Netherworld

by Lisa Morton

  It took four. At the end of the first day they stopped in a small house, owned by a family who were fascinated by their English guest, even though they couldn’t communicate. Four hours after leaving the quaint house, however, a new storm blocked their way, and they were forced to take shelter in an abandoned barn. Razvan busied himself drinking. Diana and Mina tried to stay warm. They were confined there for the following day as well.

  The storms finally let up slightly, and in two more hours they arrived at the village of Urveri in the high mountain valley.

  The dead village of Urveri.

  From William’s description, Diana had expected to find a settlement of hardy peasants hunkering down against the Transylvanian winter; she looked forward to the inn, with inviting blazes lit in the fireplaces, and a savory stew to assuage her appetite.

  Instead she was greeted by a ghost town. Doors and shutters swung open to the chill air; snow was banked high up against walls and spilled inside through open doorways. There were no footprints, no smoke from the chimneys, no inviting hearths or aromatic pots simmering.

  Via vigorous sign language, Razvan made it clear that he had no intention of spending much time in this haunted place, and Diana was inclined to agree with him. Diana held up one finger, and he nodded, but shook a finger at her in return. She had exactly one hour, then he’d leave with or without her. As Diana stepped into the snowy main street, her boots sinking past the ankles, Razvan hunkered down on the driver’s bench with his flask.

  She released Mina from beneath her cloaks, and after a few meows of mild dismay (“Yes, Mina, I know it’s cold”), the cat began to pick her way through the snow. In a few more paces, she was running, and Diana was struggling to keep up. Mina’s lighter weight made it easier for her to manage the snowdrifts, and she was soon lost to sight in the woods just beyond the borders of the abandoned town. Diana couldn’t restrain a shiver that had nothing to do with temperature as she strode past the doorway of a house, its inside black as pitch, the opening looking for all the world like a great hungry maw ready to devour any living thing.

  As she trudged into the woods, she heard a yowl from Mina and followed the sound. It didn’t take long before she found her cat—and the gateway.

  As William had guessed, this gateway was nowhere near the cemetery, but rather on the outskirts of the town. Mina sat in the snow, hissing and howling; before her was a small gap in the trees where no snow had piled. The visible ground was black, and the trees ringing the area had slate-colored, gnarled barks that seemed to suggest they held contorted, agonized faces. There was a strange odor, and Diana sensed an eerie, unplaceable tingling in her own body.

  In Ireland this would have been a fairy ring; in England, a haunted moor. Wherever anchored, there was no mistaking the unholy influence of a gateway.

  The sealing ritual was performed easily and without interruption. The most difficult part came when Diana had to bare her arm to the elements. Her blood had partly frozen in midair before it hit the gateway barrier, but the effect was the same. Mina quieted instantly, and Diana’s own senses confirmed the closure.

  Overhead, the sun blinked down from moving clouds, but the wind was picking up and Diana feared the approach of another storm. She still had at least half an hour before the sleigh would depart, but she wondered if Razvan might leave earlier, so she and Mina made haste returning to the village center. She was relieved to see Razvan still waiting with the sleigh, and she gestured to the buildings; he responded by pointedly removing a pocket watch and checking the time.

  She turned and scanned the few buildings, seeking the inn.It was easy to pick out—it was larger even than Urveri’s church—but Diana still hesitated outside before going in. It was an unnerving place, two stories built of wood so weathered that it had turned grey, and the knowledge of what might have happened to William here….

  Then Mina ran in as if the place were home.

  Diana followed. She waited for a moment while her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She could barely make out the inn’s main room by the dim light coming in through the doorway; the windows permitted little illumination to enter, since they were mostly covered by drifts of snow. She spotted a flint on a table and after a few tries managed to strike a light to a small pile of dry twigs, which she used to light an oil lamp.

  Her breath clouded in the lamp’s amber glow, and she could see that whatever had happened to Urveri had happened quickly. A pot of frozen stew hung forgotten over the hearth; glasses which held nothing now but residue cluttered a long wooden bar top. There were even a few coins sitting forgotten among the steins and bottles.

  Although overturned tables and chairs gave mute testament to a struggle, there was no blood anywhere, and no murder implements were visible. Diana found herself staring at the walls above the doors and windows while something nagged at the back of her mind. Finally she had it:

  William had mentioned strings of garlic and rowan fastened above them. There was nothing there now.

  She peeked briefly into a few of the downstairs rooms—a kitchen, a storage room, the innkeepers’ rooms—then she heard Mina meowing plaintively from the top of the stairs, and turned to follow. The old stairs creaked ominously beneath her weight, and she prayed that they wouldn’t give way. As she reached the landing, she saw her cat standing before a room which had a ruined door hanging from only one hinge; it had plainly been torn from the other.

  Diana carefully maneuvered her way around the door, and stepped into a guestroom that could well have been William’s. In addition to the torn-away door, the bedclothes were strewn wildly about, pictures had been knocked from walls, and a chair had been sundered.

  And there were bloodstains here.

  Mina meowed again, and Diana thought it sounded very much like feline grief. Somehow, both the cat and Diana knew—this was William’s blood. Her husband had put up a desperate fight, and Diana had a quick flare of both pride and dread; she felt her love for her husband quicken like skin to a touch, even while she wondered exactly what he’d fought against.

  She searched the room briefly, but found nothing more, no shred of clothing, no helpful clue. A quick glance through the remaining upper rooms proved equally fruitless.

  And then her hour was gone. She gathered up Mina and returned to the sleigh.

  The ride back down the mountain froze tears on her cheeks. She had closed the gateway, but the glimpse into William’s final struggle had left her more certain than ever that her beloved was gone forever. Snow whirled around her and she pulled the protective blankets up, clutching them tightly, trying not to remember a ride she and William had once taken in a sleigh, on a snowy Christmas Eve, his heat beside her, a heat that had grown and finally consumed them both in their bed. She wanted to push the memories away, or to take comfort in them, but they brought only suffering now.

  She’d never felt so alone.

  Two days later, ensconced in a comfortable room in Racovito’s pleasant inn, she sipped brandy by a blazing hearth as she stroked Mina and considered her options. She briefly thought of returning to Urveri to locate the evil graveyard, to search for Rákóczi or other revenants, but she suspected it would be a pointless (and difficult) task. The monsters that had taken William and the inhabitants of the village had left Urveri—and probably the earth—forever. There was no point in staying in this savage, desolate country any longer.

  She made her way back to Budapest and from there to England; she passed the two weeks of travel despondent, her mood eased only by the presence of Mina. After returning to Hampstead Hall at Derby, Diana spent the next few months assessing her situation. If some thing didn’t want her closing the gateways—a something powerful enough to take the life of her courageous and clever husband—then she should simply leave well enough alone. She was still young, and perhaps it wasn’t too late for her to find another path for her life.

  The library no longer held any attraction for her, and she had her staff reshelve all the volumes she’d clutte
red the room with, then she closed the door and didn’t revisit. She spent months just wandering the grounds of the estate, sitting for hours among the mouldering stones of the old hall, feeling a strange kind of solace from the ancient wreckage She often longed for the visitations which had come almost nightly before she’d closed their gateway. She tried returning to London, but found the happy bustle she’d once enjoyed was now simply grueling. Howe attempted to elevate her spirits by arranging visits from friends, but she often canceled, or refused to see them. Her low point came when she found herself standing absently before the locked door of the Furnaval family crypt, watching a spider scuttle across the cracked granite and wondering if it comprehended secrets that eluded her.

  And then, just when she was certain that her life would be only an endless series of grim, pointless days… the promise of renewal arrived with an invitation.

  The Eastern World

  Chapter VIII

  April 8, 1880

  London

  “Diana, my dear, how perfectly delightful to see you again!”

  Sir Edward Hinton gave Diana’s hands a friendly squeeze, and kissed her on one cheek with genuine affection. When he pulled back to look at her, his eyes crinkled merrily, and his great white mustache tilted up on the ends from his broad smile.

  She returned the smile, equally happy to see him. Sir Edward had been a dear friend to the Furnavals, and was William’s godfather. When William and Diana wed, Sir Edward had instantly treated her as family; since Diana’s own parents had died some years earlier, Diana was happy to allow him to assume the role of father figure.

  “And a pleasure to see you again, Eddie,” Diana responded warmly. Looking at Sir Edward’s bulk and obvious wealth, she always inwardly laughed at calling him by the diminutive “Eddie”—which she thought better suited a small boy—but he insisted on it.

  They sat down at a lovely antique lacquered oriental table in Sir Edward’s vast office, and he poured two cups of tea. “You know, I was dreadfully worried when you took that tour of Europe. In winter, yet! What on earth possessed you?”

  Diana sipped her tea and offered Sir Edward a small, rueful smile. “You’re right, it was foolish, but…necessary. It had to do with—that other business of William’s.”

  Sir Edward nodded sagely. He was the only one of William’s friends who had known of the Furnaval legacy as gatekeepers. Although he’d personally never witnessed any of the paranormal activities brought about by the gateways, he had believed William completely. Diana had never told him the full truth of William’s death (such as, for instance, the fact that a vampire had been sent home from Transylvania in place of her husband), and so there had been no reason to reveal the full particulars of her recent trip to Europe.

  “And you haven’t contacted me since you returned,” Sir Edward gently chided her. “Antonia’s asked about you as well.”

  Antonia was Sir Edward’s only offspring. Diana had only met Antonia (whose name she’d always suspected of having indicated Sir Edward’s desire for a male heir) twice previously, and both meetings had been brief; the girl had either been in finishing schools or traveling. But Diana had liked Antonia a great deal—there was a seriousness and intelligence about the twenty-three-year old that Diana encountered far too seldom in other members of her sex, and she always thought that she and Antonia could become good friends, given the chance to spend time together. She also wondered if Antonia had a hand in the running of the family business, the Hinton Company, one of England’s largest trading firms. The Hinton fleet rivaled that of the once great East India Trading Company, and kept England well supplied with tea from China. Although she loved Sir Edward dearly, Diana had occasionally wondered how, with his absent-minded manner and more worldly interests (especially those of the alcoholic nature), he could run a substantial business. She suspected that the bright and solid Antonia may have had more than a little to do with the Hinton Company’s successful management.

  “Please give my regards to Antonia. I’d very much like to see her again. I…” Diana looked away, abashed, uncertain of how much to say. “I’m truly sorry for my absence. You know you both mean the world to me. I’ve just been…well, there were things I learned recently about William’s death that were…greatly disturbing to me.”

  He leaned forward in concern. “Oh my dear…is it anything I can help with? I have excellent contacts in most major ports of trade, you know.”

  Although Diana knew little of the Hinton Company’s business, she didn’t doubt that Edward’s contacts were considerable.

  “Thank you, Eddie, but there’s really nothing you can do. For that matter, there’s nothing anyone can do. William is truly gone, and I’ve spent the last two months trying to come to grips with it.”

  “I understand.” Sir Edward set his cup down, and pulled himself up straighter in his chair. “Perhaps I can offer you a puzzle to solve that will help to divert your mind, then.”

  Diana set her own cup down. “I’d like that very much.”

  Edward stood and began to pace before the hearth. “I don’t know how much you know of my trade business—you know, tea and silk traded for certain incidentals the Chinese like, that sort of thing. The final destination of our ships is the Chinese port of Canton. England maintains an outpost there, and we deal with an English-speaking chap named Mr. Wong, who holds the job of ‘comprador’—basically he ensures that our trading functions smoothly.

  “Now recently this Wong chap informed the captains of several Hinton ships that they might wish to consider postponing trade in Canton for some time. When they questioned this Chinaman, he told them that there had been a series of murders and disappearances among the men who worked at the docks, and that there was some difficulty in acquiring new workers.”

  Diana’s mind was already spinning:

  According to The Book of Gateways, Conjurations and Banishments, there was one Chinese gateway, located in Canton, at something called “Ho-Nam,”,although the meaning of that name wasn’t made clear.

  “Are you quite all right, my dear?” Edward was asking, peering at her, frozen in mid-step.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. Please continue.”

  “Very well,” Edward said, resuming his pacing as if he were lecturing to his board of directors. “My captains, who I can assure you are a very capable and trustworthy lot, suggested assembling an armed force of English soldiers to restore order, but Mr. Wong told them it would be useless. He informed them that the culprit was something that sounded like a goong-si; he would provide no further translation.”

  “Goong-si,” Diana repeated, trying out the strange syllables on her own tongue.

  “Yes. It’s a damnably strange language these Chinamen speak, if you’ve never heard it before; it really is like infantile gibberish. Anyway: So my crewmen, bless them, didn’t take Mr. Wong’s words at face value, but went ashore and met with the British vice-consul and several merchants. Eventually they got together an armed squadron and sent them to the dock warehouses, despite the most vigorous warnings of the comprador. Five men, armed with rifles, pistols and knives, were sent out. They found our docks and warehouses deserted, and no clues as to the whereabouts of the missing workers. They questioned a beggar they found in the streets near the docks, but he just kept repeating that ridiculous word over and over: ‘Goong-si…goong-si….’ Finally he scuttled off, and our squad returned, baffled and empty-handed.

  “The captains once again met with the comprador, and asserted that he must hire new workers. This time Wong was somewhat more forthcoming in his explanations. He told the seamen that workers could not be found, because the Oriental residents of Canton knew what the Englishmen did not: That a ‘kap-huet goong-si’ was a member of the living dead, a creature that preys on men for their blood to survive. What the Chinese fear is an evil spirit in human form, a creature of the supernatural that brought certain doom to those foolhardy enough to approach it.”

  “A vampire,” murmured Diana, already
starting to feel both an intense curiosity and a fight blooming in her, neither of which she had felt for some time.

  “Oh, yes—vampire, well….” blustered Edward. “Yes, I suppose it could be that…well, that sort of thing.”

  “Please continue with your story. I’m most intrigued.”

  “Yes, of course. Mr. Wong said the locals had sent in a priest, but he had fled in terror. Well, the Hinton Company’s brave fellows were, naturally, skeptical. They scoffed, and wondered how even a superstitious Oriental like Wong could accept the existence of such a myth. He told them it was no myth, and that they could see the thing for themselves, if they dared venture into the warehouse at night. The captains, thinking that perhaps a night spent successfully at the docks would convince the locals that the goong-si was just a fairytale monster, agreed.

  “That very night five seamen, including two of the ships’ captains, ventured into the docks. Only one man returned the following morning, his senses apparently so badly rattled that he could only utter a high-pitched, hysterical laugh and talk about ‘the monster…the thing with claws and burning eyes.’ The English port authorities sent a delegation into the docks, and only one body was found. It was that of one of the captains, Joseph McKay, a burly, strong seaman of thirty years experience. Captain McKay’s body was—”Edward broke off his pacing, fingering his watch fob and peering at Diana. “Are you quite sure you should hear all of this?”

  “Quite sure,” Diana told him.

  He continued, somewhat reluctantly, “Very well. Captain McKay’s body was found with his eyes open, staring wide in terror, his skin strangely wrinkled and pale—”

  “—and bloodless,” guessed Diana. “Apparently Oriental and Occidental vampires have the same raison d’etre.”

  Edward stared at her for a moment, and it occurred to Diana that he might have been less confused by her knowledge of vampirism than her use of French.