It was still early when Harold arrived at Muriel’s, even though he had arrived as late as he could, even stopping en route at the library to borrow as many books as they had on the occult. This turned out to be five and even they looked like they had been pulled back out from one of the many Benedict book burnings. Harold was not sure, but it might just help. Surely they would have some reference to whatever it was that William had become. Harold sat in the lounge flicking through the pages of one of the thick books filled with tiny scrawl but, before he could find anything interesting, the sound of a door opening hinted that Muriel had woken. She had not bothered to dress but instead stood on the stairs in her under garments. Harold’s heart fluttered a beat and he forced his eyes to remain on hers.
“ Sorry I woke you.” Harold said lamely through rapidly drying lips.
“That’s okay. Is everything all right? You rushed off so fast yesterday.” Muriel said with a yawn, she came and sat close to him at the table. Harold was glad that there was no hint of anger or annoyance in her voice, but just the normal caring tone she seemed to carry. Harold wondered how it was that a woman who had lived such a harsh life as hers could have learned to be so caring. He would ask her about her past one day, but as always, it was not the right time.
“It’s my father, he was attacked.” Harold said with his voice failing to hide the sadness, and he felt that same lump return to his throat that he had been fighting since seeing the wagon outside his parents’ home. Harold wondered just how many more bloody times he would have to swallow it down.
“ Was it William that done it? Is your father okay?” Muriel’s took his shoulder in her hand, her palm closed tighter, and Harold felt his perseverance break. He could not keep up his defence under her caring embrace. No more could Harold swallow the lump down. His eyes began to fill with water as he looked into her concerned face and that sad little smile on her thin lips that told him she knew what Harold felt. It was the same look the doctor had given him but with her, it felt more real. She pulled him close, pressing him tightly in the strongest of embraces he had ever felt. It was as if she was trying to squeeze the sadness out of him. Harold had not needed to say the words for Muriel to know his father was no more. Harold sobbed in her arms. He did not ever want to let her go.
“ I’m sorry.” Harold said finally, pulling back and wiping his eyes when his heartbreak subsided enough to feel embarrassment for his outburst.
“ You don’t need to be.” She said and went to pull him close again. Harold gently shrugged away knowing if he felt her warmth again, he would break down once more and Harold had few tears left inside to shed.
“My father was a great man and I’m going to miss him, but now isn’t the time to mourn for him.” Harold said trying hard to convince himself. If he stopped his pursuit of William and the truth now, then he would have died for no reason. Harold just wished he had had the time to say one last goodbye and explain why all this happened.
“I never met him but he raised you, so he’s got to be a true saint.” Muriel smiled, her playful banter helping him more than she could know. Harold really did love her, and his sadness just added further confirmation to this. With the loss of his father Harold began to rely on her even more.
“I’ve got something to ask you, Muriel .” Harold said before he lost his nerve.
“Go on.” She replied expectantly.
“My father’s home is to be empty now as my mother is going to stay with family. It has more space than here and seems a shame to let it go to waste. I was wondering if you wished to come and stay there with me, just until all this is over. I’d feel much safer with you there.” Harold asked. He had only left the house a few days before for fear of the guard finding him but the weather should keep them at bay and Harold just wanted to be close to his father.
“I don’t know what to say. Sure, I guess. I’ll just get my things and we can go.” Muriel said trying, unsuccessfully to hide her disappointment that Harold had not asked something else. Without doubt now Harold could tell she wanted to be with him. She paused midway up the stairs to give him a smile. “It’ll be okay you know, Harry. We’ll get through this.” She said continuing up the stairs and out of view.
When Muriel finally came back down without a bag and in that same, low cut and soiled dress, Harold smiled, knowing that she would soon have a new gown. The gift Harold had made himself was waiting already hidden at home and Harold planned to give it to her that night.
“Ready?” Harold asked, trying his best to seem happier than when she left him. Inside Harold still ached but he had to be strong. He was his father’s son, and Harold knew he would not have cried, even at the end. Harold would do his best to be like him.
“I’m ready. You sure you want me there?” Muriel asked wanting more confirmation on how Harold truly felt.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t now, would I?” Harold shot her a smile and continued. “Anyway it will make me feel safer with you there. Plus, if you haven’t noticed, I kind of like having you around.” Harold offered up, hoping that his feelings were right and that Muriel would not reject him.
“I had noticed. You are an easy man to read, Mr Spinks, not that I mind your attention. Did you sleep at all? You look exhausted.” Muriel moved across the room close to him. His heart turned into a swarm of butterflies that rattled around inside him.
“A little, I can sleep when all this is over.” Harold replied. The surge of energy from the excitement of the admittance of affection between them would no doubt lead to another sleepless night.
“You still plan to track down William, even after all this?” Muriel asked. Harold knew she still disapproved but he had not picked this path for himself. Harold felt like a penned in goat at the slaughterhouse just rattling along until the end, He just hoped their ends were different.
“I don’t have any choice. The guard still think it is me, and the O’Brien’s boys obviously want to find me, too. If I don’t find William, I’m as good as dead.” Harold said giving the same excuse. He didn’t know at what point that had become a lie. He wanted to find William now to kill him. To make the streets safe for Muriel and to get vengeance for what he had put him through. It was no longer about proving his innocence. That didn’t seem to matter anymore as much as making the city a bit safer for Muriel and taking vengeance for the death of his beloved father.
“You don’t need to be the hero you know.” Muriel said running her soft hands down his cheek. “There is no shame in running away. It’s not your job to make the streets safe.” Muriel said, seemingly reading the truth behind what Harold said. He could tell Muriel realised the same as Harold did, the chances of taking down William alive were next to none, but he had to try.
“I was there when this all started. Somehow I feel like I have to try and do something.” Harold said and Muriel looked at him, trying to think of something to talk him out of it, but she gave in.
“Fine, you bloody fool. Let’s go then.” She said and with that Harold grabbed his suitcase from its resting place and made for the door. It would feel good to be home again, and even better to share it with Muriel. They left her house and made their way to his home. As they walked the streets of Neeskmouth, hoping the guard would not notice them and praying they did not bump into O’Brien’s gang or, worse, William, Muriel helped to keep things light hearted.
“So have you always been a Neeskmouthain then? It’s just your accent don’t fit?” She asked.
“I’ve lived up here since I was about five or six. Before that we were down in Port Lust.” Harold said, thinking fondly of the summerhouse.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to visit the country. I saw this picture book when I was younger of a cow. I’d love to see one.” She said so honestly that Harold laughed. “Hey, be nice.” Muriel said, punching him in the arm for laughing at her. She knew she knew little of the world beyond the Neeskmouth ridge. “So, why did you move down here anyway?”
“My father came here du
ring the war I think. He moved down to the coast before William took the throne. That’s where he met my mother. She was the daughter of the owner of the tailors he worked in. I don’t know how he managed to woo her, but he did.” Harold said smiling at the thought of his father being young and cock sure. “It was my mother’s father that paid for our house up here. You see my father wanted to move back to the city. He always missed it and her father wouldn’t have her moving back in a working class condition, so he sold half the company to buy our family home.” Harold explained.
“So, she came from money?” Muriel asked, seeming shocked.
“A little but not much, it was more from the spoils of the war. When my grandfather died they moved up here, they ended up with their house as a holiday home. My mother was an only child so was the only person in my grandfather’s will. They used this to open our shop over on East Street. They did not come from money as such. They just got lucky enough to make ends meet.” Harold concluded. He didn’t know for sure if his father had come to the city as an invading Pole but Harold left that bit out regardless.
“I thought when I saw you that first day heading to the docks there was something different about you.” Muriel said, smiling at him.
“ You mean I didn’t treat you like cattle?” Harold said as Muriel laughed. Now would have been a perfect time to ask about her life story, but Harold was too shy and the moment soon passed as they walked on in silence.
“Would you ever move to the country?” Muriel said, choosing not to answer his question but asking one of her own.
“Yeah, I would. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but there is not much call for a tailor down there – at least not one that does the style of work my father taught me.” Harold said. There was also the fear of the demons at Briers Hill. At least within the city wall the guards kept watch for movement of the shadow demons. Harold dodged the contents of a slop bucket, which someone threw from the upper window close by snapping back from another daydream.
“What is it you make, then?” She asked and actually seemed interested. Most people grew bored and the mere mention of a tailor’s work.
“We mainly make suits for businessmen and bankers, some uniforms for the bigger factories too. Sometimes we make evening dresses for the ladies of the city and make the odd repair, but not many.” Harold said, trying to make needlework sound less boring than it was.
“You mean them dolled up scarlet’s?” Muriel’s brow wrinkled and Harold could not help but chuckle. That was the reason he had never found the right type of girl, the noble and middle classes were more like dolls than people and Harold would never have been allowed to date below his standing.
“Yeah, I mean those types. Well there it is.” Harold said pointing at the house. Harold was thankful to see that there was no guard wagon anywhere in sight. Surely only a lunatic would come home when the guard were looking for them. That was his genius. At least Harold hoped the guard wouldn’t think it was his stupidity.
Chapter 24: A Plan for Love As soon as they went inside Harold showed Muriel to his parent’s old room. It was hard for him to walk into the room and be surrounded by the memories of his father, but the lavish blue carpet and thick mattress would seem like a palace to Muriel. It helped to ease his pain a little to think of her enjoying that which his father had worked so hard to provide for his mother. The house felt chilled and empty and Harold wanted to inject life and love back into it before it became a mausoleum to the memories of the horror that had unfolded there. Muriel had no luggage to stash away and no need to unpack so they spent the rest of the day trying to plan what to do next. They sat around the coffee table in the lounge not far from the chair that had not long before been Harold’s father’s favourite resting spot. The sunken imprint of his years of sitting in the fabric still showed and Harold had to fight the sadness to think that even that would in time fade. The memories would always be there but they would come up less. Only the odd smell or thought would jog a memory of a time spent together and the pain of the loss, but it would become less often. Time would heal all wounds but for now Harold sat fighting his thoughts with a pile of books from the library scattered around the ornate top like playing cards in some strange game.
“Harold.” Muriel said looking from behind one of the books. “This seems to be describing the way that William has been acting.” It had surprised Harold that Muriel could actually read. He had not had many dealings with working girls other than seeing them go in and out of the Queens, but he doubted the ability to read the written language was a needed skill for their line of work. Some of them could barely speak Neeskmouthain let alone read it. It felt like another missed opportunity to find out more about her but he had other things to focus on. She slid the book across the table to him and pointed to a faded article inside. “There, that page.” Muriel said pointing to a sun stained page that had been read by countless eyes over the centuries. Harold took the book from Muriel and begun to read. In eastern parts of the Green Stone Isles during the early parts of the fourteenth century of the old calendar there were reports of men and women who seemed to move in packs, much like that of wolves. These humans slaughtered countless victims and consumed their blood in the most hideous of cannibalistic ways. This led to stories that these people had been consumed by the spirits of wolves in the local area. The wolf people of the jungles would later spark stories of vampires in traders and sailors that encountered them during the early exploration of the known world. The wolf men seemed to share a single intelligence, a pack mentality which allowed for their blood lust to drive them on to pillage and ravaged the small villages of the Isles but they seemed almost protective of each other. When Maria Theresa of Stratholme, the leading power in the world at the time, ordered the complete annihilation of them, the general office kept several specimens found inside the temples for observation. Defiling the temples and slaughtering many of the so called wolf people dispelled the false belief that they had been in cohorts with demons or wolf spirits. The specimens kept for testing within Stratholme led to other theories. Such as, these unknown substances secreted by the leach-like creatures that filled the spawning pits at the hearts of the temples, changed people.
Harold rubbed his tired eyes focusing on the old text as he continued reading. These vampire-like or blood-sucking people seemed to possess extreme strength and a reaction to sunlight. It seemed that the sun actually weakened them. The reports from the brave knights who valiantly battled the wolf men reported that the only way to kill them was to sever the head from the body or to drive something deep into the chest cavity where a large crab like structure was almost always present. However, there have been no reports found in the ransacked libraries after the Orcish invasion of Stratholme to confirm they even existed and the wolf men of the isles have subsequently vanished into myth with no temples remaining since the great crusades, unless they are hidden so deep within the jungle the scholars and bards have yet to find them.’ Harold let the book fall closed. At least they had some idea what they were after now. It wasn’t some magic abomination or raised zombie. It was a creature of a kind that had somehow existed since the old times. It may have even dated back to the time of the titans. Harold would later learn the wolf men, or in their own tongue the blood god, Rakta Ishvara and the battle with the Stratholme knights had not been the first time their kind faced being wiped out. Their kind had clung on since the fall of the titans and the sealing of the demons from the world. They predated Sacellum and held secrets most mortal races and even the long living Elves had long since forgotten.
“This certainly seems like him.” Harold said, wondering how they suddenly reappeared after so long absent from the chronicles of the world.
“Maybe he’s a survivor of that.” Muriel said sliding the book back away from Harold so she could read more.
“No, he can’t be. He had family here, remember? The guard found his body some time ago. Someone must have done this to him.” Harold said, feeling the letter from his wife
turning into a lead weight within his chest pocket.
“You mean there might be more of them?” Muriel said, letting the book slip from her hands back to the table.
“ There could be, but I don’t think so. We would have heard about them but that’s not to say there won’t be if we don’t do something soon.” Harold said trying hard to convince himself.
“At least it says how to kill him.” Muriel said relaxing slightly. Harold nodded doubtfully. Inside Harold was filled with uncertainty. After finding out how to kill the Rakta Ishvara he should have been filled with hope. After all, it was what they had been seeking for many days but despite all Harold had achieved since the explosion, he did not know if he was capable of slicing a man’s head off. It would be a step further than Harold had ever thought to go. He worried if he really had it in him to do that to a man even one as evil as William seemed.
“Are you okay, you look pale?” Muriel asked looking at him with her deep and beautiful eyes.
“I’m all right, just in a little bit of shock. How are you taking this so calmly?” Harold asked. The shock and horror had faded from Muriel so fast Harold was worried she was bottling it all up and would pop like an overheated cask of wine.
“I’m a whore remember, I’ve seen the evil side of humanity. I know there is a hell and I know that there are demons. Most of them walk the streets of the harbour at night. There’s little that can scare or shock me any more Harry. I’ve serviced mages, I’ve lain with thugs. William is nothing compared to some of the sick and strange things I have seen. That I have had to do.” Muriel said with a heavy heart. Harold had no words that could follow a statement like that and noticed Muriel was uncomfortable with the silence so he broke it the only way Harold could think of.
“It is getting late. If you want a bath, feel free. The bathroom is next to your room. Shall I start heating the water for you?” He said. It was all Harold could think of to say. He didn’t even realise it himself but on some deep level inside himself Harold had asked it as he wanted nothing more than to wash the soiled memories from the women he had started to love. To cleanse her from all the hardships she had before he found her.
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