Underwood and Flinch 7: Episode 14

Hello, listeners. First things first, my sincere apologies for the missing episode last month. I posted it to my podcast hosting site at the usual time. Then I did the text blurb and, you know, other things that I need to do there. And then I saved it. And I guess I must have been distracted by something or other because that looks like as far as I got with it.

I must have somehow thought saving it was the same as actually making it live. which of course it isn't. But that's all I knew about it until I came back to it today, about a month later, and saw that it was still there, in draft, waiting to be made live. Oh, what an idiot. So yes, I do apologise. I've always been something of a scatterbrain, and as I get older, that situation is, sadly, only getting worse. So if ever the episode is late, you know, by about a week, or if there's ever anything you notice that's seriously wrong with an episode, like maybe there's a repeated episode or there's something drastically wrong with it somewhere, then please do let me know. You can leave a comment at my website, mikebennisauthor.com, and don't worry about being a nag.

If I've messed up somehow, I really don't mind you nagging me. Indeed, I greatly appreciate being told about it. And needless to say, you can comment about other stuff on my website too, That's partially what it's there for, after all. The other being for me to tell you stuff, which I seldom do, because things seldom happen. Anyway, thank you very much. Okay, so now let's cut straight to the original Patreon recap, to this episode of The Devil of Claverton. The Devil of Claverton Last time, Henry Verlaine found and tortured Matthias Flinch into spilling the beans on where Underwood was and pretty much everything that he needed to know about the enemy that he plans to take his revenge upon. We left the story with Underwood telling

David and Claire Redmond how he had to start feeding on the people of Stroud following Martha catching him, you know, feeding on the pusset, remember? Well, we're going to pick up this time right after that. Underwood and Flinch by Mike Bennett Season 7 The Devil of Claverton Episode 14 This podcast is intended for an adult audience. Listener discretion is advised. So said Underwood. I started my nightly trips to Stroud and the surrounding area in search of sustenance, and because I wanted to avoid a repeat of the smouldering pussets, I cast a wide net, not feeding on one person or even one household, but many. I started with a revisit to the house on the outskirts of town where we'd first gone with the trapper, Reed. Previously

I'd taken a small quantity of blood from each of the occupants every night, but this time I fed on one victim per night, taking another family member every subsequent night, till I'd done the whole family, and then I moved on to another place. It left my victim as weak as a kitten for the next day, but that was no concern of mine. Better that than they come down with posset syndrome. At first I kept to the homestead cabins out among the pines, but eventually I started flying into Stroud itself. You flew in? asked David, his tone surprised. Yes, why?

Wasn't that a bit risky? Not as risky as going in on a horse. If a stranger should go clip-clopping into town in the dead of night, that could set the proverbial curtains to twitching and tongues to wagging. But if you drop silently from the sky into an alleyway or onto a rooftop, no problem. Apart from being stark naked, said Clare. Surely that would have set tongues wagging like mad.

Underwood chuckled. Well, it would have done if it had been the middle of the day, Inspector, but this was the early hours of the morning, when there was rarely, if ever, a soul around. Furthermore, I was, and still am, as stealthy as a cat. David raised a finger. Actually, my lord, talking of not wanting to overfeed on people, I've a question about that. Eh? What's that? If repeat feeding on the same victims results in them getting I don't know, some degree of vampiric infection. Is that reversible?

I mean, does that infection die if you stop doing it? Feeding on them, I mean. Yes, if I stop, the victim's as good as new after about a week. And besides the burning in sunlight, are there any other symptoms? You mean like hunger for blood? No, nothing like that. Fatigue, anemia, weakened immune system, but that's all. Why? Why? Well, I was just wondering about those women Rose had in that pantry of hers. If she's overfed on them, do you think they'll be all right when they come out of the underground? Oh yes, I'm sure they'll be fine. Rose knows all about the effects of overfeeding on a victim.

We never used to over-rely on the pantry stock, no matter how tasty they might have been. Bear in mind that back in Virginia I'd been feeding on the pussets exclusively for over a month before they started to burn in sunlight. Even if Rose had got lazy and fed on those women exclusively for a week or two, they'd still be all right in sunlight. A little uncomfortable, perhaps, but nothing serious. But what if she had fed on them for a month or more? No. Underwood shook his head.

That's not Rose, Flinch. If she'd been feeding on those women exclusively for months, she simply wouldn't have taken them with her. She'd have left them behind at Aldwych for the OCU to deal with, unless she wanted to head up onto the streets of London and have them start burning and screaming alongside her. Not the best way to avoid drawing attention to oneself, is it? No, I suppose not.

Underwood took out his watch, popped the cover, and checked the time. Anyway, let's get back to my story, shall we? I need my beauty sleep. He drew a breath and sighed. Okay, so, when Verlaine and his men arrived in Stroud, they did so dressed in respectable clothes they'd pinched from fellow travellers on the roads, Heavy black woolen cloaks and capotain hats, you know the kind you see in illustrations of Guy Fawkes? Respectable, but plain, nothing fancy. They had Matthias with them, sat on a horse with his hands tied and his battered face bandaged with filthy strips of rags. Verlaine gathered a crowd in the town centre, among whom were some of the local bigwigs, including my old friend the minister. and

tell them a tale guaranteed to strike fear and righteous indignation into their God-fearing hearts. The truth? suggested Clare. Underwood smiled. Not quite, Inspector. That wouldn't have cast Verlaine in a very good light, would it? But it wasn't far removed. Matthias had confessed enough to Verlaine for him to concoct a story that rivaled the truth for unholy horrors, but omitted his role as the cutthroat pirate-captain. directly or indirectly responsible for pretty much all of it. In this new version of events, he and the men who were accompanying him had been passengers on a ship sailing over from England.

They hadn't known each other at the start of the voyage, but had become acquainted on ship, and now were a fellowship united by one common purpose, that being the destruction of another who had been aboard on their ship, one who had been a man only in appearance, but who was in fact A demon. A shapeshifting horror known as a vampire.' A vampire?' exclaimed David.' Yes. Verlaine knew from Matthias that I believed I was possessed by the Voudan spirit, vampire, so he told them that's what I was, not a man possessed, but a whole new class of demon.' Underwood scoffed.' Ha!

He got it all arseways, the clod. Obviously failed to grasp the concept.' But that's basically right, though, isn't it? said David. I know you're not a demon, but you were a new class of something, a new species. Underwood scratched his chin. Well, yes, I suppose so. So then it was Valaine who essentially christened your species? Underwood scoffed again. Oh, well, yes, but only by being completely wrong about what Maru and I thought I was. Claire smiled. But it sounds like you still coined the term, and that is what you are.

A vampire. One of many. Even at that time, by your telling of things. Irked, Underwood took a puff on his e-cigarette and shrugged. I suppose it has to be acknowledged, yes. But it's a little more complicated than that. For the first time since meeting them, Clare laughed, genuinely amused. Underwood raised an eyebrow at this, despite his chagrin being the cause of her amusement. He smiled. It was nice to see her happy. It quite transformed her. She was, he realised, really rather attractive. He made a mental note to amuse her more often. More complicated how? asked David. Another time, Flinch.

Underwood tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist. I'm tired, and so should you be. David nodded, and Underwood resumed his story. So, as I was saying...' Velaine then explained to the Stroudians' how the new owner of Claverton' was, in fact, the same vampire' they had encountered at sea.' He had preyed upon the Pussets, 'stolen their home, stolen their mines, 'made them deceive their friends,' and worst of all, he had made them into his cattle.' For that was what a vampire was, a drinker of blood, human blood.

At sea, this man had called himself John Brooks, but you, Straudians, you all know him as John Pusset. Underwood smiled. Well, you can imagine the reaction. But how did Verlaine know this, they asked. Here he indicated Matthias, his battered and bound companion, and told them he knew it because Brooks's acolyte had confessed it all to him. Matthias, he told them, had been a companion of the vampire at sea. He'd sent him to Williamsburg to purchase slaves from the market, and it was there that Verlaine and his men had spotted him. Well, this gave rise to some of the Straudians pointing at Matthias and exclaiming it was true. They'd seen him before here in town. They knew his face, even though it

was now wrapped in blood-blackened rags. Verlaine then went on to explain how at sea— Brooks had been a wealthy passenger who, along with his acolyte, had had a private cabin all to themselves. Only the acolyte ever came out during the hours of daylight. Brooks would always hide in his cabin, only emerging on deck once the sun had gone down. He then recounted how, once the voyage was underway...

Certain individuals among passengers and crew started to fall ill with a strange kind of sleeping sickness that left them weary and docile. As the journey wore on, these poor souls would acquire a terrible sensitivity to sunlight. They would smoulder in its rays, screaming in agony. All of them died.

Some actually went up in flames. As you can imagine, this had the Straudians completely agog. for it chimed not only with what had happened to the Pussets, but also to what was happening to some of their own community, who were starting to fall ill with something very like this so-called sleeping sickness. Villain went on, telling them of how, as the journey progressed, everyone aboard fell into a state of abject dread and misery. By the time they reached sight of America, almost half of their number had died.

Things finally came to a head when, One night below deck, a crewman awoke to see a pair of glowing red eyes staring at him from the shadows beyond the reach of the lantern. Unsure if he was imagining things, the sailor moved closer, and there, clinging to the ceiling just as easily as if it had been the floor, he saw John Brooks. Immediately the vampire sprang at him. The sailors' scream aroused his crewmates, and they woke to the sight of Brooks with his animal-like teeth in the sailors' neck, drinking his blood. Underwood smiled. Actually, it sounds like any number of voyages I've undertaken myself over the years, but no matter. Anyway, the sailors tried to catch him, but right before their eyes he turned into a huge black

wolf that scattered them before it as it raced up onto the deck, there to take the shape of a monstrous bat. that snatched the acolyte Matthias up in its claws and flew away towards the coast of Florida, a jungle hell where everyone agreed he'd fit right in. And with that, the pall of doom that had hung over the ship lifted. The sleeping sickness ended, and it was clear that Brooks had been the cause of it. Verlaine and the other survivors completed their voyage, landing at the port of Norfolk, Virginia, From there, he and his present companions, who had bonded over their ordeal at sea, travelled to the capital, Williamsburg, where they intended to begin their new lives in the colony. However, they hadn't been there long when,

one night, to their amazement and horror, they spotted Brooks's acolyte drinking in a tavern with a young woman. All of them had sworn that if ever the good lord granted them the chance to do his work and bring justice upon the fiend, Brooks, they would do so. And here it appeared the good lord had done just that, by delivering unto them Brooks's servant. Underwood paused to take a puff on his e-cigarette, then continued. So, from that point their story went pretty much the same as if it had unfolded in reality. They'd beaten the tar out of Matthias to get him to confess to them where his master was and that had led them to Stroud, where they were hoping to take rest and sustenance before finally bringing God's justice to the devil of Claverton. And incidentally,

if anyone would like to join them, they would be most welcome. Did Matthias object to any of this? Like, you know, call Verlaine a liar? asked David. Underwood shook his head. Now, I think partly because he was broken by torture, and his torturers were right there with him, but also because... Although Verlaine was lying, his lies were based on a truth that the Straudians would have found just as bad. He was, I think, aware then of how his friendship with me had, over time, set him adrift from the moorings of convention, of how so-called fine and upstanding people viewed the world. He'd become so accustomed to my unusual condition that he didn't consider it in terms of right and wrong— good and evil, it was

just how I was, me, his friend, John Brooks, the victim of a misfortune that could just as easily have befallen him. However, when he saw the faces of those people gathered there in Stroud, their reactions to the story Verlaine had told them, which was, as I say, not so far from the truth, I think then perhaps he may have seen me as a monster, and himself perhaps as nothing less than that of which he was accused.

Claire looked at David, wondering if he might be recognising something of his own situation in that of his ancestor, but his face was inscrutable, his eyes resting intensely on Underwood, who then continued. Not that he ever said as much, mind you. That's just something I've imagined might have been the case whenever I've thought about it over the years.

I picture him, mute, defeated, just sitting there on his horse, eyes downcast, listening to the horror and righteous anger of the mob. David nodded, his expression thoughtful. Claire wished she could have had five minutes alone with him to press what she felt was a moment of psychological advantage, to hold up Matthias' situation as a mirror to him, that he might realise, as Matthias may have been doing at that moment, that he was the lackey of a monster.

But there was no chance of that, as Underwood, having taken a sip of brandy, now went on with his story. So, as you can imagine, all the assembled Straudians were appalled by Verlaine's story, but not everyone was completely taken in by it. Some called for proof beyond this beaten so-called acolyte, and here Verlaine was prepared for them again. He told them how the acolyte had confessed to them that the Pussets were not really dead. They were still there at Claverton, still being fed upon by brooks at night, and by day they'd be out in the fields, toiling alongside those who had once been their slaves, people who were now free men, working for their own sakes and at their own pace. Incidentally, that bit was true. Once the pussets

were no longer needed to provide the illusion of normality at Claverton, and once I'd stopped feeding on them exclusively, so they no longer smouldered, there was no need to keep them just lying around the house any more. So we put them to work out in the fields. Even the children? asked Clare. Everyone worked, Inspector. Everyone did something.

It's not like nowadays, with youngsters sitting around with their computer games and whatnot. But no, the youngest children weren't toiling in the fields, but they did have chores aplenty. Clare nodded vaguely, and Underwood continued. Well, this was all unspeakably horrifying for Verlaine's audience. perhaps most of all the idea of white gentlefolk being put to work in the tobacco fields. It was like the world turned upside down. However, thankfully the matter could be easily settled, since the Pussets had been buried right there in the graveyard of Stroud Church, supposedly. So, picks and shovels were gathered, and everyone trooped off to the graveyard, where the frost-hardened graves of the Pussets were

broken into, and the coffins exhumed. to reveal not the decaying bodies of those whose names were etched upon their tombstones, but the sacks of grain we had substituted for them. And then there wasn't a doubter left among them. That was it. Verlaine had won them to his cause. He had his army. Underwood pushed himself back into his seat and clamped his e-cigarette between his teeth. He's pretty good, isn't he? said David. I mean, I know you don't like him or anything, but Hood winking a whole community like that? I can see how he'd be. He sought for a phrase that wouldn't annoy Underwood. A worthy opponent?

Underwood sighed a cloud of white vapour and shrugged. I suppose that's fair. Yes, he was that. But as for Hood... those bumpkins, well, that was no great feat. Remember, this was a time before science, before reason. Most people couldn't even read. The Age of Enlightenment was only just dawning back in Europe. But over there, especially in a town in the arse-end of nowhere like Stroud, he shook his head.

Dear me, no. If you'd hopped on a box and performed the most basic conjuring trick, like plucking a coin from behind someone's ear, they'd have had you up on a bonfire before you could say abracadabra. Yeah, I suppose, said David. But anyway, Underwood continued. Once he had their support, Verlaine, his thugs, and some two dozen men from Stroud, including the minister— set out for Claverton before first light the following day. I remember it was early February. It had been snowing. The night before I'd been feeding at a cabin in the woods and I'd flown back through it.

I don't know the exact hour the mob reached us, but it was still morning. The men were all armed, and Verlaine had schooled them on what strategy to take. There would be no knocking on the door and making polite inquiries as to my whereabouts on the night of, etc., etc., This wasn't an investigation, or an arrest, or something of that order. They were already convinced of my guilt, and they were out for justice, and Old Testament justice at that.

When they first arrived, they kept their actions away from the house. Verlaine wanted to keep their presence as quiet as possible so as not to attract attention from anyone inside that might raise the alarm. The snow had been their ally in this. By then it had stopped falling, but it had obscured visibility through the windows of the house.

Verlaine's first order of business was to round up the men and women working outside, the former slaves, their fascinated and now zombie-like former bosses, the whip-hands, and to the utter horror of the Stroud contingent, Ephraim Pusset, his wife Bedelia, sons Thaddeus and Abner, and Nabi, the eldest daughter, alive and slaving, just as Verlaine had said they would be, their once fine clothes, filthy and torn, their hands calloused and coarse, and all of them possessed with a singular and quite baffling to the Straudians desire to get back to work, that being the duties to which I had assigned them. The minister was apparently beside himself. Ephraim, he cried, clutching his old friend by the shoulders and trying to

get him to focus on him, Do you not know me? He did, of course, but his orders didn't include standing around chit-chatting with old chums. He was a busy man. He had wood to chop, fences to mend, pigs to muck out, and so on. To all appearances, it was like he was spellbound, his mind no longer his own. Which, of course, is exactly what Verlaine told them was the case, and the only way to break those spells was to burn the one who would cast them. So, as I say, They quickly and quietly began to round up and secure the former slaves, some of whom saw what was happening from a distance and made a run for it, but most were captured, including Maru. They were held in a barn at gunpoint by a few of the Straudians, while Verlaine,

his men, and the rest of the mob surrounded the house.' What did they do with the pussies?' asked David.' Oh, they were still trying to get back to work, and since no one knew how to stop them, they just let them get on with it, at least for the time being.' Villain dragged Matthias over to where they had a good view of the house and told him to point out the window of the room where I slept.

He silently pointed out the second-floor room at the end of the east wing, once Ephraim and Bedelia's, now mine and Martha's. Then Villain had him corralled with the former slaves, there to await whatever justice they'd meet out once I was taken care of. Underwood raised his brandy and drank the last of what remained. He considered the empty glass a moment, then said, I never had a chance to speak to anyone who was inside the house that day.

I don't know what it was like for them, but I've often imagined it. I see them working in the kitchen, baking, cooking, cleaning, always happily chatting away in that way they used to. Some of them were, I dare say, eating breakfast, the rumour redolent of the freshly baked bread they'd have every morning.

And then... Outside, beyond the frosting of snow on the windows, an orange glow, spreading as a succession of torches were lit and held aloft. I imagined them going to the windows and seeing the mob out there, ringed around the house, and then beginning to advance upon them. I slept through it at first, the shouts and screams. the breaking of the windows as torches were thrown in all around the house.

We vampires sleep very deeply when we're glutted with blood, as I was from my feeding of the night before. Underwood looked up from his glass and into David's eyes, his expression and his tone appealing as if for sympathy. I didn't know. I just didn't know until it was too late. till the fire had taken hold. And so, as fire spreads through Claverton, it seems like Henry Verlaine shall have his revenge. Who will live, and who will die, and who will become immortal? Join me next time, listeners, as this flight through the historical adventures of Underwood and Flinch continues.

Underwood and Flinch 7: Episode 14

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