Castle of Sorrows

by Jonathan Janz

  A whisper of fear tickled his spine.

  “Man, how far down these steps go?” Teddy called.

  Ben jumped at the sound of Teddy’s voice and compressed his lips. Don’t alert it to our presence, he wanted to hiss. Just keep your mouth shut and be ready for anything.

  But he knew such demands would be received in the same manner Ben’s other declarations had. Teddy Brooks no more believed there was a monster under the castle than he believed in the Easter Bunny. Nothing Ben could say would persuade him otherwise. When they did encounter the beast, Brooks would either stand with him or turn tail and run.

  “What are you doing down there?” a voice blared down at them, shattering the preternatural stillness of the stairwell.

  It had been Castillo who’d shouted. Big surprise, Ben thought. The guy had the tact of a sledgehammer.

  The agents were hastening down the steps toward them. Teddy favored Ben with a sheepish grin. “Damn near shat myself. I didn’t realize how scared I was.”

  “You’re smart to be scared,” Ben said.

  Teddy’s grin faded. Then the agents were beside them.

  “What do you think you’ll find down here?” Morton asked Ben.

  Before Ben could respond, Jessie said, “His daughter.”

  Morton’s eyebrows went up. “Is this part of what he told you this morning?”

  “I didn’t tell her much of anything, except to be on her guard,” Ben said. “You’re too pragmatic to believe this, Morton, but what Gus said was spot-on. The Sorrows can affect people.”

  Morton studied him. “How so?”

  Ben started down the steps. “You’re aware of the island’s history?”

  “I know what happened to Agents Moss and Early, if that’s the history to which you’re referring,” Morton said. “And, of course, the nebulous events of last summer.”

  “Hold on,” Jessie said.

  Ben turned and glanced up at her.

  “It’s not lighted down there, is it?” she said.

  Ben felt a smile forming. “You’re right. I guess I was in so much of a hurry…”

  He pushed past Castillo and started up after Jessie.

  Castillo said, “Are we going down there or not?”

  “Not without flashlights,” Morton said.

  As Ben pulled even with Agent Gary, he said, “I can’t believe I forgot. It’s pitch black inside the pit.”

  “You really think your baby’s down there?”

  They reached the basement door. Hand poised on the handle, Ben turned to her. “Just make sure Castillo is careful with his gun. I don’t want him shooting Julia.”

  He led her back out to the helicopter.

  Gus looked up at them as they approached. “You gonna get your stuff out of here so I can take off?”

  “Give us a few minutes,” Ben said, retrieving the two flashlights he’d packed.

  “No electricity in the castle?”

  “No lights in the basement,” Jessie said.

  She rummaged through one of the supply boxes until she found a pair of big black Maglites.

  “No lights,” Gus mused, “but maybe quite a few other things.”

  Ben and Jessie stared at him.

  Gus looked away, perhaps trying to play it off. But the man’s deeply seamed face betrayed his nervousness. “It’s just a feeling I get,” he said.

  Ben nodded. “I know the feeling.”

  Gus looked at him.

  “Take care of yourself,” Ben said, and headed back to the castle.

  Chapter Five

  “What are they doing?” Elena asked.

  “Getting flashlights,” Christina answered.

  They stood before one of the casement windows in the master suite. Christina assumed Jorge and the rest were settling into their respective rooms. Chad Wayne was likely still convalescing from a nasty bout of seasickness.

  Leaving Christina with Elena Pedachenko.

  Watching Ben Shadeland and the female agent moving away from the helicopter, Christina said, “I’m thinking of renaming the yacht. The Blackie was my husband’s idea.”

  “Why not call it the Rosa?”

  Christina’s stomach dropped. “Why did you say that?”

  “It just came to me,” Elena said.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You can choose not to.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Christina said. She’d intended her tone to be authoritative, but instead it came out sounding peevish.

  Elena moved away from the window. Christina watched her, the way the afternoon sun glowed on her exposed back, the sensuous shoulder blades. “You should relax, Mrs. Blackwood. It isn’t good for you to be so uptight.”

  Christina chewed the inside of her mouth. “Why do you keep referring to me as Mrs.? Stephen’s been dead for a year.”

  Elena shrugged. “That’s how you introduced yourself when you enlisted my help.”

  Christina sighed, moved over to her suitcase. She began the job of unpacking. “That was three months ago. I would think you’d be a bit more familiar by now.”

  Elena’s voice was low and soft. “Would you like me to be more familiar?”

  Christina’s fingers paused on an article of clothing. Glancing down she realized it was a negligee she hadn’t worn since she and Stephen had been intimate. How long ago was that? Two years? Longer? She wrested it from the suitcase, turned, and stuffed it roughly into a dresser drawer.

  “Why are you so afraid?” Elena asked.

  Christina paused, wondering the same thing herself. After all, it wasn’t even night yet. She had Jorge and Chad to guard her, not to mention the federal agents. Why she should be so skittish—

  How about the Rosa?

  Forcing her hands to remain steady, Christina took a small stack of clothes and deposited them in the top drawer of the ornate mahogany armoire.

  Returning to the suitcase, she said, “How does it work, Elena?”

  Elena was poised at the foot of the four-poster bed, one finger tracing a delicate line over the curved footboard. “You always ask about that.”

  “That’s because you’ve never told me.”

  “It just is,” Elena said. “It’s been this way since I was a child in Belarus.”

  “Then tell me about that.”

  “The first time it happened I was playing in our house. It was an old house. A farmhouse. My mother had recently purchased it. It had a stream behind it and a forest. There was a well.”

  Christina found the girl’s voice soothing. The medium was twenty-four, but despite her small frame and her playfulness, there dwelt something much older in her voice, something fundamentally knowing. It unnerved Christina sometimes, but now, listening to the lilting cadences of Elena’s voice, she found the soft purr taking some of the edge off her nerves.

  “I enjoyed playing there,” Elena said. “I would hide in the closets with my little brother, and we had much fun.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Abraham was only three. I was five. We were inseparable.” Elena caressed the smooth cherry footboard and smiled wistfully. “We had many happy times in the house, yet we always avoided the well.”

  “Someone died there,” Christina guessed.

  Elena gave her a sad smile. “It’s never that simple. I pick up impressions, Christina. Just impressions.” The smile went away. “I picked up impressions when I ventured near that well.”

  “Impressions of what?”

  Elena frowned. “There was shouting. A brutish male voice. It was coarse. Harsh. Made cruel by alcohol. The voice laughed, but it was not a kind laugh. It was full of violence. Full of rage.”

  Christina reached into her suitcase, encountered the black rectangular box containing her vibrator. Blushing, she wrapped a s
hirt around it, transferred it to the armoire.

  Elena seemed not to notice. “I didn’t mention it to my mother that first summer, but the next summer I did. I was six by then and she considered me old enough to draw water from the well. She told me to do so, and I refused. She threatened to punish me, and though I was frightened—my mother was a gentle woman, and I was seldom reprimanded—I remained firm. She demanded I tell her why I was being insolent. I told her there was a hairy man who would hold me over the well. I was afraid he would drop me into its freezing darkness. I wept and pleaded with my mother, but after a time I noticed she was no longer scowling at me. She had a hand to her throat, massaging it. Her face had gone pale.

  “‘What did I say, Mother?’ I asked her. ‘Why do you look at me that way?’

  “My mother said nothing at first, but she did not persist in making me fill the pail. It was late that night, after Abraham was asleep, that she knelt beside my bed. She whispered because Abraham and I slept in the same small bed. She said, ‘You must not speak of the well anymore. There is nothing to fear there.’

  “‘But the man,’ I insisted.

  “‘There is no man,’ my mother said firmly. ‘Not anymore. There was once a man who lived here with his wife. His name was Nestor. They lived here for many years. No one visited them because of the kind of man Nestor was. They knew of his habits in town because he would sometimes visit there. But only for drink and sometimes to spend his money at the brothel. Nestor had a way of punishing his wife for her misdeeds. It could be for something she had said. Most of the time it was for something she did not do. Something he had made up. This all came to me from his wife’s sister. She was the only one his wife told of his habits.’”

  Christina moved over to the bed, waited for Elena to continue. The medium’s eyes were shining with a weird, fervent light.

  Elena nodded. “Many years later, my mother explained it in more explicit terms. Nestor would hold his wife over the well and make her admit to cheating on him. He would call her a whore and make her confess that she had lain with other men. He would make her wallow in the mud and snort like a pig. He would tell her she was a pig and that she wasn’t fit to mate with a pig. He would tell her to slather herself in mud, to put mud in her…” Elena broke off, shivering. “Mother told me that Nestor’s wife would comply because of her fear of being dropped into the well. And because she had come to feel she deserved this treatment.”

  Christina considered this. She asked, “Did he hit her?”

  “Not at the well. He scarcely touched her at the well. He did his hitting in the house, in the bedroom, the kitchen. He often used a stout piece of wood.”

  “And did you feel anything in those places?”

  Eyes downcast, Elena shook her head.

  “Then I’m not sure I understand.”

  Elena’s green eyes rose to meet Christina’s. “Do you believe that words can do injury?”

  Christina thought of Stephen Blackwood, who had never laid a hand on her—except for that night here in Castle Blackwood; she hurried away from the memory with an inward shudder—but his sarcasm, his constant and deeply cutting remarks…

  “Yes,” Christina said. “I believe that very much.”

  Elena held her gaze a long moment, then moved toward the door.

  “You’re going?” Christina asked.

  Elena opened the door, half turned, then regarded her with a look Christina could return only with difficulty. “Nestor’s words are what killed her. Not the club.”

  They got back to the stairwell and Jessie saw the others waiting for them. Ben, Brooks and Castillo started down. Morton had held back, Jessie assumed for good reason. She stood with him, watching the others in the sickly glow of the lone yellow bulb. It blinked and flickered like it might go out at any time.

  Morton said, “I don’t like bringing the detective down here.”

  “Tell him to go back up.”

  Morton nodded. “I might yet.”

  “Why wait?”

  Morton pursed his lips a moment, thinking. “Ben trusts him. God knows why, but he trusts him. Ben trusts you too.”

  Jessie opened her mouth to protest.

  “We need as much trust as we can garner,” Morton continued. “Everyone who’s spoken to Ben this past year has either attempted to strong-arm him or coddle him. Neither approach has proven effective.”

  Jessie frowned. “So you want me to string him along? Act like I believe his story?”

  Morton looked embarrassed. “Agent Gary. I wouldn’t dare tell you what or what not to do. I trust your judgment. But if Ben trusts you, he’s far likelier to talk, is he not?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So you can banish whatever worries you have about my directives. I would no more ask you to mislead him than I’d ask you to use your feminine wiles on him.”

  She nodded, then thought of something. “I forgot to ask. We’re assigned to Ben, but who’s watching Marvin Irvin? We think his men are the ones who abducted Julia, right?”

  “Huffer and McWilliams. They’re back at Marvin’s place, staking it out.”

  Jessie knew Jon McWilliams. Short, handsome, nice eyes. He seemed cautious, and that was good. But the thought of Jacob Huffer, one of the most cocksure agents she knew, standing guard at Marvin Irvin’s house filled her with an icy dread. The guy practically lived for conflict, and if none of Marvin’s men moved first, chances were strong Huffer would goad them into it.

  Morton seemed to read her thoughts. “I don’t like it either. McWilliams is a good agent, but Huffer is a bit of a maverick. Even more than Castillo.” Morton nodded at Castillo, who was sweeping his flashlight back and forth through the murk of the stairwell. The steps seemed to go on forever. Morton said, “At least Castillo possesses a healthy fear of death.”

  Jessie grunted. “He doesn’t show it.”

  “He conceals it well. But that’s from years of practice. Look closely into his eyes sometime, Agent Gary. You’ll see the terror hiding there.”

  Jessie and Morton continued the descent until they saw Ben, Brooks and Castillo ranged outside a large wooden door that had gone colorless with age.

  When Jessie and Morton reached them, Morton asked, “Where does this lead?”

  Ben said, “Not sure. But there’s no light at all in there, and it’s going to smell like an animal den.”

  Castillo glowered at Ben. “For not remembering anything about what happened here, you sure have a hell of a memory for this castle.”

  Ben put his fingers around the handle, glanced at Morton. “You ready?”

  Morton nodded.

  Ben looked at Jessie. “You?”

  Jessie said she was.

  Ben pushed down hard on the iron handle. Even with his prodigious strength, he had to lean down on it, the tendons of his neck straining, before there finally came a surly grinding noise and the handle scraped downward. The skin of his arms and face scrimmed with sweat, Ben hauled back on the wooden door, and the whole thing swung inward.

  The stench was eye watering.

  The back of his wrist shoved under his nose, Castillo said, “What the hell is this?”

  Breathing through her mouth, Jessie answered, “A smell like an animal den.”

  Castillo looked at her with a mingling of annoyance and apprehension. “What kind of animal?”

  She glanced at Ben for an answer, but he was already stepping into the veil of shadow.

  Jessie and Morton looked at each other.

  “Come on then,” Morton said.

  They followed Ben Shadeland into the darkness.

  Chapter Six

  Griffin Toomey peered out the displaced curtain beside Marvin’s front door; the raucous sound of Jim Morrison singing “Roadhouse Blues” made his ears hurt. Marvin’s house smelled of pot, Indian food and s
omething even less pleasant. Something that reminded him of incense and flyblown meat. He’d glanced in the living room earlier, where Nicky had one of his weird drug friends laid out naked on the floor. Flat-chested, her stringy blonde hair like excelsior, the girl scarcely looked eighteen. Nicky had been screwing her, both of them zoned out of their minds on heroin and pot, with Ray Rubio watching. Rubio was smoking a cigar, but from the way Rubio acted, Griffin suspected he had been dosing on heroin too. Nicky and the girl both had zombie stares and moved like people underwater, but Rubio was glitter-eyed and restive. In other words, even scarier than usual.

  Griffin worried they were going to kill the girl. A little while ago he’d heard her shout something in protest, and that had been followed by a disquieting smacking sound. Then there were lower-pitched thumping sounds. Griffin had tiptoed over and cast a fleeting glance around the corner to find Nicky again riding her. She looked alive, but there was a glistening trail of blood seeping out of her ear. Ray Rubio watched the sex show, impassive.

  Yes, Griffin was worried they’d kill the girl, but he was even more afraid of Marvin coming home. According to Jim Bullington, the boss didn’t know Nicky was into drugs again—he’d been arrested on possession and driving under the influence once before—and if Marvin arrived home now and found his son flying high and nailing some bleeding-from-the-ear skank, he might get mad. He might get very mad.

  And he might blame Griffin.

  Blotting out the thought, he examined the FBI agent, the one who hadn’t left his post in over an hour.

  Faintly, Griffin heard Rubio call, “They still there?”

  “One of them is.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He got into it with his partner earlier,” Griffin explained, his eyes never leaving the stocky FBI agent who leaned against the silver sedan. “The short one got mad at the bigger one and walked away.”

  Rubio materialized beside Griffin and shoved him aside. “I asked what the pig was doing now.” Rubio peered out the window, making no effort at inconspicuousness.

  “What the hell is that?” Rubio asked.

  Griffin watched the agent pushing buttons on some small device, probably an iPhone or something like it, sometimes shaking the device, staring intently at it, then either grinning or tossing back his head in disgust. “I think he’s playing a game.”