by Chanel Smith
“You have given us some excellent historical background and I believe it will help us a great deal,” Ellen responded.
Henry was soaking up the attention we were giving him, and his importance in helping us solve the mystery caused him to puff his chest out a bit.
Though I was certainly not bored, I could tell that Ellen was ready to move on. The historic overload was enough for her, though she was doing her best to remain polite. It was time for me to step in again.
“You have helped a great deal, sir,” I said, extending my hand to him. “We really must be on our way. Would you mind if we contacted you again, that is, if we find something else as we go along?”
“I wouldn’t mind at all; in fact, I’d be more than delighted to help in any way I can.” He was beaming and, though I didn’t think it possible, his chest was sticking out even a bit further. “Let me give you my calling card.” He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, drew out a card and handed it to me.
“Thank you very much,” Ellen said, grasping his hand firmly.
“No trouble at all. I love a good ghostly mystery. We’ve plenty of them here in London. Perhaps you’ll stick around and investigate a few of the others?”
“If we do, we’ll be sure to take you along for the ride,” I put in as we turned to walk toward the exit.
“I can take you back the way we came in, if you like,” he offered.
“Actually, we’d like to browse our way back through the exhibits, if that is okay with you.”
“Yes, of course, by all means. If you need anything else, do not hesitate to call.”
As we started to walk away, Henry took out the gold watch, looked at it briefly, snapped it shut, turned and made his way back to the door marked ‘private,’ leaving us alone.
“Friendly fellow, don’t you think?” I used my best British accent as I nudged Ellen.
“I honestly thought he’d never stop talking, but he certainly did a thorough job. We really don’t have time to go through the museum now; you know, right?”
“Yes, I was just afraid that if we went back with him, he’d never stop talking. I’m kind of hungry, since I didn’t have my chocolate pancakes this morning.”
Ellen only rolled her eyes at me.
“Would you fancy a bite and a pint, love?” I asked, extending my arm to escort her out.
“But of course,” she replied, grinning broadly as she took my arm.
Chapter Five
Jackson Hayford hadn’t been any more pleasant when we met him at the entrance to the Nine Elms Station than when we had been in his office earlier in the day.
He wasn’t necessarily a grumpy man, just a very serious and businesslike individual who had a great deal on his plate. I understood how pressure and stress could make a busy man come off the way Hayford did, so I cut him some slack and maintained my professional manner as we made our way through the tunnel.
The man actually became somewhat personable, no doubt eager, as most men often are, to show off the great accomplishments. Though he wasn’t necessarily an overly enthusiastic guide, like one might find as a tour guide on one of the double-decker busses, he did point out several of the unique features and special areas of the construction along the way.
As we moved forward through the tunnel, I could tell that Ellen was starting to get those feelings that she always got whenever things were about to get squirrely. “You okay, Babe?” I whispered, leaning in toward her.
“I’m starting to feel something. It’s a little chillier too, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” I replied. “I wish I had my equipment.” I had nothing that I was used to having. It may have been part of the reason that I was having so much trouble remaining focused on the case. I was, after all, the gizmo operator and technical expert of the team. I felt a little bit useless.
“This might actually be good for you,” she replied. “Make you use your own senses instead of the gadgets. Concentrate, Monty; you have the ability.”
“What’s going on?” Mr. Hayford sensed by the hushed tone between us and our actions that we were up to something.
“Mr. Hayford,” Ellen asked as sweetly as she was able, given their previous confrontation. “Are we somewhere near where this tunnel crosses under the Vauxhall to Stockwell line?”
“We are very close, yes. Why, what’s the problem?”
“I’m beginning to sense a paranormal presence here,” Ellen replied.
“Balderdash!” he snapped. “You’re just superstitious and making yourself nervous. I’m not going to be a part of your foolishness.”
Ellen suddenly drew up. “Wait.” She stuck out a hand as if holding everyone back.
“This is outrageous!”
“Mr. Hayford, would you kindly be silent so I can do my job?” Ellen could be pretty firm when she needed to be.
I nudged Hayford and nodded my head toward her. “She really does feel them; even communicates with them,” I whispered.
“I don’t believe any of it. I thought the two of you are supposed to be professionals.”
“We’re very professional. Normally, I have several pieces of equipment that we measure all sorts of energy fields, anomalies and seismic events. I have some pretty good photos of a few spirits too.”
“It’s all contrived. I don’t know how you two frauds have been able to pull the wool over other people’s eyes; how you’ve gained the confidence of Mr. Black, but you’ve managed to worm your way in and you’re trying to convince me as well. It’s not going to work, I tell you.” He took a few steps forward. Fear rather than anger was actually driving him. “Stop this at once. We will return to the Nine Elms Station…”
“Shhhh,” Ellen looked back at him. “Monty, there’s definitely a presence here. He’s a little bit shy. Come here and help me; let’s see if we can get him to come to us.”
I moved forward and made myself available. I honestly hated it when she had to use me to help channel the energy.
“Relax, Honey, focus.”
I had no sooner begun to relax myself than Hayford let out a bloodcurdling scream that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. When I looked at him, I noticed that he was floating a few inches off the ground. I nudged Ellen. “I think our spirit has arrived.”
“Yes. I’m going to try to talk to him.” She took a few steps toward him. He stood firm, openly defying her. “We mean you no harm. We only want to talk to you. Why are you here?”
The possessed project manager screamed again; or at least, the spirit possessing him did.
“Maybe he doesn’t understand English,” I suggested.
“I don’t think he does. He’s confused, but he’s strong and confident, just like the soldier yesterday, but it’s not the same one.”
“Ni morse gallout ankou!” he screamed, almost on cue. “Ni morse gallout ankou!”
“It’s some sort of warning,” Ellen said. “We need to start backing away.”
“What?” I had never seen Ellen back away from a ghost before.
“Trust me on this one, Monty. We’re not ready for this. Back away.”
I started backing away. Once we took several paces backward, the spirit hurled Hayford at us. I reached out and caught him before he tumbled into the ground. It toppled me over as well, but at least he wasn’t dashed against the rocky floor or the tracks that had been laid.
“What the hell just happened?” he asked in a weak voice, coming to himself.
“Well, Mr. Hayford, one of those spirits that you disbelieve in so firmly just possessed you and spoke to us.”
“I realize that,” he replied. “I could feel it. I heard those words of gibberish coming from my mouth and felt myself floating. What I mean is, how did that happen?”
“That’s exactly why my wife and I make the big bucks, sir,” I replied, patting him on his back as I helped to steady him on his feet.
“Yes. Yes. I suppose so.” He fumbled to grasp something that only minutes before
was completely impossible. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I knew exactly how he felt. “I’ve had quite enough. Can we go now?”
“Yes,” Ellen replied. “We can go now. We need to do a little bit more research before we can tackle this one, I’m afraid.”
“Very well, back to Nine Elms then.” Finding his strength or being moved by terror-filled adrenaline, Jackson Hayford set a pretty daunting pace toward the relative safety of the Nine Elms Station.
With Hayford somewhat more stable and back in his car, heading away from Nine Elms, I turned to Ellen. “You’re going to have to explain some things to me. I have never seen you run away from a ghost.”
“There are some powerful forces, cultural and language barriers, involved in this one.”
“There were some pretty powerful forces and language barriers in Belgium too, but you didn’t back down from them. Why now?”
“You didn’t feel it?”
“Yeah. I felt something pretty powerful, but nothing more than those Nazis. What gives?”
“We’re just not ready for this one. We need to know more.”
“You want to visit Henry again?”
“I think we better. I don’t think that was Latin.”
“I don’t know what it was, but it did sound a little bit different. Why was he so overpowering?”
“I don’t know that either. He was like the legionnaire we met last night, but there was something else. It was even beyond what we ran into in Belgium. It was almost…” Ellen’s forehead wrinkled with confusion as she tried to come up with the right words. “Almost alien.”
“Alien?”
“I mean, yes and no. I don’t know.” She was extremely uncomfortable. We’d wandered into something that went even beyond her. It was starting to make me uncomfortable too. I was the strong man, tough guy, protector of my woman; however, when it came to the paranormal, supernatural, spiritual world, she was the strong one. If she was unsure of herself, then I was too.
As we were speaking, Rochester turned up with the car. Ellen had called him as soon as we were back in the Nine Elms Station.
Once we were situated in the car, I looked up at Rochester. There was a concerned look on his face while he watched Ellen. “She’s okay, just deep in thought. Can you take us to the British Museum once more?”
“Certainly,” he replied.
“You suppose we ought to give Henry a ring first?” I asked Ellen.
“Huh?” She looked at me with an absent stare that had me very concerned.
“Do you think we should call Henry?”
“Yes, of course. You have his number.” She handed her cell phone over to me.
Having not yet achieved the wealthy status due international ghost hunters, we had only put the international calling package on her cell phone in order to save some expenses. Luckily it was a worldwide package and it worked as well in England as it did in Belgium.
“Henry Wandsworth. How may I help?”
I hadn’t realized that my call was a direct line to Henry, not even a receptionist, but straight through. I was feeling even more privileged. “Henry, it’s Monty; you know, the Yank ghost-hunter.”
“Yes, of course, Monty. You’re in need of my help already? I thought you’d had enough of my droning on about history earlier today.” There was a light-hearted tone to his voice. It actually helped to calm my nerves. They needed some calming. Ellen simply wasn’t herself and it had me worried.
“We’re motoring back to the museum as we speak. Something has come up.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope.” His tone changed. “How soon will you be here?”
“We just crossed over the Thames,” I replied.
“And you were at Vauxhall?”
“Actually, at the new Nine Elms Station, but that’s fairly near Vauxhall.”
“So you just crossed over the Vauxhall Bridge. You’ll be here any moment then. I’ll meet you at the front.”
“Thank you, Henry. We really appreciate your help.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you in a jiffy.”
I glanced at Ellen again as I disconnected the call. She was lost in deep thought. Was she rattled or was she just focusing intensely? I wasn’t sure, but either way, I hoped that Henry Wandsworth would provide the answers necessary to get her back on track.
Chapter Six
The moment Henry saw Ellen, he ushered us quickly into the back offices and into a small lounge area. He called to one of his assistants to set up tea and biscuits for us and did his best to make us comfortable. Once we were settled in for a few minutes, he sat sipping his tea and waiting patiently, looking from one of us to the other to begin.
“We ran across something a bit frightening, I’m afraid,” I plunged ahead. I didn’t even realize that I was beginning to sound like an actual Brit.
“What sort of thing? How can I help?” he asked. His face had paled considerably.
“We had a run-in with another ghost. It was a little beyond what we’re used to.”
“The legionnaire? They were indeed powerful. I can’t even imagine how powerful they might be as spirits.”
“Not the legionnaire,” Ellen jumped in. Evidently, whatever had such a tight grip on her thoughts had finally let go and she became herself again.
“Not the legionnaire? Then what or who? Did this one speak?”
“Yes, but not in Latin,” I chimed in. I wasn’t necessarily an instant expert on Latin, but I wanted to jump into the conversation.
“What did he say?”
“Ni morse gallout ankou,” I replied.
“Ni morse gallout ankou,” he repeated.
“Yes. That’s what you heard too, right, Babe?” I looked toward Ellen and Henry’s gaze went there as well.
She nodded.
“Off the top of my head, that sounds like the language of the ancient Britons. Roughly speaking, I would say that it means ‘we can never die.’ I’d have to look it up to be sure, but that would be my educated guess at this moment.”
“That would certainly match the defiance that I felt coming from him.” Ellen said. “But there was more.”
“He said more?”
“No. There was something different about his presence. It’s hard to explain, but there seemed to be an alien element to it.”
“Alien?” Though I didn’t believe it was possible, Henry paled even more as he whispered the question.
His reaction was a little bit disconcerting. “What?” I asked.
“Let me see if I can explain,” he began. “You are familiar with Stonehenge, right?”
“Of course,” Ellen and I answered in unison.
“Well, there are theories suggesting the Celts didn’t actually build it, but that visiting aliens who later began an order of Druid priests were responsible. Sort of like the crop circles and the mounds, you see.”
“You can’t be serious.” I had slowly come around about paranormal activity, spirits, ghosts and all of the things connected to them, but adding aliens into the mix was just a little bit more than I was prepared to handle.
“I’m only repeating theories that others have proposed. I’m not exactly a proponent of the idea myself.”
“I am,” Ellen said quietly. “I didn’t use to be, but this afternoon proved different.”
“What do you mean?” I wondered if she’d been body snatched by an alien and that was why she had been acting so weird in the car.
“I’ve spent the last hour or however long it’s been since we were in the tunnel, going back through what I felt over and over. It wasn’t like all of the others. That is what frightened me so badly. It was beyond what I’ve ever seen before. It was more than a language barrier, but a cultural, formative barrier. Those words aren’t even accurate enough to express it. It was beyond our known existence. Not the spirit himself, but there was another presence. It’s mind blowing.”
I could tell that Ellen was seriously stirred up by what she’d experienced. To be honest, it
made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. If there was something there beyond her experience and explanation and as powerful as she said it was, we might have finally run into something that was well over our heads.
“Did he present himself as a phantasm or a vision?” Henry asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“No. He possessed your chum Jackson and spoke through him,” I replied.
“But Jackson doesn’t believe in spirits. We’ve had plenty of discussions about it.”
“He does now.” I grinned.
“So this ghost forced his way into Jackson?”
“Yes,” Ellen replied.
I suddenly remembered Ellen telling me that she couldn’t get him to connect with us because he was timid. “Babe, didn’t you say that he was timid?”
“At first I thought he was. That’s been bothering me as well. I think, he was actually searching each one of us for something. The right one to possess.”
“Why Mr. Hayford?” I asked. “He was the least open of us all.”
“Because he was the right one of us,” Ellen said.
“Why him? Why in that place? Why now?” My tone was tense. There were more questions than answers. We were getting nowhere. Ellen reached over and took hold of my arm. We sipped our tea and nibbled on the biscuits, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
“Let’s recap what we know and lay out our questions and see if we can come up with some answers,” Henry interrupted the silence. I suddenly thought of Sherlock and Doctor Watson as he spoke.
“On the one hand, we’ve got a Roman legionnaire and on the other, a Celt with possible alien connections.” He ticked off the first point on his index finger. “We have something of a time period spanning from between BC 55 and, let’s say, AD 45, so that gives us a hundred year span. I actually have a theory as to why he chose Jackson, but we’ll come back to that point in a minute. The one that is bothering me is the location. All of the literature I have ever seen concerning the area in question suggest that it was a marsh and often covered by a thick fog. It makes no sense that things are taking place in that particular area. What answers do we have? Not many at this point. I’m afraid we’re no better off than we were before.”
