“Lazlo Bane?”
“That’s him.”
Suddenly Will wished that he were a smoker. He could have used one about now. At the very least, a shot of whiskey sounded mighty fine.
“Anyhow, after the professor left, the girl… she started talking to me now and again. Most of what she said didn’t sound much different from the usual ravings we hear around here. But some of it… some of it kinda seeped into my head and made me wonder a bit. I read up on some of it in the library here and found out that some of her crazy talk wasn’t all that crazy.”
Will heard raindrops begin to fall against his window and he looked out to see the storm beginning in earnest. “Go on,” he urged.
Jasper pulled up a chair and sat down. “She says to me that this hospital is built on top of a big hole, an entrance to Hell. Says it’s something called a Hellmouth. And she says that the thing that drove her and the professor crazy is called The Damned Thing. Just like that — no other name. Just The Damned Thing.” Jasper made a clucking noise, as if he were trying to convince himself that he wasn’t as crazy as he must be sounding. “Anyway, this Hellmouth thing has had an effect on some of the long-timers here. Not just the patients… the staff, too. Main himself… he’s not right. Sometimes he does things to the patients and even some of the staff… it ain’t right.”
“Like what?”
“Like giving people electric shocks until the blood is dripping out of their ears and nose ’cause their brains been turned to tapioca pudding. Or having a grown man stripped to the waist and whipped, just ’cause he had an extra ration of dinner.”
“When that happens to the staff, don’t they quit?”
Jasper fixed him with a serious stare. “I ain’t never heard of nobody quitting. You either join in the craziness or you end up in one of them unmarked graves where the patients end up.”
“What!? Do a lot of patients die here?”
“Four since I’ve been here. One of ’em didn’t have any family but the other three… their folks still think they’re here and so they keep sending checks every month to pay for their treatment. Main’s not planning to tell ’em.”
McKenzie chewed his bottom lip. That Dr. Main was a bad guy didn’t come as a surprise but the effects of the Hellmouth were definitely something they hadn’t planned on. Will wondered if Main would covet The Damned Thing for himself if he found out about it.
“Thanks, Jasper. I appreciate everything you’ve told me.”
“You gonna shut this place down?”
“I’ll try.”
Jasper nodded. “I came here because I wanted to help people, Chief McKenzie. That’s still what I want to do. But these poor bastards aren’t getting helped by being here. They’re just having their souls fed to the devil.”
McKenzie watched as the orderly stood up and left the room, carefully checking to make sure that he wasn’t being observed. When he was gone, Will took his gun out of his holster and checked to make sure it was loaded. Confident that he was ready for danger should it rear its ugly head, Atlanta’s police chief stretched out on the bed and tried to get some rest. Sleep was a long time coming, however.
THADDEUS MAIN WAS walking towards the dock, an umbrella held over his head. His feet splashed through mud puddles and he shivered a bit in the cold wind that was blowing. A few of his guards were hanging wreathes and other holiday decorations around the hospital grounds, a futile attempt to brighten the place in recognition of Christmas. Main cared nothing for the season but he knew that it helped with morale amongst his employees, so he encouraged such things.
For the first time in years, a second ferry was arriving. This one was a privately chartered affair. Main had been alerted to its coming the prior evening, when a telegraph cable from the mainland had arrived. Telephone service was unavailable on the island and the radio was notorious for going in and out, leaving telegraph as the surest means of communication. The message had been terse but to the point: a small party of important men would be coming and Main was to welcome them with open arms. Otherwise, he would be very sorry. Aleister Crowley, a name steeped in rumor and superstition, was listed as the author of the message. Main, who had become something of a devotee of the supernatural in recent years, was delighted by the unexpected visit.
Only one orderly was waiting for him, as per his orders. It was Felix Grau, a mute man who was completely loyal to Main. Grau greeted his employer with a quick nod and then he went to work, catching the lines from the ferry and tying them off. This ferry was much smaller than the usual one but far nicer, with sleek lines and comfortable deck furniture. There were four men waiting to disembark, all wearing hats to shield their faces from the rain.
“Welcome to Wolf Island,” Main said, stepping forward. He had picked out Crowley from the pack, recognizing the man’s intense gaze from photos he had seen.
Crowley offered him a cool smile. The water from his own hat was dripping down in a steady drizzle in front of his face. He offered brief gestures with his hands at his companions. “You know who I am,” he said with only the faintest trace of egotism. “This is Johann Burkard and his man Lazlo Bane. The other fellow is Daniel Armitage.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. Bane. You came here not too long ago.”
Bane nodded, shifting a bit in the pouring rain.
Main struggled to place the other names. Burkard he’d heard of… an occult collector and businessman. Armitage… that name had come up during Main’s trips to Atlanta. A criminal mastermind, it was said. “Let’s go to the clinic, shall we? Get out of this awful weather.”
The four men followed him up the walkway with Grau in the rear. The mute orderly had seen that none of the men had brought any luggage.
“Your message was a bit vague about your true purpose,” Main said.
“Has anyone else arrived here recently?”
“Why, yes. Earlier today we received a new patient.”
“Their name?”
“Clint Jacobs.”
Armitage muttered something under his breath and Crowley came to a halt, staring at the stout man with disdain. “You have something to say, Mr. Armitage?”
“I was just surprised that the doctor would share his name. I thought there was some sort of confidentiality around here.”
Main chuckled. “For normal people, perhaps, but not for the insane. Oh, we keep their names out of the press, surely enough. But it won’t hurt anything to tell you gentlemen. After all, the esteemed Mr. Crowley is worthy of a few indulgences.”
Armitage pulled his jacket tighter around his portly body and said nothing. The ‘esteemed’ Mr. Crowley was going to end up with a bullet in his brain before all was said and done. Armitage just hoped and prayed he’d be the one to send the bastard on to the afterlife.
The group stepped past the razor wire fencing and into the warmth of the hospital itself. Bane had an unpleasant look on his face. He had disliked the Institute immensely on his first visit. It was like a horrible cross between a maximum-security prison and the sort of asylum that Bane had read about in his pulp magazines.
As everyone shook off the raindrops that were clinging to them, Main closed his umbrella and handed it to the guard manning the door. “Mr. Jacobs didn’t arrive alone, however.”
Crowley seemed not at all surprised by this. “A woman came with him,” he stated.
“Yes. His niece. And the Police Chief of Atlanta. They’re both staying overnight.”
Burkard reached out and squeezed Main’s shoulder. “We think they are playing you for a fool, Doctor Main. And we’d very much like to see them get what is coming to them. If you help us do that, you will be very richly rewarded.”