by R. L. King
“A magical lock? And it’s still active after all this time?” Jason asked, astonished.
“Doesn’t surprise me, ’round here,” Eddie said. “Verity, if we ’elp you, can you bring it out to the ritual room? We’ll take it back with us when we leave.”
“You don’t want to try to open it?”
“Not here. It’s Stone’s family, so he should get the first go at it. I don’t see anything else in ’ere. We should probably pick up our pace a bit—Stone’s got to be frantic with curiosity by now.”
“Just the one area left,” Verity said, her voice strained with the effort of levitating the box.
Jason preceded the three of them to the ritual room, glancing around to make sure nothing lay in wait for them. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed: the lights still blazed, the circle and pedestal remained quiet, and aside from a faint electrical buzz and the far-off sound of water dripping, he couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.
All of a sudden he wanted to get out of here, though. “Let’s hurry this up,” he urged. “You’re right, Eddie—Al’s gonna want to see this stuff. And this place is giving me an extra-large helping of the creeps.”
“You and me both, mate,” Eddie said. “Right, then—let’s check out that last hallway. Take lots of pictures, will you?”
“Hopefully we won’t find any more bodies,” Verity said.
All of them paused a moment before stepping into the final passage. This time, Verity held the light spell as Eddie and Ward examined the walls.
“No alcoves this time,” Eddie said, and pointed. “Just that big door at the end. That thing must’ve been impressive before it was broken.”
As Ian had reported, the heavy stone door had cracked in the middle, at a slight diagonal. Broken chunks, ranging in size from a couple of inches to nearly a foot long, littered the hallway in front of it, and as Verity held the light closer, they could all see the charring along the intact part of the door.
Carefully stepping around the debris, Eddie and Ward moved in for a closer look.
“Can you read any of the symbols on the door?” Verity asked.
“Maybe. I’d need more time and research, though,” Eddie said.
“We need to make some sketches. With those and the photos, we should be able to take a good stab at it,” Ward said. “But let’s look inside first. We—”
He stopped.
“What is it?” Jason demanded, reaching for the baseball bat. “Is something in there?”
But Eddie was looking now too. “Bloody ’ell.”
Jason moved in, looking over the shorter man’s shoulder. “What…the hell is that?”
Beyond the door, the chamber was larger than the alcoves—perhaps eight by eight feet—but that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of rough-carved stone walls and floor, it had a significantly more “finished” look—more a room than a crude burial niche. The granite floor was inlaid with more symbols, and a smaller version of the circle out front lay in its center. Where the larger circle had included a pedestal or altar with manacles, obviously designed to chain an unfortunate sacrificial victim to its top, this one contained a pale, stone box, the size and shape of a coffin.
The top of the box had been broken open—not just broken, but blasted. Bits of rubble littered the floor all around the room, and when Verity moved her illuminated hand inside, Jason could see what looked like fresh pits in all three visible walls, all of which were likewise covered in neat rows of carved and painted symbols.
“What happened in there?” Verity whispered. “This is no sacrifice. This looks like they carefully put something in here.”
“And whatever it is, it looks like it got out,” Eddie added in the same strangled tone.
All of them looked around nervously again as if expecting to be attacked now that they’d discovered the secret, but the area remained as quiet as ever.
“It does,” Jason said. He pointed at the scattered chunks of door. “These are on the outside. If somebody had broken in from outside, the pieces would be inside the room, not out here.”
“So…where is it?” Verity asked softly, still looking around.
“I’m more interested in what it is,” Ward said. He crouched, examining the edges of the intact portion of the door. “Because I don’t think this is a door.”
“What else would it be?” Jason asked. He’d climbed, with some trepidation, over the remainder of the door and inside the room, following Eddie. When nothing attacked him he began turning in place, filming the markings on the walls.
“I don’t see any sign of a knob, a handle—anything holding it closed.” Ward rose to stand and likewise clambered into the room. “If I had to guess, I’d say this wasn’t a door, but a seal.”
“You mean—they shut somebody else up in here?” Verity bent to pick up one of the blasted pieces of the coffin-like box and examined it. “I do sense faint magic, but—”
“Wait,” Jason said, growing cold again. “So they sealed somebody up in here inside a stone coffin, behind a heavy door carved with magic stuff, in a room with more magic stuff on every inch of the walls.” He swallowed. “I know I’m just the mundane here, but I’m not an idiot. That sounds to me like whatever it was, it was pretty powerful and whoever sealed it up was worried about it getting out. Somebody please tell me I’m wrong.”
“I don’t think you’re wrong,” Eddie said. He sounded even more sober than he had before, and was scribbling away at a rapid pace in his notebook. “Like I said, I can’t read all this right now—I’ll ’ave to take it back to the London library for some serious research time—but I know enough to get the gist of it. Ward, you too?”
Ward nodded. “These are protective sigils. The sort one might use for imprisonment.”
“But…” Verity stepped forward for a look inside the main part of the stone coffin, which was still mostly intact. “This is a casket, right? For a dead body? Why would you need to imprison a dead body?”
“That’s another good question,” Eddie said.
“I’ve got some better ones,” Jason said. “If whatever was in there’s been down here for like two hundred years, what happened to it? Why did it pick now to break out? Did it—I don’t know—bust out if its coffin and take off, or did somebody else break it out? And...” He glanced back down the hall toward the ritual room. “Where the hell is it now?”
Ward let his breath out. “We should document all these inscriptions on the walls,” he said, “but suddenly I’m not terribly keen on staying down here much longer.”
“’Ate to say it, but I’ve got the same feelin’,” Eddie said. “We should get back to Stone anyway—maybe ’e’s got some thoughts about this mess, and ’e’s likely goin’ spare up there waitin’ for news. Tell you what—Jason, take some good shots of all four walls and the bottom part of the door. We’ll gather up the largest chunks of it along with a few samples of the broken coffin and take them back along with the box. Maybe that’ll be enough to at least get us started. Sound good?”
“Yeah. If it means getting out of here faster, that sounds very good.” Jason noticed he wasn’t the only one constantly casting nervous glances around. “Just give me a sec to get the last of this.”
He took the photos and video with more speed than he had before, and less than five minutes later he had the cameras stowed away. “Okay, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Suddenly, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone—or something—was watching them.
14
“Where the hell are they?” Stone demanded. He paced the garage again, striding around like a tiger someone had locked in a cage. “They’ve been gone for over an hour.” He returned to the table, gripping it with both hands until he feared he might break either it or his fingers. “I should go up there. They could all be dead down in that hole for all we know.”
“Sir—” Aubrey began. He sat across from Stone, where he’d remained for most of the time except when
he’d headed up to his apartment a while ago and brought back a collection of refreshments neither Stone nor Ian had touched.
“I know. I know. There’s no point in it. But I can’t just stay here sitting on my arse while gods know what is going on under my house!”
“We don’t have a lot of choice.” Ian leaned against the wall, almost as tense and frustrated as his father. “We have to trust that they can handle whatever’s there.”
Stone glared at him. “And how long are we to do that? Another hour? The rest of the day? Will we hang about here for a week?”
“Sir—” Aubrey said again.
“What, Aubrey?” Stone took a deep breath and let it out in a loud whoosh. “I’m sorry,” he said, more softly. “I don’t mean to take this out on you. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I’m the one whose accursed family started this whole dog’s dinner.”
“None of that,” Aubrey said. “I was just going to say—would you like me to pop up there and take a look? I could try calling down to them, and—”
Stone’s phone buzzed on the table.
For a second, none of them moved. Then Stone dashed over and snatched it up. “Yes? What’s happening? Are you all right?” He punched the speaker button as Ian came back to the table.
“Yeah,” Verity said. Her voice sounded crackly and indistinct, but at least it was intelligible this time. “We’re out of the chamber, and coming back over. We’re all fine.”
“Nothing attacked you?” Stone’s heart pounded as a hundred questions jostled against each other in his brain, fighting for their turn.
“No. Nothing attacked us. We didn’t see any sign of the echoes or…anything else moving.”
Stone frowned. “Verity…I know you well enough that I can tell you’re keeping something from me, even over this dodgy connection. What is it?”
“We…found some things. Doc, we’re coming out there. Please, just wait. You need to see for yourself.”
Stone, Ian, and Aubrey exchanged glances, and Stone wanted nothing more than to run out of the garage and intercept them on their way over. He didn’t do that, though. Instead, he said, “Fine. But hurry up. You do realize you’ve been gone over an hour, right?”
“Time got away from us a little. We’re leaving the house now—we’ll be there in a minute.”
Stone broke the connection, looked at Ian and Aubrey again, and hurried out into the yard where he could see the front of the house. It was a mild, overcast day—at least it wasn’t raining. In a few moments, the door opened and four figures emerged, pausing to close it behind them.
“What’s that they’ve got floating between them?” Ian asked.
Stone had been so focused on watching the group at the house that he hadn’t even heard his son approach. But Ian was right: Jason’s tall figure took point, while Eddie and Ward flanked something the size and shape of a large box or chest levitating between them. Verity brought up the rear.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, Stone dashed toward them, meeting them halfway. “What’s that?” he demanded, pointing at the box. As he drew closer, he immediately spotted the magical sigils and symbols on its sides and top.
“Come on, Stone, it’s not a ’ard one,” Eddie said. “That right there’s what we call a box.”
Stone glared at him. “Not in the mood for jokes, Eddie. Where did you find it? And what else did you find in there?” Looking up from the box, he noticed that all four of the satchels they’d taken in with them were now bulging where they hadn’t been before. “Tell me everything.”
“We will,” Ward assured him, still focused on doing his part to levitate the box. “Let’s get inside so we can put this thing down, and we’ll give you the whole story.”
“Fine, fine.” He hurried back inside the garage and used magic to sweep everything to the side of the table, making room for the box and whatever else his friends had brought with them.
The group arrived a moment later, more slowly due to the effort of levitation. They lowered the heavy box to the table with audible sighs and stepped back, panting.
“Damn, that thing’s ’eavy,” Eddie said. He wrenched off his helmet and safety glasses, tossed them aside, and swiped his hand across his damp forehead. “Anybody got a beer?”
Aubrey retrieved the refreshments and offered them around. He appeared as curious as Stone and Ian about the contents of the box, but faded back and resumed his chair.
“Okay,” Stone said. “Out with it. And what’s weighing down those bags?”
Eddie opened his and laid several chunks of the broken door on the table next to the box. “’Ang on, let us tell this in order. Verity, suppose you do it?”
Slowly, with several interruptions from Eddie and Ward to fill in details, Verity described their explorations, starting as they entered the ritual chamber.
For the most part, Stone listened silently, once again gripping the table and forcing himself to focus on Verity’s tale instead of trying to decipher the inscriptions on the box. When she got to the part about the broken brick alcove and the manacled skeleton inside, a cold chill ran up his back.
“So you’re saying the skeleton was still in the manacles?” he demanded. “You’re sure about that?”
“Oh, yeah. Its hands and forearms were, anyway. Jason documented everything. Jase, show him the pics you took.”
Jason, uncharacteristically silent throughout the exchange, pulled out the video camera and tried to rewind the footage to the section with the skeleton.
His hand tightened on the camera, and his face went pale under his tan. “Oh…fuck…” he whispered.
“What is it?” It was all Stone could do not to snatch the camera from his hands.
“Oh fuck…” He set the video camera on the table with a shaking hand and pulled out the digital. Everybody stared at him as he flicked through several of the photos, and then his hand dropped.
“What’s wrong?” Verity asked, coming around to take it from him.
“Nothing,” Jason said dully.
“Nothing?” Stone grabbed the video camera. “If nothing’s wrong, then—”
“No, you don’t get it.” Jason spoke with more force now. “Nothing. There’s fucking nothing on the film—not on the video camera or the digital. It’s all blank. Gray, like I took a couple hundred photos of a fogbank.”
“Bloody ’ell,” Eddie said.
“What about the other one?” Verity asked. “Maybe that one’s okay—”
“I doubt it,” Ward said. “Film cameras are more sensitive to arcane energy. Sometimes they’ll show things the human eye can’t see, but if the digital footage is corrupted, I’ll wager quite a lot that is too.”
“We can’t exactly take it down to the corner chemist and get it developed,” Eddie said. “Not with what’s on there.”
“I can develop it,” Jason said. “Back home, anyway. But I think Arthur’s probably right. Fuck!”
Verity touched his arm. “Don’t worry about it, Jason. None of us thought to check. And Eddie and Arthur did take a lot of notes and sketches, so we’re not totally messed up.”
Stone cleared his throat loudly. “Oi! Any chance one of you lot might stop banging on about cameras and finish telling me what’s going on?”
“Sorry, mate,” Eddie said. “Verity, keep going. We’ll sort this out once Stone has the whole story.”
Verity and Jason exchanged glances, and then Verity resumed the story, describing what they found in the southernmost hall and the formerly sealed chamber. She didn’t look at Stone while she spoke, but every few seconds she shot a quick glance at him, nervous under his burning, steady gaze.
When she finished, Stone remained silent for several seconds, then bowed his head. “I…don’t even know where to start,” he said. He rubbed his face with both hands.
“Doc—” Verity began.
“I need a moment. Just—talk among yourselves, will you? And don’t touch that box yet.”
Without waiting
for a reply, Stone trudged outside the garage. A light rain fell now, casting an eerie pall over the yard as the sun began its descent. He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked for several moments, then stopped and looked at the dark, forbidding form of his ancestral home.
Forty-one people.
That had been the final count, with the alcoves in the final hallway added in.
His family had murdered forty-one people in their rituals. Not only murdered them, but imprisoned them alive.
For more than two hundred years, his ancestors, his father, and he had carried out their day-to-day tasks while sitting atop the remains of forty-one innocents whose only crime had been to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a family of monsters were on the prowl for victims.
And that assumed there were only forty-one victims. His friends had examined only two of the alcoves, finding a single body in one and the mysterious box in the other. That wasn’t enough data to verify that each of the others contained only one body—or that there weren’t other hidden chambers under the house that they hadn’t found yet.
He closed his eyes and let his breath out. He’d have to go back to the garage. To face the others. Even though all he wanted to do right now was keep walking, to get as far away from this place as he could, he knew he couldn’t do that. His friends were waiting for him. His son, heir to his family’s horrific legacy, was waiting for him. He wondered bitterly if Ian would have been so keen to be part of the Stone family if he’d know what he was signing on for.
“Doc?” came a soft voice from behind him.
He turned with some reluctance. Verity stood a few feet back, her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. She’d removed her helmet, leaving her dark hair tousled.
“You okay?” she asked.
He shrugged.
She walked forward and touched his arm. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Can’t really think of anything. Unless you can change the past. I don’t think I taught you that one, though.”
