Netherworld

by Lisa Morton

  William had smiled at that and told her he most happily would, but he didn’t think it was possible.

  “I don’t believe in a door that can’t be closed,” she said. He’d smiled then, not with condescension, but with the acceptance of Diana as a valuable new partner.

  If anything, William’s new status as heroic gatekeeper, standing against ancient evils, only made Diana love him more. They were married, and Diana had been eager to share his duties with him. Over their five years of marriage, she’d seen things she would never have imagined or believed possible—an entire troop of marching Roman soldiers; a ring of wicked fairies, sporting sharp teeth, black wings, and tarnished gold tunics, cavorting beneath the starlight; a great black hound with glowing red eyes—and she came to accept these entities as merely part of a natural order of things, no more unusual than a horned toad or a giraffe. After all, she’d reasoned, once something supernatural was proven, then it was no longer supernatural, was it? Of course she never discussed what she’d seen outside of the bounds of Hampstead Hall—she’d even laughed at other accounts of mystical or occult phenomena—but she reconciled her own belief systems to encompass what she now knew of the world.

  And then William was killed.

  They’d received a letter one day, in a battered and dirt stained envelope, from a little known province in Eastern Europe called Transylvania. William and Diana had been in the Derby sitting room, planning an upcoming dinner party, when Howe, the Furnavals’ butler, had set the letter before William. Diana had seen the way his brow creased as he attempted to decipher the cramped script, and she’d joined him, bending down over his shoulder to read.The letter was one from one János Rákóczi, who claimed to be both a descendent of Transylvanian royalty and a watcher over a particularly troubling gateway. He claimed to be literally under siege by demonic forces, and begged for help. He asked William to come to him.

  Diana had immediately told William she believed it to be a trap. For one thing, this Rákóczi made no mention of how he’d found William. Although The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, showed that there was indeed a gateway at the location indicated, the area was remote and unlikely to have a gatekeeper. Perhaps, reasoned Diana, the forces of darkness were tired of William’s exorcisms, and they gained a better chance of removing him permanently if they could lure him to a primitive area where he’d have none of his usual protections. Diana reminded him that he had no brother and they hadn’t yet produced an heir, so if anything happened, the Furnaval title would die with him.

  William had agreed with her, but was nonetheless intrigued by the prospect of meeting another gatekeeper. He penned a response, telling Rákóczi he would come. As he finished the letter and sealed it into an envelope, Diana begged him not to send it. By way of answer, he rang for Howe and asked that the letter be posted immediately; when Howe had left, William had turned to Diana and vowed to exercise extreme caution; he would take weapons both natural and supernatural.

  But he wouldn’t take Diana.

  She’d fought him vigorously on this, of course, but had finally given in when he’d suggested that this whole trip might be nothing but a ruse to lure him away from his own gateway. If she stayed behind, she could continue to guard their Derby portal.

  Before he left, William made copies of all the spells he thought he might need from The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, and left the original with Diana. Diana accompanied him to London, where he made his travel plans, which involved weeks via boat, rail, and carriage; and he left detailed instructions on all matters relating to running of the estate. He also made sure his will—which left the estate to Diana—was in place and that she was well acquainted with their solicitor.

  On the morning he left, she stood on a London dock, ignoring the sounds of shouting sailors and laborers, of crates being loaded and groaning ship timbers, and begged him one last time to stay. He’d kissed her and told her he must, and then stepped aboard the vessel that took him from England…and her.

  When she returned to Derby, it was to a house that felt as cool and dull and lifeless as a tomb.

  As he’d traveled, he’d written to her daily, describing every step of his journey. She couldn’t respond, but cherished those letters, filled in William’s precise penmanship, and kept them all in a large leather album. In the final, hurriedly-jotted letter, William told her he arrived at his destination—a small mountain village in the heart of Transylvania—but had yet to locate Rákóczi. William had already decided to journey on to the next village should Rákóczi prove impossible to locate in this one.

  The next letter she received, four days later, was from a local magistrate writing in broken English to inform her that her husband had died. He’d last been seen, apparently well, leaving the inn in the company of an unknown man; that man had since vanished. The following morning, William was found badly wounded in the nearby forest, and was taken back to the inn, where he survived only two hours before succumbing to his injuries. His belongings had been freighted back to her already; his body then temporarily interred in the local cemetery, pending further instructions from Diana.

  Diana had crumpled to the floor, the letter slipping from nerveless fingers.

  Howe rushed to her side. He glanced at the letter, and immediately discerned the horrifying nature of its information. Howe was a thoughtful, attentive man who knew of the gateways, and had even assisted William in performing one of the banishments. There was no person better equipped to offer Diana comfort at that time. Her own parents were both gone, her mother having died six months earlier, and Diana had no siblings.

  Howe made the arrangements to have Lord William’s remains returned to England for interment in the Furnaval family crypt, while Diana became obsessed with the gateway. She’d spent every night for weeks wrapped in one of William’s coats, sitting on the ridge near it, somehow hoping for some clue as to his demise, or something to lash out against, but the portal hadn’t so much as shivered. She’d ceased her nightly watches only when they led to her becoming ill with pneumonia. She’d missed William’s interment as she’d hovered near death herself; doctors at one point had even pronounced her beyond help, but she’d been determined to recover, because if she couldn’t save William she could at least avenge him.

  It took weeks. Howe and the wait staff attended to her with loving care, and under their ministrations her vitality slowly returned. The doctors stood back, shaking their heads in amazement as her breathing eased, fever subsided, and strength returned. When she’d thanked one of the doctors, he’d said, “Don’t thank me, my dear – will power alone saved your life.”

  He was right.

  While she recuperated, Diana’s thoughts had circled back to one thing so often that she knew it must be her life’s mission from here on: She would find a way to close the gateways, and put it into effect throughout the world. She distressed Howe greatly by returning to her studies in the library weeks, he stressed, before she should have left her bed.

  She believed it was possible, although at first she had no proof. She’d reread The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, looking for any clues, but found none. She endangered her health further with all-night searches; Howe frequently found her still in the library come dawn, hollow-eyed and trembling but reading, desperate for any clues. When the pneumonia had threatened to return, she’d reluctantly agreed to take to her bed again…provided books were brought to her and the bedroom lights left burning.

  When she was strong enough at last, Howe could not prevent her reaching out, to seek answers that the Furnaval library did not hold.

  As distasteful as she’d found them, she’d joined occult societies, gaining access to secret papers and journals; again, she’d found nothing but chicanery and nonsense. She then befriended every antique bookseller in England, offering considerable sums of money for ancient occult tomes. The Furnaval library soon required expansion, and carpenters were brought in to build additional shelves to
house new acquisitions; yet - despite containing certain useful bits of information – none of those volumes had yielded that vital data she most sought.

  And then one day a special letter arrived for her from a dealer in London, one she’d never encountered. Chappell and Sons Booksellers had a rarity they thought might suit her needs. They handled a very exclusive clientele, and saw customers only by appointment. They were apprised of her wants by a fellow dealer, and so had taken the liberty of contacting her.

  She had immediately replied by return post informing them that she’d like to see them the next day, and she’d provided the address of her London house in Eaton Place.

  An hour later she’d been on the train to London, feeling almost giddy with anticipation. The following morning she’d received a note at her London address providing a time and directions to the store. The note contained nothing else, only the name of the shop embossed at the top.

  When she arrived at the scheduled time and place, she at first thought she might have made some mistake; although it was a good area located just off the Strand, there was no cheery shop window filled with books, no sign with name and hours. There was only a number on an unremarkable door. However, since it matched the number she’d been given, she told her carriage to wait and rang the bell beside the door.

  She was met at the door by a strikingly handsome young man, with serious, dark features. Accustomed to shopkeepers nearly more ancient than their precious merchandise, she assumed this fellow might be a clerk. However, he greeted her professionally and introduced himself as Stephen Chappell before leading her down a short hallway to a large, windowless room filled with bookshelves.

  He told her they had no windows because sunlight was potentially damaging to many of the books they possessed. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to its shadows, then she saw no visible cash register, only one small table, a fairly comfortable-looking reading chair, and a few lamps.

  And books everywhere. They were lined up in double rows on the shelves, stacked on the floors, and piled on the table. Diana was used to crowded bookshops, but this one felt both unusually claustrophobic and open to immense vistas of knowledge.

  Diana perused the first few shelves nearest her, and was surprised by the value of what she saw there: It was a collection of occult tomes that surpassed even her own. She ran a gloved finger over the spines of titles that she’d heard of but presumed to be non-existent; there were first editions she’d read had been destroyed immediately after printing. Her pulse thrummed as she withdrew a copy of Dr. John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica and saw that it contained additional chapters on “communion with Spirites”; there, just below it, was a handwritten grimoire by the infamous eighteenth-century necromancer Thomas Moreby. When she removed a copy of The Book of Shadows bound in some sort of animal hide she couldn’t name, the bookseller commented, “You have most refined tastes.”

  The attractive young Mr. Chappell, whom she assumed now to be the and Sons part of the Chappell business, excused himself for a moment. He disappeared behind the stacks, leaving his client to commune alone with the magnificent collection.

  Diana breathed in the dust of centuries of knowledge, feeling sure that she would at last find her answer here. The thought of all the lore and wisdom contained on just a single shelf made Diana wish for several more lifetimes.

  She was just replacing a rather brittle binding on its high shelf when Mr. Chappell reappeared bearing a huge book in a custom made slipcase. He set the folio down on the table, and, with gloved hands, opened the slipcase to reveal a thirteenth-century illuminated manuscript bound between sculpted copper sheets. The manuscript, by some unknown monk, was written in Old English, and so Diana could only understand parts of it; but when Mr. Chappell came to a page reading: “Spelle for Immediate and Permanente Sealing of Darke Gateways”, she quietly asked him to close the book and told him she’d take it. Of course, it had cost her no small fortune, but she would gladly have foregone years of luxuries to possess it and the secrets it held.

  Back in her apartment, she pored over the book, certain it was the key to her own future, but the archaic language frustrated her and she knew that any mistake in translation could prove deadly.

  The following day, she took the book to a university scholar of Old English, who assisted her in making sense of the most difficult passages. She transcribed several copies of the sealing spell so that she could stow the original book away in a secure place. According to the instructions, she’d need only herself, an athame, or ceremonial dagger, and a cat.

  She returned to Derby and began preparations. She’d been gifted with an appropriate blade during her brief associations with occultists, and Mina had been an easy acquisition (although the way the kitten had run up and rubbed against her when she’d entered the miller’s house, she often felt as if Mina had acquired her). After she brought the cat home, she explained its real purpose to Howe and showed him the ancient manuscript. He’d learned to stop questioning her, and had instead responded only with, “Yes, mum,” when she’d told him she was now certain she could close the gateways.

  She strode out that very night, intent upon her mission. The new moon and cloud cover necessitated a lantern to light her way, and Howe had insisted on accompanying her. Mina (as she’d named the kitten) lived up to her promise and tore towards the gateway with such astonishing speed that Howe and Diana momentarily lost track of her. When they found her again, she was seated on the grassy rise, peering up and hissing, back arched, gray fur on end.

  Although Diana couldn’t see the gateway, she trusted completely in her feline accomplice’s sense, and she’d quickly pulled up her sleeve. Gritting her teeth, she used the knife to slash her arm, and then hurled both blood and incantation at the gateway.

  She knew she’d been successful only because Mina abruptly ceased her hissing, and playfully turned to bat at the hem of Diana’s skirt, all memory of the gateway already gone.

  Howe had related his dislike of the gate-closing ceremony in no uncertain terms, berating Diana all the way back to the house as he daubed at her bloody arm. “The spell won’t work without it,” she tried to explain.

  “It’s not the spell I question, mum; I just wish you’d warned me in advance.”

  Diana assured him she wouldn’t be so forgetful in the future.

  “But,” Howe added, after his anger had abated, “you’ve done a fine thing tonight. His Lordship would have been very proud.”

  Diana wasn’t entirely ready yet to accept that it had worked. She spent the next month keeping a careful eye on the gateway; she slept during the day and spent her evenings with Mina on the ridge. But there was absolutely no further sign of ghostly or demonic activity. Plus, the area simply felt different, free of some sort of oppressive aura, and Mina scampered after field mice or slept. Diana was satisfied, and quite certain that it was effectively sealed.

  Still, a sense of victory eluded her. The Derby gateway had always been home to mild activity; surely other gateways wouldn’t be so easy.

  The next proved that presentiment correct.

  The second one was located not far away, in an oak grove near a village called Little Chester. Although Diana arrived with the usual collection of protective implements, including The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments,,, she had to admit later that she’d still been overly confident.

  Because she’d no sooner peeled back her sleeve when the eight-foot tall horned man stepped through and shrieked at her.

  For an instant Diana had frozen in terror, staring at that monstrosity before her. It had a curling rams’ horns, a fierce, saturnine face, dark skin and furred, goat-legged haunches. It howled in the night, and then turned glowing green eyes, reaching out with long, filthy fingers; a musky scent filled the air as it loomed over her. She might well have died right then and there, her paralysis guaranteeing her fate, had it not been for Mina. The fearless little cat uttered her own piercing screech and launched herself at the nightmare
, ears laid back, claws extended.

  That action had awakened Diana from her terror, and she swore it would be the last time she was ever caught unawares.

  Mina laid a long gash into the creature’s furry flank and then dashed away, leaving the horned man to howl in pain and spin about in a vain attempt to locate its tiny attacker. That confusion gave Diana the time to dive for her copy of The Book, flip it open to the section of banishment spells, and read the first one her eyes fell upon.

  The creature whirled then, its attention riveted on her. It lowered its great head, the curved horns chipped from other battles, and studied her for a moment with clear, malevolent purpose.

  And then it came at her fast.

  She leapt aside at the last instant, and cursed the skirts that caused her to trip. She stumbled backwards and fell, coming to rest with her right hand near the satchel of herbs and charms. Before she could react, the demon ran forward, driving its head—and horns—down at her. She twisted slightly to one side, and the horns struck the ground on either side of her slender figure. In the few seconds that it took to raise its head (with its foul, spitting face over Diana’s midsection), she scrabbled for the satchel. Just as the demon jerked its head back and was aiming the deathblow at Diana, she grabbed whatever she could from the satchel and flung it at him.

  Later, Diana would realize she’d been lucky;. This particular type of demon could be sent running by the use of rowan wood, and Diana had inadvertently thrown several rowan twigs at it along with a handful of other herbs and barks. The demon reared back, screaming, and retreated through the gateway. Diana scrambled to her feet and sealed it. When it was done, she fell back against the trunk of an oak, her strength nearly spent.