Underhill

by Harper Fox

  Chapter Eight

  Johnny and Gwen Nancarrow never knew about the pastor’s gold, sealed away in the crypt of Underhill House. They’d heard the rumours, and had bought the place in the hope of finding the treasure someday. They began to hold their coven meetings there, trying to draw upon the magical powers of the others in the group to reveal the hiding place of the riches. This was after a great deal of plain digging, trying to find a cellar beneath the house—but, as you know, Underhill has no cellar. The crypt lies just to the west of the foundation of the house. Sitting in their living room, they were no more than fifteen feet from the object of all their desires.

  Despite their failure, the previous owner of the house became convinced that they’d found the gold after all. He’d heard about the rituals, and those were dark times for local covens, with the Witchcraft Act repealed but the sensationalist press reporting a new scandal every week, child abuse and desecration of churches and all sorts of unsavoury tales. He came to visit the Nancarrows one night. Probably he meant them no real harm, but Johnny lost his temper when the visitor shook Gwen to try and get her to talk. The visitor knocked Johnny back onto the stone surround of the fireplace, and when poor Gwen began to scream and fight him, he panicked and hit her with their big marble ashtray.

  These things happen. It was brutal and stupid, but no supernatural agency was involved in the Nancarrows’ death. Their murderer, though he’d been sane enough when he entered the house, fell into a fugue of insanity after a few hours alone with their corpses. He found an axe, chopped them up, and laid their remains bizarrely around the living room. Perhaps he was hoping the scene might strike the police as having a ritual look, and so throw suspicion on the coven. After that he disappeared, and was never seen in Gotheglos or anywhere else in Cornwall again.

  Gideon and Lee sat shoulder to shoulder on a tombstone, reading the sheet of A4 by the glare of the portable LED lights strung on their cables from the broadcast van. Jack, who’d realised halfway down the A30 that he’d left his brand-new Leica lens on the driveway, was feverishly following Anna around the edge of the open crypt, Panasonic balanced on his shoulder. Anna, wide-eyed, was narrating, her gestures eloquent. “Poor Gwen and Johnny,” Gideon said. “Remind me again how you come by this information?”

  “I told you. Ruth Cadwallader is writing it all down.”

  Gideon blew out his cheeks. “You really do seem fine, other than the fact that you were dead when I found you.”

  “Not dead. Just travelling.”

  “Okay. But I should warn you, if you ever travel that bloody far again without me, you can be the one who explains it to our daughter from the afterlife. And I think I will get you checked out at casualty on our way home.”

  “Not tonight, love, please. There’ll be the usual poisoned toffee-apple scare, and the place will be bedlam. I just want to go home, to our kid and our Halloween party and our bed.”

  “We’ll see. I know weird is the norm for you...”

  “For us.”

  “But you’re making less sense than usual. This sheet was in the back pocket of your jeans, right?”

  “Mm-hm. There’s another one there now. I felt the clicking of her keys. Go ahead and have a look.”

  Apprehensively Gideon obeyed. He withdrew a second neatly folded sheet. “Shall I read it?”

  “I think you better had. She’s not finished yet.”

  “Okay. The Nancarrows never haunted Underhill House, despite their untimely deaths. They’re way too happy where they are now. But since all that stupid money’s been found—the two other crates are full of it too, by the way—they’d like it to find a good home, a happy ending like theirs. The present author feels certain that Mr Tyack-Frayne and his friends will be able to bring this about.” Gideon paused. “Hmm. I’m not so sure about that. We have to report a trove like this to the coroner. Usually in cases like this, the finders do get a good percentage of the market value, but we’ll have to split it with the current landlord. And, unfortunately, with Zeke.”

  “Well, he’ll suggest the Salvation Army, and we’ll suggest that we need a new bathroom, and we’ll argue about it all night in the pub and end up giving it all to the British Red Cross. Oh, and an LGBT youth charity of some kind—Ruth would like that. She was like Ma, very switched on. Where is Zeke, by the way?”

  “Just over there, sitting beside that sculpture of the hooded monk. Hard to tell ’em apart, isn’t it?”

  “Poor Zeke. He looks lonely.”

  “He’s still upset—very, actually—about that business up by the Cheesewring during the summer. I think he’d give his eye-teeth to have the time again, so he could rush in and rescue Mike and Toby.”

  “Did that somehow come up again tonight?”

  “Yeah. He was worried about jumping down into the crypt. It didn’t look the way it does now, all clear and open to the stars. It had some kind of ceiling.”

  “You were seeing it the way it used to be. I like it a lot better now.”

  “Me too. Zeke did eventually climb in. He’d never leave either of us in the lurch when we need help, and... Hang on. This bit of paper’s leaping about in my hands.”

  “I can see. You’d better turn it over. I said she wasn’t done.”

  Startled, Gideon did as he was told. The night was growing chilly, so he put an arm around Lee’s shoulders and drew him close, and together they watched the old-fashioned typescript as it appeared on the page. Happy Halloween to all, Ruth Cadwallader wrote, from whichever strange coil of the quantum magic of creation she now inhabited. You certainly deserve it, and I like happy endings too. I’d have loved to make Underhill the first tale in my next book of Horrible Hauntings, but only human badness was ever at work in this place. Still, who knows what could still happen on such a night as this? Just as well you’ve got that feisty preacher man to protect you.

  “What do you suppose that means?”

  Gideon helped Lee to his feet. He sounded too sleepy to care much about the question, and Gideon intended to let Zeke drive them all home, while Lee slept with his head in his lap and Gideon traced out every precious, living line of his face in the sweep of the streetlights overhead. “I’ve no idea. Come on, my handsome. Summon up your Scooby gang and tell ’em it’s time to get the Mystery Machine on the road.”

  Reluctantly Anna wound up her narration. Jack kept the camera online while she, Gid and Lee began to gather up their gear. Zeke remained perched on his gravestone, lost in his thoughts.

  The night became very still. Gideon, nerves on high alert, noticed the shift in the atmosphere first. “Lee,” he said uneasily. “Come over here to me.”

  “I’ll just stow this box in the van. And you know, we’re gonna have to tarp up the crates in the pit unless we want the locals making off with our charitable donation overnight.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I called Jenny Spargo—she’s already got a couple of big lads in a patrol car on their way to look after the place.”

  “Oh, you’ve got a phone signal?”

  “Crystal clear.”

  “That’s good. You also need to call the coroner to Bill Prowse’s house, I’m afraid.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Nature has taken her course with that fine soul. I’ll tell you all about it on our way home.”

  This news should have troubled and bemused Gideon in equal measure. Not that he cared about Bill, now that the old monster’s wife and kids were out of his considerable fallout zone, but even by Lee’s standards, this was a large psychic flash. Just at this moment, though, he was much more concerned by the tremor in the walls of the crypt, the accompanying rumble, rising quickly to a roar. “Lee,” he shouted, setting out towards him at a run. “Get your arse over here to me. Now!”

  But for once, the duty of protection didn’t fall to him. Ezekiel lurched to his feet. He took five long strides, thrusting everyone—Lee, Gid, Anna, Jack—behind him as he went, as if he’d suddenly grown huge, shielding wings. He wa
s poised, tall and noble on the edge of the crypt, when the terrible vulpine face burst out of its far wall.

  The creature was vast, its eyes ablaze. Great teeth snapped in the air, and claws like the blades of a combine harvester whipped back and forth inches from Zeke’s face. “Back, demon!” he cried, whipping the discreet ministerial cross he wore out from the neck of his shirt, breaking the chain so he could hold it out at arm’s length. “Back, foul shade! Return to the depths of hell from whence thou issued forth, and trouble no more the realms of the living. Begone!”

  The terrible face exploded like a ripe puffball mushroom. Gideon, crouched in a heap with Lee, Jack and Anna, ducked as the shockwave hit, bizarrely accompanied by a chuckle. “Bloody hell, Zeke! What was that?”

  Ezekiel swung around in triumph. “I don’t know,” he declared, “but don’t be afraid, any of you. It’s gone now.”

  Gideon stared at him in amazement. “You’ve been bloody dying to say all that, haven’t you?”

  Zeke smiled. He blew gently on the cross, polished it on his sleeve, and tucked it away into the breast pocket of his shirt. He strode over to Lee and his brother, holding out his hands to help them up. “As a matter of fact, I have.”

  About the Author

  Harper Fox is the author of many critically acclaimed M/M romance novels, including Stonewall Book Award-nominated Scrap Metal and Brothers of the Wild North Sea, a Publishers Weekly Best Book. Her novels and novellas are powerfully sensual, with a dynamic of strongly developed characters finding love and a forever future—after an appropriate degree of turmoil. She loves to show the romance implicit in everyday life, and she writes a sharp action scene too.

  To find out more about Harper and see updates on her current writing projects, please visit www.harperfox.net.