The Infernal Aether

by Oxley, Peter

  I was shocked out of my trance by the girl throwing herself backwards down the stairs. “No!” I shouted as I darted toward her and then stopped, frozen by the sight before me. Instead of seeing the girl falling I was confronted with a group of shadowy children, advancing slowly up the stairs whilst singing in that terrible muffled voice.

  “We really need to get out of here,” I shouted. I turned to see Maxwell and N’yotsu watching over my shoulder.

  N’yotsu nodded and then marched down the corridor. “Stand aside,” he said to Mr. Patterson and the butler, who were frantically pushing at a door in vain. With one shove of his shoulder the door gave way and swung open.

  “How did you...?” asked the butler.

  “Just get in,” said N’yotsu, beckoning us through.

  I followed the others in, relieved to note that there was no sign of anything supernatural in what was apparently an extremely normal bedroom. N’yotsu slammed the door behind me and I helped the butler and Mr. Patterson drag a cabinet across to barricade the entrance.

  Maxwell rubbed his chin. “Does anyone else have the feeling that we have been shepherded here?”

  I ran over to the window and looked down. The cold, hard street was a long way below. More importantly, the iron railings were directly beneath our window, their cold arrows pointing straight up at us; any attempt to escape by dropping down would doubtless result in us either being crippled or meeting an untimely and rather painful death.

  I ran over to the bed and stripped the sheets from it, tying them together to form a makeshift rope. “Is there anything else we can use?” I asked Mrs. Patterson. She stared at me dumbly, so I turned and looked questioningly at the butler. He opened a wardrobe and rifled through it, but came up empty-handed. I looked down at what I had managed to fashion together. It would shorten our drop by a few feet, but not nearly as much as we needed.

  Mr. Patterson had been occupying himself with shouting for help out of the window but after a few minutes he turned away with a shake of the head. “No one around,” he muttered.

  I shrugged. “Then I suppose we just have to wait out the storm,” I said, eying the door and our makeshift barricade suspiciously. My attention was drawn to the young girl, who was seated in the corner and remained quite inscrutable, just like the porcelain doll which she still clutched in her hands.

  I turned to her parents. “Are you all right?” I asked them. Mrs. Patterson looked up at me with red rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks, which was all the answer I needed. “Has this happened before?” I asked her husband.

  “It has, although not nearly as profound as this,” he said.

  “So when did it begin?” I asked, and then flinched at a loud bang from outside the door to the room. Thankfully the chaos showed no sign of intruding; for the time being, at least.

  “It was about a month ago,” he said. “Just around the time that—” he stopped short at a warning glance from his wife.

  “What?” I asked.

  He sighed. “It was around the time that Milly’s governess disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? Scared off by all of this, you mean?” I asked.

  “Well...” he started, clearly looking for some excuse or means to divert me from this line of questioning. I was readying myself to press the matter further, but before I could do so Milly spoke up.

  “I killed her,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  Our stunned silence was broken by Mrs. Patterson letting out a shrill laugh. She stopped as abruptly as she had started, with a look of fear aimed at her husband.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “My friends needed someone to play with,” Milly said, sitting her doll neatly on the floor. “So I killed her.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would you kill her? What did she do?”

  “Don’t listen to her,” said Mr. Patterson. “She’s a lonely girl, prone to flights of fancy...”

  I ignored him and squatted down in front of the girl. “Milly,” I said. “This is very important. Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Of course,” she said, bending the doll’s arm and putting it up to its mouth, as though it were drinking from an invisible cup.

  “But I do not understand why you would have killed your governess,” I said.

  “Because otherwise my friends couldn’t play with her,” she said. The doll took another sip from the imaginary cup.

  I felt a chill. “Your friends,” I said, not wanting to know the answer but feeling compelled to ask anyway. “Who are they?”

  “Why, you’ve met them already,” Milly said, standing the doll up. “They talked to us in the sitting room. They’re outside right now.” She moved the doll in a slow dance and sang gently under her breath, to the tune of ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’: “Will you play with me, will you play with me...”

  I stood and turned to her parents, who had been watching this exchange in increasingly agitated silence. “You knew of this?” I asked.

  “She is prone to flights of fancy,” said Mr. Patterson with a glance at his wife. “Young girls live in a world of their own...”

  “Is it true?” I asked, as forcefully as I could muster.

  The look shared between the two of them was all the answer I needed.

  *

  I joined Maxwell and N’yotsu, who were huddled in whispered conference in the corner of the room. Both seemed to be treating the experience as an interesting experiment or test, rather than the terror that it undoubtedly was.

  “Did you just hear that?” I asked.

  “Yes, I am afraid I did,” said N’yotsu. “The poor girl.”

  “The poor girl? What about her governess?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “But the girl is clearly possessed by malign spirits. Look at her. No one of her age would be quite so composed in such circumstances.”

  “Any ideas?” I asked. “How do we get out of this mess?”

  “We believe that these manifestations may be linked to some form of disruption in the Aether,” said Maxwell. “This is very exciting, an entirely new avenue for exploration. In fact, it is a whole new way of viewing the Aether. It would suggest that rather than a passive medium for light it is in fact—”

  “Yes, yes, all very interesting,” I snapped. “But what about our predicament? You may not have noticed, but we are trapped. We need to get out of here.”

  Maxwell shot me a wounded look, leaving N’yotsu to pick up the exchange. “You must realise that understanding the nature of the problem is the first step toward finding the solution.”

  “Granted,” I said. “So if this all has something to do with the Aether, then presumably you have some sort of device that will make it all better?”

  They both looked at me blankly. All of Maxwell’s equipment had been abandoned in the sitting room in our mad rush to escape the chaos downstairs.

  “But—” started N’yotsu.

  “No!” I exclaimed. “No more theories! You led us here; you got us all into this situation. And yet we don’t know the first thing about you.”

  Maxwell placed a hand on my arm in an attempt to placate me but I shrugged him off and continued to glare at N’yotsu.

  “Your concerns are understandable,” said N’yotsu in a calm voice. “But I can assure you that I have no dishonourable intent. I shall find a resolution to all of this.”

  “Everything resolves itself, one way or the other,” I shot back. “Death is a resolution, of sorts, but not one which I care to explore. Before you go back to your academic discussions, might I remind you that it is blowing a gale inside the house, whilst we are locked up in a room with a homicidal infant and her accomplice parents!” I hissed this last bit, hoping that the words were masked by the noises from outside.

  “I must implore you to remain calm,” said N’yotsu.

  “Calm!” I mocked. The concept was ludicrous, given our predicament. Then I realised something. “Your cut,” I said. “Where has it gone?”
/>
  “What cut?” asked N’yotsu.

  “When we found you, there was a deep gash on your forehead. Max, do you remember?” I asked my brother, who nodded. We both peered at N’yotsu in the half-light. His skin was unblemished.

  “That should not be possible,” said Maxwell. “I remember noting the severity of the lesion. There is no way that it could have healed in such a short space of time.”

  N’yotsu put his hand to his head and rubbed it. “I... do not recall.”

  “That seems to be a much too convenient answer, sir,” I said. “In fact, how come you were completely unscathed by the explosion downstairs, yet you were the closest person to the blast? Exactly what manner of man are you?”

  Before he could answer there was a scream from the other side of the room. “It’s happening again!” shouted Milly, launching herself at her mother in a whirlwind of arms, legs and teeth.

  Mrs. Patterson squealed and tried to hold off the attack, aided by Mr. Patterson and the butler. However their efforts were to no avail and I rushed over to join in the fight, noting that the girl’s determination coupled with our unwillingness to harm her made for a distinctly unfair struggle.

  We pulled Milly away and held her against the floor. I pinned her arms and shoulders to the ground while the butler wrestled with her legs. Immobilised, she still struggled with fierce determination and it took all of my strength to keep her in place.

  Having checked on his wife’s welfare, Mr. Patterson returned to his daughter, pleading with her to calm down and listen to reason. The girl’s response was a mixture of incoherent sounds and spittle, with most of the latter landing on my face and arms by virtue of where I was positioned.

  “Please stop,” I said.

  Voices sounded from outside the door, the voices of little children taunting me, repeating what I said, over and over. They were joined by the sound of a woman’s voice, again from outside the door but this time sounding tearful, the words pleading rather than mocking. “Please stop. Please stop. Please stop.” demonic giggles accompanied this chant as it repeated over and over.

  I felt tears prick my eyes; it was as though I were back at school, cowering in the playground as the older kids crowded round me, taunting me.

  No.

  The thought of those playground tauntings opened a trickle of memories which turned into a stream and then a torrent, as my mind’s eye replayed so many painful occasions. These were met by other memories, of fighting back and beating my tormentors away. I felt that familiar hotness and anger rise in me, a veil which had served me so well over the years. I rose to my feet, my mind clear with a vicious intensity. I was no longer that helpless child. I was not someone to be cowed by callous words. Not anymore. Just as I was about to shout a reply the door exploded inwards, throwing us all to the ground.

  CHAPTER 5

  For the second time that day I gathered myself together, stunned but grateful that I had not suffered any serious injuries. N’yotsu had landed next to me and also appeared unharmed, although the blank look in his eyes echoed the fear I felt.

  Milly screamed, and I looked up to see her being dragged toward the window by a shadowy figure which I immediately recognised as the fiend we had surprised in Hyde Park just a few hours earlier.

  Again, the light was not conducive to providing a full appraisal of the attacker’s features, but what I did manage to see was more than sufficient to further twist the knife of fear in my gut.

  It was a demonic representation of a man—God’s Creation reinterpreted by Satan Himself. Those eyes which I had assumed were reflecting red in the Hyde Park sunset were in fact glowing from within, and set in a face which was twisted in a permanent snarl. The eyes were just a bit too large for the face in which they resided, while the face itself gave the impression of being sculpted or drawn, rather than coming into existence by some earthly organic process.

  Mr. Patterson and the butler ran toward the creature in an attempt to stop it taking the girl. In response, it turned and stared at—or rather, into—the butler. “He never respects you, you know,” the demonic thing said. “He would gladly cast you into the street without a second thought.”

  The butler turned and glared at Mr. Patterson, face contorted in painful rage. “That’s right,” he snarled. “Why should I help you?”

  “You blackguard,” said Mr. Patterson. “You good-for-nothing...” The two men collided in a flurry of fists, Milly and her tormentor seemingly forgotten. Mrs. Patterson tried to prise them apart but was cast aside, a wailing, sobbing wreck.

  “The demon is manipulating them,” said Maxwell, “using their emotions against them.”

  I looked to N’yotsu, but the man was frozen with terror, the sight of the creature no doubt rekindling memories of that terrible attack in Hyde Park.

  Milly seemed to snap out of her fugue state and looked at us with pleading eyes. I pulled myself to my feet with a curse and looked at Maxwell. He nodded and the two of us charged at the creature.

  The demon—for there could be no doubt that that was what it was—looked at us and grinned so wide that its mouth seemed to fill the entire room. It spoke words but I had no idea what form they took; I was too preoccupied with a feeling of complete and utter dread. It was as though I were wrapped in chains of despair, dragging me down to the floor and beyond, draining from me all instincts to fight or even to persevere.

  Our predicament and the ongoing battle, not to mention Milly’s plight, seemed to snap N’yotsu out of his fearful trance, for he charged toward the creature with a yell. This, in turn, prompted a vicious hiss from the demon, an imprecation which made me gasp despite my near-catatonic state. N’yotsu paused but then burst through the invisible barrier which had unmanned Maxwell and I and swiped a firm fist at the creature’s face. It connected with a sound which seemed to reverberate through the whole house and the demon released Milly, focusing all its attention on N’yotsu. Like the cracking of a whip, the malaise which had afflicted me was lifted, colour returning to the world. I looked round at the others and noted that they, too, were standing and blinking as though released from a terrible dreamworld.

  N’yotsu and the demon faced each other, Milly in between them. “She is under my protection now,” said N’yotsu quietly.

  The creature cackled. “Keep the child,” it said and then bent down and reached out to the girl. We started to shout but then the demon pulled at what initially appeared to be just thin air, but which rapidly assumed colour, shape and substance. It appeared as though some dark cloak were being pulled out from within the girl; a material which as it stretched seemed to scream in pain. Within that strange, ghostly shroud I perceived individual voices and then faces; children and a woman all intermingled and contorted as they were pulled toward the creature.

  With a crash, the demon threw itself out of the window, trailing this ghastly cloak behind itself.

  *

  No sooner had the creature made its escape than Milly fell to the floor in tears, a normal—if terrified—young girl at last. Mrs. Patterson bundled her off to bed and a doctor was called, but it was clear that the possession which had afflicted the girl had now been lifted.

  “I cannot thank you enough,” said Mr. Patterson once more as we surveyed the remains of his sitting room.

  “Please,” I said. “I did nothing. It is N’yotsu you must thank.”

  “I shall,” he said, and we both looked over at N’yotsu, who was in huddled conversation with my brother once more, debating the nature of the creature we had encountered. The Pattersons, for their part, were much more pragmatic for the time being, happy to have their daughter returned to them and the pall of gloom lifted from their home.

  “Who is he?” whispered Mr. Patterson, nodding to N’yotsu. “He was able to withstand the creature’s malignant influence in a way none of the rest of us could.”

  “I wish I knew, Mr. Patterson,” I said. “But I hope to find out. In the meantime, we should leave you and your family. Y
ou have much work to do.” I nodded to the butler, who had already started sweeping up bits of broken furnishings.

  “Just one other thing,” Mr. Patterson said. “What my daughter said, about the governess...”

  I grunted and ran my fingers through my hair. It was a mark of how strange the evening had been that a mere murder had almost slipped my mind. A part of me shrieked that the right thing to do would be to compel him to tell the police, to ensure that the matter was dealt with properly by the authorities. And yet, I had to accept that the events of that evening had been a long step beyond the understanding or remit of any worldly authorities, and I had no desire to inflict yet more torment on that family, so soon after they had been granted relief.

  “I shall leave it to your conscience,” I said. “I shall be happy to not have to think about all of this again, let alone relive it through the courts.”

  “Thank you,” he said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Gentlemen,” I said to Maxwell and N’yotsu. “If you are ready, shall we leave?”

  They nodded and followed me out the door, saying their farewells to Mr. Patterson, who remained effusive in his thanks, offering a substantial amount of money as recompense for our efforts. N’yotsu, I noted, turned this down.

  “Will that... creature…return?” asked Mr. Patterson as we stood on his doorstep.

  N’yotsu shook his head. “I do not believe so. I have the distinct impression that it obtained what it came for.”

  “Those... spirits, you mean?” I asked.

  “That is correct.”

  “But why did it want them?” I asked. “And what was that creature?”

  “I do not know,” said N’yotsu. “But I intend to find out.” He turned to Mr. Patterson. “We must keep you no longer. Goodbye, Mr. Patterson.” He led Maxwell and me away.

  Something was still bothering me. “Why did you do that?” I asked N’yotsu after the door had closed behind us.