The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

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Sir Richard Francis Burton stood at a window in the smoking room, facing the black night. Clouds had concealed the moon, and the darkness made the glass reflective. In it, he saw Sir Richard Francis Burton glaring back at him, vague and ghostlike but for the eyes, which burned with an accusatory fire.

He’d left the family upstairs, gathered around Isabel. The screams and wails of her mother, heard throughout the house for the past two hours, had finally dwindled to an occasional cry of despair, but they still echoed loudly in the explorer’s mind. Probably, they always would.

He stared at his translucent other.

A different me in a different world, where Isabel might still be alive.

But you are in this one, where she is not.

And it is my fault.

His fault.

Perdurabo had been unequivocal: I intend to break your spirit and drive you to your knees. The statement, made via a medium, had felt as intangible to Burton as every other aspect of the affair—mysterious abductions; his supposed presence at The Assassination; the Mad Marquess’s vision; the bifurcation of Time; Abdu El Yezdi. All of it was fantastical, and he’d approached it just as he’d approached Africa, as an observer of the unfathomable, a man willing to explore and investigate but who employed a shield of sullenness and cynicism to create an emotional distance, for exploration and anthropology demand a surveyor and the surveyed, and never the twain shall meet, else scientific credibility is lost. Burton felt comfortable with such a conceptual separation. Too comfortable. He had applied it to every aspect of his life.

Except Isabel.

Only she had seen past his caustically sardonic front. Only she had realised that his detachment was born not from analytical necessity but from resentment, the resentment born of uncertainty, and his uncertainty born of an upbringing that had ill-prepared him for the complex protocols of British society.

She had saved him.

She had anchored him in reality.

And now she was dead, and this reality was just one of many.

More than one world.

More than one Isabel.

He looked at his nebulous reflection and whispered, “I shall find you. Somehow, I shall find you.”

Was he addressing her? Or himself? He didn’t know.

In the glass, he saw the door open behind him. An ill-defined memory squirmed uncomfortably, causing him to whip around and raise his hands defensively, but rather than Laurence Oliphant, it was Levi, Swinburne, and Monckton Milnes who stepped into the room.

“Mon Dieu!” Levi announced. “These Sisters of the Noble Benevolence, they fill me with wonder. Perdurabo, he feed much on the volonté of Mademoiselle Raghavendra, but still a small flame of life remain, and it grow more strong très rapidement. She is not strigoi morti.” He pulled the calabash from his pocket and stuffed tobacco into it. “Doctor Bird, he rub brandy on her lips, gums, and inner wrists, and she wake a little and say she must go into deep sleep now, to recover. She is cold and her pulse very slow, but I think she know what to do to make herself better.”

The Frenchman moved over to the fireplace, leaned against the mantel, and lit his pipe. He drew on it and exhaled a thick, billowing cloud, through which he peered at Burton. “The night has been long, Sir Richard, but when the daylight come—” He glanced back at a clock by his shoulder. It was half-past five in the morning. “Then we must hunt again for the nosferatu.”

Swinburne threw out his hands. “Where? Where? We’ve already searched high and low.”

“The ravens,” Burton said. His voice was flat and emotionless.

“Ah, oui!” Levi exclaimed. He addressed Swinburne and Monckton Milnes. “Sir Richard suggest they gather around John Judge to be near Perdurabo, who inhabit the body but is not secure within it. I think he is correct.”

“The old castle, then?” Monckton Milnes said. He looked at Burton. “But you’ve been there twice.”

Swinburne nodded. “We explored every part of it.”

“And obviously missed something,” Burton said.

Levi loosed another plume of smoke into the room. “So. At midday, when the Beast is the most weak, we go there.”

“And if we find him, we shoot him?” Monckton Milnes asked.

“Non. To destroy a nosferatu, there are méthodes spécifiques, but I will not talk of them now, for they are not pleasant, and we must sleep for an hour or two, if we can, non? Best not to have the nightmares, I think.”

“It strikes me that we’re already caught up in one,” Monckton Milnes responded. “But, yes, you’re right. I’m all done in.” He pushed himself to his feet and crossed to Burton, taking him by the elbow. “Come on, old man. I’ll see you to your room. If you can’t sleep, you can at least rest a while.”

Mutely, Burton allowed himself to be guided out of the room, up the stairs, and into his bedchamber, where he sagged down onto the mattress and looked up at his friend. He whispered, “I have nothing now. Nothing.”

“You have a purpose, Richard.”

“A purpose?”

“Revenge.”

With that, Monckton Milnes departed.

Burton lay back. He could hear Bram Stoker snoring next door. Something he’d once read—a sentence attributed to Elizabeth I—popped into his head. He spoke the words softly. “A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing.”

The explorer put his hands over his eyes and clamped his teeth together. As he battled to suppress his grief, a different emotion welled up and took him by surprise. He dragged his hands down over his face and bunched his fingers into fists over his mouth.

He was scared.

Uncle Renfric—having lost his parents to cholera, a brother to consumption, and three children to typhus—was no stranger to death. He took charge. Traditions were observed. Curtains were drawn and candles lit. Clocks were stopped and mirrors covered with black cloth. Flowers and crucifixes were distributed throughout the mansion.

Burton had slept fitfully for three hours. When he awoke, the day was gloomy and it was once again pouring with rain.

Bram, sensing that something was wrong, performed his duties efficiently and silently.

“There’s been a death in the house,” Burton explained. “I expect the servants will be glad of a helping hand today. They’ll have to remove the decorations from the ballroom, for a start. Go and have something to eat, then do what you can to assist them.”

“Right ye are, Cap’n.”

The explorer joined his friends and the Birds and Beetons for breakfast. None of the Arundells was present at the table.

“We thought we might make a quiet withdrawal,” Isabella Beeton told them, “but Mr. Arundell has insisted that we stay for the—the—”

“Funeral,” her husband supplied. “Sunday. Today and tomorrow, the family will stand vigil. On Sunday morning, there’ll be a Requiem Mass in the chapel. In the early afternoon, Isabel will be laid to rest in the family mausoleum.”

“Where is that?” George Bird asked.

“It adjoins the chapel, Doctor.”

“Catholic rituals baffle me,” Swinburne said. “I fear I may accidentally do or say something that offends.”

“Just stay out of the way,” Monckton Milnes advised. “And it might be wise to avoid alcohol.”

“My hat! Whatever are you suggesting?”

“I haven’t known you for long, Algernon, but, if you’ll forgive my impertinence, the hard stuff appears to accentuate your artistic sensibilities to such a degree that you become somewhat incomprehensible to the average man.”

The poet raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

After they’d finished breakfast, Burton and his companions headed toward the library, there to plan their move against Perdurabo. In the hallway, Henry Arundell hailed the explorer, calling him over to meet two newcomers.

“Richard, may I introduce you to Father Quilty, our chaplain, and Mr. Jolly, the county coroner. Gentlemen, this is Sir Richard Burton, my daughter’s intended.” Arundell’s voice was tremulous, his face ashen.

“My sincere sympathies, Sir Richard,” the priest said. He was a rotund little man whose cheeks wobbled when he spoke. “Please be assured, the Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Burton heard the words as if from a great distance. He nodded distractedly and turned to the coroner.

“I apologise for my surname,” Jolly said. He was an extremely tall and stooped man with a large hooked nose and a peculiar knob of hair on his chin. “It’s entirely unsuited to my profession. I’ll answer to Christopher, if you prefer.”

“It’s quite all right, Mr. Jolly,” Burton said. “You’ve been informed there were two deaths here last night?”

“Yes, sir, I have.”

“Will you look at this, please?” Burton produced the card that bore his authority and handed it over. The coroner took it, examined it, and handed it back, saying, “Am I to assume this is a police matter, then?”

“Yes. Doctor John Steinhaueser’s neck was broken by an escaped fugitive.”

“And Miss Isabel, sir?”

“I will leave you to assess the cause of her—of her—” Burton’s mouth worked silently for a moment before he finished huskily, “of her demise.”

“Then I shall examine her immediately.”

Arundell waved Nettles over and instructed the butler to escort the two men first to Steinhaueser’s room—to which Burton and his friends had taken the body last night—then to Isabel’s. When they’d gone, he held Burton by the arm and accompanied him into the library, where Swinburne, Monckton Milnes, and Levi were waiting. He said, “I have no idea what bedevils this house, and the fact that none of you has properly explained leads me to conclude that you aren’t in a position to do so—”

Burton made to speak but Arundell cut him short with a raised palm.

“No. Say nothing. I confess I have had my doubts about your character, Richard—and, to be frank, you are unlikely ever to win my wife’s approval—but I don’t for one moment believe you would allow my daughter’s death to remain a mystery to me were you not under some obligation. I will therefore fall in with whatever explanation Mr. Jolly presents. However, I request—no, I demand—one thing of you.”

“Sir?”

“If you plan to act against the fugitive—the man you say infected Isabel with a parasite, though I do not for one moment give credence to that statement—then I must be involved.”

Eliphas Levi interrupted, “Monsieur, we intend to act this very morning, but what we must do, it is très désagréable, and it go badly against your faith. It is better that you do not see.”

“I insist.”

Burton said, “We believe the man is hiding out in the old castle. We plan to confront him at noon.”

“Noon? Why noon? Why not now?”

“It must be at noon, or near enough. I cannot reveal why.”

Henry Arundell stared searchingly at the explorer. His brows furrowed, then he shrugged. “No matter. I shall pry no further. But I will come to the castle with you.”

“Very well.”

“Shall I send for police assistance?”

“No, sir. The police should not witness our actions.”

“Which will be?”

“An execution.”

“Great heavens, man! You can’t take the law into your own hands!”

“I have the king’s authority to do so.”

Henry Arundell took a deep breath and muttered, “This is an ungodly business.”

“Yes,” Burton replied. “That’s exactly what it is.”

An hour later, they moved to the smoking room where they were joined by Quilty, Jolly, and Uncle Renfric. The coroner reported that Isabel had died of heart failure. “The undertaker will visit later this morning to make arrangements,” he said. “He’s a good man. Miss Arundell will receive a first-class interment.”

Renfric added, “Until then, she’ll lie in our chapel. Henry, my boy, send those mechanical footmen of yours to my study. I’ll have them compose the cancellation letters.”

“Cancellation?” Arundell muttered. “Why, yes, of course. The party.”

“What of John Steinhaueser?” Burton asked.

Jolly answered, “As you said, Sir Richard, he was murdered, his neck broken. Should I arrange for him to be reunited with his family?”

“He has none.”

“Where, then, should he be laid to rest?”

“I don’t think he had a preference, sir.”

Quilty said, “May I suggest a small ceremony and burial at Saint John’s in Tisbury? Perhaps—late on Sunday afternoon?”

Burial. Styggins, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

“Very well. Thank you. Can I rely on you to organise it?”

“Of course.”

Uncle Renfric gave a grunt of satisfaction and ushered the priest and coroner away.

Henry Arundell said, “It’s a quarter-past ten.”

Eliphas Levi interlaced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “Oui, we must begin. First, we visit your groundsman.”

“Tom Honesty? Why so?”

“Pour faire des préparations, monsieur. To make the preparations.”

Forty minutes later, outside the groundsman’s lodge, the five men stepped down from the Arundell’s steam landau, each dressed in heavy boots and overcoats, each with an umbrella in hand. The rain was falling with violence. It needled against them, battering their brollies, hissing on the ground with such intensity they had to raise their voices to be heard.

Before they could knock on the lodge’s door, a slim and pretty woman opened it.

“Mr. Arundell?” she said. “This is a surprise! Do you want to see Tom? Please, come in out of the rain. What dreadful weather!”

“Hello, Mrs. Honesty,” Henry Arundell said. “I apologise that we’ve descended upon you in such numbers.”

“Not at all, sir. Come in, all of you, come in.”

The men closed their umbrellas, left them leaning against the door-jamb, and squeezed into the lodge’s narrow, tastefully decorated entrance hall. As they did so, Tom Honesty emerged from a room at the far end, his shirtsleeves rolled impeccably up to his elbows.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Not really,” Swinburne muttered.

“Wet. Nasty day. Something the matter?”

“We require your assistance, Tom,” Arundell said.

“Certainly. In what respect?”

Arundell looked at Eliphas Levi, who said, “You have dry logs, Monsieur Honesty? For the fire?”

“Yes, but I delivered a barrow-load to the house yesterday. You’ve not run out already?”

“Non, non. It is not for firewood. We need you to cut two stakes for us.”

“Stakes?”

“Oui. About two feet long and three inches thick with one end pointed and sharp.”

“May I ask—?”

“It is better if you do not. Also, we require—how are the words?—un maillet lourd.”

“A heavy mallet,” Burton said.

“Oui. And an axe.”

A puzzled expression crossed the groundsman’s face. “Very well. Parlour. Fire. Dry yourselves. I shan’t be long.”

Honesty worked quickly and efficiently, completing his task in less than ten minutes. He rejoined them and handed the stakes and mallet to Levi, and the axe to Monckton Milnes.

“Tom,” Arundell said, “have you been to the old castle recently?”

“Checked it after last week’s storm. Not since.”

“We suspect a dangerous fugitive is hiding out in it. Might he be in the priest hole? Is it still accessible?”

“Priest hole!” Swinburne exclaimed. “My hat! We saw no such thing when we searched the place.”

“Many of the old Catholic homes and castles have a hidden priest hole, Mr. Swinburne,” Arundell said. “It would defeat the point of them if they were easily detected.”

“Where is it?” Burton asked.

“Beneath one of the vaults. There are two removable stone steps concealing the entrance, though for the life of me I can never remember which they are.”

“I’ll come with you. Show you,” Honesty said.

Burton opened his mouth to say no but suddenly felt an unaccountable trust in the groundsman, and before he even realised it, nodded his agreement.

“To the castle, then,” Arundell said.

They waited for Honesty to change into waterproofs then ventured back out into the downpour and into the landau. The groundsman climbed up to the driver’s box and sat next to Burton.

The rain made conversation impossible, crashing down like an Indian monsoon, obscuring the path ahead and causing the vehicle to skid across the waterlogged gravel. Burton grappled with the tiller, which shuddered and jerked in his hands, and was thankful when Honesty reached across and took a hold of it, too, adding his own strength to the explorer’s. Between them, they managed to navigate along the same path that Burton and Swinburne had twice traversed, passing over the bridge, alongside the woods, through Ark Farm, and up the mound to the ruins.

The men disembarked—each carrying a clockwork lantern—and squinted through the torrent at the grey, jagged walls, the tops of which were still black with ravens, all hunched together and motionless. Henry Arundell led them into the short entrance passage, where they stopped to shelter for a few minutes.

“Oof!” Levi exclaimed. “The reputation of your English weather is most deserve, I think!”

As if to underline his assertion, there came a sudden flash and a deafening detonation. The thunderclap echoed through the atmosphere and was immediately followed by another, sounding as if the air itself was being torn apart.

“Le Diable, he know what we intend,” Levi muttered. “But we must do what we must do. Monsieur Honesty, you will lead us to the priest hole?”

“Yes, sir. This way.”

He led them out into the hexagonal courtyard. They splashed across to an arched doorway and into the room beyond, a large square chamber with two small windows at its far end. A dark opening—a door made irregular by the collapse of its lintel—gave access to downward-leading steps. Swinburne wound his lantern and handed it to Honesty, who, holding it before him, descended.

Burton knew the castle’s beetle-infested wine vaults lay below, and even though he’d already visited them, his horror of darkness and enclosed spaces caused him to hesitate at the top of the steps.

Lightning flickered and thunder shook the castle to its foundations.

“All right, old thing?” Monckton Milnes asked quietly.

The explorer gave a brusque nod. He moved forward, brushing spiderwebs out of the way.

At the bottom of the stairs, Levi said to the others, “Perdurabo, he feel our presence but he have no power over the body of John Judge in daytime. To us, the man will appear to be in deep sleep, but inside him, it is all strain and fighting. If we kill Perdurabo but not John Judge, Monsieur Judge will become nosferatu. If we kill Judge but not Perdurabo, our enemy will flee into another. So we must kill both at once. My directions, you must follow them exactly, or all is lost.” The occultist turned to Henry Arundell. “It is best that you remain here. This thing we do, it offend the Catholic faith.”

“But are you not yourself a Catholic, Mr. Levi?” Arundell objected.

“It is so, but this, it is like the exorcism. Rome is aware of the procedure, but it not like to acknowledge that it exist and sometime is necessary.”

“The man killed my daughter, sir. I’ll not be excluded.”

“Bien. And you, Mr. Honesty—show us the steps, s’il vous plait, then return to the carriage and wait for us.”

Honesty turned back the way they’d come and started up the stone stairs. After he’d climbed seven of them, he faced the group, squatted, and pointed at the last two steps he’d passed. “These. I’ll need help to lift them.”

Burton moved to assist. A gutter, about two inches wide and six deep, ran to either side of the stairs. Honesty slid his fingers into it and jerked his chin toward the opposite side. “If you feel, sir. Concealed handhold.” Burton did as directed, curling his digits into a cavity he detected in the stone. The groundsman said, “One, two, three, lift.” They pulled, Burton’s arm gave a stab of pain, and the two steps came free. Thunder boomed outside.

The two men placed the heavy stone trapdoor on the lower steps and looked into the dark and narrow tunnel they’d exposed. Four feet wide and four high, it sloped downward into blackness. Burton felt himself trembling.

“Thank you, Mr. Honesty,” he said huskily. “Leave us, please.”

Honesty looked from one man to the other, shifted indecisively, then turned and departed.

Burton gritted his teeth, glanced back at his companions, then dropped to his knees, picked up his lantern, and, holding it out before him, crawled into the tight passageway. He immediately saw that it opened into a larger space about fifteen feet ahead. He shuffled forward, his heart thumping, and the others followed.

When he emerged and stood up, he found himself in a surprisingly large chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Its walls were chalked all over with sigils, their contorted shapes suggestive of forbidden knowledge and banished gods, and in an arched recess in the far wall, a big stone crucifix had been desecrated with an obscene diagram. At the foot of the cross, in the middle of a roughly drawn pentagram, John Judge lay stretched out on an altar. Burton walked over and looked down at the man. Shadows danced and slid across the figure as the others entered the room, their lanterns swinging. The light made the sigils appear to writhe restlessly.

“My hat!” Swinburne whispered.

“Blasphemy!” Arundell gasped.

“Won’t our presence here wake him?” Monckton Milnes asked, gesturing at the prone figure.

Levi said, “Non. Observez!” And, leaning over Judge, slapped his face. Instinctively, the others took a hurried pace backward, but their caution was unwarranted; the big Irishman didn’t respond to the stimulus at all.

“Now we begin,” Levi said. He pulled a garlic bulb from his pocket, put it on the altar, and crushed it with the head of the mallet. Scraping up the juicy, piquant vegetable matter, he smeared it liberally around Judge’s nostrils and lips.

“What are you doing?” Henry Arundell asked.

“I make him uncomfortable.”

“Is that wise?”

“C’est nécessaire. See!”

Levi swung his lantern over Judge’s face. The man’s eyes had started to move agitatedly beneath the closed lids. He groaned and his fingers twitched.

“The volonté of John Judge is disturbed by the odeur terrible, by the bad stink. It struggle, and Perdurabo must battle to stay in control. See! It get very difficult!”

Judge’s limbs were now shaking and jerking as if gripped by an epileptic fit.

“The two who inhabit this body,” the Frenchman said, “they are now entrelacé—intertwined—and so die both at once when we do what we must do.”

Burton drew a pistol from his waistband and aimed it at Judge’s head. Levi reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Non! Non, Sir Richard! That is not the way!”

“Why not?” Burton growled. “A bullet in his damned brain will do for him, surely!”

“It is the volonté that must be first immobilisé and then destroyed. The volonté occupy not just the head but the whole body. The méthode appropriée, it is spécifique. There is much wisdom in tradition, even if we do not fully comprehend.”

Burton slipped his gun into his pocket. “All right. Let’s get on with it. Show me what to do.”

“We do it together.”

Levi took hold of John Judge’s shirt and ripped it open, exposing the man’s chest. He pulled one of the stakes from his jacket and held it with its point touching the sailor’s skin, directly over the heart.

“Take the mallet,” he said.

“You can’t mean to—?” Henry Arundell blurted.

“Leave!” Levi snapped. “Go! Do not be witness to this!”

Arundell stayed put.

“Monsieur,” Levi said to Burton. “One stroke. Very hard.”

The explorer hefted the mallet. He looked from one man to the other, then swung the tool up and, putting every ounce of his weight behind it, swept it down.

In mid-swing, everything happened at once.

A deafening crash of thunder reverberated through the castle.

John Judge’s head rolled sideways.

His eyes opened and flicked from total black to white with a blue iris. They looked past the men to the priest hole’s entrance.

The mallet impacted against the stake, driving it straight through Judge’s body.

A piercing scream rent the air, merging with the echoing thunderclap.

Judge bucked. He coughed a fountain of blood.

Burton and his companions, momentarily confused, suddenly realised the scream had come not from Judge, but from behind them. They swivelled around and saw Thomas Honesty standing at the mouth of the passage. His eyes were wide, his face filled with horror. He screamed again, turned, and plunged into the tunnel.

“Imbécile!” Levi cursed. “He too curious!”

John Judge gave a final twitch and went limp. Blood dribbled down the sides of the altar. Henry Arundell gazed at it, aghast.

The Frenchman extended his arm toward Monckton Milnes. “The axe. Immédiatement!”

Monckton Milnes blinked, as if coming out of a daze, and handed it over.

Without hesitation or explanation, Levi raised it and sliced it down onto Judge’s neck. Three times he chopped, and on the third, the corpse’s head came away and rolled to the floor, making a horrible knock as it impacted against the stone.

“Holy mother of Christ!” Arundell moaned. “God forgive us! God forgive us!”

“We eradicate the unholy, Monsieur Arundell,” Levi said. “It is barbaric and horrible, but it is the Lord’s work. Now we must take the remains upstairs and burn them.”

Arundell and Monckton Milnes crossed to the upward-sloping passage and crawled out through it. Swinburne followed, carrying the severed head. Burton and the occultist, with great difficulty, then manoeuvred the corpse through the crawlspace.

After they’d replaced the removable steps and ascended to the square room, they put the dead man in the middle of its floor. Levi took the clockwork lanterns, broke each one open, and poured the oil from them onto the body. He struck a lucifer, threw it, and stepped back as the remains of John Judge ignited. “We not leave until it is nothing but ash,” he said. “But we wait in another room, non? The air will be very bad in here.”

The courtyard was half-flooded, the rain bucketing down, lighting and thunder still crashing overhead. They ran across to a doorway on its opposite side and into a high-ceilinged hall. It was dusty but dry, and they sank onto its floor and leaned against its walls and tried to process what they had just done.

Arundell buried his face in his hands. “Was I just party to murder?”

Levi answered, “Non, monsieur. It is difficult to understand, but John Judge was already dead. En fait, he was worse than dead. We have saved his immortal soul.”

“I shall never make sense of this.” Arundell looked pleadingly at Burton. “Please, Richard, I have come to regard you as family—tell me we have done the right thing.”

“We have,” Burton responded. “That creature—for he wasn’t a man—took my fiancée from me. Deprived you of your daughter. Others would have died at his hands.”

“Non!” Levi exclaimed. He banged his fist against the floor. “Not die! Not die! This is the horreur vraie—the true horror—of it. His victims do not properly die. They become un-dead—strigoi morti! They must each be disposed of as we have today disposed of Perdurabo—at very least, burned to nothing. If they are not, their terrible condition, it will spread like the plague. That is why I ask for two stakes.”

It took some seconds for his meaning to register.

“God, no,” Arundell moaned. “Surely you don’t mean to say—you aren’t suggesting—you can’t—”

All of a sudden, Burton couldn’t breathe. He grabbed his throat with one hand and clutched at the air with the other. “Bismillah!” he choked. “Please! Not that! Anything—anything—but that!”

Levi shook his head sadly. “Je suis désolé, but it must be done. We have set John Judge free. Now we must do the same for Mademoiselle Isabel.”