The Montague Portrait

by Matt Drabble

  Hanging above the fireplace was The Montague Portrait. The painting held sway over the room. Hugo’s looming face was twisted with hatred and contemptuous arrogance. Sensing the portrait’s power, she felt like the child that had first laid eyes upon the evil.

  She gripped Vargas’s hand ever tighter and his strength renewed her determination. She didn’t have to be afraid as long as she had his protection. As long as he stood beside her, she could end the madness and save her parents.

  ----------

  Sage supervised the three men under her care that she trusted the most. They were loyal to her and she had spent a long time cultivating that loyalty. She was done with trying to win Vargas’s favour. If he wanted to set the Goode woman alongside him then so be it. Perhaps this kingdom didn’t need a king after all. Perhaps a queen would adequately suffice.

  Two of the men carried Parker and she headed for Vargas’s inner sanctum under the guise of the faithful employee. She had quashed the assault on the house and would try to take full credit for the four intruders lost in the woods. Nothing happened on her watch that was not under her control – even the creepy groundsman Wadleigh.

  Normally the inner reaches of the house were beyond all except Vargas. His instructions were explicit and no-one had ever dared breach them, until now.

  She led her group through the house. The music was still pumping hard, but there was little other noise emanating from the ballroom. Her senses were picking up that something odd was going on inside the house, but tonight she had her own plans to implement.

  As they passed through the hallowed halls she could feel the disapproving vibes from the very fabric of the house. The faces on the hanging portraits told her that she was not welcome here. They scowled as though she had no part to play in the evening’s entertainment ahead. But she paid them no heed.

  She had captured the second thorn in Vargas’s side, and after first disposing of the attack, she was bringing him gift wrapped to Vargas. He would have to see her and he would have to allow her access to his inner chambers. Once inside, she was going to wait patiently for her opening and then she would strike: hell hath no fury and all that.

  ----------

  Vargas allowed Charlotte to sit in the large armchair facing the fire. Her face was one of simple childlike wonder and trust. Her thumb kept creeping inexorably towards her mouth and she was fighting a battle to look like a big girl.

  The room was fully prepared. It had taken the last eight years to complete his inventory. Fortunately for his plans, there was minimal difference between the two possible layouts. It was a painful choice to make and through the decades he had never been entirely sure just which path to take. He was the son of Hugo Montague and as such he had an undoubted responsibility to his father.

  The power existed to restore his father to this world; to take Hugo’s spirit from the painting and place it inside a human vessel so that his father would live again. Vargas’s youthful construction of his business empire had all been with the thought of building a future for his father to one day return to and rule. It had never been in question that he would one day step aside and relinquish the reins.

  But as his studies into the afterlife intensified, he became increasingly concerned about his own part in his father’s resurrection. As far as he could tell, it would have to be his own mortal form that his father would inhabit. They were tied together it would seem, and there was also no way for them to co-exist.

  But Vargas’s family loyalty loomed large, and he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the sake of the Montague name – at least, he had been. The more he thought about it though, the more twisted and angry he became. How dare his father expect him to roll over and give his life so that he might live again? Hugo had had his time in this world, including the years of his claws reaching out from beyond the grave. He made the decision a long time ago. It was only when the final day at last loomed large, that he realised he had chosen life – his own life.

  Not everything Vargas had told Charlotte was a lie. He did fully intend to end his father’s tyrannical rage once and for all, but it was just for his own selfish preservation reasons. He couldn’t care less about his father’s victims; he just knew that as long as his father’s spirit existed, it would never stop trying to break through, and his own existence would be in danger.

  There were two rituals he could invoke. One was to retrieve his father’s spirit and the other was to exorcise it. The exorcism did indeed require a lot of psychic energy, as he had told Charlotte.

  The ballroom was now full of the finest buffet of power, more than enough to fuel his intentions. Unfortunately for his guests, they would not survive the experience. The primal beat being pumped from the DJ’s booth would also drain them of their very lives. The house was now a beacon that drew energy towards its core.

  The large open lounge was cleared of all furniture and the carpeting ripped up exposing the bare boards beneath. He carefully drew a large double circle roughly eight feet across. Inside the circle he drew the seal of the pentagram, all with his own blood. He had five purple candles each anointed with holy oil placed at the tip of each corner of the star. A small silver chain was wrapped around the base of each candle.

  Despite his initial scepticism at the design, he quickly learned that the pentagram at its earliest was found in rough diagrams scratched into Stone Age caves. Only when the pentagram was inverted was it thought to have evil intentions and was known as the Sigil of Baphomet.

  The way he drew the pentagram it was meant to ward off evil spirits. The five points were to symbolise spirit, water, fire, earth and air, and in the centre lay his most prized possession -- his father’s remains.

  The small pile of bones was all that remained of the great man after the fire. Vargas prayed that it was enough to finish him once and for all. He had scoured the world to rebuild Hugo’s private literary collection. The problem being that there was an ocean of false information out there. He had spent a small fortune on dusty relics that promised to be able to tap into the netherworld and open the gates of hell themselves. Unfortunately the real power was rare to find and even harder to pry from desperate hands. The one book that he had finally found had to be the real thing considering the price he had paid for it. Three years ago and without his accountancy department’s prior knowledge, he had liquidated half of his empire. The zeros had been quite staggering, but he had paid the price willingly and dealt with the instability in the stock market his actions caused.

  Enochian was a name often applied to an occult or angelic language recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th century England. Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable, and Kelley was a spirit medium who worked with Dee in his magical investigations. The men claimed that the language was revealed to them by angels and the language was integral to the practice of Enochian magic. The journal itself was a small nondescript leather journal that carried no weight of its own. The frayed cover was inconspicuous, but considering its cost, it was possibly the most valuable artifact on the planet.

  The ritual should remove his father’s influence on this world, thus freeing Vargas from his obligations. But the real prize as far as he was concerned was to take his father’s eternal spirit and live forever. Not trapped within the confines of brush and canvas, but in the real world and to sit upon his throne forever. It was his father’s dream and the reason for his current predicament. Whatever his father had tried, it had simply not fully worked. His father was a trapped soul devoid of reason and existing only in a single fixed emotional state of vengeance. Vargas intended to siphon that life force into his own and become immortal.

  He looked over at the slumbering Charlotte. She was a direct descendant of Eleanor and as such, Wheeler blood coursed through her veins.

  It was that blood which would fulfill the sacrificial part of the ritual. The Wheeler blood should satisfy his father’s murderous lust
and allow him to force the old man from the painting and into the afterlife.

  He drew a curved dagger from his pocket and unsheathed it. The silver blade glinted in the dancing firelight and he marvelled at the contours of the ancient weapon. He turned the heavy knife over in his hand, feeling its weight. It was supposedly forged from the metal of the holy spear that according to myth had once pierced Jesus’ side as he hung on the cross. Vargas doubted the authenticity of the story, but he found the iconology appealing.

  He took a small golden jeweled challis from his collection of artifacts and walked over to the sleeping woman.

  Charlotte’s legs were curled up beneath her and her face was that of an angel. Her regression to a childlike and innocent state was essential. All adult vices and poisons were stripped away to purify her blood.

  The spell that had been cast over the party through the champagne and the primal subliminal beats pulsing through the music had transfixed the guests. It was an incantation combined with a special recipe he had procured in Egypt – said to have once been used by the Pharaohs to control their intimate servants that were buried alive with their masters. The servant’s spirits were converted into pure energy to allow the Pharaohs to pass over to the afterlife revitalized.

  All of Vargas’s party guests were now held in a pure state of mind that would fuel the exorcism of Hugo and the transition of the portrait’s power to Vargas.

  He started to recite the incantations from the journal he had memorised. The words were thick and alien on his tongue and he hoped his pronunciation would not be a problem.

  He placed the dagger under Charlotte’s chin and smiled as the tip pierced her skin and drew a thin trail of droplets. He was preparing to open her gullet when the door burst open.

  ----------

  Lochay found himself lost inside the vast house. The corridors were long and dark and his courage was spent. It was dawning on him that while he might be a titan in the real world, this was far from those playing fields. Whatever was going on here tonight was far removed from his experience. He had always assumed that Vargas, despite his reputation, was just a man, one made of flesh and bone. But now he knew differently.

  It was his own arrogance that had led to his downfall. Instead of storming the castle gates, he was now a prisoner deep in its dungeons.

  He flung himself against the wall as a noise startled him and he prayed for inconspicuousness. He had encountered only a few others throughout his scuttling in the shadows. Most seemed to be staff, apart from one lost party guest staggering around blindly. He tried to think just how things had gone so wrong so quickly, and just what Vargas really was, as the man was surely beyond human.

  The house seemed to go on forever and all he wanted to do was find a way out. He had left the wounded Fisher and the bumbling Parker far behind in the hope that they would provide a decoy for him to escape. He could only pray that they would be discovered and fed to the boars in the woods, as it really wouldn’t do for his new found cowardice to become public knowledge. He had enough of the organisation’s funds safely tucked away now and his escape route was planned in detail. All he had to do was get out of this dammed house without being caught.

  He had been charged with the protection of The Montague Portrait and afforded the luxuries that came with the job. His bloodline to a distant relative somewhere on Eleanor Montague’s family tree had provided his credentials and secured his position. He had never believed in the stories, but revelled in the ability they afforded him to indulge his dark and often murderous desires. But now as he crept through the shadowy depths of the manor house, he knew that he had been a fool.

  There was a dark power at work here and he wanted no part of it.

  He kept his head down and moved as quickly as he dared, desperate to flee this black night.

  ----------

  Travis felt his head bump against the hardwood floor as his transport hefted him into the room with little care for his comfort. His head ached and when he touched it he found an egg sized lump on his temple. He looked up from the floor and tried to process the upside down figures he saw. He rolled slowly over onto his stomach and the sight became easier to digest.

  The enormous lounge was devoid of furniture. Vargas loomed large in the centre of the room and a huge fire roared at his back. As dominating as the big man was, Travis’s eyes were instantly drawn to the painting hanging over the mantelpiece – the painting from which the whole room seemed to hum with electricity.

  He had yet to lay eyes on the subject of his long and dangerous quest, but he instantly knew that this was The Montague Portrait. He looked around and saw Charlotte motionless on a chair. His heart almost stopped beating until he saw her chest rise and set softly as though sleeping.

  His breath was stolen from him a second time when he really saw her: she was quite simply beautiful and dressed like a princess. He was thinking that she had never seemed more out of his reach, when it occurred to him how much he wanted her.

  He looked back to Vargas and saw that the man’s face exuded a torrent of raging fury, all veneer of the charismatic salesman now gone. Vargas was a big man, but now he seemed immeasurably bigger. His body appeared to have swelled with a force his skin and bones could barely contain.

  He looked over at the woman who had brought him here. Her confident demeanor had evaporated and she now stood voiceless in front of the master of the house. This was the woman who had seemed an even wilder warrior than Charlotte, who had saved his life twice already – on the train and again in the museum where she gunned down Lochay’s men who were trailing him with deadly intentions. And yet now she cowered like a child in front of Vargas.

  ‘You would dare!’ Vargas roared, and the room seemed to quake before his rage.

  ‘I … I … brought you a gift. You wanted them both,’ she said, pointing towards Travis on the floor.

  Don’t bring me into this, Travis thought morbidly, hoping the shadows would swallow him before Vargas looked down.

  ‘This is because of her.’ The woman glared at Charlotte and Travis had to admire her ability to try to reclaim some ground, even if it was built on sand. ‘You’d cast me aside after everything I’ve done for you? And all for her. It should be me. It is my right!’ she screamed. ‘My right!’

  Travis watched as the three men she had brought with her wavered in the doorway. They were large and muscular and all armed with shoulder slung machine guns, but they looked as scared as Travis felt.

  ‘What you will not give, I shall take,’ the woman said as she drew her gun from a holster around her waist.

  Travis couldn’t help wondering at that point about the woman’s choice of wardrobe. The sparkle of a ball gown poked out from beneath her heavy parka and she wore thick hiking boots to complete the strange combination.

  Vargas laughed long and hard. His voice was like thunder as it hammered at the very foundations of the house. ‘You would threaten me in my own home, Sage?’

  The woman circled him slowly as did her henchmen with rather more caution. One of them pushed the door shut behind him as they entered the room fully.

  Travis crawled as far out of their sight as he could while desperately trying not to draw their attention, or their fire.

  Vargas stood in the centre of the room and Travis could now see the strange drawing on the floor beneath the big man. He had seen enough movies to recognise a pentagram when he saw one. The woman called Sage kept her aim steady at Vargas’s head as her three companions raised their weapons. At such a short distance Travis could see that most of Vargas was about to be splattered across his own walls very soon. At least Charlotte was out of the line of fire as long as she stayed still.

  The moment seemed to last forever. Vargas’s broad grin was tattooed across his face. His eyes were large and alive with mirth at the threat. Travis could see that the three henchmen were all trembling slightly, but at least their guns did not require a steady aim only a broad canvas. Sage seemed to be weeping slightly
as she took aim and Travis shuddered at the thought of the relationship between her and Vargas.

  The air crackled with tension and Travis could feel the electricity making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. No-one seemed to be breathing as though oxygen was no longer a vital component. Time slowed down and he could see thin beads of sweat on one of the men’s fingers as he gripped the trigger.

  ----------

  Lochay could stand it no longer. His nerves were shredded and his heart was racing. He had been creeping around for what seemed like hours, frantically trying like a rat to find his way out of the maze. In the end he could take no more and just ran. His shoes pounded on the wooden floors and the sound echoed off of the walls beating a drum to announce his presence to anyone who cared to listen. He thundered into door after door. Some were locked and others opened into fusty rooms that were full of beady eyed spiders. He ran and ran and ran.

  ----------

  The frozen moment stretched on and on and on. Travis saw the doubt in the woman’s eyes and the terror on the men’s faces. He saw a gentleness break on Vargas’s face and he saw the woman soften a touch. Her arm lowered the tiniest amount and the war seemed to stop before it even began.

  Just as the apocalypse seemed to have been cancelled, the door burst open.

  Travis heard the unmistakable sound of a trigger being pulled and he forced his head to the floor. The metallic clunk sounded the end of all things and the beginning of Armageddon.

  One of the men spun towards the door that had opened. As he turned he began to fire his machine gun and suddenly everyone was firing. The roar of gunfire was deafening and Travis caught the briefest glimpse of Lochay flying through the door and a moment later he was himself was flying out again just as quickly.

  The doctor’s body was torn apart by vicious holes and his insides splattered against the wall behind him in the corridor. The other two men looked down startled as their own guns began to fire. Travis saw Sage’s mouth open in a scream but her words were drowned out by the gunfire.