Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe's 1st Detective

THE GRUESOME AFFAIR OF THE ELECTRIC BLUE LIGHTNING From the files of C. Auguste Dupin By JOE R. LANSDALE (translated loosely from the French)

This story can only be described as fantastic in nature, and with no exaggeration, it deals with nothing less than the destruction of the world, but before I continue, I should make an immediate confession. Some of this is untrue. I do not mean the events themselves, for they are accurate, but I have disguised the names of several individuals, and certain locations have been re-imagined— for lack of a better word — to suit my own conscience. The end of the cosmos and our world as we know it is of considerable concern, of course, but no reason to abandon manners.

These decisions were primarily due to the possibility of certain actors in this drama being unnecessarily scandalized or embarrassed, even though they are only mentioned in passing and have little to nothing to do with the events themselves. I do not think historians, warehouse owners, and the like should have to bear the burden of my story, especially as it will undoubtedly be disbelieved.

There are, however, specific players in my article, story if you prefer, that have their own names to contend with, old as those names may be, and I have not made any effort whatsoever to alter these. This is owed to the fact that these particular personages are well enough recognized by name, and any attempt to disguise them would be a ridiculous and wasted effort.

This begins where many of my true stories begin. I was in the apartment I share with Auguste Dupin, perhaps the wisest and most rational man I have ever known, if a bit of a curmudgeon and a self-centered ass. A touch of background, should you be interested: we share an apartment, having met while looking for the same obscure book in a library, which brought about a discussion of the tome in question, which in turn we decided to share in the reading, along with the price of an apartment, as neither of us could afford the rental of one alone. Dupin is a Chevalier, and had some financial means in the past, but his wealth had somehow been lost — how this occurred, we have by unspoken agreement never discussed, and this suits me, for I would rather not go into great detail about my own circumstances.

In spite of his haughty nature, Dupin is quite obviously of gentlemanly countenance and bearing, if, like myself, he is a threadbare gentleman; I should also add, one who in manners is frequently not a gentleman at all. He is also a sometime investigator. This began merely as a hobby, something he did for his own amusement, until I assured him that regular employment might aid in his problems with the rent, and that I could assist him, for a small fee, of course. He agreed.

What I call “The Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning” began quite casually, and certainly by accident. I was telling Dupin how I had read that the intense lightning storm of the night before had been so radical, producing such powerful bolts, it had started fires all along the Rue —. In fact, the very newspaper that had recorded the article lay before him, and it wasn’t until I had finished telling him about the irregular events that I saw it lying there and admonished him for not revealing to me he had read the article and knew my comments even before disclosing them for his consideration.

“Yes,” Dupin said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his fingers together. “But I appreciate your telling of it. It was far more dramatic and interesting than the newspaper article itself. I was especially interested in, and impressed with, your descriptions of the lightning, for yours was a practical explanation, but not an actual recollection, and therefore perhaps faulty.”

“Excuse me,” I said.

His eyes brightened and his lean face seemed to stretch even longer as he said, “You described to me lightning that you did not see, and in so doing, you described it as it should appear, not as the newspaper depicted it. Or to be more precise, you only said that the fires had been started by a lightning strike. The newspaper said it was a blue-white fulmination that appeared to climb up to the sky from the rooftops of a portion of the warehouse district, rather than come down from the heavens. To be more precise, the newspaper was supposedly quoting a man named F—, who said he saw the peculiar lightning and the beginnings of the warehouse fire with his own eyes. He swore it rose upward, instead of the other way around. Out of the ordinary, don’t you think?”

“A mistake on his part,” I said. “I had forgotten all about his saying that. I didn’t remember it that way.”

“Perhaps,” said Dupin, filling his meerschaum pipe and studying the rain outside the apartment window, “because it didn’t make sense to you. It goes against common sense. So, you dismissed it.”

“I suppose so,” I said. “Isn’t that what you do in your investigations? Dismiss items that are nonsensical? Use only what you know to be true? You are always admonishing me for filling in what is not there, what could not be, that which faults ratiocination.”

Dupin nodded. “That’s correct. But isn’t that what you’re doing now? You are filling in what is not there. Or deciding quite by your own contemplations that which should not be there.”

“You confuse me, Dupin.”

“No doubt,” he said. “Unlike you, I do not dismiss something as false until I have considered it fully and examined all the evidence. There is also the part of the article where F—’s statement was validated by a child named P—.”

“But, the word of a child?” I said.

“Sometimes they have the clearest eyes,” Dupin said. “They have not had time to think what they should see, as you have, but only what they have seen. They can be mistaken. Eye witnesses often are, of course. But it’s odd that the child validated the sighting of the other witness, and if what the article says is true, the man and child did not know one another. They were on very distant sides of the event. Due to this — and of course I would question their not knowing one another until I have made a full examination — perhaps more can be made of the child’s recollections. I certainly believe we can rule out coincidence of such an observation. The child and the man either colluded on their story, which I find unlikely, because to what purpose would they say such an unbelievable thing? Or the other possibility is they did in fact see the same event, and their description is accurate, at least as far as they conceive it.”

“That lightning rose up from the ground?” I said. “You say that makes more sense than it coming down from the heavens? I would think suggesting Jove threw a bolt of lightning would be just as irrational as to suggest the lightning rose up from the earth!”

“From a warehouse rooftop, not the earth,” he said. “And it was blue-white in color?”

“Ridiculous,” I said.

“It is peculiar, I admit, but my suggestion is we do not make a judgment on the matter until we know more facts.”

“I didn’t realize we cared to make a judgment.”

“I am considering it.”

“This interests you that much? Why would we bother? It’s not a true investigation, just the soothing of a curiosity, which I might add, pays absolutely nothing.”

“What interests me are the deaths from the warehouse fire,” Dupin said. “Though, since, as you noted, we haven‘t been hired to examine the facts, that pays the same absence of price.”

“Horrid business,” I said. “But I believe you are making much of nothing. I know that area, and those buildings are rats’ nests just waiting for a spark to ignite them. They are also the squatting grounds for vagrants. Lightning struck the building. It caught ablaze rapidly, and sleeping vagrants were burned to death in the fire. It is as simple as that.”

“Perhaps,” Dupin said. He leaned back and puffed on his pipe, blowing blue clouds of smoke from between his teeth and from the bowl. “But how do you explain that our own acquaintance the Police Prefect, G—, was quoted as saying that they found a singed, but still identifiable arm, and that it appeared to have been sawed off at the elbow, rather than burned?”

I had no answer for that.

“Of course, G— is often wrong, so in his case I might suspect an error before suspecting one from the witnessing child. G— solves most of his crimes by accident, confession, or by beating his suspect until he will admit to having started the French Revolution over the theft of a ham hock. However, when he has solved his cases, if indeed one can actually consider them solved, it is seldom by any true form of detection. I should also note that there has been a rash of grave robbings of late, all of them involving freshly buried bodies.”

Now, as he often did, Dupin had piqued my curiosity. I arose, poured the both of us a bit of wine, sat back down and watched Dupin smoke his pipe, the stench of which was cheap and foul as if burning the twilled ticking of an old sweat-stained mattress.

“For me to have an opinion on this matter, I would suggest we make a trip of it tomorrow, to see where this all occurred. Interview those that were spoken to by the newspaper. I know you have contacts, so I would like you to use them to determine the exact location of these witnesses who observed the lightning and the resulting fire. Does this suit you?”

I nodded. “Very well, then.”

That was the end of our discussion about these unique, but to my mind insignificant events, for the time being. We instead turned our attention to the smoking of pipes and the drinking of wine. Dupin read while he smoked and drank, and I sat there contemplating that which we had discussed, finding the whole matter more and more mysterious with the thinking. Later, I decided I would like to take a stroll before retiring, so that I might clear my head of the drinking and heavy smoke.

I also had in mind the ideas that Dupin had suggested, and wanted to digest them. I have always found a walk to be satisfying not only to the legs and heart, but to the mind as well; many a problem such as this one I had considered while walking, and though, after talking to Dupin, I still turned out to be mistaken in my thinking, I had at least eliminated a large number of my fallacies of thought before speaking to him.

Outside the apartment, I found the rain had ceased; the wind had picked up, however, and was quite cool, almost chilly. I pulled my collar up against the breeze and, swinging my cane before me, headed in the direction of the lightning fire in the warehouse district along the Rue —. I didn’t realize I was going there until my legs began to take me. I knew the location well, and no research was required to locate the site of the events, so I thought that for once, having seen the ruins, I might actually have a leg up on Dupin, and what he called his investigative methods of ratiocination.

I will not name the exact place, due to this area having recently been renovated, and keep in mind these events took place some years back, so there is no need to besmirch the name of the new owners. But for then, it was an area not considered a wisely traveled pathway by night. It was well known for unsavory characters and poor lighting. That being the case, I was fully aware it was not the best of ideas to be about my business in this vicinity, but what Dupin had said to me was gnawing at my thoughts like a terrier at a rug. I felt reasonably confident that my cane would defend me, as I am — if I say so myself — like Dupin, quite skilled in the art of the cane, and if I should be set upon by more than one ruffian, it contained a fine sword that could help trim my attacker’s numbers.

I came to where the warehouse section lay, and found the burned buildings instantly, not far from a large allotment of land where other warehouses were still maintained. I stood for a moment in front of the burned section, going over it with eyes and mind. What remained were blackened shells and teetering lumber; the rain had stirred the charred shambles and the stench of it filled and itched my nostrils.

I walked along the pathway in front of it, and tried to imagine where the fire had started, determining that the areas where the structures of the buildings were most ruined might be the source. I could imagine that the fire jumped from those ruined remains to the other buildings, which though burned beyond use, were still more structurally sound, suggesting that the fire had raged hottest before it reached them.

I was contemplating all of this, when from the ruins I heard a noise, and saw a shape rise up from the earth clothed in hat and overcoat. It was some distance away from me, and even as it rose, it paused for a moment, looking down in the manner of a man who has dropped pocket change.

I can’t explain exactly why I thought I should engage, but I immediately set off in that direction, and called out to it. As I neared, the shape looked up, seeing me. I took note of the fact that it carried something, clutched tightly to it, and that this undefined individual was in a kind of panic; it began to run. I wondered then if it might be a thief, looking for some surviving relic that could be swapped or sold, and part of its loot had been dropped when it came up from wherever it had been lurking, and before it could be found, I had startled the prowler.

I took it upon myself to call out again, and when I did, the shape ceased to run, turned, and looked at me. I was overcome with fear and awe, for I was certain, even though the being stood back in the shadows, wore an overcoat, and had the brim of a hat pulled down tight over its face, that staring back at me was some kind of hairy upright ape clutching a bagged burden to its breast.

Unconsciously, I lifted the shaft of my walking stick and revealed an inch of the hidden sword. The beast — for I can think of it no other way — turned, and once more proceeded to run, its hat blowing off as it went. In a flash, it disappeared behind one of the standing warehouses. I remained where I was for a moment, rooted to the spot, and then, overcome with curiosity, I pursued it, running through the burnt lumber, on out into the clearing that led to the street where I had seen the beast standing. As I turned the corner, I found it waiting for me. It had dropped the bag at its feet, and was lifting up a large garbage container that was dripping refuse. I was granted a glimpse of its teeth and fiery eyes just before it threw the receptacle at me. I was able to duck, just in time, and as the container clattered along the cobblestones behind me, the thing grabbed up its bag, broke and ran toward a warehouse wall. I knew then I had it trapped, but considering that what it had thrown at me was heavier than anything I could lift, perhaps it would be I who was trapped. These thoughts were there, but my forward motion and determination succeeded in trampling my common sense.

As I came near it again, my previous astonishment was nothing compared to what I witnessed now. The creature divested itself of the overcoat, slung the bag over its shoulder, and with one hand grasped a drain-pipe and using its feet to assist, began to climb effortlessly upward until it reached the summit of the warehouse. I watched in bewilderment as it moved across the rain-misted night-line, then raced out of sight down the opposite side of the warehouse wall, or so I suspected when it was no longer visible.

I darted down an alley, splashing in puddles as I went, and came to the edge of the warehouse where I was certain the ape-man had descended. Before me was a narrow, wet street, the R—, but the ape-man was not in sight.

I leaned against the wall of the warehouse, for at this point in time I needed support, the reality of what I had just witnessed finally sinking into my bones. I momentarily tried to convince myself that I had been suffering the effects of the wine Dupin and I had drunk, but knew this was wishful thinking. I drew the sword from the cane, and strolled down the R— in search of the ape, but saw nothing, and frankly, was glad of it, having finally had time to consider how close I may have come to disaster.

Replacing the sword in its housing, I walked back to the ruins of the warehouse. Using my cane to move burnt lumber about, throwing up a light cloud of damp ash, I examined the spot where I had seen the thing pulling something from the rubble; that’s when I found the arm, severed at the elbow, lying on top of the ash. It had no doubt been dropped there after the fire, for it appeared un-charred, not even smoke-damaged. I knelt down and struck a Lucifer against the tip of the cane, then held it close. It was a small arm with a delicate hand. I looked about and saw that nearby were a series of steps that dipped beneath ground level. It seemed obvious this was where the creature had originated when it appeared to rise out of the very earth. It also seemed obvious this opening had been covered by the collapse of the warehouse, and that the creature had uncovered it and retrieved something from below and tucked it away in the large bag it was carrying. The obvious thing appeared to be body parts, for if he had dropped one, then perhaps others existed and were tucked away in its bag. I lit another Lucifer, went down the narrow steps into the basement, waved my flickering light so that it threw small shadows about. The area below was larger than I would have expected. It was filled with tables and crates, and what I determined to be laboratory equipment— test tubes, beakers, burners, and the like. I had to light several matches to complete my examination — though complete is a loose word, considering I could only see by the small fluttering of a meager flame.

I came upon an open metal container, about the size of a coffin, and was startled as I dipped the match into its shadowy interior. I found two human heads contained within, as well as an assortment of amputated legs, arms, feet, and hands, all of them submerged in water.

I jerked back with such revulsion that the match went out. I scrambled about for another, only to discover I had used my entire store. Using what little moonlight was tumbling down the basement stairs as my guide, and almost in a panic, I ran up them and practically leapt into the open. There was more moonlight now than before. The rain had passed and the clouds had sailed; it was a mild relief.

Fearing the ape, or whatever it was, might return, and considering what I had found below, I hurried away from there.

I should have gone straight to the police, but having had dealings with the Police Prefect, G—, I was less than enthusiastic about the matter. Neither Dupin nor myself were well liked in the halls of the law for the simple reason that Dupin had solved a number of cases the police had been unable to, thereby making them look foolish. It was they who came to us in time of need, not us to them. I hastened my steps back to the apartment, only to be confronted by yet another oddity. The moon was turning to blood. Or so it appeared, for a strange crimson cloud, the likes of which I had never before seen, or even heard of, was enveloping the moon, as if it were a vanilla biscuit tucked away in a bloody-red sack. The sight of it caused me deep discomfort.

It was late when I arrived at our lodgings. Dupin was sitting by candlelight, still reading. He had a stack of books next to him on the table, and when I came in he lifted his eyes as I lit the gas lamp by the doorway to further illuminate the apartment. I was nearly breathless, and when I turned to expound on my adventures, Dupin said, “I see you have been to the site of the warehouses, an obvious deduction by the fact that your pants and boots are dusted heavily in ash and soot and are damp from the rain. I see too that you have discovered body parts in the wreckage. I will also conjecture we can ignore having a discussion with the lightning witnesses, for you have made some progress on your own.”

My mouth fell open. “How could you know that I discovered body parts?”

“Logic. The newspaper account spoke of such a thing, and you come rushing in the door, obviously excited, even a little frightened. So if a severed arm was found there the other day, it stands to reason that you too discovered something of that nature. That is a bit of speculation, I admit, but it seems a fair analysis.”

I sat down in a chair. “It is accurate, but I have seen one thing that you can not begin to decipher, and it is more fantastic than even severed body parts.”

“An ape that ran upright?”

“Impossible!” I exclaimed. “You could not possibly know.”

“But I did.” Dupin paused a moment, lit his pipe. He seemed only mildly curious. “Continue.”

It took me a moment to collect myself, but finally I began to reveal my adventures.

“It was carrying a package of some kind. I believe it contained body parts because I found an arm lying in the burned wreckage, as you surmised. Something I believe the ape dropped.”

“Male or female?” Dupin said.

“What?”

“The arm, male or female?”

I thought for a moment.

“I suppose it was female. I didn’t give it considerable evaluation, dark as it was, surprised as I was. But I would venture to guess — and a guess is all I am attempting — that it was female.”

“That is interesting,” Dupin said. “And the ape?”

“You mean was the ape male or female?”

“Exactly,” Dupin said.

“What difference does it make?”

“Perhaps none. Was it clothed?”

“A hat and overcoat. Both of which it abandoned.”

“In that case, could you determine its sex?” Dupin asked.

“I suppose since no external male equipment was visible, it was most probably female.”

“And it saw you?”

“Yes. It ran from me. I pursued. It climbed to the top of a warehouse with its bag, did so effortlessly, and disappeared on the other side of the building. Prior to that, it tried to hit me with a trash receptacle. A large and heavy one it lifted as easily as you lift your pipe.”

“Obviously it failed in this endeavor,” Dupin commented. “How long did it take you to get to the other side of the ware-house, as I am presuming you made careful examination there as well?”

“Hasty would be a better word. By then I had become concerned for my own safety. I suppose it took the creature less than five minutes to go over the roof.”

“Did you arrive there quickly? The opposite side of the building, I mean?”

“Yes. You could say that.”

“And the ape was no longer visible?”

“Correct.”

“That is quite rapid, even for an animal, don’t you think?”

“Indeed,” I said, having caught the intent of Dupin’s question. “Which implies it did not necessarily run away, or even descend to the other side. I merely presumed.”

“Now, you see the error of your thinking.”

“But you’ve made presumptions tonight,” I said.

“Perhaps, but more reasonable presumptions than yours, I am certain. It is my impression that your simian is still in the vicinity, and did not scale the warehouse merely to climb down the other side and run down the street, when it could just as easily have taken the alley you used. And if the creature did climb down the other side, I believe it concealed itself. You might have walked right by it.”

That gave me a shiver. “I admit that is logical, but I also admit that I didn’t walk all that far for fear that it might be lurking about.”

“That seems fair enough,” Dupin said.

“There is something else,” I said, and I told him about the basement and the body parts floating in water. I mentioned the red cloud that lay thick against the moon.

When I finished, he nodded, as if my presentation was the most normal event in the world. Thunder crashed then, lightning ripped across the sky, and rain began to hammer the street; a rain far more vigorous than earlier in the evening. For all his calm, when Dupin spoke, I thought I detected the faintest hint of concern.

“You say the moon was red?”

“A red cloud was over it. I have never seen such a thing before. At first I thought it a trick of the eye.”

“It is not,” Dupin said. “I should tell you about something I have researched while you were out chasing ape-women and observing the odd redness of the night’s full moon — an event that suggests things are far more desperate than I first suspected.”

I had seated myself by this time, had taken up my own pipe, and with nervous hand, found matches to light it.

Dupin broke open one of the books near the candle. “I thought I had read of that kind of electric blue lightning before, and the severed limbs also struck a cord of remembrance, as did the ape — which is why I was able to determine what you had seen — and that gives even further credence to my suspicions. Johann Conrad Dippel.”

“Who?”

“Dippel. He was born in Germany in the late sixteen hundreds. He was a philosopher and something of a theologian. He was also considered a heretic, as his views on religion were certainly outside the lines of normal society.”

“The same might be said of us,” I remarked.

Dupin nodded. “True. But Dippel was thought to be an alchemist and a dabbler in the dark arts. He was in actuality a man of science. He was also an expert on all manner of ancient documents. He is known today for the creation of Dippel’s Oil, which is used in producing a dye we know as Prussian blue, but he also claimed to have invented an elixir of life. He lived for a time in Germany at a place known as Castle Frankenstein. This is where many of his experiments were performed, including one that led to such a tremendous explosion it destroyed a tower of the castle, and led to a breaking of his lease. It was said by those who witnessed the explosion that a kind of lightning, a blue-white lightning, lifted up from the stones to the sky, followed by a burst of flame and an explosion that tore the turret apart and rained stones down on the countryside.”

“So that is why you were so interested in the lightning, the story about it rising up from the warehouse instead of falling out of the sky?”

Dupin nodded, relit his pipe and continued. “It was rumored that he was attempting to transfer the souls of the living into freshly exhumed corpses. Exhumed clandestinely, by the way. He was said to use a funnel by which the souls of the living could be channeled into the bodies of the dead.”

“Ridiculous,” I said.

“Perhaps,” Dupin replied. “It was also said his experiments caused the emergence of a blue-white lightning that he claimed to have pulled from a kind of borderland, and that he was able to open a path to this netherworld by means of certain mathematical formulas gleaned from what he called a renowned, rare, and accursed book. For this he was branded a devil worshiper, an interloper with demonic forces.”

“Dupin,” I said. “You have always ridiculed the supernatural.”

“I did not say it was supernatural. I said he was a scientist that was branded as a demonologist. What intrigues me is his treatise titled Maladies and Remedies of the Life of the Flesh, as well as the mention of even rarer books and documents within it. One that was of special interest was called the Necronomicon, a book that was thought by many to be mythical.”

“You have seen such a book?”

“I discovered it in the Paris library some years ago. It was pointed out to me by the historian M—. No one at the library was aware of its significance, not even M—. He knew only of its name and that it held some historical importance. He thought it may have something to do with witchcraft, which it does not. I was surprised to find it there. I considered it to be more than a little intriguing. It led me to further investigations into Dippel as not only the owner of such a book, but as a vivisectionist and a resurrectionist. He claimed to have discovered a formula that would allow him to live for 135 years, and later amended this to eternal life.”

“Drivel,” I said. “I am surprised you would concern yourself with such.”

“It was his scientific method and deep understanding of mathematics that interested me. My dear friend, much of what has become acceptable science was first ridiculed as heresy. I need not point out to you the long list of scientists opposed by the Catholic Church and labeled heretics. The points of interest concerning Dippel have to do with what I have already told you about the similarity of the blue-white lightning, and the interesting connection with the found body parts, the ape, and the curious event of the blood-stained moon, which I will come back to shortly. Firstly, however, was Dippel’s mention of the rare book. The Necronomicon, written by Abdul Alhazred in 950 AD, partially in math equations and partly in verse. He was sometimes referred to as ‘The Mad Arab’ by his detractors, though he was also given the moniker of ‘Arab Poet of Yemen’ by those less vicious. Of course, knowing my penchant for poetry, you might readily surmise that this is what first drew my attention to him. The other aspect of his personality, as mathematician and conjuror, was merely, at that time, of side interest, although I must say that later in life he certainly did go mad. He claimed to have discovered mathematical equations that could be used to open our world into another where powerful forces and beings existed. Not gods or demons, mind you, but different and true life forms that he called ‘The Old Ones.’ It was in this book that Dippel believed he found the key to eternal life.”

“What became of Dippel?”

“He died,” Dupin said, and smiled.

“So much for eternal life.”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps? You clearly said he died.”

“His body died, but his assistant, who was imprisoned for a time, said his soul was passed on to another form. According to what little documentation there is on the matter, Dippel’s experiments were concerned with removing a person’s soul from a living form and transferring it to a corpse. It was successful, if his assistant, Hans Grimm, can be believed. Grimm was a relative of Jacob Grimm, the future creator of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. But of more immediate interest to us is something he reported, that a young lady Dippel was charmed by, and who he thought would be his companion, took a fall from a horse and was paralyzed. Grimm claimed they successfully transferred her soul from her ruined body into the corpse of a recently dead young lady, which had been procured by what one might call midnight gardening. She was ‘animated with life,’ as Grimm described her, ‘but was always of some strangeness.’ That is a direct quote.”

“Dupin, surely you don’t take this nonsense seriously.”

He didn’t seem to hear me. “She was disgusted with her new form and was quoted by Grimm as saying ‘she felt as if she was inside a house with empty rooms.’ She leaped to her death from Castle Frankenstein. Lost to him, Dippel decided to concentrate on a greater love — himself. Being short of human volunteers who wanted to evacuate their soul and allow a visitor to inhabit their living form, he turned to animals for experimentation. The most important experiment was the night he died, or so says Grimm.”

“The ancestor of the creator of Grimm’s Fairy Tales seems an unlikely person to trust on matters of this sort.”

“That could be. But during this time Dippel was having exotic animals shipped to him in Germany, and among these was a creature called a Chimpanzee. Knowing himself sickly, and soon to die, he put his experiments to the ultimate test. He had his assistant, Grimm, by use of the formula and his funnel, transfer his soul from his disintegrating shell into the animal, which in turn eliminated the soul of the creature; the ape’s body became the house of his soul. I should add that I have some doubts about the existence of a soul, so perhaps essence would be a more appropriate word. That said, soul has a nice sound to it, I think. The experiment, according to Grimm, resulted in an abundance of blue-white lightning that caused the explosion and left Grimm injured. In fact, later Grimm disappeared from the hospital where he was being held under observation and arrest for alchemy. He was in a room with padded walls and a barred window. The bars were ripped out. It was determined the bars were pulled loose from the outside. Another curious matter was that the room in which he was contained was three floors up, a considerable drop. How did he get down without being injured? No rope or ladder was found. It was as if he had been carried away by something unknown.”

“Come, Dupin, you cannot be serious? Are you suggesting this ape pulled out the bars and carried him down the side of the wall?”

“There are certainly more than a few points of similarity between the story of Dippel and the events of tonight, don’t you think? Consider your description of how effortlessly the ape climbed the warehouse wall.”

“But, if this is Dippel, and he is in Paris, my question is how? And his ape body would be old. Very old.”

“If he managed eternal life by soul transference, then perhaps the ape body does not age as quickly as would be normal.”

“If this were true, and I’m not saying I believe it, how would he go about his life? An ape certainly could not ride the train or stroll the street without being noticed.”

“I am of the opinion that Grimm is still with him.”

“But he would be very old as well.”

“Considerably,” Dupin agreed. “I believe that the body parts you saw are for Grimm. It is my theory that Grimm received a wound that put him near death when Castle Frankenstein blew up. Dippel saved him by transferring his soul to a corpse. Unlike Dippel’s lady love, he managed to accept the transfer and survived.”

“So why did Dippel go after the body parts himself? Wouldn’t he have Grimm procure such things? It would be easier for the one with a human body to move about without drawing so much attention.”

“It would. My take is that the human soul when transferred to the soul of a corpse has one considerable drawback. The body rots. The ape body was a living body. It does not; it may age, but not in the way it would otherwise, due to this transformation. Grimm’s body, on the other hand, has to be repaired from time to time with fresh parts. It may be that he was further damaged by the more recent explosion. Which indicates to me that they have not acquired the healthy ability to learn from their mistakes.”

“After all this time, wouldn’t Dippel have transferred Grimm’s essence, or his own, into a living human being? Why would he maintain the body of an ape? And a female ape at that?”

“My thought on the matter is that Dippel may find the powerful body of an ape to his advantage. And to keep Grimm bent to his will, to maintain him as a servant, he only repairs him when he wears out a part, so to speak. Be it male or female parts, it is a matter of availability. If Grimm’s soul were transferred into a living creature, and he could live for eternity, as male or female, then he might be willing to abandon Dippel. This way, with the ape’s strength, and Dippel’s knowledge of how to repair a corpse, and perhaps the constant promise of eventually giving Grimm a living human body, he keeps him at his side. Grimm knows full well if he leaves Dippel he will eventually rot. I think this is the Sword of Damocles that he holds over Grimm’s head.”

“That is outrageous,” I said. “And wicked.”

“Absolutely, but that does not make it untrue.”

I felt cold. My pipe had died, as I had forgotten to smoke it. I relit it. “It’s just too extraordinary,” I said.

“Yet the Necronomicon suggests it is possible.” With that, Dupin dug into the pile of books and produced a large volume, thrusting it into my hands. Looking at it, I saw that it was covered in leather, and that in the dead center was an eye-slit. I knew immediately what I was looking at was the tanned skin of a human face. Worse, holding the book I felt nauseous. It was as if its very substance was made of bile. I managed to open the book. There was writing in Arabic, as well as a number of mathematical formulas; the words and numbers appeared to crawl. I slammed the book shut again. “Take it back,” I said, and practically tossed it at him.

“I see you are bewildered, old friend,” Dupin said, “but do keep in mind, as amazing as this sounds, it’s science we are talking about, not the supernatural.”

“It’s a revolting book,” I said.

“When I first found it in the library, I could only look at it for short periods of time. I had to become accustomed to it, like becoming acclimated to sailing at sea, and no longer suffering sea sickness. I am ashamed to admit, that after a short time I stole the book. I felt somehow justified in doing this, it being rarely touched by anyone — for good reason, as you have experienced— and in one way I thought I might be doing the world a justice, hiding it away from the wrong eyes and hands. That was several years ago. I have studied Arabic, read the volume repeatedly, and already being reasonably versed in mathematics, rapidly began to understand the intent of it. Though, until reading the newspaper account, I had been skeptical. And then there is Dippel’s history, the words of his companion, Grimm. I believe there is logic behind these calculations and ruminations, even if at first they seem to defy human comprehension. The reason for this is simple; it is not the logic of humans, but that of powerful beings who exist in the borderland. I have come to uncomfortably understand some of that logic, as much as is humanly possible to grasp. To carry this even farther, I say that Dippel is no longer himself, in not only body, but in thought. His constant tampering with the powers of the borderland have given the beings on the other side an entry into his mind, and they are learning to control him, to assist him in his desires, until their own plans come to fruition. It has taken time, but soon, he will not only be able to replace body parts, he will be capable of opening the gate to this borderland. We are fortunate he has not managed it already. These monsters are powerful, as powerful as any god man can create, and malicious without measure. When the situation is right, when Dippel’s mind completely succumbs to theirs, and he is willing to use the formulas and spells to clear the path for their entry, they will cross over and claim this world. That will be the end of humankind, my friend. And let me tell you the thing I have been holding back. The redness of the moon is an indication that there is a rip in the fabric of that which protects us from these horrid things lying in wait. Having wasted their world to nothing, they lust after ours, and Dippel is opening the gate so they might enter.”

“But how would Dippel profit from that? Allowing such things into our world?”

“Perhaps he has been made promises of power, whispers in his head that make him outrageous offers. Perhaps he is little more than a tool by now. All that matters, good friend, is that we can not allow him to continue his work.”

“If the red cloud over the moon is a sign, how much time do we have?”

“Let me put it this way: We will not wait until morning, and we will not need to question either the boy or the man who saw the lightning. By that time, I believe it will be too late.”

There was a part of me that wondered if Dupin’s studies had affected his mind. It wasn’t an idea that held, however. I had seen what I had seen, and what Dupin had told me seemed to validate it. We immediately set out on our escapade, Dupin carrying a small bag slung over one shoulder by a strap.

The rain had blown itself out and the streets were washed clean. The air smelled as fresh as the first breath of life. We went along the streets briskly, swinging our canes, pausing only to look up at the moon. The red cloud was no longer visible, but there was still a scarlet tint to the moon that seemed unnatural. Sight of that gave even more spring to my step. When we arrived at our destination, there was no one about, and the ashes had been settled by the rain.

“Keep yourself alert,” Dupin said, “in case our simian friend has returned and is in the basement collecting body parts.”

We crossed the wet soot, stood at the mouth of the basement, and after a glance around to verify no one was in sight, we descended.

Red-tinged moonlight slipped down the stairs and brightened the basement. Everything was as it had been. Dupin looked about, used his cane to tap gently at a few of the empty beakers and tubes. He then made his way to the container where I had seen the amputated limbs and decapitated heads. They were still inside, more than a bit of rainwater having flooded in, and there was a ripe stench of decaying flesh.

“These would no longer be of use to Dippel,” Dupin said. “So we need not worry about him coming back for them.”

I showed him where I had last seen the ape, then we walked to the other side. Dupin looked up and down the wall of the warehouse. We walked along its length. Nothing was found.

“Perhaps we should find a way to climb to the top,” I said.

Dupin was staring at a puff of steam rising from the street. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

He hastened to where the steam was thickest. It was rising up from a grate. He used his cane to pry at it, and I used mine to assist him. We lifted it and looked down at the dark, mist-coated water of the sewer rushing below. The stench was, to put it mildly, outstanding.

“This would make sense,” Dupin said. “You were correct, he did indeed climb down on this side, but he disappeared quickly because he had an underground path.”

“We’re going down there?” I asked.

“You do wish to save the world and our cosmos, do you not?”

“When you put it that way, I suppose we must,” I said. I was trying to add a joking atmosphere to the events, but it came out as serious as a diagnosis of leprosy.

We descended into the dark, resting our feet upon the brick ledge of the sewer. There was light from above to assist us, but if we were to move forward, we would be walking along the slick brick runway into utter darkness. Or so I thought.

It was then that Dupin produced twists of paper, heavily oiled and waxed, from the pack he was carrying. As he removed them, I saw the Necronomicon was in the bag as well. It lay next to two dueling pistols. I had been frightened before, but somehow, seeing that dreadful book and those weapons, I was almost overwhelmed with terror, a sensation I would experience more than once that night. It was all I could do to take one of the twists and wait for Dupin to light it, for my mind was telling me to climb out of that dank hole and run. But if Dippel succeeded in letting the beings from the borderland through, run to where?

“Here,” Dupin said, holding the flaming twist close to the damp brick wall. “It went this way.”

I looked. A few coarse hairs were caught in the bricks.

With that as our guide, we proceeded. Even with the lit twists of wax and oil, the light was dim and there was a steam, or mist, rising from the sewer. We had to proceed slowly and carefully. The sewer rumbled along near us, heightened to near flood level by the tremendous rain. It was ever to our right, threatening to wash up over the walk. There were drips from the brick walls and the overhead streets. Each time a cold drop fell down my collar I started as if icy fingertips had touched my neck.

We had gone a good distance when Dupin said, “Look. Ahead.”

There was a pumpkin-colored glow from around a bend in the sewer, and we immediately tossed our twists into the water. Dupin produced the pistols from his bag and passed me one.

“I presume they are powder charged and loaded,” I said.

“Of course,” Dupin replied. “Did you think I might want to beat an ape to death with the grips?”

Thus armed, we continued onward toward the light.

There was a widening of the sewer, and there was in fact a great space made of brick that I presumed might be for workmen, or might even have been a forgotten portion of the sewer that had once been part of the upper streets of Paris. There were several lamps placed here and there, some hung on nails driven into the brick, others placed on the flooring, some on rickety tables and chairs. It was a makeshift laboratory, and had most likely been thrown together from the ruins of the warehouse explosion.

On a tilted board a nude woman… or man, or a little of both, was strapped. Its head was male, but the rest of its body was female, except for the feet, which were absurdly masculine. This body breathed in a labored manner, its head was thrown back, and a funnel was stuck down its throat. A hose rose out of the funnel and stretched to another makeshift platform nearby. There was a thin insect-like antenna attached to the middle of the hose, and it wiggled erratically at the air.

The other platform held a cadaverously thin and nude human with a head that looked shriveled, the hair appearing as if it were a handful of strings fastened there with paste. The arms and legs showed heavy scarring, and it was obvious that much sewing had been done to secure the limbs, much like the hurried repair of an old rag doll. The lifeless head was tilted back, and the opposite end of the hose was shoved into another wooden funnel that was jammed into the corpse’s mouth. One arm of the cadaver was short, the other long, while the legs varied in thickness. The lower half of the face was totally incongruous with the upper half. The features were sharp-boned and stood up beneath the flesh like rough furniture under a sheet. They were masculine, while the forehead and hairline, ragged as it was, had obviously been that of a woman, one recently dead and elderly was my conjecture.

The center of the corpse was blocked by the body of the ape, which was sewing hastily with a large needle and dark thread, fastening on an ankle and foot in the way you might lace up a shoe. It was so absurd, so grotesque, it was almost comic, like a grisly play at Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol. One thing was clear, the corpse being sewn together was soon to house the life force of the other living but obviously ill body. It had been cobbled together in the past in much the same way that the other was now being prepared.

Dupin pushed me gently into a darkened corner protected by a partial brick wall. We spoke in whispers.

“What are we waiting for?” I said.

“The borderland to be opened.”

Of course I knew to what he referred, but it seemed to me that waiting for it to be opened, if indeed that was to happen, was the height of folly. But it was Dupin, and now, arriving here, seeing what I was seeing, it all fit securely with the theory he had expounded; I decided to continue believing he knew of what he spoke. Dupin withdrew the Necronomicon from the bag and propped it against the wall.

“When I tell you,” he said, “light up a twist and hold it so that I might read.”

“From that loathsome book?” I gasped.

“It has the power to do evil, but also to restrain it.”

I nodded, took one of the twists from the bag and a few matches, and tucked them into my coat pocket. It was then I heard the chanting, and peeked carefully around the barrier.

The ape, or Dippel I suppose, held a copy of a book that looked to be a twin of the one Dupin held. It was open and propped on a makeshift pedestal of two stacked chairs. Dippel was reading from it by dim lamplight. It was disconcerting to hear those chants coming from the mouth of an ape, sounding human-like, yet touched with the vocalizations of an animal. Though it spoke the words quickly and carefully, it was clear to me that Dippel was more than casually familiar with them.

That was when the air above the quivering antenna opened in a swirl of light and dark floundering shapes. I can think of no other way to describe it. The opening widened. Tentacles whipped in and out of the gap. Blue-white lightning flashed from it and nearly struck the ape, but still he read. The corpse on the platform began to writhe and wiggle and the blue-white lightning leaped from the swirling mass and struck the corpse repeatedly and vibrated the antenna. The dead body glowed and heaved and tugged at its bonds, and then I saw its eyes flash wide. Across the way, the formerly living body had grown limp and gray as ash.

I looked at Dupin, who had come to my shoulder to observe what was happening.

“He is not bringing him back, as in the past,” Dupin said. “He is offering Grimm’s soul for sacrifice. After all this time, their partnership has ended. It is the beginning; the door has been opened a crack.”

My body felt chilled. The hair on my head, as on Dupin’s, stood up due to the electrical charge in the air. There was an obnoxious smell, reminiscent of the stink of decaying fish, rotting garbage, and foul disease.

“Yes, we have chosen the right moment,” Dupin said, looking at the growing gap that had appeared in mid-air. “Take both pistols, and light the twist.”

He handed me his weapon. I stuck both pistols in the waistband of my trousers, and lit the twist. Dupin took it from me, and stuck it in a gap in the bricks. He opened the Necronomicon to where he had marked it with a torn piece of paper, and began to read from it. The words poured from his mouth like living beings, taking on the form of dark shadows and lightning-bright color. His voice was loud and sonorous, as we were no longer attempting to conceal ourselves. I stepped out of the shadows and into the open. Dippel, alerted by Dupin’s reading, turned and glared at me with its dark, simian eyes.

It was hard for me to concentrate on anything. Hearing the words from the Necronomicon made my skin feel as if it were crawling up from my heels, across my legs and back, and slithering underneath my scalp. The swirling gap of blue-white lightning revealed lashing tentacles, a massive squid-like eye, then a beak. It was all I could do not to fall to my knees in dread, or bolt and run like an asylum escapee.

That said, I was given courage when I realized that whatever Dupin was doing was having some effect, for the gash in the air began to shimmer and wrinkle and blink like an eye. The ape howled at this development, for it had glanced back at the rip in the air, then turned again to look at me, twisting its face into what could almost pass as a dark knot. It dropped the book on the chair, and rushed for me. First it was upright, like a human, then it was on all fours, its knuckles pounding against the bricks. I drew my sword from the cane, held the cane itself in my left hand, the blade in my right, and awaited Dippel’s dynamic charge.

It bounded toward me. I thrust at it with my sword. The strike was good, hitting no bone, and went directly through the ape’s chest, but the beast’s momentum drove me backward. I lost the cane itself, and used both hands to hold the sword in place. I glanced at Dupin for help. None was forthcoming. He was reading from the book and utterly ignoring my plight.

Blue, white, red, and green fire danced around Dippel’s head and poured from its mouth. I was able to hold the monster back with the sword, for it was a good thrust, and had brought about a horrible wound, yet its long arms thrashed out and hit my jaw, nearly knocking me senseless. I struggled to maintain consciousness, pushed back the sword with both hands, coiled my legs, and kicked out at the ape. I managed to knock it off me, but only for a moment.

I sat up and drew both pistols. It was loping toward me, pounding its fists against the bricks as it barreled along on all fours, letting forth an indescribable and ear-shattering sound that was neither human nor animal. I let loose an involuntary yell, and fired both pistols. The shots rang out as one. The ape threw up its hands, wheeled about and staggered back toward the stacked chairs, the book. It grabbed at the book for support, pulled that and the chairs down on top of it. Its chest heaved as though pumped with a bellows.

And then the freshly animated thing on the platform spat out the funnel as if it were light as air. Spat it out and yelled. It was a sound that came all the way from the primeval; a savage cry of creation. The body on the platform squirmed and writhed and snapped its bonds. It slid from the board, staggered forward, looked in my direction. Both pistols had been fired; the sword was still in Dippel. I grabbed up the hollow cane that had housed the sword, to use as a weapon.

This thing, this patchwork creation I assumed was Grimm, its private parts wrapped in a kind of swaddling, took one step in my direction, the blue-white fire crackling in its eyes. Then the patchwork creature turned to see the blinking eye staring out of the open door to the borderlands.

Grimm yanked the chairs off Dippel, lifted the ape-body up as easily as if it had been a feather pillow. It spread its legs wide for position, cocked its arms, and flung the ape upward. The whirlpool from beyond sucked at Dippel, turning the old man in the old ape’s body into a streak of dark fur, dragging it upward. In that moment, Dippel was taken by those from beyond the borderland, pulled into their world like a hungry mouth taking in a tasty treat. Grimm, stumbling about on unfamiliar legs, grabbed the Necronomicon and tossed it at the wound in the air.

All this activity had not distracted Dupin from his reading. Still he chanted. There was a weak glow from behind the brick wall. I stumbled over there, putting a hand against the wall to hold myself up. When Dupin read the last passage with an oratory flourish, the air was sucked out of the room and out of my lungs. I gasped for breath, fell to the floor, momentarily unconscious. Within a heartbeat the air came back, and with it, that horrid rotting smell, then as instantly as it arrived, it was gone. The air smelled only of foul sewer, which, considering the stench of what had gone before, was in that moment as pleasant and welcome as a young Parisian lady’s perfume.

There was a flare of a match as Dupin rose from the floor where he, like me, had fallen. He lit a twist from the bag and held it up. There was little that we could see. Pulling the sword from his cane, he trudged forward with the light, and I followed. In its illumination we saw Grimm. Or what was left of him. The creatures of the borderlands had not only taken Dippel and his Necronomicon, they had ripped Grimm into a dozen pieces and plastered him across the ceiling and along the wall like an exploded dumpling.

“Dippel failed,” Dupin said. “And Grimm finished him off. And The Old Ones took him before they were forced to retreat.”

“At least one of those terrible books has been destroyed,” I said.

“I think we should make it two.”

We broke up the chairs and used the greasy twists of paper we still had, along with the bag itself, and started a fire. The chair wood was old and rotten and caught fast, crackling and snapping as it burned. On top of this Dupin placed the remaining copy of the Necronomicon. The book was slow to catch, but when it did the cover blew open and the pages flared. The eye hole in the cover filled with a gold pupil, a long black slit for an iris. It blinked once, then the fire claimed it. The pages flapped like a bird, lifted upward with a howling noise, before collapsing into a burst of black ash.

Standing there, we watched as the ash dissolved into the bricks like black snow on a warm window pane.

I took a deep breath. “No regrets about the book?”

“Not after glimpsing what lay beyond,” Dupin said. “I understand Dippel’s curiosity, but though mine is considerable, it is not that strong.”

“I don’t even know what I saw,” I said, “but whatever it was, whatever world The Old Ones live in, I could sense in that void every kind of evil I have ever known or suspected, and then some. I know you don’t believe in fate, Dupin, but it’s as if we were placed here to stop Dippel, to be present when Grimm had had enough of Dippel’s plans.”

“Nonsense,” Dupin said. “Coincidence. As I said before. More common than you think. And had I not been acquainted with that horrid book, and Dippel’s writings, we would have gone to bed to awake to a world we could not understand, and one in which we would not long survive. I should add that this is one adventure of ours that you might want to call fiction, and confine it to a magazine of melodrama; if you should write of it at all.”

We went along the brick pathway then, with one last lit paper twist we had saved for light. It burned out before we made it back, but we were able to find our way by keeping in touch with the wall, finally arriving where moonlight spilled through the grating we had replaced upon entering the sewer. When we were on the street, the world looked strange, as if bathed in a bloody light, and that gave me pause. Looking up, we saw that a scarlet cloud was flowing in front of the sinking moon. The cloud was thick, and for a moment it covered the face of the moon completely. Then the cloud passed and faded and the sky was clear and tinted silver with the common light of stars and moon.

I looked at Dupin.

“It’s quite all right,” he said. “A last remnant of the borderland. Its calling card has been taken away.”

“You’re sure?”

“As sure as I can be,” he said.

With that, we strolled homeward, the moon and the stars falling down behind the city of Paris. As we went, the sun rose, bloomed red, but a different kind of red to the cloud that had covered the moon; warm and inspiring, a bright badge of normalcy, that from here on out I knew was a lie.