by Jane Jordan
“In all these endless years, I realize it is you that I have been waiting for. Now you are mine, you belong to me and I will never let you go.” He spoke with such vehemence that I was briefly startled, but I closed my eyes, as the undeniable feelings of love flowed from my heart. I fell asleep, secure in his arms.
I awoke alone a few hours later. The tousled bed-clothes and the faint scratch marks on my skin were the only evidence of the night before.
Chapter Eighteen - The Hidden Chamber
It was a new beginning at Ravens Deep for us. We were aware of the dangerous complications of our relationship, but we did not allow anxieties to enter into this unusual undertaking. We dealt with the reality and obstacles head on, after all, Darius did have to fulfil his need for blood -- his hunger. But he rarely came to me when his skin was chilled, in the evenings he was always warm. I knew the horror of his existence and no longer questioned the shadows that sometimes surrounded him.
I never asked how or whom and he never spoke of it either. It was a side of his life I didn’t have access to, and I was grateful. Although I tried not to torment myself with the details, initially I had been torn apart by my conflicting emotions, the horror of his existence versus my undying love for him, but he made it so easy for me, I never saw that side of him, and in time I accepted without reservation.
My days became shorter and my nights longer. During those nights we talked in detail about the months apart. Darius told me that he had watched me on several occasions in London, but had been resigned never to reveal himself. He confessed that he had been in Parson Place on the night I delivered the letter and he described how he had watched me waiting patiently in my car. I realised then that my senses must be very in tune with his, to enable me to sense his presence.
Looking back, I had sensed him so many occasions, but not trusting my sanity, I had not really believed. But evidence showed that regardless of mortality, destiny had determined that we would find one another and, however unconventional this relationship was, there was no denying the fact that some other force or supernatural energy was at work.
Each night he enchanted me, and I delighted him again. We were blissfully happy, observant of our unspoken connection, in which we needed no words, oblivious to the world outside and unconcerned by the morality of our situation. The only importance was our persevering devotion, and caught up in our emotions of the intimate moments we shared, nothing else mattered. Every day just before dawn, he would leave me alone and return to the chamber where he spent his days. I found comfort, knowing that he was still at Ravens Deep and only a wall kept us apart during the daylight hours.
But we had to be careful, Darius proved he had control, he suppressed the underlying instinct that threatened to destroy my mortal life. That underlying fear was real, the threat was genuine and occasionally this inner demon rose up, and had to be quickly subdued. But I remained confident in my love and trust that Darius would keep me safe. I suppose we were content the fact that not everything in this world is easily explained or understood, we had chosen to find happiness wherever we could, even if that happiness did not conform to normal convention.
After the first few intoxicating nights with Darius, when my mind could not concentrate on a single thing, but him, I slowly became accustomed to this all consuming, passionate love affair and began to take notice of the world around me again. With Darius in my life this world remained magical, I relegated the dark side of his life to a hidden place in the remotest corner of my mind and concentrated instead on the light.
I had asked Darius to show me the hidden chamber where he slept by day. He led me by candlelight under the ivy curtain and through the wooden door. We walked up the flight of steep wooden stairs and I found myself standing in a small stone-walled room. By the light of the candle I recognized the recess in the wall that looked through to the bedroom beyond. The chamber was small, only enough room for an old chair, a few feet of empty space and a long polished wooden box that lay on the floor, the coffin where Darius slept by day.
The sight of the coffin and the reality of its purpose disturbed me intensely. That one item brought home to me the horror of Darius’s existence and although it was not open, the shock of actually seeing it made me feel entombed myself.
Darius did not protest, when I pushed past him and ran down the stairs into the darkness of the night. The cool breeze allowed me to breathe normally again and to regain my composure.
“Madeline?” his voice was behind me, I turned to look at him.
“I just couldn’t stay in there, I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have taken you in there, the reality must be hard to bear,” he said, with some concern.
“I wanted to know,” I readily replied. “I’m cold, let’s go into the house.” In truth it wasn’t the cold breeze that had chilled me.
A little later we sat on the sofa, wrapped in a shroud of love. I was relieved to be out of the chamber and tried to dislodge from my mind the image of the coffin. Instead, I focused on something else.
“I have the glass you needed to repair the window, I picked it up today. Can you really fix it?” I said, giving him an enquiring look.
“Yes, I will do it now,” he answered, and got up. I had confessed to him that I broke the window, to my relief he had not been angry. He merely said:
“I really did under-estimate your determination to remain here, didn’t’t I?”
Darius had unlocked the gate and I had brought my car up to the house. He had instructed me to buy the glass needed and now he repaired the window. Darius never failed to surprise me at the things he knew or could do. When questioned, he had simply replied: “When you are as old as I am, you learn to do many things.” It made me feel strange when he made comments like that, for it forced me to acknowledge that he was approximately a hundred and sixty eight years old compared to my twenty two years, and yet he still looked his immortal age of twenty five. I tried not to dwell on that fact often, it was too disturbing.
Later that same evening as I sat down on the sofa, he laid his head on my lap and closed his eyes. I played with his hair, coiling it around my fingers and gazed at him with a mixture of sublime adoration and curiosity. All of a sudden his eyes opened.
“What is troubling you, Madeline?” I stared at him in shock.
“Can you read my mind?” I asked with caution.
“Sometimes your thoughts become clear to me, other times they do not. Something disturbs you tonight.” He paused for a moment. “The chamber, is that the cause of your distress?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I hesitated, “but it is more than that. It made me think about your life
before, you never talk about it.” Darius sat up and turned to lean against the back of the sofa, he turned and looked into my face. “Darius, tell me how it happened. How you became un-dead.”
Darius was quiet, but voices in my head were apparent, I couldn’t really hear them I just knew what they said:
“Don’t ask me, the memory is too painful!”
His eyes gazed into mine, he was struggling with the conflict, the memories and thoughts of long ago were terrorizing him as he began to conjure up the past. It chilled me to witness it. I took his hand in mine and squeezed in reassurance, he looked away from me, perhaps so I might not see how harrowing this was, but despite the obvious agony he began.
Chapter Nineteen - 1860
“The year was 1860. I had grown up at Ravens Deep along with my sister Isobelle and my mother Madeline, my father had died when I was a small child. We had three servants, a cook, my mother’s personal maid and a stable boy.
One evening in late spring I was returning home, having been away for two weeks
in London on business. The journey had taken several days, travelling on horseback and staying at various coaching inns along the way. On this particular evening I was very tired, and anxious to be home.” I smiled at Darius.
“Do you know, I can almost picture you on a black stall
ion with your cloak flying in the cold wild winds, racing across the moors as a daring highwayman.” His smile met my own.
“That is one crime I have never been guilty of,” he replied cordially before continuing. “As I approached our property on Exmoor, I took my usual shortcut through the woodlands to the church. I intended to pay my respects to my father who lay buried there. When he had died, my mother had his remains buried in a specially designed sarcophagus. She had commissioned stonemasons to work it until they satisfied her wishes with the depictions, then she had the sarcophagus positioned in its final resting place.
My mother without fail would walk to the churchyard at least twice a week. She would tend the area around the tomb and lay fresh flowers, her favourites being honeysuckle and wild rose.
That evening as I approached the church the sun had already set, and it was rapidly getting dark. I remembered thinking that I should take care that my horse did not stumble in the darkness of the woods, and wished I could have ridden a little faster, in order to have arrived whilst there was still enough daylight.
I reached the church, but as I dismounted from my horse, my attention was drawn to an image that made my blood run cold. Lying on the ground outside the open church door was the body of Father Talus, the local priest.
I was horrified by his appearance, for I had never seen anybody so deathly white, and the light of a full moon made his appearance even more ghostly. Of course I did not comprehend the reason for his strange white pallor, it was only later I realized that his body had been entirely drained of blood. I knelt beside him and noticed an old book still clutched in his hands. At first glance I assumed it to be an old Bible, but as I released it from his grip, horror struck me with grim reality as I realized I held in my hands a Grimoire -- A Book of Shadows.
I sat by the body, I was in shock and then as I turned each page I was sickened at the content of this evil book. It had been composed from the writings of various priests and I deduced that it had originated in Italy. Over the centuries notes had been added by its various owners including the final entries, Father Talus’s own handwritten notes. I did not move for a long time, paralyzed by fear as I read page after page and tried to decipher what all the strange rituals meant. Then I discovered what Father Talus had done before his life abruptly ended. I still remember that vice like grip of horror as I read his neat handwriting printed in black ink before my very eyes. But the implications were too terrifying for me to fully understand straight away, so I remained for a time reading by the moonlight on that terrible night.”
Darius paused. He had a very distant look in his eyes, I could not find the right words to say to him, and so I remained silent and took his hand in mine. That action brought him back to the reality of the moment and he looked down at my hand in his, and then continued slowly.
“I once told you about Theophilus Shaw who had died several years before, and only James and Madeline, my uncle and mother,” he emphasized their relationship to make it clear to me of whom he was talking. “Only they had dealt with the body and burial and the location of the unmarked grave. They had trusted one other, the priest, Father Talus. But unbeknown to James or Madeline, Father Talus’s loyalties had always been with Theo. Much later I discovered later that Father Talus and Theo, had presided over many occult ceremonies here in our very own woods. They blatantly used black magic to supposedly conjure up evil entities to give them power over the simple country folk, whom were already fervently superstitious.”
“How . . . what did they conjure up?” I said incoherently, my voice sounding tense. Darius shrugged and shook his head.
“Who knows what they really got up to?” he replied, “I never found any evidence that the ceremonies actually did conjure anything at all. I have to believe that Theo was insane. If he had been a poor man he surely would have been locked away in an asylum and left to rot, but he was rich, and with his money and power came the faithful followers, the disciples who will carry out anything that may be required of them, regardless of the consequences. So when by unknown means this book came into the possession of Father Talus, he acquired the secret that had been handed down through the ages; the knowledge of how to resurrect the dead!”
I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck at that statement. Darius sensed my feelings.
“Do you want me to continue?” he said, looking troubled.
“Yes, absolutely,” I answered quickly.
“I don’t want to give you nightmares,” he said with a wry smile.
“You will be here to chase my nightmares away,” I said confidently.” Darius’s smile faded as he continued.
“By the priest’s reckoning, what better person to resurrect, than Theophilus Shaw. He believed Theo would make him immortal in return, and give him the gift of eternity for his loyalty. Father Talus believed he and Theo would endure an eternal reign of terror, unstoppable in all the acts of horror they could dream up together.
However, Father Talus’s plan went horribly wrong. He did manage to resurrect him, but Theo, who had been one of the completely un-dead, woke with such an insatiable hunger that he drained the priest of every drop of his blood.
In his haste to resurrect Theo, Father Talus had failed to read the warnings within the writings of people that had gone before him. I have studied the Grimoire in detail and there were many accounts and forewarnings of the terrible risks and consequences to anyone who would choose to follow that dark path. That night the Grimoire had also been within Theo’s grasp, but like me he had probably thought it was a Bible and he had left it with the body. The reality did not sink in straight away, but as I read, it revealed to me the horrifying detail of the life’s work of evil men. Not only did it give detailed accounts on how to resurrect the dead; it described how to make certain the dead remained in their graves. As frightened as I was that night, that notation was the one I paid careful attention to. It revealed that the only true way to ensure death is by fire, for once the body has become ashes, the soul can never live again.
My greatest fear was that the priest might not be entirely dead. I believed back then that he would change into a hideous walking corpse or some other terrible fiend,” Darius said with a hint of a smile, “so I burned his body, right there and then in front of the church.
A little later I approached Ravens Deep, but my mind was in turmoil from what I had witnessed, the contents of the Grimoire in my possession, and the act I had been forced to commit in the churchyard. I was barely aware that something was terribly wrong when I entered the house. Calling out to my mother, I walked up the stairs when suddenly I heard a noise coming from her room. It was an unearthly noise that made me shake with fear. I ran up the rest of the stairs and burst into my mother's room. The scene that met my eyes was one of the most unimaginable horrors. For the man who could only have been Theophilus Shaw was standing over the dead body of my sister Isobelle and as I entered the room, he released the lifeless body of my mother and she too fell to the ground. Her blood still staining his lips.
The rage inside me was unstoppable and with one movement I pulled my father’s
sword from the wall, which my mother kept in her bedroom, and lunged at him. I cannot
remember how many times I drove that sword through him. He had an unearthly strength and despite the terrible wounds I was inflicting upon him, he resisted fiercely. He fought me like the demon he had become. There was such intensity in the way he refused to weaken, regardless of what I was doing. His hands gripped my throat and as his terrifying eyes met my own, I was horrified by my own awareness that I was trying to kill my own dead grandfather! We finally fell to the floor and before he gained total control, I somehow summoned the strength to push him from me and gain an advantageous position. I aimed the sword once more and adrenaline or fear must have given me the strength for one final blow, as I brought the sword down with force -- I decapitated him.
My mother and sister were dead. I was distraught, but I was aware of the awful sit
uation that could unfold if I didn’t act fast, for I was uncertain of how much time I had before Theo might spring to life in front of me. I was all too aware of the contents of the Grimoire and the frightening reality that Theo may still be un-dead. Even worse still, I was not certain if my mother and sister would befall the same fate. Not knowing what else to do, I took the oil lamp and tipped its contents over all of their bodies. The fire spread quickly and engulfed the room in flames. I managed to escape just before the ceiling fell in, and made my way back down the stairs and out of the house. I think, I collapsed in the garden overcome with grief, exhaustion and the effects of the smoke. The servants, who had been in the other part of the house, came running carrying buckets of water. The stable boy rode to alert the tenants at Ravens Farm and together they put the flames out, but not before the fire had destroyed a large portion of the house.
The next morning I stood amongst the ashes, still dazed by my grief and the shock I had experienced, I remember absently bringing my hand to my neck and the horror I felt as I discovered two puncture wounds. Caught up in my rage and the intensity of the fight the night before, I had no idea I had been bitten.”
Darius paused. the memories greatly pained him still, and I squeezed his hand to give him encouragement to continue. But I was shocked and unable to speak at that moment.
“I was the only remaining infected one,” he said at last. “The only one, soon to become un-dead. The infection spread slowly, despite what you think, it does not happen instantly. Instead it takes over your being like a creeping poison through your bloodstream; a venom that slowly pulsates its way with every beat of your dying heart. I knew I had to act fast, I knew I was damned, although I did not know how much time I had left. In the week that followed, I arranged for three more sarcophaguses to complete the four in the churchyard that remain now. One each for my mother and sister, to be placed next to my father’s that was already there, and the fourth for me, for when and if I did die, to enable me to lie in eternal rest with my family. Obviously the fourth remains empty for now,” he remarked dryly, looking at me.