thankfully only a few blocks away, any more and we would have been waterlogged. Lightning flashed ominously, silhouetting the tall stacks of the printing press against the rolling black clouds as thunder clapped in time with our steps.
While Sergeant Hart marched forward, undeterred, Constable Waverley appeared hesitant, lagging behind the rest of us.
Our guide grew more and more agitated, urging us to hurry, bringing us through the wrought iron gates and around the side, past the outhouses and the furnace, over to where the offices were.
I pushed up against the cantilevered entrance, grateful to be out of the weather, which by now was roaring with wind and rain, yet with the cessation of those pins hitting my face my mind turned to face our baleful purpose.
Inside the red-bricked building, adorned with portraits of editors past and present, we hustled up a corridor to the back offices.
Our guide hung back. Eventually he stopped altogether.
“He's over there, Guv, you'll find him right enough,” he said.
“Whereabouts, man?” the Sergeant cried.
“Over yon, you'll see. I'm not taking another step.”
“Oh, for the love of Saint Peter! Constable, stay with this one and – and take a statement!”
“Right you are, Guv,” the Constable said, relieved.
Even as we approached, we could see a trail of scratches and broken fixings, getting progressively more violent as we reached a distressing scene. The office was in ruin, with every cabinet destroyed, a mighty oak desk split down the centre, and wooden splinters sprayed all about.
“Chester?” called the Sergeant.
The windows were smashed, letting the raging storm have its way with the room, blowing the blinds about and wetting everything inside.
“Help me!” croaked a feeble voice, barely audible above the din.
We poked about, listening to the cry.
“Sergeant, over here,” the Professor called, “Help me with this.”
The pair heaved an upturned chair to find Chester, beaten and bloody, cowering underneath. His eyes were wild. His hair was clumped. Bruises adorned his face. A streak of blood ran from three cuts made across his chest.
And in his white-knuckled fists was the cloth.
It had been fairly ripped to pieces, held together by the merest of threads.
“Quickly, give me the cloth,” the Professor commanded.
Chester shook his head, crying, “No! He can't get at me while I've got it!”
We could not very well pull it from him or we would risk destroying it altogether. The Professor tried coaxing him, I cajoled, and the Sergeant threatened criminal charges pertaining to theft.
“It's not your property. You know it. As an officer of the Law I insist that you hand it over immediately.”
Chester only cackled like a maniac and clutched it harder, twisting it in his misery and breaking a few more threads.
“This won't do. Listen, man, if there's any sense left in you. You need to go to the doctor and get patched up. This room has been destroyed. That property needs to be returned. And I need you to make a statement!”
“No! No, I won't! It's the only thing that stops it.”
“It's not you it wants. It seeks to destroy the cloth!”
A low, thundering growl rippled from the corridor. Chester's face turned a whiter shade of pale.
“Shh! Do you hear that?” Chester said suddenly, wide eyed.
“That's just a thunderclap. Grow up,” the Sergeant said.
“No. You don't understand. Oh, no! He's coming back!”
The Sergeant took out his pencil and pad, “Now we're getting somewhere. Who is coming back?”
“The Devil!”
He wrung the cloth tighter, squeezing it until it was about to pop. The growling got louder, closer. It was not thunder, for the lightning that might have produced it was out of sequence and, besides, the thunder that was crashing about came from outside.
The roaring came from within the room, loud enough to drown out the thunder.
In a flash of comprehension, I took the Professor's needle and thread and crouched next to the prone figure.
“Excuse me. Chester, is it? If I may?”
“May what?” he said, looking at my needle and covered his chest, “You're not stitching me up!”
“Not you. This!”
“No, don't.”
“Trust me.”
My ordinarily clumsy fingers worked like magic as I threaded the needle and plunged it into a frayed edge. The growling changed to a howl, then began again in earnest.
“Stop it! You're making him angry!” Chester bawled, ripping the cloth away, “Don't make him angry!”
“You blithering idiot!” the Professor yelled, “Sergeant, restrain this buffoon before he does any more damage!”
“Don't think to tell me what to do!”
“If he destroys that cloth then everything is lost!”
“That does it! This lunacy has gone on far enough. You! Let go of that bloody cloth,” he roared, pointing with his truncheon, “You! Stitch it up! You! Stop telling me what to do! And whoever is making that horrible din, you'd better stop it or I'll clock you royal!”
There came a burbling grunt.
“Who's here, then? Enough of these games. Come out where I can see you! Show yourself!”
The grumble turned into a bellowing roar. Outside the lightning flashed, revealing a shadow on the opposing wall, reaching to the ceiling.
After the lightning went, it remained.
Chester cried, pointing at the shadow, “Here he is! Don't make him angry!”
All eyes turned to watch the shadow thicken, darken, until we could hardly see the wall at all.
The Professor nudged me, “Hurry, laddie!”
With Chester still gripping one end, I held on carefully to the other and pulled the needle through. The cloth was so old and thin, so soaked with rain and blood, that I might as well have been handling a wet tissue.
The beast howled with every plunge of the needle, yet, as I stole a peek over my shoulder, I could see that its presence was still forming.
The shadow was now opaque, growing into a distinct, dark form, reminiscent of the nightmarish fiend that pursued me in my dream: a torso broad across the top, supporting two long, muscular arms, each capped with terrible clawed hands.
Its head was indistinct, with any features obscured being black upon black.
Whether it had hair or horns, I cannot say, but the silhouette of its crown was as jagged as the rocks I had clambered over.
What was most fearsome were the two glowing red points where one might imagine eyes to be, and they searched about the room, looking at each of us in turn, until they settled on me.
Fear gripped me. I collapsed next to Chester, my legs refusing to support me. My fingers lost all sensation and my vision blurred.
I could hear the Sergeant blaspheme and cry all manner of curses.
“An illusion. A magician's trick! Why I'll soon put a stop to this!”
“Sergeant, no!” the Professor cried.
But it was too late. He strode forth, swinging his heavy stick high and fast.
“Cease and desist! Cease and desist! Cease –”
I did not see the blow, but I heard it right enough. There was a crunch, a scream and a monstrous utterance in a language I had never heard, and have never heard since.
Sensation came back to me. I shook my head to clear my vision and saw that the Sergeant was slumped up against the opposite wall, head on his chest, out cold.
The beast was nowhere to be seen. Chester, seizing his chance, dropped the cloth, jumped over me and ran from the room.
“What just happened?” I asked, “Where did it go?”
“There's no telling,” the Professor replied, bending to the Sergeant's aid, “I think it has exhausted its strength. You've got the cloth, now get to work.”
With my needle poised once more, I pushed it through the linen. An
unholy, sickening howl rippled through the room. My heart marched about my chest. My lungs forgot how to breathe.
I gasped, “It is still here, Professor!”
“It cannot yet manifest. It used its energy on Hart.”
“It's not gone! I can feel it, Professor!” I said, breathing quickly, “It's coming back!”
“Never mind, just sew! Sew, laddie!” the Professor shouted.
My fingers were trembling. More than once I stabbed myself with the tip and bled in dark dots onto the already saturated cloth. I pushed the point, I pulled, yet each thrust was more arduous until I was barely able to hold onto the needle, succeeding only in bunching the rag together into a messy ball.
“Sew!”
I was overwhelmed with a sensation of dark melancholy, a depression the likes of which I cannot describe with any accuracy. Strange thoughts, evil thoughts, rushed through my mind, distracting me further.
I resented the Professor's encouragement; I wished him ill, I wished him violence. Such was the beast's effect on me!
My veins felt like they held burning oil, not blood, searing me from my insides. I thought I could smell my flesh broiling. The walls and floors fell away, and I saw merciless shades dancing and swooping about, laughing cruelly, gnashing their wicked teeth.
Again came that cacophony from my dream, that godless choir of sighs and groans, howls and jeers, competing with the rumble of the beast.
The wound on my leg and the bruise on my back throbbed intensely, and my hands curled and seized with the pain of it all.
“Prof – Professor,” I gasped.
I heard a roar, and then a heavy chair flew through the air and knocked against my head. Dazed, confused and in utter pain and misery, I collapsed to the ground. The throbbing in my scalp barely registered against the confusing maelstrom of agony I was in.
“Sew!”
I