The Ash Murders. Edmund Glasby
that was unfolding. His eyes were drawn again to the bizarre being that had opened the front door before vanishing. The man—if indeed it were such—had a pale golden-blue colour to his flesh, which glistened and scintillated as though it had been sprinkled with a strange, exotic confetti. The being’s head was disproportionately large in relation to its tall, thin body, like that of a hydrocephalic, and the eyes were a peculiar violet colour. The face—grim and unsmiling. What clothing it wore was similarly peculiar, unlike anything he had ever seen before, alien almost.
“There’s little time for an explanation, Inspector. Stay within the circle.”
Looking to the floor, Dryer saw that the four of them were all stood within a large circle that had been drawn with a range of coloured chalks. There were curious, cabbalistic symbols that ran in a ring around the circumference, all of which meant absolutely nothing to him whatsoever, although he suspected they must have been linked to some form of Black Magic. What other explanation was there for this unholy experience? He was about to say something when the door swung open.
In the doorway stood a dark-suited, bald, fat man, his fleshy, heavily-jowled face awash with sweat and pure malice. There was a something in his piggy, narrow-set eyes that gave them a strong hint of unconstrained anger and malice as though he bore a deep-rooted hatred of all bar himself.
Smith took a forward step, still remaining well within the circle. “Klaus Weidenreich. I should have known.”
“Augustus, my old friend.” Weidenreich’s voice was slick and oily and undoubtedly German. His eyes were dark and dangerous, like tar pits into which the unwary could become stuck; drown in their terrible depths. “You know why I’m here, Smith. There are only two of my Lord Pazuzu’s tokens remaining. You have one...and Doctor Harris,” he nodded to the fair-haired man, “has the other.”
Dryer was finding it hard to retain a grip on himself in the face of this insanity. Things were happening which he had never, even in his wildest nightmares, considered possible. With some level of mental resignation, he knew that all of his hard-nosed police training and experience was of little use in a situation such as this. He had no authority here—a realisation that only increased the fear and the mind-numbing terror which now ran virtually unchecked through the very core of his being. Tough talking and the threat of a jail sentence was of no use here. Admittedly, a gun may have been useful, but somehow he even doubted that.
Weidenreich looked down with a derisive sneer at the drawn circle. “How long do you think your pathetic protection will keep you safe? An hour, maybe two? And as for your djinn...well we both know it will be no match against the efreeti. As to your third ‘friend’, with him I have no grievance.” He stared directly at Dryer. “So he may leave—” Raising his right hand, he made a beckoning motion with it.
Instantly, Dryer felt much of the stiffness leave his body. And yet the sensation he experienced was as though he was no longer in control of his own muscles. His legs began walking of their own volition, and he was just about to cross over the circle when Smith cried out something in a language he had never heard before and he was brought to a complete standstill. A second later, he snapped out of the strange trance he had been put under and a firm resolution, hard as steel, returned to his mind. Under different circumstances, this would have been the time to strike back at the other, verbally if not physically. This, however, was not the time or the situation. Since stepping into this strange house and becoming embroiled in all of this devilry and occult malignancy, all vestiges of his sane, rational thought processes had dissipated, evaporated almost to the point of nothingness. All of his life he had prized himself on his no-nonsense approach to life, managing to maintain his mental well-being and outlook.
Weidenreich’s look of disappointment at not having charmed Dryer into stepping outside the circle suddenly changed to one of surprise as Harris pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket. Next came the loud report as a bullet was fired, followed in rapid succession by five others. All but one hit their target and the room darkened as the bald-headed German sorcerer was sent flying, blood streaming from five bullet wounds.
Dryer’s first reaction was one of shock. He was a Detective Inspector and someone had committed murder in the first degree right in front of his very eyes. However, the spectacle was made worse when, emitting a horrible, mocking laugh, Weidenreich began to get to his feet.
That dark wave of disbelief and horror surged at Dryer like a black tide once more. One bullet, certainly fired from that range and with that accuracy should have been enough to kill, but how on earth could someone survive getting hit by five? His mind was screaming silently as he noticed that two of the shots had left terrible gaping, bloody holes in Weidenreich’s head. And yet, even now those wounds were closing, shrinking until they vanished completely. There was no longer any sign of blood. It was as though he had never been shot at all!
“He’s the efreeti!” Smith shouted. “It must have possessed him and taken his body. Devoured his very soul.”
The thing that had gone by the name of Klaus Weidenreich gave an unspeakably fiendish grin, baring a mouthful of jagged, shark-like teeth. Howling its fury, it then began to transform further, tearing its way out of the corpulent body with the razor sharp talons that had sprouted on the end of its fingers. Long, elastic strands of flesh stretched and snapped like lengths of rubber as a hideous entity began to reveal itself in its true, abominable form.
Dryer’s nerve faltered and his mouth trembled as he tried to scream, to give some expression to the revulsion and the terror that threatened to rend him asunder as assuredly as the thing that now snarled before them intended on doing. Harris stumbled to his knees and covered his eyes, his ineffectual revolver falling from his quaking grasp. Smith too seemed to recoil, raising his arm in order to remove the talisman—The Seal of Solomon—that hung around his neck. The efreeti was a nightmare born of evil and chaos; a fire-loving, demonic elemental being whose sole purpose was to kill those who opposed it. Naked, its appearance was vaguely humanoid, its skin blacker than coal. Its face was angular, composed largely of that wide, fang-filled maw and a pair of hellish, black eyes in which tiny flames burnt and danced. Two short, bent horns sprouted from its head. In one hand it gripped a devilish weapon that looked like a set of huge, viciously-sharp garden shears fashioned from a strange, rune-adorned metal. With a dreadful singleness of purpose, it lifted this instrument of death, took it in both hands and brought both of the blades together, snapping it shut. It opened again, grinned maliciously, and cut through the air once more. Threateningly, it then drew a finger across its throat and pointed at those in the circle, signally its fiendish intent—to decapitate them all.
“Can you do anything?” Dryer begged Smith. “We can’t wait in the circle forever.”
“Yes, but first—” Smith raised his amulet and muttered something in an arcane tongue. His next words seemed to come not from his mouth but from somewhere else: “I’ve now rendered the circle silent so that the efreeti can no longer hear us. There’s no point in us devising a plan if it can listen in, now is there?” He helped Harris to his feet.
Dryer hesitated, unsure of how to respond.
“Feel free to speak now, Inspector.” Smith’s lips seemed to be moving, but Dryer was convinced that no sound was coming from them.
As though in response to this new subterfuge on the part of those within the protective circle, the efreeti vanished, became invisible.
“Fear not. My djinn can see it even if it thinks otherwise. It will alert me to its movements. However, our situation remains very precarious. The efreeti has several options, whereas we have very few. The circle will not hold indefinitely, so it is only too well aware that we are under siege. The Seal of Solomon will keep me safe, however; please be assured I will not abandon you and Doctor Harris. I am truly sorry that you find yourself in this situation, Inspector. A case of very unfortunate timing on your part, I’m afraid to say. You see you arrived at just the moment when I performed the incantation of summoning.”
“You...you mean to say you summoned that thing?”
“Yes. Both Doctor Harris and myself came to the decision that we were no longer prepared to be the prey, forever hunted