Abdul-Jabbar Kareem - Mycroft Holmes

Contents

Mycroft Holmes
Signed hardback edition ISBN: 9781783299805
Hardback edition ISBN: 9781783291533
Export paperback ISBN: 9781783298983
E-book edition ISBN: 9781783291564

Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: September 2015
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

Copyright 2015 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For my grandmother, Venus, who spun the best stories and made me proud.

KAJ

For Eric and Emily Anne, my spirit and my heart.

AW

Outside of San Fernando, Trinidad, 1870

THE OLD MAN HAD HEARD OF THEM, OF COURSE. EVERYONE ON the island had heard of them. A few had even seen the evidenceimprints in the sandbut he never had.

Not until the children began to die.

Emanuel stood on a promontory overlooking the sea. His mule was beside him, packed and ready to go. The sun was descending, painting the sky crimson as it disappeared below the horizon. A moment before, the humidity had been nearly intolerable, even for him, and he had lived on this island all eighty-seven years of his life. But with darkness came the wind, whistling through the crevices. He took out a handkerchief and wiped the damp sweat off his neck and forehead.

Still it chilled him to the bone.

Behind him stood a dozen small wooden houses. Each of them had once been alive with families. Each was now shuttered and abandoned, his neighbors having fled the horrors they had witnessed. He himself had been stubborn, refusing to turn his back on his home and his land, praying that the douen would simply go away.

But they had not gone away. Instead, they had become bolder.

He could still picture the first little body hed seen, lying on the sand below as if it were still there, as if it hadnt already been buried in the small white cemetery that would be destined to be filled with more. So many more.

It had been sunset then too, not red like this one but golden and sparklinga beautiful sky beneath which no one ought to die, especially a child.

* * *

The little boys name was Andr. He had just turned six, an active little rapscallion, with skin as brown as a cocoa bean and curly hair bleached nearly white by the sun.

Andr had been the only living soul on the beach, a few feet from the underbrush, a tangled jungle mass that the villagers would periodically cut back, only to see it crop up again here and there, unwanted but persistent. He was skimming rocks into the water. Emanuel had been on the headland above, gathering sticks for his pot-bellied stove. No one understood how he could get so cold once the sun went down, but he was the elder of the village. No one there was yet as old as he.

Just wait! he thought. Just wait til youre old and see how it is

He could not recall how long he had remained at his task, bent over as he collected the kindling into a respectable pile. He was nearly done when he thought he heard a commotion below, by the shoreline.

When he peered down onto the sand, Andr was no longer visible. Instead, something was thrashing about in the underbrush. He saw, or perhaps imagined, the glint of a knife.

The old man turned and called out for help, but his throat was dry with fear, and the wind simply swept his voice away. He was in no condition to make the winding trek down the steep incline to the shore, but he would have to try.

Carefully, one painful step at a time, he made his way down the trail, past the little white cemetery in its patch of grass that had long since been burnt by the sun.

I am coming, Andr, he called out. I am comingdo not be afraid! He wondered if the last few words were as much for his sake as for the boys.

Step by painful step he wentoh, what a madness to get old! When at last he reached the sand, he was very nearly relieved, for he could see Andr quite clearly now. The boy was lying face down on the sand.

Perhaps it is the game, he thought hopefully. It was a favorite game of the children, to lie perfectly still and wait until the old man walked up to them, at which time they would jump up suddenly, to try to scare him. He would always pretend to nearly collapse of fright, and they would laugh and laugh.

But as he approached, Andr did not move at all.

Then, he spotted the footprints.

At first, it seemed as if some child had simply walked backward away from the bodyexcept that the right foot was where the left foot should be, with the left in place of the right. Small, backward-facing footprints that seemed to lead to the boy and away from him at the same time.

The douen.

He knew then with terrible certainty that Andr was dead. The douen had called him out to play, and the lougarou had finished him off.

Shaking and crying, the old man turned the little boy onto his back. His skin was white, deadly white. Some blood had pooled in the sand beneath him, staining it an ugly copper, but most was gone, stolen away by the lougarou.

The old man had cried out again, loud enough at last that he heard voices calling back from the promontory above. They came running then, scrambling down the path and gathering around the little boys body, horrified by what they were seeing.

Praying that they and their children would be left alone.

* * *

But that one sacrifice had not been enough. Nor had two, then three, then more. The douen had continued to call to the children, enticing them to come out and play. After which the lougarou had done the rest, draining the little bodies of their blood and then leaving them on the sand to be gathered up by their grieving families like so many wilted flowers.

The old man had helped to dig too many graves. He could no longer bear to look at them. This was not the place for living human beings, not any more. The breeze began to blow harder, as if pushing him away. So the old man wrapped his smock-frock around his long, thin body.

Come play! he thought he heard the douen say.

There are no more children here! he called out with the last bit of rage he could muster. There are no living beings here at all!

With effort, he mounted his old mule and clopped away.

AS THE REED-GREEN WATER LAPPED GENTLY AGAINST THE BANKS of the Thames, spectators on Putney Bridge and along the shoreline crowded shoulder to shoulder and craned their necks, vying for a better view. They were mostly boys and men, though the occasional crinoline and parasol could be seenfor the day was unseasonably warm, which prompted even the ladies to venture out, giddy with anticipation.