Heritage (The Slendervale Series Book 2)

by Sean Mannette

  Adam hesitated for a short moment before grabbing it. Susan had made him quit. And then she had made him quit again, and again, and again. He had promised her the fifth, sixth, and tenth time that he was done forever.

  The woman lit it without looking him directly in the eye, then did the same for her own.

  “Adam,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Uhlee.” The words stumbled out of her mouth as she gripped his outstretched right hand awkwardly with her left.

  “Uh-lee?” Adam’s brow furrowed. He emphasized both sounds to make sure he got it right. The woman giggled around her cigarette.

  “Li!” She waved an arm to punctuate the syllables. “Luhlee.”

  “Lily!” Adam exclaimed, half congratulating himself on solving the riddle. “Nice to meet you, Lily.”

  “To meet you, too.” She muttered into her glass, taking a sip. She could have been beautiful, Adam considered sadly, as he gazed at her. The same way a graveyard was beautiful, or a song.

  Adam waited, none too patiently, for the bartender to appear. Lily started humming to herself idly. He tried to occupy himself by figuring out what it was exactly that she was humming, but couldn’t place it. Her distinct lack of ability might have had something to do with it, but Adam grew more and more certain he didn’t know the tune. It was simultaneously haunting and thrilling, and he found himself drawn in by it.

  “What is that?” He asked. She stopped humming, eyes snapping to him. Adam supposed she must have forgotten about him altogether.

  “Wha?” Lily glanced around as if searching for whomever he might be speaking to.

  “The song.” Her eyes absorbed him blankly. “The song that you were just-”

  “I wouldn’t bother.” The dry, moth-ridden voice of the bellhop cut the air like a dull blade. “We have a strict policy not to over-serve here, but there are always those that will find a way.”

  Lily shrugged at Adam with the whole of her body before twisting to face Bartholomew and raising an unsteady middle finger.

  “Scotch and soda.” Adam ordered sullenly.

  Bartholomew grinned his cadaverous smile while he readied Adam’s drink.

  “Wha’ a girl gotta do to get a c-suckin’ g an’ t?” Lily stuttered out. When her eyes caught up to her words, she balked for a moment at the bellhop’s uncouth appearance. Bartholomew shook his head, sending rippling waves of dirty brown hair tumbling back and forth.

  “Back to your room, I think, Lily.” She wore a cynical, broken expression.

  “An you’d eshcort me? Nice try, but I never been tha’ fucked up.” She slid from the stool and moved with surprising grace down the bar. Every sway prompted by her intoxication was met with acceptance rather than resistance, and her gait reminded Adam more of a woman at sea than a woman that deep in her cups. She hummed her haunting tune, dancing her weird dance toward the lobby.

  The bellhop started toward the end of the bar, presumably in pursuit. Adam didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, and certainly didn’t like whatever evil thoughts lurked in that greasy head of his. He could kill two birds with one stone, he realized.

  “Bart! Hey! Can I get a menu?” The bellhop froze in his tracks. Adam could see the tension as he debated following Lily. After hovering for a moment, he turned back to Adam. Bartholomew picked up a menu from some hidden spot behind the counter, and tossed it to Adam’s place. His face was warped with such malice it almost caused Adam to lose his appetite. Adam pondered over the menu, taking his time.

  While he was occupying the bar, Adam thought, Lily was safe. But she didn’t just need to get to her room safely; this little creep presumably had keys to every door. There had to be something he could do.

  “Adam,” a deep baritone shook him from his reverie as its owner took the stool next to him. Detective Caputo was a short, stocky man, with the firm stance of a military background. He had salt and pepper hair arranged in a crew cut, as well as the thick, bristling moustache that had been common to his profession since the age of train robbers and gold prospectors. Adam gave him a weary smile and gripped his outstretched hand.

  “Detective.” He could feel the man’s eyes observing him intently.

  “I’m sorry to be interrupting your dinner,” Caputo said, gesturing to the menu in Adam’s hands.

  “Not at all,” Adam countered, “can I get you anything?”

  “Well, it is about that time isn’t it?” Adam could feel Caputo’s gaze shift over to the bellhop. There was a side glance back to him, before he continued. “I’ll take a bacon cheeseburger and fries, if y’all got something like that you can arrange on the menu.”

  Bartholomew glared down at him, nodding once. Adam settled on duplicating the order, simply so he didn’t have to put any more thought into it.

  “I’m guessing that is for me?” Caputo asked as Bartholomew slithered off to the kitchen with their orders. Adam nodded, producing the brown parcel.

  “Yeah, this is what they left outside the room.” Adam held onto it more tightly than he expected. There was a certain desperation to his movement; he felt a desire to keep this small piece of his wife as close to him as possible. It could have been the last thing that she had worn before she disappeared. The small blue shirt was suddenly, and only briefly, Adam’s whole world. Then, summoning all the leftover strength he had in the core of his being, Adam handed over the box.

  “It’s a shame you opened it. Might have contaminated anything we could have found.” Adam started to interrupt him, but Caputo soldiered on. “I know, there was nothing you could have done. But if another of these shows up, I want you to call me immediately. It could make all the difference.”

  Adam nodded slowly. The words made sense, but Adam wasn’t sure he would be able to avoid opening another package out of sheer impatience. Bartholomew reemerged with their burgers, disdain evident on his face. Adam could only speculate as to whether it related to the commonness of their fare, or of it was something deeper. The creature seemed to hate everything.

  “Detective, I disclosed the contents of the box to a colleague of mine, and he suggested that an action like this,” Adam waved at the brown box, “indicated that the person who left it was an amateur kidnapper.”

  “You spoke with someone here?” Caputo surprised Adam with his question.

  “Francis De La Poer. He owns the Tower.” Adam nodded. Caputo scowled darkly. Adam was certain that under it all he heard a faint, almost inaudibly deep growl.

  “I know who he is. When you told me you were coming down here to look into this I advised you against it.”

  “I felt like–”

  “I know! But you could have hurt our efforts. It’s something you need to be concerned about, Adam. You have no clue what you’re doing.” Caputo stared deeply into Adam’s eyes, trying to hammer his point home.

  “You were getting nowhere!” Adam snapped, plunging his fist against the hard lacquered wood of the Tower’s bar. “And here I am,” he spat venomously, “with the first significant bit of evidence you’ve seen!”

  Caputo stayed silent as Adam blustered, his expression carefully guarded. He waited patiently for Adam to release all his pent-up fury. Then he broke his oath and placed his very career in jeopardy with a single whispered sentence.

  “Adam, De La Poer is the reason I didn’t want you coming down here.” Adam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We asked him to come down and give a statement. He refused. It happened on his property, it’s not at all unusual for us to ask that.”

  Adam wouldn’t hear any more of it. Francis had been a bigger help to him, both practically and emotionally, than the entirety of the Slendervale police force. Frankly, the man had done more for him than any other person in his life, except perhaps Susan. And that was all just the last two days.

  “He is a very busy man. If he had nothing that would help, how could he afford to take the time to see you in person? Francis had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Within his st
ony gaze Caputo was weighing a decision. When the scales finally tipped, he spoke.

  “Adam, I’m really not supposed to be telling you this.” That was enough to make Adam perk up and listen; the words themselves where almost magical in nature. “But this isn’t the first time we’ve asked Francis to come down for a statement. And it isn’t the first time he’s refused.

  “Francis De La Poer has been the owner of the Tower for no less than five disappearances that have happened at this property alone. But it’s more than that, Adam. Disappeared city officials, real estate investors, and all kinds of corporate schmucks who lie down with this creep keep popping up. We think he might be bad, capital ‘B’ bad, and you talking to him is not the way to help the investigation move forward, believe me.”

  Adam started to protest, but he recalled the conversation he’d had with Francis the other day. He was certainly a ruthless businessman. His words indicated he was more than willing to step outside the lines for his own interests. Would it really be so surprising if he was willing to go so far as to...? Adam swallowed.

  “Susan came here for that tabloid right? She was looking into corruption and cults and creepy whatnots. Well, I don’t know how she got her info, Adam, but she couldn’t have been more on the nose. Francis is the center of all that. If she found something on him, it might be enough to push a man to extremes.”

  Adam had heard enough. He stood up from the bar, his food completely untouched.

  “Right, that’s what you say.” He spat. “But it seems to me that Francis has as much to bring to the table as your whole department put together. All this because he didn’t talk to you? That’s bullshit. I didn’t talk to you for almost a week, until you found me in that bar.” Caputo’s eyes grew wide.

  “Of course,” he stammered out. “You’re right. I’ve been working too long, connecting the dots all wrong.” Adam paused with suspicion at his sudden change of tone.

  Caputo took another bite of his burger as he stood. He glanced at Adam imploringly and held up a finger while he chewed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he swallowed. “It was really a stretch, Adam. Thank you for the box.” He patted it. “It goes without saying that it will be a great help.”

  Caputo shook his hand and strode rapidly toward the end of the bar. Adam stood still, watching him go. He was intimidated by Francis, that was clear. But his allegations were too wild; De La Poer was a white collar businessman. The crimes that he may have committed, if any, were the kind that were riddled with differing interpretations of the law and lack of clarity. Bid rigging, insider trading, market manipulation, nepotism, and the like made for good stories, but Adam knew that those lines were always shifting. No one ever really knew where they stood.

  Adam followed the same path out from the bar, glaring at Bartholomew as he went. The lobby was completely empty, even though it was only early evening. Adam strode across the midnight marble. The sound of his loafers clicked pleasantly with every step he took. He passed by the sleeping dwarf, who was snoring lightly.

  He touched the button for the waiting elevator and promptly stepped in. The carriage started up toward the sixth floor. Adam paused for a moment to marvel at all the floors that were present at his fingertips. The Tower really was something wonderful. While he pondered the remarkable feat of engineering something so giant, so magnificent, a high-pitched grinding sound filled the elevator.

  Adam found his train of thought cut short by the abrupt jump of the elevator stopping short. He was hardly thrown from his feet, but the sudden motion was difficult to balance against.

  The meter above the elevator showed that he was stuck somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors.

  “Great,” Adam muttered, studying the elevator panel closely. He jabbed the sixth floor button again. The elevator stood motionless. A sense of unease rose around Adam, tightening in his chest and making it harder to breathe. He had never been trapped in an elevator before, but hardly relished the idea.

  The panel did have another button toward the bottom, below even the lobby and basement buttons, which was labeled ‘emergency’. Adam pressed it frantically, his panic growing as each second marched by. A small aluminum door popped open to reveal an old fashioned telephone. Adam picked this up, placing the received to his ear. He was surprised at the weight of the heavy metal.

  Suddenly the lights above him flickered, exacerbating his sense of unease. The phone felt so cold against Adam’s ear that he almost gasped. A tone sounded once from the receiver. The lights flickered above Adam again, casting weirdly pulsing shadows in the corners of the chamber. The tone sounded again, and Adam began to feel desperate.

  “Front desk.” The sleepy voice of the dwarf sounded in his ear.

  “Thank God! I’m stuck!” Suddenly the lights above Adam went out, plunging him into complete and utter darkness. The tone in the phone went dead.

  “Hello?!” Adam practically shouted into the receiver. The sound of his voice echoed hauntingly back to him. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom. Some dark, quiet menace writhed in the shadows. Adam’s breath was coming in quick gasps now; the tiny room was barely large enough to contain him while having enough space left over for oxygen.

  “Hello?!” This time Adam was shouting. No voice or dial tone sounded in response. The reverberations from his panicked shout set his teeth on edge. The discordant tones sounded impishly in his ears, setting his heart to beating impossibly harder.

  Adam slammed the phone back, panicked. Its small aluminum door followed suit, clanking closed and open several times on the momentum of his motion. The darkness stifled Adam, suffocating him in its utter mystery. He glanced around, but there was nothing he could see. Adam couldn’t make out the difference between his eyes being open or closed.

  Out of nowhere a ragged breath sounded. Adam whirled to face the sound, but the darkness yielded nothing to his sight. Adam strained in the silence but heard nothing aside from the sound of his own panic.

  It sounded again from behind him: a whispering and wet intake of air. It sounded sickly. Adam pivoted where he imagined the noise had come from. Adam extended his hands out in front of him to search for the ghoulish breathing, but felt nothing. He spun, hands outstretched and wandering in the fathomless darkness which surrounded him. Around him the sound of breath being let through open lips echoed, and the stench of a mausoleum surrounded him.

  Adam screamed, dashing forward in the gloom. After two steps he stopped dead, as his hands pressed against something slick, hard, and unimaginably cold. It was the wall! Adam circled the elevator counter-clockwise, following the wall his fingertips. The breathing pursued at a hairsbreadth behind him, sending bile to the top of his throat which threatened to wrest itself from between his stiff, clenched jaws.

  Finally, Adam found a break in the middle of the wall: the seam where the two doors met. He thrust his open hands toward it. He completely missed the seam in his haste, his fingertips glancing painfully off the icy metal. Panic threatened to overwhelm him as the sinister aura continued to grow stronger in the mute blackness that enveloped him. Trying again, his hands found the seam, but couldn’t gain the leverage they needed to pry the doors open.

  Again Adam heard the sound of wet, wracking breath. He abandoned his strategy in his desperation, slamming his hands against the burning cold as screams tore from his mouth.

  “Help! I’m stuck! I’m stuck!” He struck the door with his palms. The sounds sent distorted clanging reverberating throughout the tight metal box. The sound rang in his ears, unabated and undamped by his screams. It was like metal striking metal, a butcher sharpening a knife. When he finally stopped, his already-strained voice overtaxed by his exertions, the metal clanging echoed still. He thought it was sounding from somewhere in front of him.

  Adam gulped, trying unsuccessfully to choke down his panic with it. Still, the sound continued. The panel! Adam remembered in a flash. There had to be something there. He groped blindly to the panel with shaking and c
lammy hands. The telephone he had been using earlier dropped to the floor, thumping with each pull of its curled cord. The swampy wet inhaled behind him again; Adam did his best to put from his mind. Scrambling, he clawed fervently at the inside of the small phone box, tearing his skin against the the rough clasp which held the door closed. He gritted his teeth against the pain as he felt the hot blood puncture the surface of his finger, and run steadily from it.

  The tempo of the moist breathing behind him quickened. The air around Adam grew colder, the blood running hot from the wound on his hand. He scraped toward the back of the box, heedless of the pain in his adrenaline-fueled panic. His fingers found something, a strip of metal wrapped on one end in silicone. Adam grasped it in his bleeding right hand, and felt for the door with his left.

  He felt a sudden pause in the rising anticipation of the voiceless breath. The silence was almost as eerie and unnatural in its stillness as the breathing had been, rising to its lack of climax.

  Then something slithered across his chest, seeming simultaneously foul with slime and dry as the desert, like the skin of a serpent. Adam cried out, clutching at the back of his neck defensively. The object he had been holding fell to the floor in his haste.

  Adam kicked savagely behind him, but his foot met only dark and empty air. Twisting down into a tense crouch, he felt blindly on the floor for what he knew would be his savior. Finally is fingers touched metal, warmer than the arctic crypt around him, and he straightened to face the doors once again.

  Adam stabbed blindly with the object, feeling it penetrate between the elevator doors. Blood still thrumming in his ears, he twisted, prying the doors open with the device.

  No light entered the elevator to signal his release. When he groped at the darkness, his heart sank. There was no feeling of fresh, warm air, merely more steel. Adam felt for the fold, and stabbed again at his Sisyphean task. He twisted metal against metal and succeeded in prying the doors open once more.

  Light streaked through the crevice. It was so bright that it blinded his terror-widened eyes. Adam pushed the doors further open with sweaty palms, stumbling forward. He tripped, hard floor at the level of his shins, and was sent sprawling into the hallway. He blinked until some sight had returned to his eyes and whirled around to face whatever eldritch company had shared the frigid tomb with him.