House of Stone

by R. L. King

  “Is there a catch inside?” Ward asked.

  Eddie moved back in and directed the light upward. “Doesn’t look like it. Whoever this is, they were sealed inside, and probably after they were dead. Don’t think it was ever intended for anybody to get ’em out.”

  “Well, damn,” Verity said, frustrated. “We can’t just have Jason bash away at it—if the top collapses, it’ll crush the body.”

  “How old does it look?” Ward gripped Eddie’s shoulder. “Let me have a look. Perhaps we can determine when it was interred by the clothing style.”

  Eddie vacated his space and Ward leaned in, stuffing his hand through the opening to get better light on the subject. “The body’s desiccated,” he said. “but not skeletal. Probably the tomb preserved it to some extent.”

  “How old is it?” Stone said.

  “The clothes are fairly rotted, but it looks like…late eighteenth, early nineteenth century, most likely. He—wait a moment!”

  “What?” Stone, Verity, and Eddie all shouted at the same time.

  Ward leaned back, poking his arm through the hole and feeling around. After a moment, he carefully withdrew it. In his hand was a small book bound in dusty black leather.

  “It’s a book,” Verity said for Stone’s benefit. “A little black book about the size of a personal journal.”

  “It was in his inner pocket,” Ward said. “I wouldn’t have spotted it if the fabric hadn’t rotted away.” Both he and Eddie were staring at it with hungry expressions, as if they’d just unearthed the Holy Grail.

  “Bring it back here,” Stone ordered. “I want to see it. But—look in the front now. See if there’s a name in it, or any way to identify it.”

  Everyone crowded around the altar as Eddie carefully laid the book on top of it. “Doesn’t look preserved,” he said. “So we’ll have to be careful.”

  He pulled a pair of thin gloves from his pocket and donned them, then gently pulled open the leather cover to expose the flyleaf.

  “There’s writing on it,” Verity said. “I can’t make it out, though. It’s faded and old-fashioned.”

  “Eddie?” Stone urged.

  “’Ang on…” Eddie leaned in closer, holding up his light spell, fully focused on the narrow, fussy script. “There’s definitely a name ’ere, but it’s damned ’ard to read. Joseph something, maybe, or…”

  “James,” Ward said. “I think it’s James. And the surname’s first initial looks like a B or a P…”

  Eddie’s shoulders suddenly went stiff, and he staggered a step backward, ripping off his safety glasses again. His face, in the harsh overhead light, was pale. “Bloody ’ell…” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

  “What?” Stone yelled over the radio. “Eddie, what is it? Tell me!”

  “Who is it?” Verity demanded.

  Eddie swallowed, nodding toward the journal. “You’re not gonna believe this, mate. I don’t believe it. Remember before, when you ’ad Ward and me check into your family ’istory, and we found that partial journal from a bloke called James Brathwaite? ’E was a mage and an associate of one o’ your ancestors, but he disappeared without a trace?”

  “Yes…” Stone said.

  “Well…I’m thinkin’ maybe we might’ve found ’im.”

  26

  They were back in the London house, sitting around the big table in the dining room, less than half an hour later.

  “Brathwaite…” Stone murmured. “I’m having a hard time believing it.” He felt stunned, as if someone had recently set off a bomb behind him, and was having difficulty organizing his thoughts. Every time he thought they’d begun to get a handle on this situation, some new aspect popped up to complicate matters again.

  “Believe it,” Eddie said. “Unless somebody else was carryin’ around ’is personal journal.”

  The journal in question lay in the middle of the table, and Stone, Eddie, and Ward were all staring at it like hungry cats. They’d only just arrived and sat down; Stone had insisted that the exploratory group remain in the ritual room for a while longer, watching with magical sight to verify there wasn’t any arcane energy around the desiccated corpse before exiting. He wished he could have been down there—as much as he trusted his friends, he knew his own sensitivity to such things was higher—but had to be satisfied with their reports.

  “Shall we ’ave a look, then?” Eddie asked, deceptively casual. “You want to do the honors, Stone?”

  Stone did want to do the honors, more than just about anything, but this time he knew the best approach was to defer to greater expertise. “No, no—you two look. I’m betting whatever he wrote isn’t in plain English, and even if it is I never got the hang of reading that old-fashioned writing. Let’s put a preservation spell on it first, though.”

  “That, and examine it thoroughly for curses,” Ward added.

  “Curses?” Ian asked. “People put curses on books?”

  “Not so much nowadays,” Eddie said, nodding soberly. “But yeah, it was quite the thing back in those days. People didn’t want anybody lookin’ at their private stuff.”

  “How long is all that gonna take?” Jason asked. Even he was leaning forward in anticipation, clearly caught up in the excitement of discovery.

  “Hour or so, to be safe,” Stone said. “You lot didn’t get much sleep last night—go take a nap or something and we’ll meet back here then.”

  “What about you?” Verity asked.

  “What about me?” He nodded toward the journal. “Do you honestly think I could sleep with that in the house? Off you all go—there’s nothing you can do to help with this part, and it won’t be exciting. Boring, scholarly stuff mostly. I promise we won’t open it until we’re all back together.”

  They grumbled a bit, especially Verity and Ian, but finally drifted off, leaving Eddie, Ward, and Stone alone in the dining room.

  “You had another reason for getting rid of them, didn’t you?” Eddie asked.

  Stone shrugged, and didn’t answer. “Come on, let’s get on with this. I want to see what he had to say. I suppose it will be too much to ask that he’s worked out why he was shut up down there in the first place.”

  They reconvened in the dining room in an hour, with Verity, Jason, and Ian all showing up right on time.

  “Did you find anything?” Verity asked, stifling a yawn.

  “No curses,” Stone said, returning the journal to the table. “Eddie put a preservation spell on it so we can page through without worrying about damaging it.”

  “Well, come on, then,” she urged. “Let’s see what he says.”

  Eddie pulled the book to him and opened it. Ward leaned in, holding up a light spell to provide brighter illumination. The first thing he did was riffle through the pages. “Not much written in ’ere,” he said. “Maybe ’e’d recently started a fresh one. Stone, remember the one we found before, with the missin’ pages?”

  “Of course I do.” He had a copy of it back at the Surrey house, and the original—or at least an original copy—resided in the London library. “Is this another copy?”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “And you don’t think these are the missing pages?”

  Eddie shook his head in impatience, holding up a finger. “No. Just—’ang on a sec. This stuff is bloody ’ard to read.” He returned to the beginning and studied the first few pages. “I’m sure this one came from a later date. ’E’d started a new journal, and ’adn’t got much chance to make entries before ’e ended up—well, where ’e did.”

  “Why would they bury it with him?” Ian asked. “If they killed him, why would they leave a record?”

  “Good question,” Ward said. “Possibly they didn’t know it was there—I did find it in what would have been a deep inner pocket of his clothes—or possibly they didn’t care.”

  “Remember,” Eddie added, “that whole place ’ad been sealed up right and proper—probably re-sealed, since it looks like that whatever they put in that room
with all the protective enchantments came later, after the foundation sacrifice was completed and the ’ouse was already built. I doubt they expected any o’ that stuff to be found. Just give us a few minutes to read, and we should be able to give you somethin’, at least.”

  Stone fought to quell his impatience. The journal had been there for hundreds of years—a few more minutes wouldn’t matter.

  “Who was this Brathwaite guy anyway?” Jason asked. “It sounds like you already know who he is.”

  Stone didn’t answer right away. Even now, he felt a deep reluctance to share the sordid bits of his family history with an audience—but he supposed they already knew the worst of it. When you’ve just discovered your ancestors had committed mass murder by imprisoning innocents in your basement and let them die of starvation to gain power, the rest paled in comparison. “He was an associate of my great-great…I’m not sure how many greats, actually—grandfather. Lived around the turn of the nineteenth century.”

  “He was a mage, then?” Ian asked.

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I haven’t told you—not even you, Verity—the whole story of what I found out about my family last year. I found some old papers hidden away in one of the crypts in the mausoleum, and they hinted at some of what we’ve found here. I didn’t know about the foundation sacrifice, obviously, but I did know my family had dabbled in human sacrifice back in those days. Ian, I would have told you, at least, eventually—you had a right to know. It’s your family too. But as you might have guessed, it’s not something I’m proud of.”

  Verity nodded, her eyes full of sympathy. “Yeah.”

  “Most of them belonged to an organization called Ordo Purpuratus. It was…sort of an old boys’ club for powerful mages. My ancestors weren’t the only ones who got up to this kind of thing—apparently it was more common than anyone wants to admit among the top echelon of upper-class mages back in the day. They’d do anything for more power, including commit murder.”

  “That organization isn’t still around, is it?” Jason asked, frowning.

  “Not that I’m aware of. And since I’m solidly in the demographic that they’d court for membership—wealthy, male, probably white British mages from strong bloodlines—I suspect I’d have at least heard rumors if it did. I think it died out when mages got a bit more…enlightened. The last references I could find to it ended around my grandfather’s day.”

  “Wow,” Ian said. “So that means it could have existed even as far as the twentieth century?”

  “Quite likely, though probably not with anywhere near the level of power and influence they enjoyed in their prime.”

  “So this Brathwaite guy was in the group too?” Jason nodded toward Eddie and Ward, who had their heads together and were deeply buried in the journal’s pages.

  “Yes. The rumors Eddie unearthed before suggested he and my great-great-whatever grandfather were close associates, but they had a falling-out over something. He disappeared, and no one ever determined what the disagreement was about or what became of him.”

  “Looks like we know now,” Verity said. “At least where he ended up, if not why.”

  “Do you think our ancestors killed him?” Ian asked. “Why would they do that?”

  “Maybe he was going to rat them out,” Jason said. “You know, tell somebody about all the bodies buried under your house.”

  “Do you think he was buried when the foundation sacrifice happened?” Verity asked. “Or later, when they sealed the chamber for the second time? I’m just wondering, if they fought, if it was over the sacrifices or whatever’s in that room.”

  “Probably the room,” Stone said. “I’m sure the house was constructed earlier than the early eighteen-hundreds, and Brathwaite was alive then. Even if that pedestal was there during the foundation sacrifices, before the house itself was built, they could have used magic to open it and seal the body inside.” He wanted to urge Eddie and Ward to go faster, but he stopped himself. He knew them—they were reading as fast as they could, as anxious as he was to absorb whatever knowledge the journal could provide. Interrupting their concentration would only make the whole process go slower.

  They didn’t come up for air for another ten minutes, after flipping through several more pages and employing a large magnifying glass Eddie pulled from his pocket. The librarian let out a sigh and slumped back in his chair, swiping his hand through his thinning brown hair.

  “I think we’ve got somethin’ for you, mate,” he said. “Though I’ll be damned if I know what most of it means.”

  “Tell us,” Stone urged, gripping the table.

  “Well, for one thing, it looks like Brathwaite wasn’t killed at the time of the sacrifice, but I guess we sort of knew that, unless the dates we knew were wrong. But ’ere’s where things start to get interestin’. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna paraphrase a bit. ’E got a bit flowery.” He flipped a few more pages and began to read aloud.

  “Tomorrow, at last, we will see the fiend dealt with.

  The preparations are complete, and utmost secrecy has been maintained. The chamber is prepared. We do not believe he has become aware of our plans, and he has no reason to suspect us. I find myself with a deep sense of exhilaration over what is to come, but I admit to fear as well. The fiend ‘A’ is not to be trifled with. If we do not exercise the greatest care, he will discover the trap we have laid and our lives—perhaps our souls—will be forfeit.

  “I remain vexed that they refuse to proceed with my own proposed plan, which would remove much of the doubt and uncertainty from our endeavor. Damn them for only now developing a conscience—as if they do not know they are already lost in the eyes of God for their past actions. For all their earthly advantage, they remain squeamish and weak in the face of true power. My methods are sound and well-practiced, and I could be of great assistance if only they would permit it. The fiend is strong in magic, but we could negate much of that advantage if only we were to gain the assistance of those which magic cannot harm.

  “Damn their weakness!

  “I will attempt to persuade them one final time before we begin. Though I would not reveal my thoughts to them, I am not confident our current course of action will prove successful. I grow ever more frustrated with their reluctance to do what is necessary. I believe that their connection to the fiend ultimately weakens their resolve to see the matter properly put to its end.

  “That’s the last entry,” Ward said. “There are a few others before that—mostly about day-to-day activities. As I said, I think this journal was a new one, so he didn’t have time to make many entries before he died.”

  Stone’s mind spun. “So many questions…” he murmured. “What did he mean, ‘the fiend “A”’? It sounds like that was what they put in that sealed room.”

  “Yeah,” Verity said. “And it sounds like they—whoever they were—were really scared of it. Like they thought it was too powerful for them to be sure they could take it down. Do you think it was members of your family he was talking about, the ones he was doing the plan with?”

  “Almost certainly,” Stone said. “Whoever was the current master of the house, and possibly his son.”

  “But what is this ‘fiend’?” Jason asked. “Some kind of monster?”

  “Why would there be a monster running around in the house?” Verity glanced at the journal, then shot a questioning look at Eddie and Ward.

  “I don’t think we’ll find that out from these pages,” Eddie said. “It definitely sounds like ’e was tryin’ to dance around the subject with this ‘A’ business, maybe because ’e didn’t want to name whatever it was. True names have power, especially in something a bunch o’ mages at their level were wettin’ themselves over. ’E wouldn’t’ve put it down in writing, ’specially since it looks like ’e never meant anyone else to read this journal.”

  “He might not even have known its true name,” Ward said soberly. “But I think the Stones, at least, must have. If it was as powerful and dangerous as they i
mply, having its name would increase their confidence in their ability to imprison it.”

  “If it was in the house,” Ian said, “maybe it wasn’t a monster. Maybe it was…part of the family. You know, like the crazy uncle you keep locked up in the attic.”

  “Have to be a pretty tough crazy uncle,” Verity said dubiously. “Like the crazy immortal vampire uncle or something.”

  “You lot are too hung up on vampires,” Stone said. “But you might be on to something, otherwise.”

  “Honestly,” Eddie said, “I’m more concerned about the other bit.”

  “What other bit?” Jason asked.

  He pointed at the journal. “The part where Brathwaite talks about ‘’is plan,’ the one the others didn’t want to use because they were ‘too squeamish.’”

  “Why is that?” Stone got up and came around behind them, peering over their shoulders at the narrow, faded writing.

  “That might have been what they had the disagreement over,” Ward said. “The one that might have got him killed. He was in on the plan to imprison the ‘fiend,’ but he wanted to use a method involving ‘the assistance of those which magic cannot harm.’”

  “Yeah,” Verity said. “And whatever it was, it was apparently so bad that even Doc’s ancestors—guys who committed human sacrifices to get more power—didn’t want to try. What could have been that bad?”

  “You mentioned necromancy before,” Jason said. “Are you sure that couldn’t be it?”

  “It’s certainly bad enough to fit the parameters,” Ward said. “But as we said before, there’s literally no documented evidence that it existed. It’s more of a…bogeyman used to frighten children.”

  Stone nodded. “I’m more inclined to think he might have wanted to do some sort of summoning ritual. Summoning was more common back then, but even in those days it was frowned upon because it was difficult to control the entities that came through. I’m wondering if Brathwaite thought they could summon up some magic-resistant beasties from another dimension and use them to subdue this ‘fiend’. I could see how my ancestors would be reluctant to do that, especially if they didn’t have faith in Brathwaite’s abilities.”