The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(22)

“Watch your end, Ned!” a voice said suddenly, breaking through the bushes to the creature’s left.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it,” came another voice. Ned’s, I presumed.

The snarling corpse turned its head crookedly to look toward the new voices. I cursed. The coroner’s men.

“Stay back!” I yelled.

It was too late. Carrying the front end of a wooden litter, a skinny young man of no more than twenty stepped into the clearing. He froze, face-to-face with the abomination. The creature’s grotesque visage locked on his, my dagger still jutting out of its neck.

“Oi! What’s the idea?” The other man’s voice came from behind the bush, and then the gurney was shoved forward, and the terrified Ned with it.

Charlie bounded forward in an instant, but not before the corpse clutched the petrified Ned by the hair and buried its yellow teeth into the poor man’s throat.

Charlie slammed headlong into the monster, sending them both rolling across the grass until they crashed into the pillar at the head of the row. Above them, a sculpture rocked back and forth—a hefty urn overflowing with stone fruit. Charlie managed to gain the upper hand a second time, pinning the savage corpse at the base of the statue. The creature thrashed and growled, blood dripping down its chin and head, which was propped up at a sickly angle at the base of the pillar. For all its frustrated fury, it would have a more difficult time dislodging its captor with only one arm. The litter lay discarded in the grass behind them. I swallowed hard. Ned was dead.

The man who had been at the other end of the litter, a heavyset fellow in a battered longcoat, let out a scream that startled the ravens from their trees halfway across the gardens. He turned and fled, his footsteps pounding away as he put as much distance between himself and the ghastly scene as possible.

The creature gargled an inhuman moan of discontent. I watched, helplessly, as the unholy corpse pummeled Charlie’s neck and chest, driving the occasional kick up into his gut. Charlie weathered the blows valiantly, but the corpse showed no signs of tiring. It did not even seem to notice when its head cracked hard against the bricks as it struggled.

I clambered around as quickly as I could to the far side of the pillar. Bracing my feet against the dense shrubbery as best as I could, I reached high above my head and pressed against the urn on top. “Get ready to move out of the way!” I yelled. Charlie looked up for just an instant, and then let out an involuntary yelp of pain as the creature belted him across the jaw.

With great effort I could only just tilt the heavy statue an inch or so forward. It wobbled when I released it and settled right back into place. I cursed again. I had no leverage.

I heard Charlie whine piteously. Fairmont’s remaining hand had grabbed a fistful of his fur just below his ear and was shaking the hound’s head viciously. I leapt down clumsily and pulled my skirts free of the useless bush. “Hold on!” I yelled. I sprinted across the clearing and grabbed hold of the discarded litter. Trying very hard not to look at the lifeless Ned lying beside it, I dragged the wooden gurney back across the grass. Propping one end against the heavy statue, I found purchase on a cluster of marble grapes spilling merrily out of the top of the urn. Another yelp from Charlie, and I saw a tuft of chocolate brown fur tossed aside as the creature’s arm drew back for another blow.

“Now!” I screamed.

The corpse thrashed. Charlie rolled away. I heaved against my end of the litter, and the statue tipped. For a fraction of a second the urn seemed to hang in the air, weightless, and then it dropped. The head that had once been Steven Fairmont’s lay directly below it. The two met with a wet crunch.

I staggered out from around the pillar. The body did not move. Not a finger twitched. The upturned urn had buried itself several inches into the soil where the thing’s skull had been. All around the impact crater was a dark, sickly something I dared not think too hard about. I breathed. Charlie panted. We stared at the corpse, which was lifeless once more. The smell was atrocious.

“I think,” I huffed, “it might be over.”

Charlie limped back toward the stage to retrieve his clothes. I cautiously retrieved my knife and cleaned it on the grass, keeping a wary eye on the corpse until Charlie returned in his human form. He stepped back to my side shortly, pulling his coat stiffly over his shoulders.

Footsteps sounded behind the hedgerows.

“We should go,” I whispered.

Before either of us could act on my advice, Lieutenant Dupin appeared around the corner, staggering at once to a halt. He had a pistol drawn already, and his eyes widened as he surveyed the mad scene. The voices of his fellow officers were closing in.

Charlie did not run. His eyes moved from the mutilated Mr. Fairmont to the savaged Ned. “It isn’t over,” he said somberly. “Fairmont was the weapon, not the wielder. We still don’t know who did this.”

Dupin stood agape. He turned to face Charlie. The gun in his hands trembled. The voices of the agitated officers behind him grew closer.

“We will report to Marlowe everything that happened here,” I assured the officer. “Charlie is not responsible for any of this. Please, you need to believe me.”

“Go,” he gulped.

A minute later, we were clambering along the low branch of the oak tree, and in short order we were back on the road into New Fiddleham. Neither one of us had spoken a word as we had retreated through the gardens.