by Drew Hayes
I watched as June made her way out the door, opening the heavy wooden slab with as much ease as Lillian, if not more. Only when it was shutting did I realize I’d wanted to ask about the scratches on the inside, but I made no move to stop her. She probably wouldn’t have been able to tell me, anyway. After all, I was just here to do inventory.
2.
Despite what movies had conditioned me to expect after an ominous warning in a creepy area, there was no sudden appearance of a supernatural entity or unseen terror that descended upon us. In fact, the work went rather smoothly for some time. Neil and Albert were our exploratory team, checking the nearby areas for anything of measurable value, which turned up surprisingly few items. Granted, the furniture would have certainly been considered antiques if it hadn’t all been smashed or chopped into splinters. But whatever had gone on here, precious few areas were spared, and as a result, they more often returned with a few dented candlesticks or simple rings than anything truly valuable.
Lillian and I, on the other hand, were dealing with the library itself. While I trusted that Albert would be able to spot any financial ledgers during his scouting work, I also knew enough about parahumans to assume that some might toss their monetary records in with the rest of their books. After all, pages were pages—at least to some folks. Besides that, a generous amount of tomes had managed to survive whatever battle had been waged inside these walls, and many appeared old enough to have considerable worth. Since it was the only real treasure trove we’d yet located, inventorying and storing the books seemed like a good place to start. And while the subject matter varied greatly, we did start to notice a very clear trend as the first night’s efforts were drawing to a close.
“More Lovecraft,” Lillian announced, plopping several books down into a pile. “How many first editions does one person need, anyway?”
“To be fair, we don’t know how many people were using this space,” I reminded her. “Maybe several people with the same passion shared this as a common area.”
“Uh huh. Or we’ve got one person who went looney and started hoarding books.”
Even as I took the next book from the top of the pile to log into our records, I fought hard to suppress a grin. Lillian was, for the most part, a cosmopolitan vampire who was well-adapted to modern times. Every now and then, however, her language use would slip and reveal her age. Given that she’d been around since somewhere in the 1800s, a few archaic terms were bound to worm their way into her vernacular—words like “looney,” which I was reasonably sure I’d only ever heard Arch use without referencing children’s cartoons.
“Also, I have a few more for the Neil pile.” If Lillian noticed my amusement, she didn’t show it. Instead, she dropped two more tomes onto the small stack we were holding for Neil to look over. While only a Journeyman in his mage training, he was still by far the most educated among us in terms of magic. As soon as we flagged a book as relating to the arcane, it was put away for him to evaluate. Much as we wanted to catalog everything properly, this was as much about safety as it was accuracy. Magic was dangerous stuff; even books about it were best left in the hands of those who knew what they were doing.
“So, what do you think went down in this place, anyway?” Lillian had paused after unloading her latest armful of books and was staring around the massive library with a wistful expression.
“You’ve seen much more of the parahuman world than I have. It seems like you’d be able to make a better educated guess,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, you say that, but I’ve never been on a first-name basis with a half-fey. Or a dragon, for that matter. But I guess neither of those are likely suspects, anyway.” Lillian walked along the stone floor, her feet making a distinct click with every motion. From our vantage point, we could see out into the hallway, where several broken walls gave us views of decimated rooms. “Not ghouls, for starters. They nest, but I can’t imagine why dealing with them would leave lingering magic. The agents probably would have just set this whole place on fire and shot any that escaped. Obviously, vampires are out; most of us have too much taste to live somewhere so . . . stereotypical. Besides, I’d smell it if that much blood had been spilt.”
Lillian paused her walk and looked over at me, her expression suddenly surprised. “Hang on . . . Fredrick, do you smell any blood?”
I paused my book-gathering, tilting my head up and taking a deep sniff. Although I usually worked hard to keep from focusing on my senses too much, no amount of selective attention could block the electric thrill that raced through my brain at the barest sniff of blood. We were hardwired for it; it was our sustenance. No such jolt hit me as I inhaled, however. Just a lot of lingering sweat, gunpowder, and the overwhelming smell of books. “None that I can detect.”
“Me either. Which is weird, don’t you think? This place has been ripped apart. It looks like a tornado tore through the interior, but we can’t pick up a single drop of blood? I’ll give you that it's hard to make a fey bleed, so maybe the agents didn’t shed any. But none of the things they were fighting? That’s hard for me to swallow.”
“It was probably scrubbed when the corpses were cleared out,” I told her. “I assume the Agency is quite good at handling cleanup.”
“Maybe.” Lillian looked out into the hallway for a few seconds longer, taking several more deep sniffs. “But they’d need some powerful cleaners to keep it from us. Alchemic grade. I guess it could have been something they did as a nicety, since they knew two vampires were coming. Or maybe, and this feels a lot more likely, whatever they were fighting in here didn’t have any blood.”
“No blood?” My forehead grew creased as I scoured my brain, searching my memory for the various parahumans I’d met. With the exception of Charlotte, all of them had been creatures capable of bleeding. Even partly dead ones like Albert and myself. “What sorts of parahumans don’t have blood?”
“Very few types, and almost none of them good.” Lillian turned from the entrance and headed toward the bookshelf she’d been working her way through. “Also, the boys are on their way back. I caught their scent getting stronger. Should only be a few minutes.”
Sure enough, less than five minutes later Albert and Neil entered the library. Between them, they’d collected only a few items, most of which would almost certainly be classified as junk. One piece in particular stood out as bad: a half-burned black candle that Neil had put into a plastic baggie.
“Candle, huh?” Lillian looked over my shoulder as Neil set it carefully onto the floor, well away from anything else. “You worried the power might fail, and we didn’t bring enough flashlights?”
“I know how it looks, but this isn’t for cataloguing. I just didn’t think it was safe to leave it lying around,” Neil explained. “Someone used this as a magical implement, probably in a ceremony, and it’s still giving off a glow like its active. Amy always says abandoned implements are like forgotten land mines, so I’m going to do a quick sealing ceremony on it.”
Sometimes, especially in the more recent year, it was hard to look at Neil and remember the power hungry mage who’d tried to sacrifice a crowd of his fellow LARPers (as well as me and Krystal) to gain a bump in power. Amy’s influence was evident, but some credit also went to time and maturity. Neil had begun to realize the scope of what he was messing with, how powerful magic truly was, and he’d taken the responsibility seriously.
“We found it right by a basement door, so we’re going to check that out next,” Albert added. “Neil just wanted to take care of his candle and put some wards on us first.”
“Wards?” I set my pen down, staring at Neil. “You know I’m never against being prudent, but why the sudden increase in defenses?”
Neil had produced a piece of chalk from the pockets of his robe and was just finishing up enclosing the candle in a circle as I asked my question. “Nothing I can put a finger on, precisely. It was a vibe I got when we went near the door, like all the magic lingering around wa
s a little more potent there. It’s probably no big deal, maybe the site of a ceremony or something, but I figured it wouldn’t kill me to spend ten minutes on warding us before we went down.”
June’s warning pinged through my mind, her explicit instructions to run if it felt like running was what I should do. The advice seemed a touch redundant, as I’d never been shy about putting my feet into motion when danger was near. However, Neil hadn’t said the room felt particularly dangerous, only powerful, and with so much residual magic in the building as a whole, we probably wouldn’t be able to skip every room where it was a little stronger. This was our first job for the Agency; we needed to be thorough and prove we were up to the task. Half-assing it because some rooms gave us the willies wouldn’t fly as an excuse. Even knowing all of that though, I couldn’t ask them to go into the unknown on their own. June had said vampires had good instincts, so I needed to see what mine told me.
“Neil, if you don’t mind, can you ward me as well? I’m going to tag along with you both to check out this basement. And if I say we need to turn back once we’re in there, I expect both of you to listen and obey. We’re still in dangerous terrain, and our safety is the most important part of any job.”
Putting the chalk back into his pocket, Neil pulled out a small golden watch and checked the time. “We’ll have to hurry. There are a lot of places between here and there with windows, and it’s going to take longer to put wards on you than on Albert and me, so we’ll be racing the sunrise.”
“It’s a risk, but we’ll just have to be careful as we make our way over,” I told him. “Even once it starts to come up, I’m sure there are plenty of shadowy areas I can maneuver through.”
“Worse comes to worse, you could always bust through a few walls,” Lillian suggested. Evidently my expression must have conveyed how shocked I was at the idea, because she shrugged her shoulders and responded. “What? It’s not like anyone is going to notice a little more damage in this place.”
“If neither of you minds, I would greatly like to concentrate on my current task so I can get us prepared to head back out.” A little of Neil’s usual grouchiness had slipped back into his tone, which had been polite around Lillian. He reached into the same pocket he’d drawn the chalk from, but this time pulled out a familiar book that in no way should have fit in such a small space. It was the tome of magic he’d found in his grandparent’s attic, the one that had started him on his magical journey to revive a best friend who had passed away: namely, Albert. Clearly it had other uses, too, as he sat down next to his chalk circle and began to read from the pages.
Something in the air seemed to ripple near the candle, and for a moment, I was sure I felt a cold breath run across the back of my neck. I quickly convinced myself that it was either my imagination or a side effect of the spell Neil was casting. Whether it was true or not was irrelevant at that point; I couldn’t head out to a spooky magical basement with those sorts of thoughts in my head.
3.
In my time working with parahumans, I’d seen much scarier things than the basement door. Gideon stood out as the frontrunner, aided in no small part by the menacing aura he projected naturally; although, even after I’d gained immunity to that, he’d still terrified me, because I’d gotten a glimpse of just how strong he really was. There were also plenty of other things I’d had genuine cause to be afraid of: the therians who’d kidnapped me, my sire and his assault on my home, the mad vampire hunter who’d shot me with a harpoon . . . I could go on for some time. Which, now that I write that, is a somewhat horrifying statement in and of itself.
However, while I’d seen plenty that actually scared me, few things up to that point had ever been so . . . creepy. Forgive the stale description, but it’s hard to find accurate words for the sense that filled me as I stared at the dense wooden door, made from the same material as those in the front of the castle. I wasn’t afraid; none of my primal vampire senses were saying I was in danger. All the same, something just felt off. Wrong. Like I was near something not meant to be. Which, given that I had an office in a magically animated house, meant that it had to be pretty far along the weird spectrum.
“Not that I don’t love standing here watching you stare at a door, but we might want to get somewhere a little less bright soon.” Neil pointed behind us, to where a surprisingly intact window was being slowly filled with the sun’s rays. Our position was currently protected by the shadows, but sooner or later, the hall would inevitably become inhospitable to me.
In retrospect, perhaps deciding to explore the basement just before the sun would make escaping it highly dangerous had been a poor decision. Then again, it wasn’t like I’d known the exact layout we’d be dealing with before I’d thrown out the idea. None of that mattered, though; I was there, and having seen how many windows and holes in the wall dotted our journey back, leaving would be nearly as risky as staying.
“I suppose we should head on in.” I walked forward, taking the metal handle (which felt colder than it rightly should have) in my grip. Before I pulled it open, I turned briefly back to Albert and Neil. “Listen up. Even if I can’t leave, if I say you need to run, then do as I say.”
“We won’t leave you behind, Fred,” Albert told me. Neil looked less sold on the sentiment, but he kept the opinion to himself.
“Yes, you will. I’m your boss, and I’ll be giving you an order which I expect you to obey. And you don’t need to worry. Vampires are a tough lot. We can withstand quite a bit. My larger concern is for Neil. As the only one of us completely alive, he’s the most vulnerable, and I’ll expect you to watch over him as he escapes, Albert.”
My assistant didn’t have a counter ready for that, and even Neil seemed a bit taken aback by my concern. I didn’t wait for either of them to rekindle the argument. Instead, I pulled open the door to the basement and revealed a flight of stone stairs. “At least they stuck with the décor.”
Unlike the rest of the castle, which had at least hosted a few working bulbs in every room we’d seen so far, this area was pitch black within the first few steps. Of course, that was no issue for me or Albert, and I heard Neil mumble some seemingly gibberish words from behind us before advancing. Since he made it down several steps without tripping over his robes and tumbling into us, it seemed a fair wager that he’d just cast a spell to see in the darkness.
After staring at the door, meditating on the sense of creepiness that came off of it, what lay before us was somewhat anti-climactic: just stone walls and floor, a few more bullet scars and scratches along the ground to mark the battle that had taken place, and a pair of doors at opposite ends of the room. In other words, exactly what one would expect to find in the basement of a castle where something wicked had been recently wiped out. We made it to the end of the stairs without anything leaping out at us or striking from the shadows, and did a quick sweep of the area. No one found anything we hadn’t seen when walking in, which made it all the stranger that the creepy vibe wasn’t dispersing. If anything, it was getting stronger.
“What now?” Albert asked. It didn’t escape my notice that even though we’d yet to encounter a single tangible threat, his hand was still perpetually near the hilt of his sword. I wasn’t sure if Albert knew he was doing it, or if such habits were just part of wielding magical weapons. Even more worrying, I wondered briefly if the sword itself was piloting the gesture, a thought I chose not to cling to, as it raised a myriad of potential questions and this was not the time to linger.
“We’ve come all the way down here, and our way back will be difficult for me to get through until sunset, so I’d say our best option is to go ahead and fully explore the area,” I told him. “Obviously, we’re going to stay together, but it looks like these doors lead to small tunnels. Best case: perhaps we find a way back to the library. Worst case: we can at least take a full inventory and catalog this area while you two run whatever we find back to Lillian.” Admittedly, that was something of an optimistic worst case
scenario; however, I didn’t see the need to worry Albert any more than was necessary.
“Fred’s right. We’re here, so let’s work.” Surprised as I was to hear Neil agree with me, it struck me as interesting that his whole body was tenser than usual. Whatever strange vibes this area was putting off, I clearly wasn’t the only one feeling them.
We made our way through the nearest doorway, at what I was guessing to be the south of the room, and down the hall. For the most part, it was more of the same: chips in the rock where bullets had hit next to claw marks. Idly, I wondered just how many bullets September and June had fired during their battle. Neither had particularly struck me as the gun-toting type, yet it seemed like they’d emptied an armory’s worth of ammunition into this castle. Maybe whatever they’d been fighting was particularly susceptible to bullets, although that could be said of pretty much all creatures, assuming the bullets were made of the right material. Strangely though, I realized there were no flecks of metal or casings. Had they all been cleaned up? Just like the blood, it seemed as though even the most thorough of scrubbings should have left at least a few telltale signs behind.
After checking out a small broom closet (literally, it was filled with nothing but old brooms), and a room stacked nearly to the rafters with cans of creamed corn, we eventually made our way to a doorway that was blatantly out of place. It was metal, new, and had everything save for a neon sign with the words “Does Not Belong” on it. Albert’s hand crept a little closer to the hilt of his blade, and Neil reached into his pocket to pull out a few vials filled with strangely colored substances. Given who his teacher was, there was no way on earth to predict exactly what those potions might do, so I waved him back a few feet.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed that while the door was very out of place, it did have one thing in common with the rest of the house: it was damaged. The locks on the edge had been violently sundered or ripped clean out. This wasn’t some area that June had missed; it was just one more cleared out room where she’d happened to leave the door closed. I relaxed, slightly, and motioned for the others to come closer. As I was moving my hand, I leaned in a little closer and caught a strange whiff in my nose. Not of blood, or gunpowder, or any of the things I’d been searching for. No, this was something that ticked off a very different reaction in my vampire mind, one of instant fear and recoiling.