by Irene Ferris
“Did she live here alone?”
“As far as I know. She never dated much which was kind of odd because she’s drop dead gorgeous.” Jenn sighed. “Lucky bitch.”
Mathieu hesitated before speaking. “She may not look the same if she returns. I hope you understand that. They can and do sometimes change our appearances to suit their wishes. I look nothing like what I did before I was taken.”
“Really?” She turned to look at him curiously. “What did you look like?”
He paused, his gaze sliding from hers to the ground. “I don’t remember.”
“Oh.” She turned back to the house and waved at the three people who had come out of the front door and were making their way towards them. “Here they are. I bet we took them by surprise.”
“I’m sure we did.” Mathieu turned to find the bag he’d been given in Marcus’ grip. “I can carry that.”
“Stay back with me. I want to talk to you.” They trailed behind Eddie and Jenn and Marcus handed him the bag.
“Yes?” Mathieu watched the newcomers cross the long lawn and make their way down the hill.
“I hadn’t been here yet. Does it feel as strange around here to you as it does to me?”
Mathieu weighed his answer carefully. “I would hazard a guess that there was a lot of magical activity here in the past—not as old as the Foundation’s house—but not in the past few hundred years.” He paused and then continued, “The intensity of the wards on the house confuses me. A person who didn’t believe in ‘hocus-pocus hooey’ shouldn’t have wards like that.”
“Yeah. I kind of thought that too.” Marcus grimaced and yanked his suitcase forward. “Something isn’t adding up.”
“No.” Mathieu watched the three figures approach. “Are those the rest of your circle? I recall different people when we first met.”
Marcus chuckled. “Yes. I’ve chosen quality in past months. It’s a small circle but we’re the best the Foundation has—which is why we’re here.”
“I see.” Mathieu could now see the newcomers clearly. One man, two women.
“Don’t worry. We can trust them. They’re good people and they’re loyal.”
“Loyal to what?” Mathieu asked.
“Loyal to me.” Marcus gave grim smile as he lengthened his step to meet the others. “Remember, I wasn’t born into the Foundation like Jenn was. I can see the flaws.”
“I… see.” Mathieu lagged behind and mulled over Marcus’ words. That kept him from worrying about the new people.
Jenn whooped, dropped her bag and leapt into the new man’s arms. He swung her around a few times, put her down and grabbed her bag. She grabbed his arm and dragged him back to Mathieu. “Mathieu. This is Dwayne Clemons. He’s our special little snowflake.”
“Bite me.” Dwayne answered back. He was tall and reed-thin with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. His complexion was pockmarked with old acne scars and his jeans were dirty. He wore a baseball cap pulled low over his face and a plaid cotton shirt.
”Well met, Dwayne.” Mathieu bowed his head and pointedly ignored the hand that had been thrust in his direction.
Marcus snorted at the greeting and then said quietly, “Don’t be offended, Dwayne. Mathieu doesn’t shake hands. It’s nothing personal.”
“Oh.” Dwayne pulled his hand back in and rubbed it down the thigh of his jeans after giving Mathieu a particularly searching look. “Okay. Nice to meet you.”
“Dwayne is our divination expert.” Jenn explained with a blinding smile. “He’s the best prognosticator the Foundation has.”
Dwayne kicked the dirt and smiled sheepishly.
The other two women walked up and Marcus introduced them. “Mathieu, this is Susan Scott and Carol Thomas. Ladies, this is Mathieu Bourgueil. He’s here in a consulting capacity.”
Susan was young and fiery, her hair black and glossy as a raven’s wing. Her blue eyes stood out against her pale skin as she regarded him with open calculation. Carol was older, maybe in her early fifties. Her hair was blonde turning to gray but her face was still youthful. She had green eyes to rival Jenn’s, but hers were older, calmer, filled with experience. She exuded serenity.
“A consultant?” Susan drawled the word and looked at Mathieu. “He doesn’t even look old enough to drink much less be a consultant.” She reached out and took Eddie’s hand as she spoke. Eddie just shrugged at Mathieu and smiled sheepishly.
Mathieu bowed to her and spoke quietly, “Appearances can be misleading, my lady.”
Marcus smirked at them and then gestured towards the house. “Let’s get started, people. We’ve got a lot to do.” He brought Jenn’s hand to his lips for a kiss before
“Westward Ho, my hos.” Dwayne shouted and waved his hand towards the house as he took Jenn’s suitcase.
“Shut up, Dwayne.” All three women spoke in unison and then dissolved into laughter.
“Ya’ll just don’t appreciate my sense of humor. Jealous of my masculinity, each and every one of you.” Dwayne continued on towards the house, leaving the rest of them behind.
The walk up the hill and across the lawn was pleasant, Mathieu thought. The sky was blue, the sun was warm but the wind was cool. It almost took his mind off of the house with its blackened windows and blank feeling. Almost.
Chapter Twenty - Two
Dwayne reached the oversized white door first. Opening it, he bowed the rest of them in. Mathieu lingered on the doorstep for a moment, looking the house up and down.
From here it seemed a simple house of brick and wood and slate. But there was something deeper there as well. The white painted windows with their dark shutters revealed nothing of what was inside.
With a deep breath he passed through the entrance. Inside it was quiet, too quiet. The wards muffled everything.
A wide entrance hall extended to the back of the house. Wood floors gleamed around rich carpets. The walls were a cream plaster covered with paintings and pictures of the house through history. Stairs led to an upstairs that Mathieu was sure held bedrooms.
A library was visible to his left, an ornate dining room to his right. He suspected a sitting room and kitchen were somewhere in the back. Everything was neat as a pin, well-kept and immaculate with furniture that suited the house exactly.
None of that mattered to him at the moment. The place he needed to be was downstairs in the basement.
“What have you found?” Marcus asked the others as he put his suitcase next to the stairwell and gestured for Mathieu to do the same.
“It’s fucked up.” Dwayne spoke quietly. “You can feel the wards, can’t you? Everything is damped down so far you can’t make anything out.”
“Have you been able to see anything?” Jenn spoke quietly, stroking Dwayne’s arm.
“Not much. Some nasty shit is going to go down here. I can’t tell you exactly when or what, but it’s not going to be pretty and it’s going to be happening pretty soon.”
“Great.” Eddie sighed. “Nasty so wasn’t what I wanted on the menu.”
Carol spoke quietly. “I’ve been through the library and found some reading material that might be considered questionable at best. I think there was something going on here that was less than kosher.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Marcus sounded not surprised at all.
Mathieu cleared his throat and spoke quietly. “I need to see where this happened. I would assume it was the basement?”
“Yeah.” Carol said quietly and then walked to a plain wooden door. “Down here.”
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Maybe you can make some sense of it, Mr. Consultant.” Susan took a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the door.
The door swung open with a creak and illuminated a flight of stairs down. Carol reached in and clicked on a light switch.
Bare electric bulbs were strung down the stringers and into the basement below. “There are six rooms down there. One is an old kitchen, and another was converted for a rec r
oom back a few decades ago by the previous owner. The rest are storage.” Carol said quietly.
“Except one.” Dwayne said quietly. “And that’s the really fucked up one. Its dead as Hell but you can tell that something big went down there.”
“Then that is where I need to be.” Mathieu touched the door and was surprised to see a concealment spell light up under his touch. “I very much need to see this.”
“But of course. Follow me.” Dwayne led the way down the stairs into the dimness of the basement.
Mathieu followed him down the steep wooden stairs. There was a large main hallway that was well lit. He could see the old kitchen and rec room on one side. There were doors on his right. Dwayne walked to the furthest door on the right and placed his hand on the knob. “Are you ready for this shit?”
Marcus walked up behind Mathieu and stood close. Too close, truth be told. “Let’s see it.”
Dwayne threw open the door and flicked a switch out in the hallway. Mathieu walked in, as much to escape Marcus as to investigate the room.
The room inside was fairly large, maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet. There were two outer walls on the foundation made of stone. The other walls were roughly hewn planks of wood. The ceiling above was the heavy wood joists of the main house with a florescent light fixture hung from the exact center of the room. The high windows had been painted black so that no daylight could penetrate and the corners seemed to hold a kind of thick darkness that defied the electric lights.
There was no furniture, there was nothing to make this room stand out in any way, but it radiated power.
Mathieu looked at the floor and then at the walls and then at the ceilings. He stepped gingerly inside and studied every surface while Marcus studied him.
Jenn whispered quietly, “This is it, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Mathieu finally spoke after a long time of studying the blank walls. He looked over at Marcus, wrapped his arms around himself and said quietly. “This changes everything.”
“How?” Marcus noted the change in body language with narrowed eyes.
Mathieu struggled for words and then sighed. “You will all have to come in here for me to show you.”
Marcus jerked his head and the rest of his circle filed in, taking their positions around the perimeter of the room.
“Dwayne, could you please turn off the light and close the door? I want you to see what I’m seeing.”
“I don’t like the dark.” Dwayne’s voice held a quaver. “You know I don’t like the dark. The voices get louder.”
“I know, Dwayne.” Marcus soothed. “But you need to see this too. I promise nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll take care of you. Haven’t I always?” Marcus paused and then spoke again. “Have you been taking your pills, Dwayne?”
“The pills keep me from seeing. You know that. I figured I could put up with a few voices and whatnot if it helped Manders.”
“You’re a good man, Dwayne. But we need the lights off, okay?” Jenn spoke this time, her voice just as soothing. “I’ll hold your hand. Nothing in the dark can hurt you while I’m here. I won’t let it.”
At Marcus’ nod, Dwayne reached into the hall after another moment’s hesitation. The light fixture went dark with a click but the fluorescent tubes glowed with an afterimage for a few moments afterwards.
It was dead dark in there. Marcus blinked as he felt Jenn’s hand worm its way into his and he squeezed it to reassure her, and through her Dwayne. He could hear the man’s sped up breathing, an almost inaudible whimper.
Mathieu’s voice came from somewhere in front of him. “I am going to give this a small amount of power. It’s not enough to activate it but enough to light it up so you can see what has been done.” He paused and spoke quietly. “You will not be lost in the dark, Dwayne. I understand what it is to be alone in the blackness and I would never leave another soul to suffer that pain.”
There was a flare of light—like a match being struck, but not—in the corner where Mathieu’s hand touched the wall. Golden symbols and words traced around the walls in letters two inches high. The words lit up and spiraled around and around the walls, up and up to the ceiling where they circled until they reached the center of the ceiling. The words spiraled down as well, down onto the floor under their feet before terminating into the edge of a circle formed of the same words. Every square inch of floor, ceiling and walls was covered with glowing characters, except for the small circle in the middle of the floor.
Mathieu’s eyes glowed golden brown in the strange, otherworldly light.
“What is it?” Jenn asked quietly as she turned to the wall to try and read the glowing characters.
“It appears to be many things.” Mathieu looked at the words as well. “First and foremost, I think it’s a summoning. I won’t say the name but this is what she called.” He made a gesture and the word “Gaap” lit up each time it was repeated, one after the other, round and round the ceiling, walls and floors. Jenn lost count at twenty-seven.
Stepping to the middle of the room but not into the circle, Mathieu looked up at the glowing spiral of words on the ceiling. “She started up here, inscribing carefully. Look how the writing is so much rougher than further down or on the walls. She’d just learned the characters here.” He pointed to the wall. “She’d had more practice with them here. They’re much smoother.”
He gestured to the floor. “She finished here and it looks like she rushed near the end. Look how the letters are shorter and sharper.”
“What is this for? I mean all of it.” Marcus folded his arms and looked around, the small hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“I’m not entirely sure but I could make a guess.” Mathieu walked around the edge of the glowing circle.
“And that guess would be?”
“I think it’s some kind of contract or agreement.” With a deep breath, Mathieu spoke and pointed at the ceiling. “She summoned the creature here.” Gesturing to the walls, he said quietly, “Here she told it what she wanted.” He pointed down at the floor and at the edge of the circle. “Down here she told it what she was willing to give it.”
He stepped gingerly around the circle. “She coupled with it in there. One would suspect she was a virgin at the time. When they were done, she went back with it to There.”
“Wait, wait.” Jenn said quickly. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were telling us she did this on purpose.”
Mathieu cocked her head at her and sighed. “She did.” He looked back over to Marcus. “And that changes everything.”
“Why?” Jenn wailed as Mathieu extinguished the golden characters. It was dark for a long moment before Dwayne rushed out and turned the lights back on. They all blinked there in the cold, strange light before Jenn asked again, “Why? How?”
Still staring at the wall nearest him, Mathieu said quietly. “Power. Everything comes down to power. She gave herself to it so that she could share the power. It took weeks to build the spell, but she wrote every symbol of her own will in her own blood.”
There was a long moment of silence before Marcus spoke again. “How do we get her back?”
Mathieu looked away from the wall and stared at Marcus. “We don’t. I told you this changes everything.”
“No, it doesn’t. We still have to kill that thing and save her.”
“Marcus,” Mathieu said quietly, “she went willingly. She gave herself to it. She allowed herself to be bound in exchange for power.”
“She’s one of us. We don’t abandon our people.”
“Even if they choose their own fates?” Mathieu turned to leave the room.
“I have a feeling what she chose and what she got were two wildly different things. Wouldn’t you say so?” Marcus leaned forward and blocked the door with his arm.
Mathieu recoiled back before he could make physical contact. It took a moment for him to gather his wits again and answer, “I would certainly say so. There is no ‘shared power’ to
them. The entire spell is based on a lie.”
“So what do we do?” Marcus leaned forward. “She’s one of us. We can’t leave her.”
“I don’t know.” Mathieu said quietly as he hid his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes.
“What?” Marcus stepped forward and loomed over Mathieu, his eyes flashing in anger.
Mathieu straightened and faced him squarely. “I said I don’t know. I recognize the name. That one is one of the Gamaliel, one of the Obscene Ones. I don’t know how she got to it, I don’t know how it got to her, I don’t know how she knew the spell to summon it and I certainly don’t know how she got the rest of the spell or how she even knew to bleed so much to such great effect.”
Carol cleared her throat in the background. Both of them turned to look at her. With a cautious look at Mathieu she said quietly to Marcus, “You know that I’ve been pretty deep into the old records back in the first house. I can tell you that I’ve only seen spellwork with an even passing similarity in one of the oldest and most guarded records of the Foundation. I don’t think she’d have had access to it.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it either, Marcus.” Jenn leaned forward and put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You know my father would have had access to anything and everything. But that…” She jerked her chin at the room in general. “That’s just…” She struggled for words and finally said, “Obscene. It’s obscene.”
“If she had no way of learning it from your group, she had to have learned it elsewhere.” Mathieu sighed. “If it were up to me, I’d search the house from top to bottom. I’d search for hiding places under the floor boards and in the walls. Behind furniture, or hidden in it. Somewhere in this house is something that told her how to do this.” He looked at the room again and shuddered. “And when you find it, perhaps you’ll know why she did this.”
Everyone in the room was still, listening to Mathieu as he spoke. “Okay,” Susan said. “So we find this thing… this whatever the hell it is that showed her how to do all this. If it exists.” She glared at Mathieu for a beat and then asked, “What then?”
