CHAPTER 8. THE WORST
“Are you gonna tell me about this book thing or what?” I asked.
I was still leaning against the wall in the exact same position I’d been earlier, plugging my bloody nose with bits of wadded cotton I’d made from tearing up a handkerchief Gil had in his coat.
“No,” Gil and Jane said in stereo.
“Ah, okay. Great.”
Jane was on one knee in front of the door–also padded, by the way–and Gil was seated beside me, playing his Gameboy. When I’d reminded him that we were trapped in a padded room inside a haunted sanatorium while a demon from Hell was searching for us and a sea monster waited below, his only response was, “Playing Home Alone 2 helps me think. Besides, you got any better ideas?”
The fact was that I didn’t have any better ideas. I didn’t have any ideas at all. Jane had been working on the locks for a while now and didn’t seem to be making much headway. Even if we got out, then what? We were now totally lost, any bearings we’d gotten after entering Callowleigh were scrambled thanks to our little rooftop detour. And after our encounters with the Galla, the pool Kraken, and the fresh blood, I was beginning to doubt the well-being of Mr. Dawkins, something that was only making me feel worse.
So I watched Gil mash buttons and Jane twist her tension wrench in the second lock down from the top, and waited.
At some point, I dozed off to the sound of rain. I awoke to the sound of Jane’s voice, which, personally, I found much less relaxing.
“Because I didn’t expect you to know,” she said. She was resting against the door, her lock-pick kit scattered around her.
“Why wouldn’t I know? This is my business,” Gil said defensively.
“Because Y Ddraig Goch isn’t exactly on the New York Times’ bestseller list.”
“I know it because it’s my job to know things like that.”
“You didn’t know what you were getting into here.”
“That’s different.”
“Why? I don’t think it is,” she said. “A little digging around and you would have found that this place is more than just a filthy, condemned hospital.”
“This job was a favor, nothing more. When my client tells me it’s safe, I take them at their word.”
“And you’re still alive? How long have you done this for a living?”
“Hey, master thief, your ass is just as trapped as mine, and you’re apparently very well-informed.”
That shut her up. She muttered something and went back to picking the lock. Gil sighed and went back to his Gameboy. He was trying to keep his voice low because I’d dozed off, but I could tell he was mad, and Gil didn’t get angry often.
He lowered the Gameboy again. “Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry. Sorry for playing my part in getting us trapped. I won’t take all the responsibility, but I’ll take some. But now we’re stuck and we have to work together.”
She ignored him.
“Well?” he asked.
Nothing.
“What about Deacons Fehr?” I asked. Gil turned to me, a faint look of surprise on his face. Jane glanced over her shoulder warily.
“Oh, are you awake, mongo?” she asked.
“You mentioned him in the library, insinuating that he was responsible for... for that book being here in the first place.”
“He is responsible.”
“Who is he exactly?”
“He was a doctor,” she said. With a sigh of satisfaction, she finished with the third lock, turning it over and pulling back the bolt. Three to go. “He’s dead now.”
“He worked here?”
“Yes. He was brought on when the place opened and he was here until they closed.”
“A regular doctor interested in otherworld medicine, eh?” Gil asked. “I’ve got somebody like that on my payroll.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” Jane said, moving onto the fourth lock. “He wasn’t interested in medicine. He was interested in black arts.”
“What did that have to do with this place?” I asked.
Jane looked at me like I was admitting a mental handicap.
“The patients,” Gil said softly.
The look I gave them both told them I still wasn’t following.
“The worst of the black arts require an exchange for power,” Gil said. “Like blood.”
“You mean... like sacrifices?”
“An archaic term,” Jane said coolly, “but essentially, yes.”
“He could have done his work, losing a patient here and there, and it wouldn’t have raised any red flags,” I said.
“Yes, exactly.”
“What about at the end?” I said, starting to connect dots. “How exactly did Callowleigh close?”
She stopped working for a second, but didn’t turn. “A mass-death. It was labeled a ‘quarantined epidemic,’ but those who survived knew it was something else.”
“Something Fehr did?” Gil asked.
“Most likely,” Jane said, turning over the fourth lock. “Anyone who would know for sure is dead.”
“Because of this book?”
“We don’t speak of the book,” Jane said. “It is too dangerous.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said. “It’s listening.”
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand,” she snapped. “That book has killed many people, and it is the only copy on this world. It is very, very powerful.”
“What about the Galla? Did the book conjure the Galla.”
“That’s what I was thinking about,” Gil said. “The book could call the Galla, but only when used by another.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Jane said.
“Well, I do, missy. The... well, the Ddraig Goch isn’t malicious in and of itself. Like most grimoires, it merely exists. How it is used is up to he who controls it.”
“Or she,” Jane said.
“Whatever, you know what I mean.”
She paused. “You may have a point,” she said begrudgingly.
“So what are we saying? That someone is in possession of this Ddraig Goch thing and is doing all this? They’re haunting this place?”
“This place isn’t haunted,” Gil said. “I kept thinking it wasn’t, and I was right.”
“If it’s not haunted, what is it?”
“It’s a festering sore,” Jane said. “Ever since the war ended, Fehr has been using the library to store his amassing collection of grimoires. This place has become a source of dark energy and power that can no longer be ignored.”
“And someone has come for the Ddraig Goch, with intentions of using it for bad stuff, I assume,” Gil said. “I think that’s the crux of it, really.”
“Yes,” Jane said, turning over the fourth lock. “I’m on a roll,” she said to herself.
“Okay, dumb question,” I said. “What exactly is a grimoire?”
Jane barked a bitter laugh, but added nothing else.
“The short answer is that a grimoire is a book of magic,” Gil said. “Sometimes it’s all spells or incantations, sometimes it’s a secret otherworld history, sometimes it’s just directions on how to make things like charms or talismans. ‘Grimoire’ is really just a blanket term for otherworld texts.”
“That is an understatement,” Jane said. “They are not to be taken lightly.”
“I didn’t say they should be taken lightly,” Gil said. “I know exactly how dangerous they can be. But like I said, grimoires are not inherently good or evil, they merely contain magic in some form or another. Terms like ‘black grimoire’ are totally subjective. How they are used is up to he–or she–who controls it.”
“Usually used for evil,” Jane muttered.
Gil ignored her. “Remember how I was telling you about how books have power? Well one reason that grimoires are so powerful is that there are usually very few copies of any given grimoire in existence. In fact, in a lot of cases, grimoires exist as single copies only. Either they were only printed once or all other copies have been
destroyed. Grimoires have never been printed or maintained on large scales, probably because of their occult status. It is in this way that they differ from other powerful texts, like The Bible or The Qur’an. Each of those books exists in such mass quantity that their power is really dispersed. If you found a very old copy of The Bible, it would be much more formidable, power-wise. A book like Y Ddraig Goch? It’s like Highlander, man, there’s only one, so you better believe it’s freakin’ powerful.”
Made sense. “And you can’t tell me anything at all about this Ddraig Goch?”
Gil looked at Jane, but she was distracted, cursing the stubborn tumblers in the fifth lock.
“Honestly, I don’t know much about it. A lot of what surrounds it is pure myth, really, or so I thought. Y Ddraig Goch is like a slang nickname for it, I think it means ‘the Welsh Dragon,’ but I don’t know, I’m not friggin’ Welsh. Y Ddraig Goch has many names, all referring to the same thing–remember all those other things I said in the library? Yeah, those were its real names. The reason we can say Y Ddraig Goch is because it’s basically an unrelated phrase that’s been co-opted just so we can call it something. Don’t ever say any of those other things I said back in the library. Any of them. They all invoke its power. Just say Y Ddraig Goch. Trust me, people in the know will understand what you’re talkin’ about.
“Anyway, Y Ddraig Goch is a particularly black grimoire written to teach how to conjure demons and, more specifically, the Devil himself. Kinda freaky,” he said. He clicked off his Gameboy and stuffed it back into his pocket. “For a long time, no one was certain the thing even existed. Finch told me that it dated back to the sixteenth century, but I haven’t even gotten a consensus on that.” He shook his head. “I’ve no way of knowing if it’s real. Which was why I said it’s name,” he added defensively under his breath. “I never thought I was going to invoke it in any way. But apparently I did. So I guess it’s real. And it’s close.”
The last bit there seemed to make him uncomfortable. I could tell by the way he was still blushing that he felt sheepish about saying the book’s name, and I felt bad for him.
“How were you to know?” I said. “This thing isn’t even supposed to be real. And everything you’ve heard about it may have been myth.”
“It was still careless,” Jane answered bitterly. “Anyone who knows anything about Y Ddraig Goch understands exactly what is at stake.”
I started to speak up but Gil stopped me. “No,” he said. “She’s right.”
It was hard to argue when you’re in over your head, so I conceded.
Jane stood and cracked her knuckles. With a dramatic flourish, the turned the doorknob and pulled the door open.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”