The Haunter (The Sentinels Series Book 2)

by David Longhorn

“Well, here we are again,” says Croft, climbing out of his cramped police car. He surveys the now-familiar scene at Furniss Manor. It is late afternoon, and the winter sun is sinking over the western hills, casting a lurid light on the estate. The great house and grounds are still shrouded in snow. A few stray flakes are falling now.

  An officer is ushering an elderly couple and a middle-aged woman towards the Inspector. They are introduced as the Marlows, newly hired as caretaker and housekeeper for the manor house, and the missing girl's mother, Mrs. Warburton. The latter is so upset that she never stops talking, even as Croft tries to question Mrs. Marlow, who arranged for the girl to come to the house that morning. As expected, he learns nothing new, but he always makes a point of double-checking details.

  So, he thinks, we have a girl, none too bright by all accounts, who sets out to walk just over a mile along a road she knew well, and somewhere along the route she vanishes.

  The few policemen who can be spared from other duties are supervising volunteers who are busy searching ditches, barns, and concrete bunkers built during the invasion panic of 1940. Normally, he'd expect Maisie to turn up in a day or so, perhaps having eloped with a lover or, in the worst case, abducted by some pervert. But the corpse of the nameless man makes the familiar scenarios seem less likely, somehow.

  Can it be just a coincidence, two mysteries linked to Furniss Manor within a matter of days? Something strange is going on, I can feel it.

  “I quite understand, Mrs. Warburton,” he says to the distraught mother. “Rest assured we're doing everything in our power–”

  “She were a good girl, she was; never got 'erself into no trouble and never forward with the lads or nuthin'. I blame myself for lettin' 'er go off!”

  “Come into the kitchen, now, and have a cup of tea,” says Mrs. Marlow, a big, rosy-cheeked woman with a kind face. She leads Mrs. Warburton away, and Croft can now talk to the caretaker.

  “I don't suppose you noticed anything unusual this morning, Ted?”

  Marlow shakes his head. The first thing Croft noticed about the caretaker were the pebble-thick lenses in his eyeglasses.

  “No, sir, I didn't. I was out as usual at first light checking the windows and that. There was nobody about. The only thing ...”

  He pauses.

  “What is it, Ted?”

  “Well, it's nothing really.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. Spit it out!”

  In a lower voice Marlow says “The chapel door was open again.”

  “Again? What do you mean, again? Show me this chapel.”

  The pair trudge through the snow, their footsteps loud as they break the frozen surface.

  “It's just something that happens. Last thing I always do at night is to make sure the chapel's locked. Not that there's anything to steal, but you don't want kids getting in and maybe lighting fires. Anyway, sometimes in the morning, the door's unlocked. I don't do it, and I'm sure the missus don't. It's a mystery.”

  They reach the circular chapel and Croft stands looking at the squat, domed building.

  “Are you telling me it's ghosts?” asks Croft, jokingly.

  Marlow shakes his head.

  “Don't hold with ghosts and such, sir! I'm just saying it happens, is all.”

  “Got your keys, right? Let's take a look.”

  Marlow opens the building and Croft looks around for a while, examining the stacked benches, the simple altar, and the faded murals that cover the wall. Nothing offers a clue. There's a pattern painted on the floor, just visible through the dust. It seems to be a black circle with a disk in the middle. It seems odd, to Croft, that he's never seen this before. He's been a church-goer for years and is familiar with most Christian symbolism. This, by contrast, looks vaguely pagan.

  He dismisses the thought. Things are complicated enough.

  “Nothing here worth nicking, but I suppose ...”

  The detective stops, tilts his head to one side.

  “You hear that?”

  Marlow shakes his head. Croft only then realizes that the caretaker hasn't stepped inside the chapel.

  “Come over here,” he says, beckoning. “You can hear it better.”

  “I can't hear anything!” says Marlow harshly.

  Angry? Or is he afraid? Croft asks himself. And what is that sound?

  It's gone now, but for a few moments, Croft thought he heard something like a child's voice, wailing in pain and fear. And yet there's nowhere in the chapel a child, even a small one, could be concealed.

  Shaking his head, Croft rejoins the caretaker, and decides not to ask what it is about the small building that so obviously spooked him. Another detail that doesn't fit, another inkling of doubt that will trouble the detective's sleep.

  “Best we can do is continue the search. Maybe drag some ponds, in case she strayed onto the ice. Put out the word to other police forces.”

  Even as he speaks, Croft's gut instinct tells him that Maisie Warburton is not an ordinary missing person, any more than the man found by the statue that died of natural causes.

  Thought of the statue leads Croft to change direction. He can see another snow-covered figure on a pedestal, this one close by the house standing to one side of the front door. Its position strikes him as odd.

  Croft reaches the statue and looks up at it. The details of the marble figure are half-obscured by snow, but it's similar in style to Mercury. This one is Diana, according to the inscription, and consists of a half-naked young woman with a bow and arrow. A thin crescent is inscribed on the pedestal above the name. Croft recalls vaguely that Diana was a moon-goddess, so that figures.

  Marlow, puzzled by the detective's behavior, tags along asking, “Is there anything wrong, Inspector? I mean, apart from the obvious.”

  “Why aren't these statues lining the drive way, or in front of the house? Why are they just dotted around randomly?”

  The caretaker looks puzzled.

  “Always been like that, as far as I know. Does it matter?”

  Croft takes out his notebook, writes a few words, and then puts it away.

  “No, probably not. Come inside, we'll get all your statements down in writing.”

  ***

  Rachel dreams of metal wheels whirling in a starless void. She is trapped in a fantastic machine consisting of innumerable interlocking cogs and levers, all working frantically towards some dark, mysterious purpose. Even as she admires the busy elegance of the complex mechanism around her, she knows that it is deadly. It will chew her up if she can't get free, like a rat caught in a car engine. Help is nearby, someone wise and resourceful, and if only she can get their attention, they'll rescue her. But when Rachel tries to call for help no sound comes from her throat. Instead, the spinning cogwheels drag her further into the cruel device, and she realizes that it is not just her that the machine wants to rend apart and devour but someone else, too. This someone is very close to her yet, paradoxically, they are strangers. Rachel beats her fists against the remorseless machinery, knowing she has two lives to save.

  “Darling? Wake up! Were you having a nightmare?”

  Tony's anxious face replaces the surreal horrors of the dream.

  “Yes. Oh god, is it seven already?” she moans.

  “No, it's a buzz-bomb! We've got to get down to the shelter.”

  Rachel can hear the distinctive growl of the Nazi missile's engine, along with the distant wail of sirens and the sharp crack of anti-aircraft fire. She knows the V-1 is coming in much faster than any plane so they've only got a minute, at most, to get down the basement. She stumbles out of bed, grabs her old robe, and they rush downstairs in slippers and pajamas. In the improvised bomb-shelter, they find their neighbors, including children and pets.

  Even underground, they can hear the rising note of the buzz-bomb. They know that if the engine cuts out, it means the missile is dropping to earth, carrying a ton of high explosive that will detonate on impact. Everyone looks up at the ceiling as the roar of the jet eng
ine reaches a climax, then starts to fade.

  “It's gone over,” says a woman clutching a little girl.

  Right on cue, the engine noise stops. Nobody breathes. There's silence for a count of three, then a huge blast that rattles the flickering lights and brings plaster down in chunks. The little girl screams, and a small dog starts yapping in panic.

  “Anyone hurt?” asks Tony.

  “No, just bloody terrified, mate!” comes the reply.

  Rachel and Tony emerge from the cellar and go out into the street. An inferno seems to have engulfed a building half a block away. Fire engines race by, bells clanging wildly, as a huge column of flame and burning debris spiral up into the night.

  “That was close,” she says.

  “They've fired hundreds of those things,” he says, and she feels him get tense. “Just shooting them randomly at civilians.”

  Tony's mother, his only close relative, died when the Nazis fire-bombed the industrial city of Coventry. He's never really talked about her and Rachel doesn't push. She lost her own mother when she was very young.

  “I should go and try to help,” he says, and turns to go back upstairs for his Red Cross kit. Like millions of people in wartime Britain, they've both had basic medical training.

  “I'll come with you.”

  “Are you sure?” he asks, pausing on the stairs. “You know you don't have to.”

  “Hey, I took the same course as you, remember? Plus, you're lousy at bandaging.”

  In the few minutes it takes them to put on clothes over their pajamas and grab their first aid gear, the fire has grown even bigger. They hurry along through the usual confusion as various organizations, military, civilian, professional and volunteer, try to contain the crisis. As they arrive, a burning building collapses with a thunderous crash. An Air Raid Warden directs them to a school.

  Once inside, the couple are assigned duties, mostly tending to people injured by flying glass and other debris. There are a few broken or sprained limbs, bruises from falls, and the usual few instances of shock. After an hour or so, the initial flood of minor casualties slows to a trickle and Rachel's lack of sleep starts to catch up with her.

  “You're visibly weary, darling,” says Tony. “Why don't you go home? Chances are there won't be another buzz-bomb tonight. We've more than enough people here. I'll dish out some more tea and sympathy and be back in a little while. Get some sleep!”

  Rachel reluctantly agrees and sets off through the streets. Her slippers, soaked thanks to the near-flood unleashed by the firefighters. The bomb site fire is nearly extinguished and she overhears a couple of policemen talking about the 'butcher's bill'. It seems only five people are missing, presumed dead.

  We got off lightly tonight.

  Rachel is dragging her feet by the time she gets back to her apartment building. She enters the hallway to find a little girl in a nightdress sitting at the foot of the stairs. Rachel stops, stares stupidly, head muddled by exhaustion.

  “Is your mommy looking for you? Are you lost?” she asks.

  The girl says nothing, just looks up at her with enormous, dark eyes. A terrible certainty grips Rachel. She's been lucky so far during four years of encounters, but it had to happen sometime.

  Oh no, not a child! I can't do that, not now, I just can't!

  She sits down beside the girl on the stairs. The child continues to stare at her, face expressionless. Slowly, Rachel reaches out to touch the smooth, round face.

  “Ethel! What are you doing down there? Come back to bed and stop bothering the nice lady!”

  And without a word, the girl jumps up and runs upstairs to her mother.

  Rachel recalls the girl as the one who was so scared in the shelter earlier. She plods wearily upstairs to their apartment, reflecting on her dream. Is London the machine she is trapped in? Or the war? Both, perhaps, part of the great world-machine that's chewing up so many lives. Bleak ideas race round her tired brain.

  When Tony returns in the small hours, Rachel is not asleep, but sitting up in bed hugging her knees through the coarse woolen blankets.

  Before he can speak, she asks, “Honey, how soon can we get out of London? Because if I have to stay here much longer, I'm going to go full-on insane!”

  Chapter 4: The Evil Within

  Lying on her sofa, Madam Castanos drifts in and out of sleep. In her head, visions whirl and words echo as spirits clamor for attention. They never stop, but over the last few weeks, they have become more persistent, and among them, she senses things she has never noticed before. There is always anger and fear among those who are yet to cross over, negative emotions born of confusion. But more recently, she has sensed something evil, a truly dangerous presence that seems composed of many entities, somehow bound up as one. Her migraines have become so bad that she has been turning away even her most illustrious clients.

  Ruby comes in with tea and the evening papers, sets the tray down on the table, and leaves without saying a word. She knows better than to speak when Madame has one of her migraines. The medium heaves herself upright and pours herself a cup of Earl Grey, then glances through the news. She barely glances at war items – Hitler, Stalin, Germany, Japan. The Allies are advancing on all fronts, and it is now the cities of the enemy that are in flames. It is clear that one great evil will soon be defeated on the physical plane. But only the thoughtless believe that there is no other way for the forces of darkness to manifest themselves.

  For this reason, she scrutinizes the press for more unusual stories; things that might seem trivial to the inexperienced. And so, it is in one of the more sensational, down-market papers that she sees something that makes her sit bolt upright.

  BIZARRE DEATH IN NORTHUMBERLAND: LOCAL POLICE BAFFLED

  Beneath the headline is a small, grainy photo of a statue against an almost entirely white background, described as 'the snowy scene where the body was found'. Madam Castanos looks closely at the statue's pedestal but can't quite make out the inscription. Yet, something about it seems familiar.

  She rings a silver bell to summon Ruby.

  “Bring me the visiting cards of the American girl, and those who came with her,” she commands. Then she adds, “And the card of the man who came the day before; the bald man who found me so amusing.”

  When she has the pasteboard cards, she sits again and, after sipping some more tea, begins to look through them. Psychometry, the art of 'reading' an object's psychic residue, is one of her minor gifts. It is even more unreliable than communing with spirits, which is why she only attempts it when she is alone. Castanos tries her best, pressing each card to her forehead in turn.

  Charlotte Marsh's reveals nothing remarkable, just a general impression of curiosity, intelligence, and warmth.

  The Englishwoman is exactly what she seems, thinks the medium. A rare phenomenon indeed, these days.

  The card of Major Beaumont, the handsome young nobleman, is more interesting. Here, she senses love for his pretty, little wife, but there is also pain. She senses a terrible wound barely survived, and some interaction with dark forces in the past.

  Or perhaps in the future?

  Then she picks up Rachel Rubin's card, and the medium experiences an unusual burst of psychic energy.

  This young woman has unusual talents. She is marked for a strange destiny, I fear.

  Madam Castanos catches glimpses of weird, distorted faces that might be the living or the dead. And again, she senses the faceless, lurking menace, a being, that is both one and many; a thing, she knows is hideous, even though she cannot see its face.

  If it has a face.

  Whatever it is, the being is powerful and dangerous, and its destiny intersects that of the young American.

  She must beware! I must warn her.

  With a shudder, the psychic puts down Rachel's card and picks up the last one. She expects little from it, since it belongs to Rolt, the frivolous scoffer, who smells of pipe tobacco and beer. He is, she thinks, a typical Englishman with his
so-called 'common sense' that blinds him to the truth about the afterlife. And he kept staring down at her cleavage.

  Expecting to be bored, if not disgusted, Madam Castanos presses Bill Rolt's card to her forehead and sees . . . nothing. No glimpses of any events, past or future. She feels no trace of the man's feelings or character, either. What she holds, is simply a rectangular card bearing Rolt's name and address.

  For a moment, she is uncomfortable, but then reflects that it is not the first time her gifts simply didn’t work.

  Well, it is not shameful to fail, she tells herself. There is something unsatisfactory, though. It worries her and she knows it will need to be addressed.

  Shrugging off this minor concern, Madam Castanos goes to her desk to write a note of warning to Rachel.

  ***

  The Flying Scotsman is the fastest train in the world, or so the British claim. Rachel has her doubts, but there's no denying the majesty and power of the dark green locomotive that pulls into King's Cross Station amid clouds of smoke and steam. She's traveled by railroad in England before, but this is her first long journey in ages. She always feels a tinge of childish excitement at any prospective journey, and this will be her first on a night train.

  Bill and Charlotte appear, running up the platform. Charlotte is a brilliant reporter, but somehow manages to be late for everything unrelated to work. Bill is weighed down with enough luggage for three. Charlotte, Rachel guesses, has probably brought all her jewelry just in case they have some splendid parties in the middle of nowhere. Rachel and Tony have packed a little more sensibly for rural England in February.

  “Over here!” shouts Tony, waving frantically.

  “All aboard!”

  The train guard walks along the platform, green flag under his arm, looking at the time on his pocket watch. He gives the four friends a pointed stare as a porter helps them load the latecomers' luggage into a sleeping car. Their compartment has four bunks, and there's an inevitable clash, complete with risqué jokes, as to who gets to sleep on top. Before they've stowed their gear, there's a shrill whistle and the train jerks forward, then accelerates smoothly.