Austerley & Kirgordon Adventures Box Set Read online

  Kirkgordon had found a table near the back of the café as far away from the stewed vegetable smells of the kitchen as possible. The room had one entrance from the street, one into the kitchen beside the serving hatch and one further one with nearby toilet facilities indicated on it. Having positioned himself at a table close to the toilets, Kirkgordon was surveying the street and kitchen doors. The café was about half-full, mainly of workmen with large coats and fluorescent tops covering boiler suits.

  “Why did we have to run?” Austerley asked.

  “We were being followed. They must have had a heck of a number of cars to follow five limos. But we are operating on the assumption of a threat to the world, to the planet or something like that. If we are coming to eliminate a danger, a danger to all, why didn’t the Russians know we would be here? Why not cooperate with them? Time is important, so why are we working under their radar?”

  “I don’t think Farthington was being like that,” postulated Austerley, “he was merely concentrating efforts. Not diluting them, giving them all to us.”

  “For someone who has seen such horrors, you have much too decent an opinion of others,” Kirkgordon said, shaking his head. “No, he wants something for himself, or his bosses. What’s so potent about this music? Can it control something, or entice it? What’s the power angle? It can’t be money.”

  “But Farthington is government. British government. It said so on his card. The government’s not going to go around capturing occultic music.“

  “Exactly. It’s not. How do you know he’s really government, by the way? Do you trust his card?” Kirkgordon sniffed offence at Austerley.

  “But the Americans were with him.”

  “And they were who, exactly? And where’s our diplomatic immunity? The guy I dropped was FSB. Carried the card.”

  “Federal Security Bureau? You killed an FSB man? Hell!” Austerley was shaking now.

  “As if! He’s just going to have a very sore head.” Kirkgordon stared intently at his coffee. “Do you still have contacts here? From the darker elements, I mean.”

  “…Why?” The question was dragged out slowly and reluctantly from his mouth. He didn’t want to see these particular dark elements again.

  “We need to cut out the others for the moment, until we get a grasp on what’s what. If this street is appearing then the darker elements will know. I doubt the FSB or Farthington will have those contacts. We need to go to them.”

  “They nearly killed me last time, you know that?”

  “Yeah, but there’s no other way to do this.” Looking at Austerley, Kirkgordon wondered whether the returnee would be up to the task. Dammit, it was hardly a choice – he’d have to be up to it. “Oh and, Indy, one more thing. Do you know where we are, cos I haven’t a baldies!”

  Meeting an Old Friend

  It was now sometime after midnight and Kirkgordon felt as lost as he had back in the café. Austerley had taken him on a wild goose chase around Moscow, first finding out exactly where they were and then tracking down some old contacts. Most of Austerley’s previous acquaintances had supposedly been rounded up by the “authorities”. This seemed questionable, as the methods for rounding these people up seemed too sloppy for the FSB. Indeed, there had been a few deaths that had been seen in public.

  How had it got to this? thought Kirkgordon. The night chill made his breath appear in front of him in white condensation and he was thankful for the woollen hat perched on his head which he had stolen from a market stall. Well, not really stolen, as he had lobbed a few notes onto the stall table out of the view of the purveyor. Keeping hidden was paramount at this time. Thankfully, for all his hamfistedness, Austerley blended in perfectly with this culture. Morose and wrapped up like a duvet convention, he even had that depressive amble. Dammit, he was made for here.

  They were crouched behind some cardboard boxes, waiting in the gloom of an alleyway for one of Austerley’s contacts. Despite having interrogated the former asylum inmate about this contact, all Kirkgordon had got out of him was that he would know who the contact was when he met him.

  It was now six hours since they had last seen any FSB and neither had there been further pursuit from Farthington. And yet, there was more of an edge now to Austerley. He would rock nervously side to side as he waited, chewing on his lip despite the cold air. The large gloves he was wearing didn’t disguise that he was counting his fingers through them. What was making Indy so edgy? The condensation spat out from Kirkgordon’s mouth as he inadvertently whispered a solemn prayer. His senses were screaming something at him. There was the smell of decay, of bodily corruption, in the air. The hairs on his arms rose as one. Then came the tap of a cane on the cobbled alley surface.

  The figure groped along the shadows of the alleyway, leaning heavily on its aid. Kirkgordon could have sworn Austerley was positively shaking as the figure came closer. As it reached them, it blended into the shadows and it was impossible to make out any distinction beyond the fact it that was vaguely a biped. The figure spoke a few guttural utterances to Austerley which Kirkgordon struggled to understand. A wave of a presumed hand left the bodyguard believing that the reason for his accompanying Austerley was being debated, but he could make out little else. Despite his obvious discomfort, Austerley was soon peppering the shadow figure with questions regarding Zahn’s music. The grunted half-sounds that returned were clearly being understood, as Austerley consistently pushed for deeper answers.

  It was less than five minutes before the unknown figure was tapping a retreat back down the alley, the cane once again clipping its way in a choppy rhythm. Austerley stood and watched until it had disappeared.

  “Well?” asked Kirkgordon, “Did you get what we need?”

  “He created some of the most magnificent, if distasteful, of images. I acquired one in Paris once, from a very small back-street dealership. The fool never knew the real value of it.” Austerley pondered deeply. “It was astonishing how lifelike he made the damn things. But then I guess he didn’t need an imagination.” Closing his eyes, Austerley drifted to a place far away, to a framed work of art he had once held in his hands. Yes, it was damned good.

  “What on earth are you on about?” interrupted Kirkgordon, stabbing a finger into Austerley’s side to wake him from his reminiscences.

  “Pickman,” sniffed the heavily wrapped asylum dischargee. “Richard Upton Pickman, artiste terrible! He painted things that most on this earth never get to see, or certainly only see once.”

  “And that was him… this Pickman fellow?”

  “Yes… well, no… not exactly.”

  “You’re scaring me, Indy. What do you mean, not exactly?”

  “Well… I’ve never seen one before… a ghoul, I mean. You hear and you see pictures. In fact, the painting I have is a ghoul by Pickman, but I swear they are worse up close. I’m glad he stayed in the dark.”

  “So who was that? Was it Pickman?” Kirkgordon was frustrated at being unable to enter the loop of Austerley’s mind.

  “You’re right. Who was that is exactly the point. That, my friend, used to be Pickman.“

  “Hey, hang on,” said Kirkgordon, his mind feeling that it had just missed the train, “used to be?”

  “Yes, used to be. He’s just a ghoul now. He doesn’t even remember his paintings. It’s quite sad. Are you okay?”

  “No,” Kirkgordon openly admitted. “Let’s go before I start to process this… that was just a contact… okay Indy, just a contact.”

  “Okay,” Austerley whispered. “Just a very old and dead one!”

  “Austerley!”

  “What?”

  “Just shut it!”

  The occasional distant car could be heard from the nearby road, its diesel engine thumping into the night. Otherwise, the only sound was the steady swish and swash of the river up against the banks. The recent cold spell had left the river at a lowish ebb and it was more lapping than flowing against the embankment edges. A stillness was in the air, due
to the common sense of all but two creatures to get inside and remain there until sunrise. Sat under a bridge, one of the creatures was trying very hard to focus on certain material facts and not to drift into pondering where certain encounters had come from or were going to. The other creature had drifted into these worlds in his mind many moons ago and positively enjoyed his musings, if not the acquaintances that one met during these explorations.

  “Okay, Indy. All things considered, what have we got to go on?” Kirkgordon was forcibly calm, easing each word out in a perfect rhythm, showing he was in control. But he was having to work damn hard at it.

  “Well, I reckon, and you’ll have to trust me on this, but the thing is… you see, it must be hard when the change comes… I mean voice boxes and that… they just don’t talk like we do and the memory must go with lack of practice… I think he did rather well.”

  “Indy,” hissed Kirkgordon, “I don’t care about him… it… whatever it was. What do we know? Just tell me what we know now that we didn’t know before we met him… it… that.”

  “They say Carter met him once.”

  “Shut it! Right now! We don’t do Carter! Never. Understand? Dammit, Austerley. God forgive me, but there are times I wish you’d been left to rot in that graveyard. Or that loony house. Just tell me what he or it or whatever that blasted thing was said! No more, no less. Got it?” Kirkgordon was an inch from Austerley’s with a coiled torrent of anger on his face. Austerley gulped.

  “Sure. Okay. Whatever. No Carter. Got it. Well, let me see. I’ve got an address and a time. Well, more of a window, really.”

  “Where and when?”

  “About an hour’s time.”

  “What? Didn’t you think it was kinda important to tell me that straight away? We need to move! Where?”

  “It’s a side street beside a restaurant not far from here. Although it’s only in the early hours that the place will be open, it always was. Used to get a really good vodka in there. Yes, it was an exquisite place to be back then, lots of culture, people to see that you just never got to meet on the outside. Big open fire, too. I wonder if the seat that she put there is still there.”

  “Great, so it’ll be there in an hour. Time to get off your arse then, Indy. We got some music to grab. Can we see the alley from the restaurant?”

  “Should be able to, provided it hasn’t changed.” Austerley was drifting to a happier time and the seeping of a faint smiled crossed his visage. “It can’t have changed… maybe she’s there. Vodka neat.”

  “Up now,” interrupted Kirkgordon, “and get with it. If it’s an old haunt, the FSB might be about too, maybe even Farthington.”

  “All right, Churchy, let’s go. I need my bloody bed, mind!” They trudged back up to the street from under the bridge. All was quiet, and Kirkgordon started to map out how getting into the soon-to-emerge street was going to go down. Then a thought struck him.

  “Who the hell’s ‘she’?”

  Table for Two

  Anyone watching the occupants of the table by the window in that rather strange restaurant would be forgiven for thinking the two occupants were not part of the same party. One individual sat smiling, casually glancing around at the few people sat at dimly lit tables in shadowy corners. Occasionally he would nod to one or two people, raising his small glass of vodka just a touch to say cheers. For him, the world was at peace. As for the other gentleman, there seemed to be a distinct edge to his demeanour. Despite trying to present an easy appearance, his constant glances out of the nearby window and furtive stares at the room’s other occupants betrayed a distrust of his whole surroundings. His vodka glass had yet to achieve airborne status.

  “It really hasn’t changed much at all,” beamed Austerley. “The drapes still look magnificent, the floor is still showing that fantastic wooden sheen and the clientele, well, still nefariously wonderful!” The plush purple drapes showed little signs of age; neither did the lacquer on the floor. But the clientele were distinctly not to Kirkgordon’s liking.

  “Do you know any of them? Are they all normal? I mean normal for here, this place, I mean…”

  “Freaks,” Austerley interjected. “Asylum freaks, ne’er-do-wells, weirdos? Is that your inference?” He sneered the question down the barrels of his nostrils.

  “Yeah!” Kirkgordon replied, “Mental cases, like you. Bloody dabblers.”

  Taking the offence on the chin, Austerley surveyed again his surroundings. Smiling wildly and raising his glass on several occasions, he assessed everything before turning back to Kirkgordon.

  “Nearly all freaks, my friend.”

  “Nearly?”

  “Your two o’clock, back wall. Not a freak. Not even a mental case.”

  “Got him. Anyone else?”

  “Behind you, sipping tea, eating goulash. Definitely not from here.”

  “Here weirdo land or here Russia?“

  “Here Russia.”

  “Any others?”

  “Your four o’clock, gentleman with the beard and rough-looking clothes.”

  “Yes, but with strangely snug-looking footwear, black and stylish. I guess Farthington didn’t get much notice either about the street’s appearance. Don’t look!”

  It was too late; Farthington was already nodding an acknowledgement to Austerley.

  “How the blazes did he spot us?” Austerley asked.

  “He knew the area to look in. Possibly not precisely, but definitely the area. That’s why he was so bothered when we headed downtown. And I don’t think he knew the time.”

  Kirkgordon’s distrust of Farthington was beginning to rub off on Austerley and a little bit of panic was pushing steadily into the Elder expert’s mind. The walls seemed to loom in somewhat and the dining area that had been reminding him of such pleasant, if weird, times of yesteryear began to resemble the room where he had had his meals at the asylum. Sure, you could eat and drink without interruption, but if you got up to leave before time… well, nowhere else had he ever been bludgeoned into a seat.

  Just as the darkness seemed to destroy the once-grand vista before him, another vision leapt before his eyes, like a phoenix rising. She was a bird of another variety, possibly of his own species but one could never really tell in this place, and her plumage was magnificent. Austerley’s ruddy complexion burst into a glorious red as a familiar accent rang in his ears.

  “Darling, oh darling, how very long you have been away. And time has been hard, I see. You have been gone too long, too long without the attention of your friends. Let me look at you, you handsome brute! Older yes, but fabulous, just fabulous. You could almost be from the old country. Seven hundred years I waited before seeing a vision like you and then you ran off. Oh, but now you’re back. The Highland Count returns.”

  Kirkgordon was quite aghast at this intrusion into the sinister tableau. It was like a circus clown had rampaged across the stabbing scene in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. No, clown was not right, this was a tour de force, this was a woman who could steal any show or take over any curtain call. Some six foot tall, she was curvaceous but trim. Everything about her screamed of a fulsome and fiery landlady, save one definitive exception. Her complexion was extremely white, like she was from the Arctic Circle. This contrasted with her jet-black hair, long and bouncy, which cascaded over her ample shoulders to frame an impressive cleavage. Attired in a tight, shiny black dress complete with wide collar, she looked like a Halloween partygoer with an exceptional figure. As Kirkgordon noted, Austerley was certainly captivated.

  “How have you been, my Fire, my Passion, my lover? You have changed somewhat, that I can see, and you were afraid just now, but I see Calandra has ignited your soul once again. Stoked up your loins and filled your mind with dreams of wild and passionate embraces on moonlit nights. Am I right, my essence?” Kirkgordon nearly choked as “Calandra”, with one hand, spun Austerley’s seat round so that he faced her and then proceeded to straddle him, revealing two milk-white, long, slender legs through th
e slits in her skirt. Austerley’s eyes started to water as the tableau-breaker sat facing him on his lap, presenting her pale but copious chest before his eyes. Kirkgordon couldn’t help himself. He folded double with laughter.

  “And who is your amused little friend? Let me look at him as he has been looking at everyone else here tonight. Well, darling, once again you choose so well your friends. Mature, like yourself, but the frame I like! Oh yes. But those eyes… they have seen the darkness. The evil, yes, but also the pain of losing a lover, n’est pas? Oh darling, be gentle with him for he is very fragile.”

  It was like being psychoanalysed by Greta Garbo. Kirkgordon was amused, stunned and touched all at once. Despite every sense in his body screaming “vampire”, he found himself being seduced by this purported creature of the night, at least on a maternal level. Austerley, however, had clearly been well past the maternal level!

  Calandra turned again to Austerley and began to whisper in his ear. If it had been possible, Indy would have blushed even deeper but his cheeks could not support any further reddening. Again a slight smile crossed Kirkgordon’s lips, but now his mind was racing. Farthington sat with just a drink, watching the room. The man sat at their two o’clock. Russian. Again just a drink. Watching. The room was laced with several of Calandra’s horde. And one other. One other that just wasn’t fitting. Foreign but not strange. Foreign but not Elder. Foreign but not spooked by the company. Why choose here? Why eat here late at night? Farthington had a reason. The Russian was probably FSB, tailing Farthington. Or maybe even themselves. But this foreigner had just been sitting eating his goulash and was now calmly consuming a small dessert.

  “Calandra?” said Kirkgordon.

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Can I steal you from that rugged beast of yours?”