Catacombs of Terror! by Stanley Donwood Page A

didn’t care. He could raise them up to his hairline if he liked.
    “Why me? You said something about finding out how ‘reliable’ I was. Something like that. But why the hell did you have to pick on me in the first place?”
    I felt pretty strongly about this.
    “Why not? Barry knew who you were. You’re a private investigator.”
    “So if Barry hadn’t caught me with Karen, I’d have been left alone? None of this would have happened?”
    “All of this would have happened. If Barry hadn’t been, um, introduced to you, so to speak, you might not have been directly involved with us, no. But we probably would have used you anyway. Your name’s in the phonebook, after all. There aren’t too many private investigators in the city. And once we found out you were going to be framed for something you didn’t do . . . well.”
    This was bad. I guess I’d known that no good would come of sleeping with Karen. At least she hadn’t made me fill up a specimen jar. Well, not as far as I knew, anyway. I did another line, and walked over to the couch. I sat down next to Stonehenge.
    “So,” I said in one of my most pissed-off voices, “what is all this about me being arrested for some kind of bizarre murder scenario on Monday? The Karen connection again, I guess?”
    “I’m afraid so. A sacrifice is indeed planned for the early hours of the 13th of July. The anniversary of Doctor Dee’s birth. But the date isn’t really important. AFFA have been sacrificing human beings for centuries. Some of the victim’s—er—internal organs are needed for one of Their alchemical actions. Obviously such a horrendous crime cannot be seen to go unpunished. Karen suggested you as the fall guy.”
    As he was saying this, Stonehenge poured himself another drink. Quite a small one, given the circumstances, I thought.
    “Well, that’s nice,” I said, “that’s really good of her. Considerate, even. Thanks, Karen. At least she remembered me, hey?”
    Stonehenge sipped at his whiskey. He didn’t say anything. Nor did I. I couldn’t believe it.
Karen.
I felt sadder than I thought I could manage. I used my mouth to smoke a cigarette. I thought about innocent little flies caught in big sticky webs, and about the sad, muffled buzzing sound they made as the spider cocooned them in silk.
    “And at least she didn’t pick me to be the murder victim. I can think about that, and it makes me feel better. Not much better. They’re really going to knock someone off?”
    Stonehenge shrugged his shoulders.
    “It’s not like it’ll be the first time. They’ve been killing people for years. For centuries, as I said. I’ve done some research into excavations that have gone on at the city Baths at various times. During one excavation, back in 1882, more than sixty skeletons were found. Only two of them were complete. The rest were . . . scattered. There were what looked like saw marks on the bones. As if they’d been . . . well, you can imagine. And there were some Saxon ovens found nearby. The ovens had human heads in them.”
    My mind felt like it was lurching from side to side. “What else?” I asked in a voice that didn’t sound much like mine.
    “I also tried to find out if any strange murders—I mean, this is real Jack the Ripper type stuff we’re talking about—had taken place over the last couple of centuries, because you’d have thought that they would have been reported in the newspapers. Locally and nationally. And if you look hard enough—as I did—you can find them. But there’s always something odd about the cases. The guilty party is always found, and is always . . . too obvious. It’s like reading a badly written murder mystery.”
    “Any idea who they’re going to kill?”
    “Not a clue. Barry tried to find out from Karen, but he thinks even she doesn’t know. I would imagine that kind of decision is taken at the very highest level.”
    “You’re saying that there is an elite within the elite? A boss or