The Hand That Wounds part 1

Extracts from the Personal Diary of Dr Belinda Durham

 

Jan – April 2007

The spring term started with my course in ‘Decline or Resurgence after the Roman Occupation of Britain?’ as well as continuing my fitness training with MI13. Training with a weapon was always supposed to happen but never did. I consoled myself with the idea of target shooting, imagining that the target was the most annoying student in the class!

 

May 1st

This turned into one of the longest and most eventful days of my life so far. My mobile rang as I was leaving my flat with an emergency call that I immediately recognised as from MI13. I had to go to the RAF Museum at Hendon immediately. Leaving a message with the Departmental secretary that I would be away for a few days, and would contact her later if I had to re-schedule any classes, I took a taxi. Thinking ahead, I had kept a rucksack packed with a basic kit of clothes, notebook and some archaeologists’ tools, with space for my laptop. Considering the weather, and the sort of activities we had undertaken before, I took my warm outdoor jacket and boots along.

 

Once I got to the RAF Museum, everything became very official, rapid, and exciting. A helicopter immediately took me to a very cold RAF Benson in Hertfordshire where Marmaduke Forbush himself briefed us.

 

We were headed for the Lake District to meet with local police because of the murder of a local teenage boy. It appeared to be a ritualistic murder, with the boy’s body laid out next to a standing stone in Mayburgh Henge. The question was whether this was simply ‘a nutter’ or someone who knew what they were doing?

 

A Puma helicopter took us rapidly to Carleton Hall, Penrith, the Cumbrian police headquarters. It was wonderful to fly without all the usual performance at an airport, and the RAF crew were complete professionals.

 

To my amazement, Alex met us as we left the helicopter! He turned out to be a Detective Sergeant in the local police and was our liaison officer in this murder investigation. The co-incidence was uncanny. He had a Transit van with a driver along with a second officer, a WPC.

 

After our surprised re-union, he took us to the scene of the crime. The standing stone of Mayburgh Henge was surrounded by a circular bank. The specialist police staff were still there, with a tent over the exact site of the murder.

 

The morning continued as something on the TV as we all donned white over-suits, hats and bootees before entering the tent. Alex explained that the crime scene matched three stained glass windows in the Temple he had dodged into to avoid the Moon-Beasts. The first window had shown an obelisk remarkably like Mayburgh Henge with a horned black man behind it (an aspect of Nyarlathotep).

 

The boy’s head was pointing East from the obelisk, and his naked body was splayed out as in Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man but with his heart cut out and his eyes removed and placed on his genitals, just like the second window. He was surrounded by shreds of his clothing and there was blood on his hands. The third window had shown a three-lobed burning eye, the Haunter of the Dark, another aspect of Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.

 

The murder had happened the previous night, April 30th – Beltane. Mayburgh Henge was in the care of English Heritage, with a caretaker who lived in the nearest house to it. He’d phoned the police about yelling and screaming and lights around midnight, but they had been too busy to respond for several hours – when they found the boy’s body and started to fend off a media circus in a murder with political, secret service and black magic angles. The boy was Jeremy Springfield, a 16 year old, identified by his parents from his body.

 

As Alex explained, we looked around the site, trying not to do anything that made the SOCOs wince. Surprisingly, St John found a scrap of paper on the ground that they had not scooped up, and that wasn’t on the first photos of the crime scene. There were lines of verse on it:

 

‘Open unto me the way Umr-at-Tawil;

Across the angles of time and curvéd space

Let the passage be free unto the Crawling Chaos’

 

Adam was disturbed to realise that the boy’s soul had been completely severed from his body, unlike in a normal death. His neck had been broken by a single shake after being almost strangled. His throat had been grabbed by a left hand about Eliza’s size and he had probably still been alive after his neck was broken and as his eyes and heart were removed. There was even the possibility that he could have gouged his own eyes out. He had probably died where he was found.

 

We went to his home and looked round, taking particular interest in his bedroom. We did not find anything relevant but spoke to his family. They (parents and 3 sons) had moved here from Finchley 4 years ago when Jerry was 12 ‘because it was healthier’. Unfortunately Jerry had fallen in with the wrong group of boys at Morgan Curwen School who led him astray. The leader was Giles Hebden, a boy with shoulder-length ginger hair who talked as if butter would not melt in his mouth. Jerry had stayed out late, drunk alcohol and ‘stuff’. Jerry was friends with a stream of girls but did not have a steady girlfriend. He was not interested in the outdoors, but had a bit of interest in computers, read some books, and ‘dirty’ magazines. He used to have a mobile but his parents had refused to pay the large bills and had taken it away from him.

 

We visited his school and learnt from the headmaster that Jerry was good at football and cricket, although Giles was the better footballer. When we asked if anyone at the school was interested in witchcraft, we realised that he was clearly worried about Hebden and others in this context. Giles’ parents were Mr and Mrs Lazonby (his mother having remarried). We had to wait for his mother to arrive at the school before we could talk with Giles himself.

 

We visited the school library. The librarian told us that the scrap of paper came from ‘Nameless Cults’, one of a collection of esoteric texts left to the school by Morgan Curwen, the schools philanthropic millionaire founder. I was surprised that a school would have such books on its shelves, all related to religions and the occult. They included ‘Isis Unveiled’ by Helena Blavatsky, ‘The Key of Solomon’ and ‘True Magic’ by Theophilus Wenn as well as ‘Nameless Cults’. They were all in English translations rather than the original languages such as Hebrew and Latin, which made them more accessible, if less likely to have real magical power. As we poked around the shelves, we were told that Giles’ mother had arrived and we could talk with him.

 

Giles had seen Jerry last night, in the company of two girls, Friday McDougal and Isabel Carleton. The latter’s name resulted in sharply raised eyebrows from WPC Bridget Jackson and we soon learned it was because she was the daughter of the Deputy Head of the school.

 

The two boys had met the girls at the henge about 11 pm. Jerry had put a candle on the rock and Giles said he had a bit of paper, maybe getting it from the girls. The girls played up to the idea of summoning something. Isabel was keen but Friday became spooked. Jerry called for the Horned One. Giles heard whispering; shadows came from the stone and then a far away voice said ‘I come!’

 

Friday then ran, Jerry said ‘Get her’ and Giles said he tried, and then Isabel ran as the whisper became a roar and Jerry screamed. Giles said he heard, ‘You cannot run from me, boy!’ He wandered around a bit, and got home around dawn, late for breakfast.

 

‘The girls didn’t want to talk with me in school today,’ Giles said, ‘and then we heard about Jerry’.

 

We asked him if he had every done anything like that spell before (phrasing it a bit more tactfully) and he said he hadn’t.

 

Thinking of my total inability to master even a circle of protection, I wondered what had really gone on that night. Had these untrained children actually managed to manifest an aspect of Nyarlathotep? We decided we had to talk with the girls as soon as possible. We left the arrangements up to the school and police.

 

Adam, Eliza and WPC Bridget Jackson went to talk with Friday at her home with her parents while the rest of us stayed in the van. Afterwards they told us what she’d said. She’d never done anything like that before, not even met up with the boys (another innocent one!). Isabel had arranged the meeting with them for ‘fun’. She sneaked out of her family home around 9 pm and had hoped to be back by midnight. The boys arrived late, and while they were waiting, Isabel said that she really, really liked Jerry, and that Giles really liked Friday. She thought he was good looking but not very bright.

 

Isabel and Jerry talked, and Friday overhead them saying that since it was Beltane they should do magic on the rock. Friday said they made her stand close to Giles, and Isabel near Jerry, hugging. Giles started getting feely and Friday became frightened when it went really dark.

 

She started hearing things, whispering, and she screamed and ran. She heard someone say ‘Get her’, and Giles ran after her, pulling at the hood of her cardigan.

 

Finally she reached the bus shelter and stopped; the buses had finished for the night. She met up with Isabel and they both got to bed around 2 am. It all seemed very different in the morning light, until she heard that Jerry was dead. The two girls feared that Giles had killed him and was now after them, so they’d spent most of the day hiding in the toilets. One final thing she said was that Jerry had had a stick, from a tree, and he had banged it against the stone after he’d read the words from the paper.

 

After that, we went to talk with Isabel Carleton. The day was getting longer and longer. Her father, Jack Carleton, was the Deputy Head and an English with PE as a subsidiary. (The Head’s subjects were History and RI – now is that significant, given events and the books in the library??) Jack was very fit for his age and rather short. Isabel took after her father in appearance since she was the same height but quite pretty. She made it clear that she liked Jerry, but knew her parents did not like him.

 

Isabel had been to the henge with Jerry before, since he always went around with Giles, who she did not like so much. Giles ‘pushed things’ and she did not want to be alone with him, so having Friday along made it better. Indeed Friday was rather jealous of Isabel’s relationship with Jerry, Isabel said.

 

She also said that the idea for the ‘game’ came from Jerry. He had a candle and a bit of paper (rectangular like from a book) and said that they should hold a Sabbath. (From what I’d heard of Jerry, and his lack of interest in anything other than computers and sport, that seemed very unlikely, so I thought she was being ‘economical with la véritié’.) However, Isabel went on to say that it was fun at first. At least, she had her hands round Jerry in the candle light.

 

Jerry had a stick and he started to hit the stone with it, and then it got really dark. Friday ran away; Jerry called for Giles to get her back. Isabel herself took fright and ran. There were voices, screams, lots of running and then she bumped into Friday, they cried and then went home. Isabel did not have a mobile so could not phone anyone.

 

As for the source of the sheet of paper, Isabel thought it might have been obtained by a member of the football team, which seems unlikely to me, although I guess we should find out if any of them have been noted for trying black magic on the opposition rather than superior ball-control skills.

 

After speaking to the two girls, we went for a quick but well-deserved meal in a pub and then to the police station to update Alex, who had now settled his young daughter with a baby-sitter. We then held what should be the final interview of the day with Mr Carleton, who had been a pupil at the school 25 years ago, leaving in 1982. That really didn’t get us any further towards a solution.

 

We then started to think about the events at the henge, as far as we could understand them from the children’s accounts. Jerry had certainly been killed. Of course, the killer might be a misguided human being, but if there was a chance that they had actually summoned Nyarlathotep, we ought to discover where he had gone.

 

Pooling our very limited knowledge of magic, we decided that they should have been working within a circle of protection (that elusive thing, again!), of which there was no sign, and he should have been bound after being evoked, to be dismissed after carrying out a task. In the absence of evidence of either, he could still be roaming around!

 

We went back to the henge and St. John used the binoculars to try to see what had happened. I was rather sceptical about this, knowing know much difficulty we’d had before when trying to review a specific recent event. I still think the binoculars would be ideal for archaeological work, rather than what St John and Adam are trying to use them for.

 

The result of St. John’s efforts was almost farcical. He used the moon to try to pin down the correct time – and saw a giant snake, the size of an elephant, flying from right to left across his field of view in fog. It was flying relatively slowly, beyond the henge. Then cars began to swerve on the motorway, which was visible from the henge and there was a major crash.

 

There have never been flying snakes on the Earth, and Alex was certain that there had not been a major crash on the motorway recently. So what on earth was St. John seeing? Was this something from St. John’s (undoubtedly) drug-abused brain, showing we could not rely on the binoculars? We finally remembered that the binoculars cannot show anything nearer than a week in the past, so this event (if it was real) had to be over a week ago, and thus prior to the murder.

 

Our discussions ended when Alex Douglas received a message from Giles’s mother to say that he had gone missing from the house. We had a brief talk with his father and then went to search the streets around.

 

Alex got a tip from some teenagers that Giles was headed for the henge. We drove there, and I stayed in the van. The others walked towards it, spread out in a line. This was around 11:30 pm, and mist was rising. The police tape was still around the site, but their tent over the murder scene had gone. They told me later that they’d heard the vehicles on the motorway slowing down due to the fog and wondered about the flying snake.

 

St. John had looked around the henge, and realised that he could see himself!

 

I only learnt what happened next a good time afterwards because, back in the van, I suddenly felt it being buffeted by air and through the window saw a one-winged serpent flying overhead! I started screaming and was not aware of my surroundings. I only calmed down when the others came back.

 

The snake flew over the motorway. Alex was on the police radio to traffic control, using any excuse to get them to light up speed restriction and warning signs, but he was too late to prevent a pile up.

 

They intended to drive to the motorway as fast as possible to start dealing with the accident. It involved, people, cars and lorries; a lorry had braked and cars had gone into it and the crash barriers. In fact, one car was under the back of the lorry, with no hope for the occupants, and another had gone straight into the back of that one.

 

The lorry driver was out in the road. He had braked because there was a man on the road in front of him. There indeed was a body, but it was obvious from the state of the body, and the lack of damage or even blood on the lorry, that the driver had stopped before he touched it.

 

The body was Giles, shredded!

 

The lorry driver, and one of the surviving motorists, said that his body had fallen from above, rather than the (one would usually think) more likely option that he ran in front of the lorry. A car driver was also yelling, ‘Did anyone see the dragon? The snake in the sky?’

 

We, and MI13, could fortunately play these ideas down as the effect of shock on the drivers. I eventually dropped into wonderful sleep, thanks to products from the much-maligned multinational pharmaceutical companies. I also learnt later that Adam had tried to help me using his undoubted healing abilities but either I was too far gone, or he was too shaken by the events because he had no effect on me. Giles body went to the same morgue as Jerry’s, for Eliza to work on.

 

May 2nd

The crash made the local radio news the next day; it had happened at exactly midnight!

 

After I awoke, I realised that I knew what the snake was; a Hunting Horror. Its form shifts and changes but it has one wing, a harsh voice and averages 40 feet long. They are very intelligent creatures that can even know spells and they come from the gods, especially Nyarlathotep. It does not like daylight, so must be lying-up somewhere until the night. They can be summoned to seek blood and lives. They attack by biting and using their tail, and can hold the victim with their tail while they attack.

 

In an attempt to relax, I had a bubble-bath while Eliza got on with the second autopsy and the other three went to the henge. Eliza found a curved fang in Giles’s chest and sent it off to a specialist for identification. His organs were very badly shredded and difficult to identify, but she thought that his heart might be missing. Over at the henge, St. John tried unsuccessfully to see whether the ley lines were in good condition.