The Missionary of Darkness
By Childe Valancourt
Author's note: John Melmoth is a character from the famous Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer by the Victorian author Charles Robert Maturin.
Chapter One: In Which A Barber Is Solicited For More Than a Shave
The pale sunlight glinted off the mirror-like edges of the blades as the man ran a white cloth over them, polishing away the dust and fingerprints that dulled their brilliance. To all intents and purposes, he was but a common barber tending to the tools of his trade. However, there was a gleam within his shadowed eyes that, young though he was, hinted of a fixed determination that was more than the usual ardency of a master barber. To him, the sparks that seemed to fly from the reflecting edges of his blade were the trailing paths of glorious dreams and deeds yet to be committed – deeds that might restore to him, if not the life that he had once led, at least a sense of accomplishment that had been lost to him for so very long – ever since she had been taken from him.
So absorbed was he in his work that he did not notice when the door behind him opened and it was only when he beheld a shadow darken the gleaming of his blades that he turned and saw the stranger who stood before him in that narrow attic room.
"Mr. Benjamin Barker, I presume?" the stranger enquired, casting a speculative eye upon the shaving glass, the hulking black chair, and the various other barbering appurtenances that lay all about the room before at last settling his gaze upon the barber himself. Benjamin shuddered, but his fear sprang not from the stranger's knowledge of his true name, the name that he had forsaken ever since his return to London. Rather, it was the nature of the stranger's gaze that caused the young barber's blood to run cold, calloused though he was to most of the horrors that the world could offer. Fiery and penetrating were those dark, considering eyes, as though they had beheld worlds of suffering and torture that Benjamin could only guess at; and the barber felt that, were those eyes ever to flash with anger, the sight would be as blindingly hideous as a savage strike of lightning. The man's countenance and bearing were proud and perhaps even noble and for a moment, Benjamin was put in mind of an engraving he had once beheld in his wife's edition of Paradise Lost portraying Milton's Satan, so striking was the juxtaposition of majesty and misanthropy that seemed to mark every lineament of the stranger's form and figure. He felt a thrilling awe not unlike the same sort of feeling that he had experienced when as a child he had stood in the cathedral and beheld the marble statues of the saints, so pure and devoted was their holiness and sanctity. This stranger, likewise, seemed as pure, resolute and uncompromising in his intentions as those holy martyrs, though his dreadful appeal seemed to be from the entirely opposite side of the war betwixt Heaven and Hell.
"Who are you?" the barber at last ventured to ask.
The stranger smiled with a sort of mirthless amusement. "I am surprised that you do not ask how I know of your true name – the name that you held before you chose to take on that ridiculous appellation 'Sweeney Todd.' However, you show wisdom in refraining from such an enquiry, for that would be entirely pointless. Suffice it to say that I know all of your history, all of your desires, dreads, and despairs. Nothing of you is hidden from me save those few things that God alone can know."
Benjamin's fear gave way to anger; he felt now as though he had become the butt of some bizarre joke. "Leave this place," he hissed. "Or I shall call for the coppers!"
"And perhaps I shall call for the constabulary myself," the stranger returned, his smile now openly cruel. Seeing Benjamin's hand move towards his knives, the man instantly caught the barber's wrist in a grasp as terrible and resistless as an iron manacle. Forcing Benjamin into the black chair customarily reserved for customers, the stranger spoke once again:
"I have not come to fight you but to aid you – if you will accept my aid. I know of your desire to revenge yourself against Judge Turpin. I know also of your despair at ever beholding your wife again. All of these may be remedied and accomplished if you will but obey me."
"And what is it that you would have me do?" Benjamin retorted. "This stinks of blackmail!"
The stranger laughed – a terrible laugh that seemed not so much to ridicule a certain action on the part of the object of its amusement but rather to mock the follies and foibles of the entire human race. It was less the laughter of man and more the laughter of mankind's enemy.
"Nothing could be farther from my intentions," he said softly. "But I see that you are not of a mind yet to accept my offer. I shall return when you are better suited to listen to my proposition."
Benjamin rose slowly from his chair. "Then you are leaving now?"
"Certainly not," the stranger replied, with his first look of genuine amusement. "You are a barber and I assume that you are as proficient at wielding those knives for their usual purpose as you are at threatening blackmailers with them? Then please use them upon me."
The stranger seated himself in the black chair and Benjamin set to work. The man was perfectly still and silent under the barber's knife, as though absorbed in his own thoughts. Benjamin handed him a handkerchief and he wiped his face, then instantly rose, brushing away the mirror that the barber offered him as though dreading to behold the visage within. This surprised Benjamin, for the stranger's countenance was not at all repulsive; indeed, he would not have been surprised if in the stranger's youth, he had been considered quite comely. The haggard, sardonic visage that remained, however, was less one of conventional handsomeness and now more an object of fascination; and those fatal, contemplative eyes held the one unfortunate enough to behold them as surely as an iron vice, though their attraction inspired fear foremost above all other emotions.
As the stranger parcelled out payment for his shave, Benjamin at last spoke, his voice trembling in spite of himself: "You can truly bring Lucy back to me?"
The stranger saw the hopeful tears that stood within the barber's eyes and for a moment seemed moved by something akin to pity; instantly, however, he repulsed this aspect of sympathy from his visage and his eyes grew as cold and distant as before.
"Yes," he replied.
"But I was told that she is dead!"
"She is not dead. Those who have told you so are liars and to be feared."
"And I may trust you?"
"May you trust anyone within this world?" the stranger replied with a satiric smile.
"Any man who restores my wife to me is to be trusted," Benjamin replied, clasping the man's pale hand.
"Then you may trust me. As I said, I shall return to you presently to discuss this matter in more depth. Until then, farewell."
He gently extracted his hand from Benjamin's grasp and moved towards the door, gathering his cloak more closely about him as though to ready himself for the wintry coldness outside. Before he had left, however, Benjamin said, "But, sir, you did not tell me your name."
The stranger did not turn, merely replying, "My name is of as little consequence as your own."
"Please – I must know the name of the man who has given me such hope, so that I may mention you in my prayers."
"And so I have inspired you to take up praying again?" the stranger rejoined, turning now to flash a look of such hideous, inhuman amusement that Benjamin paled visibly under the man's glance. "Then know the name of your new benefactor, Mr. Barker – it is John Melmoth!"
And with these words, he departed.