Netherworld

by Lisa Morton

  As Diana turned to leave the crypt, Howe called up to her, “Lady Furnaval…what should we do with this?”

  She turned to see he was gesturing to the coffin and the newly-dead-again thing within it. “We’ll burn it tonight in secret, Howe. It would be a dishonor to the Furnaval name to leave it resting in our family crypt. But just right now…I’d desperately like to clean myself up, if you don’t mind.”

  She didn’t see Howe’s nod, but she did hear Mina’s winsome meow, and leaned down to stroke the feline’s back before she left the crypt.

  “Yes, Mina, I’m glad that’s done, too.”

  Howe caught her when, halfway back to the house, her knees gave way and she crumpled to the ground, both strength and senses gone.

  Chapter VI

  November 9, 1879

  London

  Diana returned to her London house in time to see Isadora before her meeting with Stephen Chappell. She was anxious to hear if her friend had received any further spirit communications, but Isadora told her the netherworld had been strangely quiet for the last few days.

  It had taken Diana a full day to recover from the horror in the crypt. Howe told the rest of the staff she’d taken suddenly ill, and had given a bonus to a young groundskeeper to help in the burning of the coffin while Diana had recuperated. She’d spent the first twelve hours in a feverish state, shivering and nauseous. As the shock passed, she’d pondered William’s situation. She believed the warning in his journal had been apt, and that the nameless vampire in William’s coffin had undoubtedly been sent as a deadly trap. She also thought it unlikely that William was still alive somewhere in Transylvania; in fact, she thought it unlikely that he were alive anywhere on the planet. At least not the planet on this side of the Netherworld.

  Her biggest question right now was: Who/what had relayed the messages to Isadora? Most of the communications Isadora received from the netherworld were from specific spirits attempting to reach loved ones on this side. In fact, Isadora’s messages had given Diana her best conception of what the netherworld must be: She thought of it as the place where mankind’s fears were made real and dwelled; terrible entities always seeking to gain entrance to our world. She wasn’t sure why they didn’t cross over more often via the gateways.

  What she did learn was that these nightmares had been coming through the gateways in far greater numbers for the last hundred years. And actually, for a thousand years, supernatural events with documented origins near to gateways were surprisingly few and far between; despite a few particularly gruesome fairy tales, there was little evidence that human deaths had occurred near any gateways—until roughly ten or fifteen decades ago. She and William both had known this, and they discussed it at length, but had never come up with an answer for the unnerving phenomenon.

  And, there had been no deliberate attempts made on the lives of the Furnaval gatekeepers of past generations. No, something was changing in the unknown place beyond the gateways. The netherworld was somehow shifting.

  Diana was troubled by the notion that Stephen Chappell might have more answers than he’d so far let on.

  And even if he didn’t…well, he was still terribly pleasant to look at.

  She arrived at the elegant Pall Mall just prior to eight p.m., and was pleased to find that Stephen was punctual; he joined her at five minutes before the hour. He had reserved a private dining room for them, a gesture that Diana found very appealing. After they were seated, with a fine claret ordered up and on the way, Diana took a few moments to study her dining companion.

  Tonight Stephen Chappell looked quite different, although their dining room was only slightly brighter than the dimly-lit confines of his bookshop. For one thing, Diana had never noticed his eyes before, and she was quite startled by their depth and hue—they were a clear and pale blue, like a cloudless sky reflected in ice. He had a face that was very nearly ageless—he could have been any age between twenty-eight or fifty—and had long, delicate fingers. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, but Diana couldn’t place what that was, and so ended up deciding that he reminded her of a figure in a painting by an old master, Raphael or Michelangelo.

  “So,” he began their conversation, “tell me more about the gateways.”

  Diana smiled at him, saying, “Funny, Mr. Chappell, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “It’s Stephen, please.”

  Diana nodded. “Stephen, then. And please call me Diana.”

  “Very well, Diana,” he replied, “I think your experiences with the gateways will be rather more personal than mine have been.”

  “How so?”

  “Very simply: Your knowledge of the gateways has been obtained from a rather close vantage-point.”

  “Ahhh, Stephen. I see. Yes, it’s true, I’ve confronted a number of gateways and have hopefully sealed them, and yet I still feel as if I’m not entirely sure what they are. I was hoping you might have some insight into their history.”

  He peered at her strangely for a moment, and then admitted, “I do know…a little.”

  The wine arrived just then, and Diana was forced to wait while Stephen examined the bottle, allowed the waiter to uncork it and pour his glass, sampled it, and nodded his approval. The first of the eight courses (an excellent turtle soup) was brought, and then they were alone. They shared a brief toast, and then a moment of silence before Stephen continued: “Let’s begin with something simple: Do you understand why there are eighty-one gateways, Diana?”

  She looked up from her spoonful of soup and blinked in surprise; she’d never stopped to consider the number itself, and confessed as much to him now.

  “Oh, the number itself is very important. Nine is a number of power in magical workings: The Egyptians believed in ninefold cosmic levels. The Greeks honoured nine Muses. The Christians know of nine orders of angelic choirs in nine circles of heaven, and likewise there are nine orders of devils within the nine rings of Hell. There are numerous mathematical games centering on the number nine: For example, take any two-digit number, add the two digits together, then subtract their total from the original number, and the result will always be a multiple of nine.”

  Diana sipped her excellent bordeaux, then followed his thought, “So, there are eighty-one gateways because eighty-one equals nine times nine.”

  Stephen nodded, pleased. “A number of extraordinary magical power.”

  Diana considered, then offered, “Then by closing the gateways I must be causing some serious interference to that power.”

  Stephen’s clear eyes seemed to cloud over for an instant. “Indeed you are. You’ve upset some serious balance, and there are those on the other side who aren’t very happy about that. Hence the trap you recently managed to avoid.”

  Diana felt a raw chill pass through her. “How do you know about that?”

  “I didn’t, actually. An educated guess.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  The way he was looking at her, for one thing; under other circumstances, his long, unblinking study of her would have been flattering, but now she felt it to be slightly disturbing, and she had to fight an urge to turn away. “Stephen, how much do you know?”

  His gaze remained riveted on her as he answered, “I know you’ve become the focal point now in a very old war.”

  “A war?” Diana asked. “Between whom?”

  “On one side, the netherworld.”

  “And who is on the opposing side?”

  Stephen actually chuckled slightly before answering, “You, mainly.”

  Diana didn’t join him in laughter. “So I’m fighting a war alone?”

  His amusement completely vanished, and she thought she’d never seen another human being look so serious. “You’re not alone. Have you become so skilled at recognizing the forces of darkness that you can no longer see those of good?”

  “Would that be you, Stephen?” she asked.

  He leaned back in his chair, setting his glass down. “I’d
like to think we’re on the same side, yes. I am…constrained from fighting as you do, but I offer assistance whenever I can.”

  There was a long silent moment between them, and Diana suddenly wanted very much to touch him. She tried to put that thought from her mind by asking, “Tell me what you know about the netherworld.”

  “Do you believe in life after death?” he asked.

  “Yes and no,” she answered. “If you mean do I believe in those nine circles of Hell and those nine heavenly choirs, the answer is no. If you’re asking if I think some netherworld spirits were once human, the answer is yes, though I can’t explain it.”

  “You’re close,” he said. “The netherworld was originally a place inhabited by what we would think of as monsters. You’ve met one of the oldest of their kind, I believe—a horned man….”

  “Cernunnos,” Diana offered.

  “Yes. There used to be separation between our world and theirs, but then the gateways were discovered, and some of the netherfolk found they had a taste for human life. Spirits came here and those who saw them either fled in terror, worshipped them as gods, or were slain by them. Any human being slain by one of the netherfolk will find his own spirit trapped in the netherworld; likewise, any human who should cross through a gateway and die in the netherworld will remain there.”

  Diana was dumbfounded; for some reason, it had never occurred to her that travel through the gateways could go both ways. William is over there….

  As if reading her mind, Stephen told her, “Only the most foolhardy of humans would ever dare to cross through a gateway into the netherworld. It almost certainly means death, followed by an eternity of roaming that dark plane as a bodiless, tormented spirit.”

  Oh dear god, if William were to die over there….

  “Diana!” Stephen barked, drawing her attention back to him, “as I told you earlier, you’re not alone in your fight against the dark forces—but were you ever to be so stupid as to venture through a gateway into the netherworld, your allies would desert you.”

  Diana answered, “My husband is my best ally. And he may be in the Netherworld.”

  “Your husband is dead,” he said softly.

  Diana gaped in astonishment for a moment, then could only whisper, “How could you know that?”

  Stephen leaned forward now, and boldly took one of her hands in his. His palm was warm and comforting, his fingers strong as they wrapped around hers. “You must trust me. William’s gone. You can never get him back, and you can never enter the netherworld.”

  “But my friend Isadora….” she began.

  “Your friend is being misled by the same forces that sent the vampire against you.”

  “How do you know all that?!”

  He ignored her question to go on: “Think, Diana: They probably meant for you to face the vampire earlier, but when that didn’t happen they defrauded your medium friend with that fake message. You read William’s journal, you know that he couldn’t have survived that attack in the inn.”

  She did know it.

  And yet she didn’t want to know it. A part of her—a large part—still believed that Isadora hadn’t been lied to, that her heroic William had somehow survived, and was alive there even now.

  “Diana, you’re doing the right thing in closing the gateways, but you will be tempted and tested and tricked and attacked in the times to come. You will need to find reserves of strength and willpower within you that you don’t even know exist yet. And you need to start by acknowledging to yourself right now that William is dead.”

  Diana nodded—yet at the same time pulled her hand from his.

  The rest of the dinner passed largely in silence. Diana found herself regarding the elegant silver-striped wallpaper, the oil paintings of placid crowds and lovely flowers, the perfect manners and suits of the wait staff, the excellent beef…anything but her companion. At the end of the evening, Diana feared she was being rather rude in telling Stephen that she’d take her own carriage home. She was intrigued by him, even attracted to him…but she also feared him. He knew things about her that no one else knew. She believed that he was good—she dismissed instantly the possibility that he was some sort of creature of the netherworld—but he had so far been unwilling to reveal exactly what he was.

  Dinner finished, Stephen paid, and followed her out into a quiet, damp night, the yellow glow of the gas lamps dulled by fog. As she stepped up into her carriage, Stephen called out to her a last time: “Diana!”

  She turned, and he strode up to her, standing close by. “Please remember what I told you about your allies. You are not alone…as long as you remain on this side of the gateways.”

  Diana was nodding agreement when he surprised her with a brief kiss. It was just a quick brushing of lips, too quick for her to resist; then he turned and walked away down the sidewalk, disappearing into the fog. Diana almost called after him, but instead she told the driver to take her home and settled back against the cab’s upholstered bench.

  *

  The next day she received a brief note from Stephen, a note containing only two sentences that left her quite mystified:

  My Dear Diana,

  I fear I’ve done all I can for you at this time, and must depart.

  However, we will meet again some day.

  Regards,

  Stephen

  She immediately called her coachman to bring the carriage round, and set out for Stephen’s bookstore.

  The carriage pulled up before the address she provided, and she stepped out onto the sidewalk. She rang the bell beside the unmarked door, and was taken somewhat aback when it was answered a few seconds later by a young lady wearing a cleaning woman’s apron, her brown hair askew about her face. “Yes?” the woman asked as she tried to brush an errant strand back into place.

  “I’m looking for Stephen Chappell,” Diana informed her.

  “I’m sorry, mum” the woman responded, “but there’s no one here by that name.”

  “But this is his bookstore,” Diana told her.

  The woman said, “Oh, you must have the wrong address. There’s no bookstore here.”

  Diana blurted out, “That’s quite impossible. I’ve been here several times, and I really need to see Mr. Chappell—”

  “There’s nothing here, mum! I just come in to clean out the space.” The woman stepped back, offering access to Diana. “See for yourself.”

  Diana did push past her, down the familiar short hallway and through the opening into—not a bookstore, but a large empty space, filled not with books but rather decayed wooden crates, cobwebs, and scurrying rodents. A mop, bucket, and pile of rags stood in one corner, testament to the cleaning woman’s truthfulness.

  As Diana looked around in disbelief, the other woman swept a hand about. “See, mum? There’s been nothing in this space for ten years now. The landlord just died, and his son’s hired me to clean it up so he can try to rent it again.”

  Diana walked to a far doorway and looked into a large, dim space, where she’d recently followed Stephen past racks holding countless books, journals and papers; now the room held nothing but a scarred wooden floor and a leaking pipe in one corner. Diana turned back to the front area, mystified, when something caught her eye. She turned and saw a scrap of paper on the floor caught in a single stray ray of sunlight. She crossed to it and picked it up, examining it.

  It was one of the missing pages from William’s journal.

  Although it was as stained and illegible as the other pages from the beginning of the journal, the few bits of writing that could still be seen were undeniably her husband’s penmanship, and if the page added nothing to her understanding of William’s story it did serve to prove that Chappell and Sons, Booksellers had not been any delusion.

  She thanked the cleaning woman, and offered her a pound note and a calling card, asking her to report if she found anything else in the space. The grateful woman curtseyed and thanked Diana profusely as Diana left, returning to her carriage,
clutching the one page as if it were a life preserver. Stephen’s abrupt disappearance left her feeling somehow weakened, adrift, and she was startled to realize that she’d expected to be able to depend on him.

  She was alone again.

  Chapter VII

  November 1879-April 1880

  Europe

  Diana did, of course, follow William’s trail to the Transylvanian village of Urveri, despite his journal’s plea for her not to. She reasoned that when he’d written his request, he’d been unaware of the ability to close the gateway, and would surely have not disapproved of Diana visiting for that purpose.

  She knew she would be traveling through dangerous provinces at the very worst time of year, but subzero temperatures, freezing winds, snow and ice meant nothing to her in the face of her need to know about William. She also had no interest in journeying to other gateways in Europe (Italy, Greece, Prussia, Brittany); those gateways could wait. They hadn’t swallowed up her husband.

  The journey was comfortable up until Budapest, and then she began traveling southeast through country that grew progressively wilder and colder. She had to make special arrangements, since the coaches couldn’t travel through the mountains at this time of year; she rode as far as she could by horse and carriage, then by horse and sleigh. She traversed the same treacherous passes that William had described in his pages, but they were now made considerably more dangerous, since blizzards assaulted them in the open sleigh. She wore several layers of heavy fur cloaks, scarves wrapped around her face, a fur cap. She was again thankful for the presence of Mina; the little cat seemed to make the journey far easier than Diana, since she spent the worst part curled up on Diana’s lap under the fur coverings. Diana would often find herself smiling as she pondered how the cat could breathe beneath all that.

  The last civilized inn was in a village called Racovita. She stayed there an extra day, waiting for a storm to pass. The rough Romanian she hired to take her to Urveri, a huge, gruff man named Razvan who spoke no English but understood the universal language of money, had held up two fingers, indicating a two-day journey to Urveri.