by Alexis Hall
“How then should we proceed?” In all honesty, and this may have been my upbringing or my military experience speaking, I was edging towards the opinion that the most practical course of action would be to set the building on fire and run. Unfortunately, this would be unlikely to provide us with the information we required.
“I suspect you will dislike this suggestion”—Ms. Haas peered into the darkness beyond the doorway—“but I think it might be best if I were to go through the main entrance in order to draw the attention of whoever or whatever might be lurking inside, while you skirt the boundaries and seek an alternate route.”
Contrary as it ran to my instincts, I was forced to concede that Ms. Haas’s strategy had a great deal to recommend it. If the main entryway was indeed a trap, Ms. Haas was more likely to survive it than I and if one intended to bait out an ambush one did not do so by committing one’s whole force. I nodded my assent.
Needing no further encouragement, my companion swept into the mansion, her cloak billowing about her. The moment she was across the threshold, the doors slammed shut, which rather confirmed our suspicions of skulduggery. In a situation like this, my natural impulse would always be to go immediately to the aid of my friend, but in the face of real danger such kindnesses can prove fatal. I have learned from bitter experience that the success of an operation and the survival of those engaged in it are best served by adherence to the agreed plan, rather than impulsive acts of private compassion. So, I trusted that Ms. Haas’s abilities would prove equal to whatever she faced and turned my attention to the task she had laid before me.
Taking a firm hold of my cane in one hand, and the pistol in the other, I swept the perimeter, proceeding clockwise from the door and keeping a weather eye out for ghosts, ghouls, and barghests. The most obvious points of access were the open and unguarded windows high in the tower. While I believed myself capable of scaling its rough walls with relative safety, I had no wish to be caught thirty feet above the ground with no free hand when attack by a flying enemy was possible at any moment. Further, my time beyond the Unending Gate had taught me that one must never underestimate the physical strain a long, vertical ascent would place upon one’s body or the severe detriment of such fatigue on one’s capabilities afterwards. I resolved, therefore, to assault the tower only as a last resort.
I completed my circuit and found no other suitable entryways at ground level. I had hoped to identify some manner of storm cellar or servants’ entrance, but every door was firmly sealed, and I discovered no hatches or trapdoors of any kind. Looking again at the building, I noted that it was a mix of architectural styles, having clearly been added to over the span of many years, but that the oldest parts seemed to date back centuries. Reasoning that such buildings often contained crypts, catacombs, or even dungeons that extended well beyond their walls, I concluded that, before ascending the tower, it would be prudent to scout the grounds to see if they afforded a more convenient point of ingress.
I began to spiral my path outwards, acutely aware as I did so that night was fast closing in around me and that, being alone, I had nobody to watch my back. Having completed three or four ever-widening circuits of the house I caught sight of another structure in the distance; a half-ruined stone building that might once have been a chapel sat beside a weed-choked lake that might once have been ornamental. It seemed that this would be the most likely place to contain a hidden entrance to the mansion proper and, tightening my grip on my pistol, I made straight for it.
The sun having set, the high wall blocking out the streetlights, and the trees obscuring the stars, the darkness was near total. Worse still, the howling of the wolves had stilled, replaced by the more imminently threatening sound of large beasts dragging themselves through undergrowth.
I should caution readers that the scenes I am about to describe may prove shocking to many, involving as they do encounters with beings both savagely violent and unnaturally lascivious. Be advised also that the tunnels to which I was indeed able to gain access were, to the best of my understanding, part of the crypts once attached to an abbey consecrated in the name of the Insular Church. I argued with my editor for some days over the tastefulness of including in this text scenes of a lurid nature that occur within a location sanctified for the burial of the dead. Ultimately, however, he convinced me that the inclusion of these sequences was utterly necessary to the reader’s understanding of events as they unfolded and I have, as a consequence, left them intact in spite of my personal misgivings.
Thus I am compelled to narrate that it was at this moment that the barghest sprang from my two o’clock position. It was a repulsive being, dog-like in aspect but rancid to the point of deliquescence and weeping vile humours not only from its jaws but from the innumerable lesions that dotted its skin. Before I could bring the pistol to bear, the full weight of the slavering thing was upon me, knocking me to the ground. Thanks either to my ill fortune or its malign intelligence, one of its heavy forepaws came down upon my wrist, preventing me from raising the gun again. It was only the fact that I had managed to raise my knees as I fell that prevented the creature from instantly tearing my throat out. For a few unpleasant moments my world was nothing but fangs and fur and the corpse-cold secretions that dripped from its muzzle.
I did not have the strength to force the beast away but, braced as it was astride me, I twisted my left arm around its right foreleg, removing its primary support and bringing it tumbling to the dirt. At the same time, I pushed sideways with my legs, for the monster would surely have crushed me had its whole weight fallen straight upon me. I scrambled to my feet faster than it was able to, and as it thrashed and snarled in its confusion at my unexpected resistance, I shot it in the head. I thought it best to shoot it again once I had composed myself, since I was not wholly certain that a single bullet could be relied upon to overcome whatever dark animus gave the creature its semblance of life.
I was, of course, conscious that I had just fired off several rounds from a large-calibre handgun in the grounds of a private residence not so very far from a public thoroughfare in Athra. Still, if luck was with me (as I would later discover, it was not), the neighbours would be accustomed to strange sounds emanating from the Contessa’s residence.
Reloading my pistol, I listened intently in case the creature had a mate or a pack, but I heard nothing. Perhaps the noise had scared the others away or perhaps these creatures were so debased as to take delight in one another’s destruction. Regardless, I reached the chapel without further molestation. Little of its original architecture remained, although I could see, within, the remnants of the gaudy trappings of the Insular Church. The gilt had flaked away from the statues of saints and angels and the jewels had long been stripped from the tabernacle, although the image of the Saviour, Yohannah, broken upon the wheel still dominated the apse.
I had been raised to be suspicious of such icons and to hold their veneration as tantamount to idolatry, but I have always taken comfort in the presence of sacred things, especially in dark places. Behind the altar, I found displaced flagstones and a narrow staircase leading downwards. Not for the first time that night, I was struck by the monumental folly of trespassing in the abode of an unknown vampire protected only by a pistol, a walking stick, and some water of unsubstantiated holiness. Nevertheless, I would not leave Ms. Haas to face this place alone, nor leave Miss Viola with her questions unanswered and her engagement in peril.
It is the convention in my faith for the wheel always to be displayed unoccupied. The Reformed Church of the Creator teaches that, since the Saviour ascended from the wheel into a body of pure fire and spirit, the symbol should be presented in a context that emphasises Her triumph rather than Her suffering. In that moment, however, I was glad to be reminded that She was watching over me. Her serene gaze, despite the mortifications of Her flesh, strengthened my resolve as I began my descent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Manor at Quatrefa
ce,
Part the Second
Leaving the light of the chapel, I was enveloped in perfect blackness. My first concern was, of course, that I was at real risk of attracting grues, those strange, invisible, extradimensional predators that are drawn inexorably to lone wanderers in dark places. I was not overjoyed at the necessity of disarming, but circumstance forced me to return my pistol to my jacket pocket in exchange for a book of matches. I struck one and was relieved to see that a torch rested in a bracket on the wall. Lighting it quickly, I lifted it free and pressed on through the gloom.
The catacombs were extensive and, out of deference to the dignity of their occupants, I shall describe only the five tombs which, by virtue of their occupants (or, more correctly, lack thereof), are pertinent to this narrative.
The first three came as a set, a triptych of stone sarcophagi, all open and containing plain pine coffins filled with soil. Their discovery made me immediately uneasy, for I had heard enough rumours of vampires to know that the strong amongst them sometimes collected about themselves perverse families or dark harems of their weaker kin. All of which meant that this house was perhaps not the lair of a vampire but the lair of a nest of vampires. While I had been apprehensive about the possibility of confronting the Contessa, I had taken some small consolation from the fact that there were, at least, two of us and one of her. That I now had to add numbers to the already long list of advantages she had over us was unfortunate.
The fourth tomb did, undoubtedly, belong to the Contessa, being richly appointed and inscribed with not only her name but the names of her ancestors. There were fewer of these than one might expect for, although her lineage stretched back centuries, so did she. The sarcophagus was topped by an effigy that I took to be a representation of the Contessa herself, although, in honesty, it looked much like every other graven image on a burial marker I have ever seen—eyes gently closed, hands pressed together in prayer, hair unbound and flowing in waves both flattering and easy to carve, a face with neither blemishes nor idiosyncrasies.
Like the other sarcophagi, the lid had been pushed aside, but, unlike the others, it contained no coffin, although there was a scattering of earth left within. This was at once reassuring and disconcerting. On the one hand, the absence of the coffin suggested that the Contessa had, for now, quit her residency at the manor, which marginally increased our immediate physical safety. It also, however, suggested that she had reason to leave abruptly and the fact that her departure appeared to coincide exactly with our investigation was especially troubling.
More troubling still, however, was the fifth tomb. Detailed in silver, built of white marble, and strewn about with rose petals, it far more resembled a bridal bed than a place of rest. And by the light of the hundred or so candles that had been lovingly arranged around it I could make out the name and likeness of Miss Eirene Viola. It would be untrue to say that this discovery reassured me as to the surmountability of Miss Viola’s present difficulties. I had no wish to linger long in that chamber, seeing no means by which my doing so could be beneficial to Miss Viola, Ms. Haas, or myself.
I pressed on through the tunnels until I found, at last, another staircase leading upwards into what I hoped was the main house. This led me into a long and echoing corridor which ended abruptly in a smooth wooden barrier. I was momentarily perplexed by this impediment, but a brief inspection of my surroundings revealed a lever set into the wall. While I was naturally wary of activating a wholly unknown mechanism in a hostile castle, I could see no purpose to installing within one’s home a lever that had no function but to cause harm to one who threw it. Placing my faith in the rationality of an undead aristocrat who had constructed a nuptial tomb for a woman who had recently announced her engagement to another person entirely, I pulled. There was a brief scraping, as of metal moving against metal, and I was, to my satisfaction, not dropped immediately into a pit of crocodiles. Rather, the obstruction before me pivoted about its centre, allowing me to walk past it into the room beyond.
To my consternation, I now found myself standing in a lushly appointed and well-stocked library. Glancing at the embers falling from my torch and singing the carpet upon which I stood, I hastily returned to the tunnels and deposited the offending item in a convenient wall sconce. This, unfortunately, left me once again quite literally in the dark.
I groped my way across the room and threw open the velvet curtains, admitting just enough moonlight to enable me to locate a gas lamp, which I gratefully ignited. Feeling strongly that my first order of duty should be to locate Ms. Haas, I left the library and navigated my way back to the entrance hall, lighting the rooms as I went. This would, of course, have advertised my presence to anyone else in the building, but I strongly suspected that whatever denizens lurked there required no assistance locating interlopers in their domain, and I was certain that, should it come to a confrontation, the darkness would incommode me more than it did them.
I had not expected to find Ms. Haas where I had left her; a specific application of a general principle. But the hall through which she must have passed appeared to have been the site of an outright brawl. The paintings, which were mostly cold-eyed Mircallan aristocracy, had been torn from the walls and flung across the room, with sufficient force to crack the frames and gouge chunks out of the floor. Several statues, in the classical style of ancient Khel, lay shattered at the foot of the grand staircase, marble dust and splinters of stone strewn amongst the brass and crystal wreckage of a fallen chandelier. I could see, however, no sign of either participant, but I was reassured to find no blood on any of the many hazards.
Ascending the first flight of the staircase, taking care not to injure myself on the broken glass, my attention was drawn to a large and curiously intact grandfather clock. As I approached, its hands whirled with a peculiarly malignant energy, and then stopped dead on midnight, its sonorous chimes somehow striking an accusatory tone. Curiosity overcoming caution, I looked more closely at the device and saw fresh scratches on its door. At first I took them to be collateral damage from the altercation that had taken place around it, but their design was too symmetrical and too ordered. They had the character of the mystical signs I had seen Ms. Haas utilise in her various rituals at home and, indeed, seemed oddly reminiscent of the set of sigils she had carved into our hatstand and, more recently, into her own chest. As if in response to my attention, the clock face began to ooze ectoplasmic fluid, and I thought it best to move away quickly.
From there I proceeded to search the various rooms and floors of the manor in the most systematic fashion practical. Overgrown and weather-beaten as it had been, the exterior of the building spoke of utter desolation, but its interior spoke more of simple underoccupancy. There being no sign of servants, it was likely that the Contessa lived alone, apart from whatever vile minions haunted her grounds and patrolled her halls, and could, therefore, have had neither the capacity nor the necessity to make good use of the whole estate. Thus, the library and one sitting room were well-kept and well-appointed while the kitchen, for which she can have had no purpose, was in a state of veritable ruin, although it showed signs that somebody had attempted to use it recently, albeit not wholly successfully.
Of the bedrooms, only one seemed habitable. I should hope that, by now, the reader will understand without my expostulation that I would never have ventured into another person’s private chamber uninvited (or, indeed, invited, under most circumstances), but in the battle against supernatural evil one must occasionally do unseemly things. This boudoir appeared to have been set aside for the use of guests, and I was disturbed (if not entirely surprised) to note that its door supported a heavy and secure lock and could be bolted from the outside. What did surprise me was that I found indications of occupation.
There were several suitcases, unpacked and bearing the name of a Mr. J. Wangenheim. From the quality of his luggage, and of the change of clothes that lay neatly folded on the room’s only chair, I took him
to be a professional gentleman of the more common sort, perhaps a clerk or a newspaperman. By one window there stood a writing desk, on which lay an ominously unsent letter. Once again, please be assured that I am not in the habit of prying into the personal correspondence of strangers, but it was imperative I take any and all opportunities to discover information that would prove of value to Miss Viola. The letter read as follows.
My darling Greta,
Wonderful news! I have almost finished the work for which the Contessa hired me and should soon be able to leave this dreary place. I am sorry I have been unable to visit, but the Contessa is most particular and has instructed me, under pain of severe personal and professional consequences, that I am not to stray from beneath her roof until my task is complete. Thankfully that day is nearly here and, with the generous remuneration the Contessa has promised, our future shall be well provided for. I will at last be able to ask Mr. Bigglesthwaite for a partnership or perhaps, if my calculations are correct and the Contessa is as generous as she has assured me she will be, begin my own firm. We should even have enough set aside to make a down payment on that beautiful little house by the river you so admired.
I must say, Greta, this has been the queerest of assignments. Why would a Mircallan noblewoman be so interested in researching the history and habits of a minor warden of the Ubiquitous Company of Fishers? Why does this house appear to have no servants? Why, when I woke last night and tried the handle of my door, did I find it so securely locked? I shall be glad when this whole affair is over, for, in truth, I am not entirely certain that the Contessa is an honourable woman and I begin to fear that she will put the information I have compiled for her to some ill purpose. Still, one must endeavour to see the good in any situation and I am thankful that this brief exposure to the darker and more sinister side of life has allowed me to appreciate more fully the brightness and joy you bring into my world. I am more determined than ever that we shall be married the instant I return to you.