Descent

by Phil Maxey

  I looked back to the base of the stairs and the rubber man. “I’m a demon,” I said confidently, then looked at Alyssa, “I got this,” and jogged down a few steps then about halfway to the ground floor leaped into the air, my fist clenched. Behind me Alyssa’s words were playing out in slow motion, but I was focused on the hideous thing I was about to put out of commission, except I didn’t. A foot from my target the dead man swayed to his side and grabbed me by my neck with a vice like grip, while spindly fingers from its other hand smothered my face. Out of the corner of my eye I could just see Alyssa fighting with other awkward, rotting things.

  I flailed at the monster that held me aloft ten feet from the floor, trying to get any purchase on its decaying arm, when I caught sight of its face, a vision that was a hall of mirrors reflection come to life. Was it grinning at me? Its neck stretched with the sound of bones splintering and it moved to within inches of my own eyes.

  “Wel… come… home…”

  As its cold putrid breath washed over me, I looked into its diseased red eyes, shocked that it knew who I was. This thing was in my family’s home, and it was mocking me. Anger surged through every demonic muscle I had and I flashed my left hand across its rotting cheek. It screamed in pain as flames engulfed its head and I immediately dropped to the floor. It staggered backwards, its entirety in flame but I was more concerned with the deluge of bodies that were bearing down on the vamp above. I sprang up the steps grabbing one of the undead things and hurling it back over my shoulder. Alyssa plunged her blade into another which screamed in agony and dissolved before my eyes. Before my brain could understand what I just witnessed she grabbed my hand, pulling me down the steps to the ground floor. The whole house was full of groans and screams as we ran to the entrance, pulled open the door and staggered out into the night.

  We did the journey back to the gate in about a tenth of the time it took us the other way, and we both landed in our seats in the sports car at the same time. She engaged the engine, the wheels spinning as we turned a hundred and eighty degrees and sped off, back the way we came.

  “W… what was that?” she said glancing at me.

  “How do I know! You’re the expert in this stuff!”

  “No, I mean, why were they there? In your home?” she emphasized ‘Your.’

  I looked at her. “So that’s not normal then…”

  “Nooo… it’s not! I’ve only ever seen a ghoul once before, years ago overseas. They congregate around areas of great evil. Places where the walls between our world and the other are thin.”

  “Umm… what’s a ghoul?”

  “The thing that was using your head as a basketball.”

  “I kicked its ass.” I hoped she wouldn’t think it strange I managed to set the Ghoul alight. My watch saved me again.

  She looked across to me with a frown. “So you got no idea why your family home is the grand central of evil shit?”

  “No…” As she increased our speed and ancient woodland sped past I wondered what else lurked in the shadows of the Hell-Lock estate.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “How was I meant to know his childhood home would be full of paranormals?” said Alyssa.

  She stood, while Fortacan sat at the kitchen table, and I ate some of the morning’s fried meat from a plastic container.

  Fortacan shook his head. “You have to be more careful! You know activity has been increasing and I trained you to check locations before just charging into them! That’s what the blade of Altera is for!”

  “We got out alive, that’s what matters…”

  “Did either of you at least get any items that Fletcher wanted?”

  She looked away while I pulled a rectangular object from my jacket pocket. “Just this. I grabbed it on the way out.” I placed the small silver picture frame on the counter, not wanting to look at the photo of myself, with my parents and grandfather. My whole life I had avoided looking at family photos. They were too fake.

  “I’ll get it to Fletcher in the morning.” He stood. “I need to sleep. Even though both of you do not need too, I suggest you rest anyway.” He walked awkwardly away, disappearing into the darkness of a corridor.

  I put my frame on the side. “I’m going to do the same.”

  She nodded.

  After the last few weeks spent sleeping in back alleys I thought I would be able to sleep on the stone floor of my room, but I was sadly mistaken. Every bump felt twice as big. I blamed being a demon. As I stretched one leg out at the expense of the other, the twentieth position I had tried, my mind reached back to the moment I entered my former family home, and the things that now claimed it as their own. Anger started to swell within me again. All those years when I could have gone back and lived there but chose not too and now that I wanted too, I couldn’t. Plans were forming in my mind. I just need to get my hands on some guns. Go back in the daytime and—

  A knock came on my door. “You awake.”

  “Yeah…”

  The wooden door creaked and Alyssa appeared in the gap with a laptop in her hand. “Found something you might want to see.” She came inside before I had a chance to tell her ‘I’ll take a look in the morning’, and sat cross-legged to my side, then tilted the computer towards me on her lap. The screen was a news website, with a stark headline.

  ‘Is the end nigh for the two-hundred-year old company? - Hell-Lock enterprises faces its stiffest test in its history, as a number of board members are said to favor the take over bid being launched by Octavian, a west coast media company. Since the tragic death of its CEO…’

  “I know…”

  “You know?”

  “Saw it on the internet.” I pushed myself up against the wall behind me. “My thirties really aren’t going the way I thought they would.”

  She leaned back against the plastered wall as well. “At least your get to see your forties, I’m thirty forever,” she smiled.

  “Yeah, what a tragedy you get to stay young and… Wait, what? I thought I lived forever.”

  She slapped my shoulder, laughing. “No… demon’s still age, although maybe slower. I never actually spent time with one, so I don’t know. You should ask the professor.”

  I frowned and pulled out a pencil and a stained piece of paper. On one side it contained a list of good things about being, whatever monster I thought I was at the time, and the bad things on the other. I put a line through immortality. Damn. That was a big one.

  She noticed another penciled word and started laughing again.

  “Fly? Seriously?”

  “Hey it was the early days when I was still trying things out… but umm… I can’t fly right?”

  She placed her hand on my shoulder and pulled me forward looking at my back. “That would be a no.”

  Shit.

  I quickly put a line through that as well.

  She started to get to her feet.

  “So, how did you get brought into all of this? How did you end up with Fortacan?”

  She continued standing, putting the laptop under her arm. “That’s a bedtime story for another night. I got research to do. Get some rest.” She looked at the remains of the bed. “I thought you knew how to use a hammer?”

  I went to reply but a breeze accompanied the old door slamming closed, and I was alone again.

  *****

  I’m in Doom castle, wandering the halls of mahogany paneling which reached above my head, before it gave way to a flower patterned wallpaper. I chastised myself for not just turning around and heading back the way I came when I had the chance. My seven year old self was lost in a maze of corridors. A high pitch creak made me swing around to a door slowly opening. I was in a part of the house that I had never been before. Much of it was like that, being ‘off limits’ to me. Mrs. Bradley the head maid said the rooms contained dangerous things that I must not play with, so the rooms were locked for my own good. This room though, the one with the opening door was now available to explore. I jogged forward. “Hello?” I said int
o the space behind. No reply came, so I pushed the door open wider. It wasn’t a room at all, but a staircase that spiraled downwards. I was on the second floor so I presumed this just took me to the first and then ground floor, which is where I was meant to be anyway. But the stone arch which sat above the steps was web infested, and even though it was daylight, I could see hardly any light beyond what came from the hallway behind me.

  Still, I was lost, and this could get me back to where I should be. I had no choice. I stepped forward, trying not to touch the stone walls and peered down into the gloom. A light flickered somewhere far off below. The ground floor no doubt.

  I quickly descended, hopping from one step to another, moving ever downwards, ever into the cooler air. With each step I could see the light growing more pronounced, was that a candle? Who lights candles in the daytime? Maybe one of the staff did. A noise came from above, making me look back up, but there were only shadows up there. Better to keep going.

  I thought I had counted over forty steps before I could see a floor. Finally, I made it. I stepped out into a room I had never seen before. Statues sat on both sides and between them huge stone boxes with letters dug into the sides. Suddenly it struck me that I had descended too far. I was under the castle, in the dungeon! I turned around, but the stairs were covered in an absolute darkness, which I had no courage to move into. At least the room behind me had light. I turned back to the dungeon with its strange stone carvings of men from history. At the end was a large door. It had to be a way back up. I ran forward across the slabs of stone keeping my eyes on the way back. A few feet before I reached my salvation a clunk sound echoed off the cold walls and the door started to swing backwards. I stopped, frozen in fear. “Hello?” I tried again at whoever was opening the door.

  As it swung slowly open, my thirty-year-old sleeping self did not want to know what was on the other side. My demon heart was pounding. Fear was causing my mind to panic just as I did twenty-three years earlier.

  I awoke and sat up in one movement, instinctively looking at my current room’s door. I sighed in relief seeing that it was still closed.

  I leaned back against the wall and used my single sheet to wipe the sweat from my brow. I was fairly certain it was daybreak. That was another perk of being a paranormal, having an instinct for when the sun was above or below the horizon, but looking at my watch confirmed it. I dressed and made my way to the kitchen. Alyssa was sat at the table with her laptop and several sheets of paper with scribbles and notes. She also had the old volume that my grandfather supposedly wrote. “How’s the research going,” I croaked, my throat dry.

  She frowned, looking up from above the screen. “Same as always. Old dates, languages that I still can’t understand. The professor is the one that does most of the academic stuff… I didn’t even finish high school. But I’m learning. Being a vamp, all you got is time… I’ve also been looking into Octavian Media Enterprises, nothing much to know. They’re like some kind of agency for celebs. Evidently there’s Tray Octavian, the guy who owns everything yet no ones seem him for decades, and his daughter Olivia who got into trouble through her partying some years back, but since then nothing stands out. If I didn’t know what I do about your family, I would say the takeover is normal rich people’s stuff.”

  I scoured the inside of the fridge for more cooked meat, but there wasn’t any.

  “I ate it all.”

  I frowned and returned to the table. She looked back down to her notes, while I looked at the old book. I ran my finger along the spine, then turned over the thick cover.

  “Be careful with that. It’s like literally the only one in existence.”

  I nodded. “I know how to look after old things.”

  She looked back at her computer screen. “Yeah, right.”

  “I looked after my…”

  “What?”

  “Err… some old toy I liked as a kid.” I looked back at the book, hoping vamp’s weren’t telepathic, and flicked through a few pages of what appeared to be gibberish. I continued through hundreds of pages, none making sense until I read one near the end, that was addressed to me. My mouth fell open. It was a message from my grandfather.

  Alyssa was looking at me. “Yeah… that. We were going to tell you…”

  I suppressed my anger and read.

  ‘Dear Seb, I have no doubt one day far after I have left this mortal realm this book will find its way to you and within it this passage. I have written much of this volume in an ancient forgotten language, which if you have gone through the ‘Binding Ceremony’ you will know how to read. If not then I’m afraid only the oldest of creatures would be able to help, which there are too few left on our side of the veil. However, it is most important that you are able to access the information that I have written in this volume, for your life and those of the remaining families will depend upon it.’

  I looked up at Alyssa, she pretended not to be giving me any attention. I continued reading. ‘The Hell-Locks are the last of the families that respect the old traditions, but that won’t stop the forces of the void from going after the others to find and then destroy the other seals. To the others, their own history is just a fairytale. But I can assure you it is not! They will need your protection, Seb, whether you are ready to take that on or not. I apologize for not preparing you for your fate, but unfortunately I was stopped by your father, who does not believe in our family’s duty, or… anything other than money. I hope his influence does not bear down on you too much before you have a chance to read these words.’

  I sat heavily. Alyssa’s eyes met mine then she looked back at her work. I looked back down at the last paragraph. ‘The young man I knew was strong enough for this task. Honor our family’s code Seb, ‘Stamus contra malum’ and you will prevail.’

  I hadn’t realized until I read my grandfather’s words, that there was still a part of me that was clinging to my old life, where things that went bump in the night were fairytales to scare children, that what had happened to me was a freak occurrence, that it wasn’t my destiny… My heart was pounding. I looked at Alyssa who was pretending not to be interested. “All this stuff is real? My family? All of it?”

  She went to respond, but a sound came from the corridor behind us, stopping her. We both already knew the professor was about to enter the kitchen.

  He saw the book on the counter in front of me. “Oh… you found your grandfather’s message.” said Fortacan. “It must be strange to read his words.” The professor started to make some tea.

  I looked at the calligraphy. “Do you know when he wrote this?”

  “I think it was roughly twelve years ago,” said Fortacan.

  “What’s a Binding Ceremony?” I remembered the professor asking me the same question when I first met him.

  “We hoped you would know… But I have got an idea of how we can get the text translated, if you’re okay with us taking the book on a little journey.”

  My mind was swimming. My whole life I had been living a lie.

  “You must have read your grandfather mention there are certain creatures that can understand the language used.”

  “Umm… yeah?”

  “On this continent there are perhaps three. One of which is—”

  “You can’t be serious?” said Alyssa. “There’s a reason even the most badass paranormals don’t mess with her. There’s old school and there’s her.”

  “The other beings are much further afield, and just as dangerous to engage with. To the Librarian is where we must go.”

  “Librarian?” I asked.

  “A creature that was old even before the first human set foot on this island. The Gorgon would be able to read your grandfather’s book.”

  “The what now?” I waved my fingers around my head. “Snakes, turn you to stone, Gorgon?”

  “That part is a myth… sort of,” said Fortacan.

  Alyssa was looking down, seemingly not at anything in particular. “It’s said that she takes your mind. That
your history becomes one of the millions of books in her domain.”

  “And what happens to you?”

  She looked up at me. “You forget who you are.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I stood looking up at the thirty story Art Deco styled building with hundreds of windows. “The best super secret library in the whole of the country is in an apartment block on the lower east side?” I said to Fortacan.

  “Sort of.”

  “The librarian lives here?”

  He looked at me. “Yes.”

  Before I could ask more questions, he walked forward and tipped his hat to the doorman who frowned on seeing me, and we both walked into a lobby that was an explosion of marble walls and silver trim. A series of movie posters from a bygone black-and-white era filled in the gaps between the elevators.

  “I guess she likes old movies,” I said recognizing none of the matinee idols.

  The elevator door swung open and a woman and a young girl stepped out, the latter laughing and then rushed to the exit. “Slow down, Jenifer!” said the woman. We exchanged a smile then she chased after the kid. I looked at the professor. “I thought—”

  He stepped into the elevator. “Get in.” I did, and he held up a piece of paper with some hastily written numbers on it. He pushed a combination of buttons and the door slid closed. I noticed the old guy swallowed nervously, just before we started to descend.

  “Down?” I said.

  “Yes, down. Far down.”

  The cables above clanged and strained, and I felt lighter as the speed increased, moving faster and faster until with a jolt, gravity returned. I could tell the air was damp and cold, even before the door slid open to a cave and a flickering light from a burning torch. We stepped out onto a smooth polished rock surface. I pushed my senses to detect anything lurking amongst the shadows, but the only thing I could pick up was the burning rag wrapped around the small branch on the wall. Fortacan marched forward confidently. I followed then we both stopped at another door, above which sat four letters chiseled into the stone.