Knights of Mezztopholeez.

Walther straightened up. He removed his tricorn and
scratched his head. This was a puzzle and no mistake. “But maybe it
weren’t the Knights, after all. Maybe ‘twas an ordinary murder,
made to look like . . . no, not likely. There ain’t many know the
proper signs, except for the Watch and the Gentlemen
themselves.”

“Well, it ain’t for us to worry our heads over,
anyways.” Matthias pushed himself up off the ground. “Leave that to
the Chief Constable and the lieutenants. All we got to do is bring
the body in. You stay here and I’ll go for a cart.”

Matthias limped down the street and disappeared
around a corner. Walther—not best pleased at being left alone with
the corpse—leaned up against the lamp post. But Matthias reappeared
much sooner than his partner had expected, and without the cart.
Hobbling as fast as he could go, he gestured wildly. “Leave that
there. Come see what I found.”

Walther sprang away from the lamp post and followed
Matthias around the corner.

“Blister me if it ain’t another corpse!” breathed
Walther.

“Shot through the heart, then slashed and marked,
just like the other one,” said Matthias grimly.

Walther shuddered profoundly. “Two in one night, that
ain’t regular neither. Theodor was right: they took so long between
killings, they’ve busted out worse nor ever. I don’t like it,
Matthias. I don’t like the feel of it.”

“No more do I,” said Matthias. “I reckon there’ll be
worse mischief afore this night is done.”

Chapter
11

Containing Scenes rather more Adventurous than
Revealing.

Had the Knights of Mezztopholeez known, at that very
moment, all that Matthias Vogel and Walther Burgen knew, the men of
that secret brotherhood might have echoed their apprehension. Men
of violence though they were, the bloody deaths of two of their
brethren formed no part of their plans for the evening.

The Gentlemen (as they were called) were members of
an ancient brotherhood with a lurid history of black magic and
bloodshed—a history far more terrible than the people of Thornburg
guessed, because the Chief Constable and his immediate
predecessors, partly to prevent a panic, partly to prevent a public
outcry against their own inability to unmask the Knights and bring
them to justice, had veiled their deeds in a dark shroud of
secrecy. Yet word leaked out, and rumors about these nobly born
rascals and their activities were rife. Everyone had heard of the
Knights of Mezztopholeez, but not everyone believed in their
existence; of those who did, only a few outside the Watch knew the
full extent of their wickedness.

They met in a certain old house, in a blind court at
the summit of Fishwife Hill. Though the exterior of the house
looked weathered and shabby, the interior was furnished in a
luxurious oriental style conducive to the drinking parties, the
orgies, and the other decadent amusements which kept the Knights
occupied and out of worse mischief during most of the year. But
there was a large chamber at the back of the house all draped in
purple velvet and black satin, and in that room was an altar
consisting of a long marble sarcophagus supported on two gilded
pedestals, where the Knights of Mezztopholeez practiced their
demonic rituals.

This night they were met in the altar chamber in full
ceremonial attire: jeweled masks, elaborate curled wigs in the
style of the previous century, and hierophantic robes embroidered
with stars and suns and planetary emblems and other mystic signs.
Though they claimed to model their ceremonies on archaic fertility
rites, they were, in fact, far more devoted to the form than to the
original intent of the rituals—which more often than not centered
around the death and mutilation of a beautiful young woman.

They had selected as victim a young prostitute, not
more than seventeen, who lay now upon the altar, as still and as
pale as death. She had come into the house bound and drugged, and
though her bonds were gone, and her dirty rags had been replaced by
an expensive gown of cream satin and blond lace, the effects of the
drug had not worn off. The Gentlemen had dressed her, taking their
time about it; they had powdered her, and perfumed her, and
tenderly combed out her long golden hair, all in preparation for
the sacrifice.

So secret was the brotherhood that members never met
but when they were masked, and each man’s identity (at least in
theory) was known only to three others: the Grand Master and his
two original sponsors. Each new member was recruited by abduction,
led hoodwinked into the altar chamber, and offered the choice: join
or die. Most joined, for the brotherhood chose its initiates
carefully; occasionally, however, they misjudged their man. In that
case, the candidate suffered a sudden (and invariably fatal) attack
of scruples, and the body was marked with the sign of the apostate
and left for the Watch to find.

By now, all was prepared and ready for the sacrifice,
save that three members of the brotherhood had not arrived:
Gentlemen rejoicing in the pseudonyms Avarice, Debauchery, and
Mortal Sin. The appointed hour had come and passed, and the girl on
the altar began to stir in her sleep and make little sounds
indicating that she was about to revive.

At last the Grand Master lost all patience. “May the
Hag swallow them up . . . we’ll wait no longer!” he proclaimed,
striding toward the altar. He nodded to his acolytes. “Bring me the
athame, the bowl, and the chalice.”

Being thus provided, the Master unsheathed the dagger
and spat upon the blade. “I consecrate thee in the name of
Mezztopholeez and all the dark spirits of the earth.”

Just then, there was a stir of movement by the door.
The Master looked up to see a willowy figure, in a gorgeous robe of
sapphire satin and a tremendous white wig, entering the room. The
man known as Mortal Sin stopped and looked around him with a great
affectation of surprise. Then he bowed a deep and elaborate bow. “I
do crave your pardon for the interruption. It would appear that I
have mistaken the hour.”

The Grand Master grinned at him, baring even white
teeth beneath his green velvet mask. “I had thought, perhaps, a
failure of nerve.”

“No indeed,” replied the newcomer. “I do assure you,
I would not have missed these festivities for all the world.” As if
to confirm his words, he moved closer to the altar and peered over
the Master’s shoulder with a great show of interest. “Such a
delicious little thing as she is, it almost seems a waste.”

As he spoke, the girl awoke and looked around her.
Her eyes widened in disbelieving terror, as she took in her
surroundings, the circle of masked sybarites, and the long gleaming
knife.

“Ah, yes, my dear,” the Grand Master assured her,
“you have fallen into the hands of the Knights of Mezztopholeez.
This is no nightmare, but grim and earnest truth, and the fate that
you fear shall indeed be yours.”

He raised the dagger and began to chant the
sacrificial hymn. The others moved closer in anticipation.

But: “I think not,” said a light, affected voice in
the Master’s ear, and suddenly the barrel of a tiny hand pistol was
pressed against his left temple. The soft voice took on a steely
edge. “If you cut the girl, make a move, or speak a single word, I
will blast your brains out.”

The Grand Master froze obediently in place.

“Very good,” said Mortal Sin, removing a second
pistol from a pocket somewhere inside his robe. “And of course,
should any of you others decide to play the hero, I will shoot you
dead as well, for the filthy dog that you are.”

It appeared this caution was unnecessary. They were
not men of an heroic stamp, not ripe for martyrdom. Not one of the
Knights so much as shifted his position; not one of them displayed
the least inclination to sacrifice himself for the sake of his
brethren.

When the slim figure in blue satin addressed the
girl, his voice lost some of its edge. “If you feel well enough to
rise, madam, I wish you would do so—incidentally placing yourself
outside of this gentleman’s reach.”

When she did as he told her, he nodded approvingly.
“I perceive that you are a very brave girl, and that my efforts on
your behalf are not wasted.”