Silbury Street was quiet and respectable, if slightly poor. It was a street of old inns and shops, run by people in threadbare but tidy clothing. Between the bakery and one of the inns was Saint Isolde’s Chapel, a redbrick edifice with an expansive graveyard behind it.
On a warm summer evening, as dusk reddened the sky, a new figure appeared on Silbury. It was a young man whose name was Alasdair, and he was neither poor nor respectable. He wore a dark blue suit with gleaming metal buttons, and a pair of polished black boots. His strides were long and quick, and his stubbly face wore a frown. The most striking part of his appearance was the large bundle of stained beige cloth that he carried over his shoulder.
Alasdair reached Saint Isolde’s and stood in front of it for a moment, hesitating. He glanced at his bundle, and seemed to make up his mind. He walked past the church, and entered the graveyard.
He went to one of the larger headstones, and lowered the bundle to the ground in front of it. The bundle was still for a moment, but after a gentle prod from his boot, it stirred. With a soft sigh, it unfolded a little, and part of the cloth shifted to reveal the back of an auburn-haired head. It stopped moving again.
“Go on,” said Alasdair. He stood in front of it, his arms folded impassively.
It shuddered, pushed itself upright, and slumped back against the headstone. With some of the cloth out of the way, the face of the thing could be seen. It was a caricature of a pretty girl: enormous, dark eyes with weighty lashes, near-white skin except for its pink cheeks, and a nose, chin, and mouth that were unnaturally small. A streak of blood ran along the side of its head and disappeared under its hair, but the stains over the cloth now had an explanation.
“What are you, may I ask?” said Alasdair.
The thing was silent. Its eyelids began to fall laboriously, but a jab from Alasdair’s boot sent them up again.
It opened its mouth and hissed.
Alasdair raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t catch that.”
The thing only stared.
“If you’d rather I took you back to be butchered by Ajax, do tell.”
Somewhere in its bizarre eyes, panic stirred. It hissed again, and a feeble hand pushed out from under the cloth and grasped at Alasdair’s shin.
He sighed, and pulled out his pocket watch. It had been nearly an hour since he snatched this being from the mansion of Ajax Gilroy, the head of a rival family. It had been mostly out of the usual practice of seizing every chance to inconvenience the Gilroys. An open window into their private laboratory was an opportunity not to be missed. And it had been partially out of an interest in how much a circus or freak show would pay to have the grotesque beauty.
Alasdair shook its hand off his leg, and took a step back.
“What happened to you?” he thought.
He felt a strange, faint murmur rising and falling in his mind. But it became more articulate, as if many voices were speaking just out of earshot. And then, he could make out the words.
“Have pity on us, dear stranger! Grieve for us helpless souls you have never seen--”
“Quiet,” said a distinctly sonorous voice that rose above the others. “Quiet!”
After the murmurs had subsided, it continued.
“My apologies. Those were my victims.”
Alasdair felt a surge of apprehension.
“Evil spirits. I am a gargoyle. I eat them.”
Alasdair blinked. It certainly did not look like the statues of gargoyles he’d seen before.
“They poison my blood. They can’t hurt me. But they’d kill anyone who tasted it.”
Alasdair found himself staring at the wound on the side of its head.
“It’s delicious, though. Wherein lies the reason I was captured. Those people want the most delicious of poisons.”
The gargoyle closed its eyes, and its tiny mouth curved into a smile.
The sound of a singing choir wafted from the chapel. The voices whirled over each other, spiraling higher and higher in search of an elusive something.
Alasdair mulled over what he should do with the thing.
“Kill the gargoyle! Pity us! “ said the murmurs.
“They will all get out if I died,” said the deep voice.
Before Alasdair could respond, he heard the sound of unhurried footsteps behind him. He turned around to see Stephanie Gilroy, Ajax’s daughter, approaching. She smiled, and held a pistol in one hand.
She tossed a few reddish-gold ringlets off her shoulders and winked at him.
“So, Alasdair!” she said. “Playing the hero, are you? Rescuing a poor girl from her evil torturers!”
Alasdair reached into his jacket, and his fingers wrapped around his own pistol.
“Pity,” said Stephanie. She fired.
Alasdair had anticipated it, and ducked out of the way. The gargoyle, though, was in no position to do so. The bullet hit it in the arm. Its eyes glistened, and a loud hiss escaped its mouth as blood spurted from the limb.
A volley of foreign thoughts hit Alasdair’s mind. The murmurs were now muffled cheers and catcalls. The sonorous voice, though, was fading.
“Take the cloth away!” it said. “Now!”
Alasdair seized a corner of the cloth, which was now rapidly soaking up blood. He yanked it away as hard as he could.
Stephanie giggled.
The gargoyle’s body was small and thin, and as pale as its face. A filmy white dress clung to it. With lethargic, jerky movements, it stood up.
Stephanie turned her attention back to Alasdair, who had taken out his gun. The two stood staring at each other. Stephanie’s eyes smiled, while Alasdair’s were stony.
The gargoyle staggered towards Stephanie, and slumped against her legs, like a small child leaning on its mother. Its head barely reached her waist. It wrapped its arms--one of them shining and red--around her. Stephanie looked down, surprised at the tender gesture. It began to clamber up her body slowly, and too late she realized its ploy.
With one arm embracing her neck, it thrust its bleeding arm against her mouth. She tried to push it away, but its grip was a vise. Stephanie choked and struggled, and fired her pistol against its belly. Blood flowed freely from the gargoyle’s body, but its clutch on her was now a death grip.
Alasdair ran. There was no longer anything in it for him, and one of Isolde‘s prudent churchgoers would soon come to see what the commotion was.
“There will be--” began the sonorous voice in his mind, but it was cut off by one last gunshot. The murmurs stopped being murmurs, and were full-fledged shouts instead.
Silbury Street soon lost its reputation for respectability and quietude. The discovery of a wealthy young noblewoman’s body beside a strange, mutilated corpse frightened many away. Bad luck, freak accidents, and hideous apparitions soon drove most others out of the street as well. The only ones that remained were the hardened and the hopeless.
Some said that Saint Isolde’s graveyard was haunted by the ghosts of those buried there. Only one man, a wealthy and apathetic one who lived some distance away, knew what had actually been unleashed.
The ending was good too.
Good point about the stains too, I may change that. Glad you liked the beginning.
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