by william Todd
Though I didn’t mean to, I can only assume that my gasp was audible, for both the friar and our host turned to me with upturned brows. It seemed my inward misgivings of the place has seeped to the surface.
Mr. Strigoi’s laugh was like fingers dancing across the lower octaves of that great organ of which his voice reminded me. “You look as though I had just informed you that the woodcarvers had been killed.”
I swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. Finally, I asked, “What happened to the poor souls?” He handed each of us our glass and said, “I had been informed that the poor souls, as you so put it, had another job they were hoping to get done before Christmas and did not have time for socializing. It seems I had kept them here longer than anticipated.”
Wanting to change the subject, I said as I took my first drink, “I see by the abundance of law books that your profession is law.”
“Yes. I attended University at Edinburgh. Sadly, there are very few opportunities in my native land for such a vocation, so I decided to practice in the land that so graciously taught my profession.”
Brother Geoffrey was devouring his glass of wine as we conversed. His thirst seemed insatiable. Had I not looked around at the grand display of volumes as we spoke and noticed him take his last swallow, I would have ventured that the monk never had his goblet filled. After he had taken his last swallow and gave a slight reverberation, he said, “That was the best wine, outside the Blessed Cup, I think I have ever put to my lips.”
Mr. Strigoi expressed a sly grin and poured more into the friar’s glass, as I, too, took a more scrupulous drink and came to the same conclusion. “I must say, I agree. This is absolutely delightful.”
“Tell me,” Brother Geoffrey insisted, “where can a man get their hands on such a lovely bottle of wine?”
“I am in possession of the only bottle left of its kind.” “Having only one bottle in the world of such perfect wine is blasphemy,” he replied, as he savored more slowly his second glass. “This is heaven.”
“How did you come by it?” I asked. “I was told by the old man through whom I came to possess this bottle that in ancient times, Jews rarely finished a bottle of wine at the table.” He then pondered us a thought: “What must have happened to the wine from The Last Supper if it hadn’t been entirely consumed?
After a moment of contemplation, Brother Geoffrey replied, “Surely they drank it at a later date. Another meal, perhaps.”
Mr. Strigoi rubbed his manicured whiskers thoughtfully. “Perhaps. But as a religious man of that most ancient of faiths, you should know that the early Church saved everything it considered holy. You have the bones of your saints under every altar of every church. They saved wood from the Cross; the vail which wiped your Savior’s face, nails from the crucifixion—all saved. Could they not have saved the wine? Wouldn’t they have saved it? Might that unlabeled bottle resting on the bookshelf be…?”
Everything went quiet at the utterance of that last statement, as if everyone were thoughtfully regarding such a terrific story. I remember in that brief silence a strong wind buffeting the library window. It was of such force that even the fire in the fireplace could not subdue the cold December that momentarily seeped into the room.
Suddenly, Mr. Strigoi let out an uproarious laugh, and the friar followed suit. Not wanting to be left out of a joke that I was not privy to, I laughed as well.
Brother Geoffrey, choking back laughter and wine offered to me, “It seems our host is quite the story teller, Mr. Croft. This should be a lovely dinner, indeed.”
I nodded in agreement then turned to the owner. “Will you not get a glass and have a drink with us, as well?” His face turned sour. “I don’t drink it,” he replied. “Although it is palatable to you, it doesn’t agree with me. My taste is for—darker, stronger spirits.”
We chatted a bit longer while we finished the wine then proceeded to the banquet hall, as one of the servants set the large hearth aflame; soon the entire room was filled with warmth and a golden glow.
Within the hour, the workers were excused for the day and shortly thereafter, guests started to arrive. There was Mr. Oglevie, the butcher, and his wife and children, Ms. Danner, a fine, young woman who ran a floral shop in the village square, the town doctor, Nigel McGinty and his wife and children, along with several others whom I had never personally met before.
The total for dinner, myself included, was seventeen. Now, just as the last guests arrived—two associates from the law firm in the city where Mr. Strigoi practiced— the heavens let loose with the snow they had, since early morning, been so reluctant to release. With the white drapery came howling winds that rushed around the manor house, making a clamor like the shrieking of a legion of ghosts. Though it was only four in the afternoon, with the hidden sun already nearing the horizon, the sky grew the color of slate.
Looking back on those events, it was certainly a harbinger of things to come. Since no one knew better at the time, we all gathered in the banquet hall for hors d’oeuvres that the servants had set out. It was fine fare that whetted our appetites for the evening meal to follow.
We all laughed and enjoyed the company of old—and new—friends, and the children laughed and giggled as they set about decorating the giant evergreen tree for the holiday.
While chatting with the good doctor McGinty about a persistent lower back ache, I per chance noticed Brother Geoffrey standing alone, looking through the grand wall-toceiling windows of the hall at the blizzard roaring outside. Even in the reflection I could see his brows furrowed, like fuzzy red caterpillars mating, just as they had been in the room below the library when our guest revealed his name. He had made some small conversation with a few folk but chose to be introverted, which did not suit a man of his stature in the least.
I wanted to find out what was souring the monk’s mood, so I excused myself from the physician and went to his side; we watched in quiet unison as the curtain of snow descended upon the stage of the Whitaker House’s grounds.
“You suddenly seem a bit short on conversation,” I remarked. “Is what we discussed earlier troubling you?” He pulled at his abundant beard before speaking. “Obviously, the undertones to this merry occasion have me a bit glum.”
“You have that same look about you that you wore when you pushed our host to pinpoint his place of origin. I could tell then that you weren’t pleased with his generality.”
“It’s not so much that,” the friar replied. “Many people that immigrate are reluctant to talk about their homeland, for most times they are fleeing war, famine, and persecution.”
“What then?” I persisted. The ample monk sighed and, once more, he squinted out into the waves of blowing snow. He then posited, “When was the last time you observed a snow storm of this veracity?”
Expecting this to be a circumlocution, I answered, as I studied the white torrent on the other side of the glass, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a wintery display as magnificent as this.”
“Nor I,” he returned. I only stared at him with brow askew. I did not have to ask again. I could tell he was about to let me in on some revelation.
Suddenly, there was a hand at my back, tugging on my shirt. I turned to see one of the children, a pretty auburn haired girl, with a red gift in her hand. “Sir,” she asked, “could you help me put this on the Christmas tree?” She then turned and pointed to a bare tree branch about six feet up.
I smiled and agreed.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. “And I’ll shall be here,” Brother Geoffrey replied dryly, never taking his focus off the storm outside. Within a few minutes, I returned to find Mr. Willoughby, a local merchant, asking the whereabouts of our host. It seemed he had left the room. Upon further inspection, it seemed his two associates were missing, as well.
“I guess I will have to thank him at a later date,” Mr. Willoughby said. “For I live on the other side of the village, and I fear it will be all I can do just to make it home in such weather. I must le
ave now before the walk becomes impassable.”
I looked around, as the other guests were, themselves, becoming ill at ease with the growing storm.
“It looks as though the timing of this dinner was a bit off,” I said, as I surveyed the room of worry-grown faces. “Not necessarily,” Brother Geoffrey said under his breath, as Mr. Willoughby joined some of the other adults at the large fireplace.
“Now what does that mean?” I worriedly asked. “Tell me, man, what it is that has got you so up in arms about this foreigner.”
“It’s his name,” the big Scotsman uttered with a slight quiver in his voice.
“Victor Strigoi? What about it makes you this way?” “Its meaning. It means…” He paused a moment. “His last name, Strigoi—in the region he comes from, it means undead. It is not our host who need fear of dying prematurely. It is one of us here, and I fear it will happen this very night.”
Just as he uttered that statement, Mr. Strigoi, along with his two associates, re-entered the hall. “I see by the look on your faces,” he began with that deep resonant tone, “that you fear returning to your homes this evening because of the storm.”
A chorus in the affirmative echoed around the hall. “Please, I would hate to have this wonderful evening end abruptly because of Mother Nature’s—inhospitality. I have made arrangements to have rooms set up for each of you. You can spend the night as my guests and leave when the storm abates.”
When everyone agreed to the hospitality, a smile stretched from under his neatly trimmed mustache. However, when he turned to the two of us at the windows, his smile turned devilish. “Will the two of you stay and grace my company, as well?”
I can only assume the monk decided to stay because, as a man of God, he could not back down from the Prince of Darkness.
As for myself I, too, lived quite a walk away. I was beginning to fear the man but feared the storm more. I decided to risk my fate at the Whitaker House with Brother Geoffrey’s sizable bulk at my side, than to surely die of exposure on such a treacherous walk home.
Please excuse me; I do not mean to pull you from the story, as I remember it. But it is nearly midnight, and I now hear movement from within my home. It is the kind of slow, deliberate activity that sets blood to chill, like a bully pounding his fist in the palm of his hand when the object of his torment is cornered.
The Evil One is here, and he has begun his search. He may soon be at my door. I haven’t yet taken any precautions to delay his entry into my room, so I must do so now and lock and barricade my door. I know it is a trifling task, for the strongest steel and thickest oak could not stop him, who is evil and eternal. But fear dictates action, however frivolous it may seem. I can only hope that I will be able to finish the story I’ve started.
3
I apologize for my absence, though whoever reads these words at some later time will not know an absence was taken except by my admission. The intruder is gaining ground but not yet ready to take me, so I will pick up on this horrific tale where I had previously left off.
Our host came and went as the evening progressed. He entertained with stories during dinner, which had all but Brother Geoffrey mesmerized, then left during an impromptu chorus of Christmas carols sung by the children. Later, he would materialize again with his two associates, make rounds, saying his ‘how do you do’s’, then leave once more. No one seemed to care of his comings and goings. They must have assumed that he had probably brought home a particular worrisome case in which he was preoccupied and was doing a remarkable job of balancing his duties as host and a busy lawyer.
The big red monk thought otherwise and convinced me of the same. “When the others are occupied by the fireside,” he told me in a forced whisper, “I am going to slip out and try to find out what endeavors our host is occupied in while not in our company. Come with me. There is strength in numbers.”
I agreed, though in my heart I was fearful. The place and its new owner were taxing my lucidity by the second. When everyone—including some of the servants— had gathered around the large hearth to tell Christmas stories, the monk and I stole from the room surreptitiously. The banquet hall opened up into an expansive, empty hall, which is where we then stood, pondering our next course of action.
The place was silent outside the hall, save the ghoulish shriek at our backs from the storm winds breaching a cracked stained glass window that had yet been mended.
“Where shall we look for Mr. Strigoi? The house is so large, and he could be anywhere.” Brother Geoffrey replied, “Whatever devilish things he may be up to would have to be done away from the notice of the guests. I suggest we start our search upstairs.”
He hurried down the wide hall towards the front of the house as I followed behind. There, to the right of the immense front entranceway, was a glorious marble staircase the color of jade. We took only a moment’s hesitation to eye one another fearfully before slowly walking up the stairs side by side.
At the top of the staircase, centered on the wall of the landing, was a large window overlooking the frozen gardens below that separated Whitaker House from the desolate moor, beyond. From there, the stairs spiraled up to a third floor, or you could follow the landing around to the right to a long corridor lined with many doors.
But it was that window that had caught our collective eye; a crimson glow spilled a most diabolical color onto the falling torrents, as if a great fire raged amidst the snow and ice.
We both rushed to the glass to investigate the eerie light’s origin.
I cupped my hands around my eyes and searched for an earthly cause but found none. Brother Geoffrey turned his attention skyward and found the source; one floor above us, in the south wing, a brilliant light was cascading from the window of one of the rooms. We both could see great columns of steam rising from the pane, as tides of snow were driven onto the glass only to be instantly melted away.
If I had any lingering reservations about the monk’s intimations regarding our host, they left me in a sudden gasp of horror.
“We must try our best to beat the evil prince at his own game,” Brother Geoffrey said as he made the sign of the cross.
Before I had time to form any rebuttal, we were off again, climbing the great green staircase one more floor. This floor was laid out the same as the previous one, except the staircase ended; there were no other floors beyond this one.
We crept down the long corridor until we found the one occupied. Rays of red light, like that given off by a great bonfire, slipped out from under the door and through the keyhole. I touched the door but immediately withdrew my hand, for the heat was unbearable. I could not help but wonder why the door hadn’t yet caught fire, but by this time I had stopped asking questions about the supernatural event that was transpiring before my very eyes.
Suddenly, the doorknob slowly turned. My eyes widened at the thought of what lay beyond the door, and the thread that held my sanity finally broke. I ran yelling for my very life back down the corridor towards the stairs, while Brother Geoffrey pursued, insisting we face the Prince of Darkness together.
“I can’t do it!” I protested. “I don’t have the faith needed to fight such a fallen angel.” “Where two or more of us are gathered together…” the monk replied, quoting familiar scripture. “God is with us, Mr. Croft. Who can be against us?”
Continuing to the staircase I said, “Comforting words will not suffice. I wish to leave this place and take my chances with the snow. We all must leave. If we go in a group, we can go to the nearest home and stay there till the storm passes. At any rate, I will not stay a moment longer.”
“Help me!” he insisted.
“I will not, I cannot!” I exclaimed. I proved to be a bit quicker than my portly pursuer, but he followed close behind. I never bothered to look back at who—or what—opened the door to the room. I only carried myself in haste to what I had assumed was the safety of the group of people still telling Christmas stories in the banquet hall two floors below.
/> Suddenly, as I made the top of the stairs, readying myself for a quick descent, one of Mr. Strigoi’s associates almost ran into me, as he was making his way up. His abrupt appearance and our near collision startled me even more.
As I stopped and turned back to avoid colliding with him, the friar came up from behind me. In my avoidance of one collision another ensued. Brother Geoffrey lost his ample balance and spilled down the marble stairs with a yelp. On his second of many rolls, his head made contact with the cold marble, and he let out a winded sigh that quickly abated. When his body tumbled to a rest at the landing of the next floor down, a small pool of blood formed round about his head.
“My heavens!” I blurted breathlessly. “What have I done? Oh, what have I done?” With a look of concern, Mr. Strigoi’s associate said, “I was on my way to my room when I heard what I thought was quarreling, so I came up to investigate.”
Walking with cane in hand, and dressed now in a long red robe that covered nightwear, Mr. Strigoi appeared in the corridor from which I had just abruptly excused myself. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “I had heard some noises outside my bedroom door and as I opened it, I heard screaming and pleading of some sort.”
We all looked down on the monk’s lifeless body for just a moment before Mr. Strigoi’s associate turned to me. “What had he done to you that would cause you to do this?”
I could only blink in disbelief; shock seems to have a way of draining the life even out of the living.
“Mr. Croft, did you do this?” Mr. Strigoi asked. “I saw the whole thing,” his associate said. “Though I don’t know his intentions, to me it looked as though Mr. Croft pushed him down the stairs.”
Finally, I exclaimed, “No, it was an accident, I assure you. An accident!” Mr. Strigoi rubbed his manicured beard thoughtfully then looked out the landing window. “It seems the storm has momentarily abated.”