writing_shadows

From the weekend.

Dolly was walking down a street in Wolverhampton when she noticed the flyers. It was a 17 year old girl called Mary; missing for three days; and a mobile phone number. She picked one off a telegraph post, and was hit with a wave of tiredness and grief; worry and determination. Whoever had put it up was trying really hard to find his loved one.

She sighed. Mary was probably dead; murdered by some predator or other. Either that or she was fleeing an abusive relationship of some sort. Idly she searched Facebook for the girl’s name and quickly ascertained that she’d been chucked out of her family home six months previously; and had ended up moving into a shabby little flat with her boyfriend David. Lots of normal entries, mundane worries about rent and bills; sorrow about the argument she’d had with her mum. Then nothing for the last three days; not even locked down and private; and nothing to indicate that her relationship had been anything other than reasonable. She looked at the boyfriend’s profile; the last three entries were filled with worry about his girlfriend; and various friends being sympathetic.

Dolly sighed slightly. She should go to the court meeting; be polite to the Prince and see how many Carthians had turned up. But she wasn’t really in the mood for making nice at a bunch of Elder vampires.

She decided to go to the flat and see what she could find. She stood at the stoop and noticed a CCTV camera scanning the street. She grinned and flipped open her laptop in a corner behind a bush. She was rapidly in the network, and found the footage from three days previous. Dull and boring; people going in and out; nothing odd. She even saw Mary and a man she figured must be David coming in; laden with cheap shopping bags. The time stamp went later and later until it was dark and around two am; when she spotted Mary come out of the door that led into the flats.

This was odd. Firstly two o’clock in the morning was not a normal time for people to be going out in this kind of area. Especially when dressed in what Dolly could only surmise was nightwear – and no shoes or coat. Secondly she was stumbling, with a slightly jerky movement. She could be sleepwalking; or something else was going on.

Dolly smiled to herself; set the data mine to track Mary on the CCTV footage and started to retrace the route. She lost her as the girl ducked down an alleyway and towards a field. Dolly shucked off her shoes and stepped into her last footprints on the CCTV footage to have a flash of her stumbling along muttering “I’m coming, I’m coming…”

Summon was a possibility; and she may well find that Mary was the pet or snack of some vampire. But Dolly’s hunch was that this was something different. She pulled her earpiece out of her pocket, clipped on the mini camera and started to trace where the girl had gone next.

It was a long walk; across a bridge that spanned a motorway and through a number of fields. Dolly eventually found herself pushing her way through an overgrown hedge that was the boundary of an old house. A voice in her ear informed her she was looking at the crumbling remains of an old Georgian stately home; that last belonged to a Peter Follett. As she trotted along the over grown lawns and under the huge oak trees the voice relayed the tragic tale where his daughter had been drowned in a fountain in the back gardens and as a result of his obsession in trying to find a way to get her back his marriage had broken down and his wife had left him. Rather like Arthur Conan Doyle finding as many mediums and occultists as possible. The increasingly eccentric Mr Follett and his servants had last been seen in around January 1951.

She looked up at the looming masonry. Something was pricking her senses and she wasn’t surprised to see Twist suddenly flicker out of obfuscate as he opened the front door; with the kind of creak that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hammer Horror. She dropped her own obfuscate and scampered up the steps saying a cheerful hello.

Twist at least seemed reasonably happy to see her; even if he started looking round in a worried fashion. The pair entered the grand entrance hall and looked around.

Thick dust; a myriad of footprints; old newspapers and ancient fast food wrappers littered the floor. Dolly and Twist both looked at the walls as the impression of unfriendly eyes watching them.

Twist pulled out his tablet and flipped up the plans of the house. A quick discussion later and they decided to start at one side of the ground floor and work their way round. AS they walked they compared notes about the information they’d gleaned; and concluded that the house could well be awake in some way. Or it was ghosts.

They poked around what had once been a library; the books on the shelves scattered; burned and torn; but nothing more incriminating than the odd old murder mystery and a lot of Encyclopaedia Britannica; 1949 edition. The next door led into a conservatory come drawing room; and the fountain was visible in the back garden. Dolly pushed the door open, watching herself on the broken glass and inspected the fountain; laying a hand on the edge to find a wash of grief and disbelief; and a glance of a man sobbing as he dragged a child’s corpse from the water. Dolly rejoined Twist who had been poking about the drawing room and trying to get a net connection.

They brainstormed quickly and then hit their respective laptops. Dolly cracked into David’s Facebook to see if she could find any reason for the pair being thrown out of their respective homes. She found one entry in late February: “I’m going to be a dad!” in David’s entries and showed it to Twist; who responded with an entry on Mary’s indicating that the house they were in was a favoured spot to find some privacy. Dolly and Twist both said “bedroom” at the same time and as one turned to walk up the grand staircase.

The Master bedroom had once been opulent; with a huge four poster bed and bookshelves lining one wall. But the roof had caved in in one corner and the mattress from the bed was propped up against the broken window. A touch of the bed and there were flashes of David and Mary, Dolly dropped her hand rapidly and scrubbed it against her skirt slightly self consciously. Twist was looking at the books that were scattered on the floor; again with pages torn and stained or burnt. They worked through them methodically, finding that this was where Follett stored his occult books. Eventually they found a book that didn’t have a title on the spine; and rather than being printed it was hand written. Dolly picked it up and flicked on a torch to make it easier to read.

It was a fragment; but enough. It mentioned someone called Darlington Alton; and that he hoped that the thirteen wouldn’t be in too much pain; but that thirteen souls were not too high a price to pay for his Sarah. Dolly swallowed and handed it to Twist who scanned it quickly.

“Ok so. One grief stricken man murders thirteen people to get his daughter back. This is going to be ghosts.” Twist nodded and said he’d pop out to call the God King. Left alone upstairs Dolly poked around the rest of the rooms, finding ruined guest bedrooms and then the first closed door they’d come across. An attempt to shove it open failed, the wood was swollen and warped; but she managed to get it slightly open – wide enough for something small to wriggle in. Dolly smiled and pulled out a tiny leather harness with a fibre optic camera attached to it; and squeaked gently.

Squeak wriggled out of her pocket and looked up enquiringly. She sat patiently in Dolly’s hand as she fitted on the harness and then scampered through the gap; her tail wrapping around the cable as it trailed behind her.

Dolly watched on her tablet screen as the images were transmitted back. Inside was thick dust; but no footsteps. From the glimpses that the fisheye lens was giving her it was the bedroom of a young girl; with toys neatly arranged on shelving and the feet of a bed.

At the end of the room was what looked like a dresser from a distance; with something in front of the mildewed triptych of mirrors. The rat sprang up to the dresser top via a chair and the camera picked up a Ouija board, with a piece of paper resting beside it. Squeak bit into the paper and bounced back to her mistress, squeaking with satisfaction. Dolly gave her a tickle and a lump of chocolate as she read the paper.

“Please help me Daddy, please, it’s scary and dark; help me, don’t leave me daddy”

Dolly closed her eyes and touched the paper; concentrating hard. She saw Peter Follett before the board, scribbling with a burgeoning hope and despair colouring his emotions. There was a hand on his shoulder; and he turned; addressing him as Theodore. Dolly bit her lip as she concentrated hard and caught a glimpse of the man watching Follett as he scribbled. The man was staring hard at the planchett; and as Follett stopped looking at him a curious stillness settled over him; and he stopped breathing.

Dolly swore slightly; just as Twist came back up the stairs. He’d ended up talking to Max rather than Leviticus; but hopefully Max would find the God King and get him here. Dolly updated Twist and they looked at the floor plans.

They agreed that it was likely to be in the basement or in the caverns underneath; or possibly the ice cave the Victorian owner had put in; but they wanted to check the rest of the ground floor just in case. They trotted down the stairs and returned to where they had been before and continued to track through the house.

As they got closer to the kitchen area; where the plans showed the entrance to the cellars; the feeling of unfriendly eyes grew. The corridor in front of them was suddenly far too long and so dark that they couldn’t see the end. Dolly took a ball bearing out of her bag and rolled it down the floor, slightly startled when it eventually hit her in the heel. Twist grumbled and started to head off into the dark.

Dolly frowned slightly and looked around. The house was alive and watching; the question was how to communicate with it.

“Hello, can you hear me?” Dolly felt slightly silly as she spoke, but then stared as blood suddenly appeared on a wall.

“Yes I can hear you.”

Dolly thought rapidly.

“Hello. Erm, we’re looking for a girl – is she here?”

”Yes”

“Would you be upset if we took her away?”

”No.”

“Ok, so what do you want?”

”Food.”

“What’s your food?”

”The servants.”

Dolly grinned. That was easy then.

“What if we promise not to touch the servants? We just want to find Mary and get her out.” She stood there, looking into the darkness. There was a pause and then an exclamation from Twist. The corridor suddenly shortened and she could see he was about to enter another doorway. Dolly grinned, and went to catch him up; explaining the deal she seemed to have struck. Twist nodded and they headed into the kitchen and pulled up the trapdoor to clamber down the staircase.

There was the sound of voices and footsteps behind them. They looked back to find, rather than Leviticus there were about ten people looking at them. Dolly giggled slightly as Twist muttered that we needed to complain about the delivery service who supplied ten Ordo instead of one God King. Dolly looked up at the group of vampires; all smartly dressed in black and told them acidicly not to disturb the servants as if they did the house would object.

The Ordo Dolly recognised as being a colleague of Dr Finch’s nodded and started staring into space somewhat. The rest of them immediately started clambering for explanations; at which point Dolly and Twist gave them a brief summary of what they’d discovered and worked out as they walked through the cellar; the ice cave and then through an old iron gate that had been rusted half open. They came to an open cavern; lit with a low red glow. A pool of water proved to be the source of the light; with seeds floating on the surface and a glance into the water showed a tangle of bones and skulls. Opposite was an alcove which had a yawning black opening that made Dolly’s skin creep.

Then she spotted Mary, lying on a pile of stone; with the figure of someone dressed in an apron leaning over her. As they watched Mary picked up an old rusted knife and sliced at her arm.

There was a yell from behind Dolly. One of the Ordo; dressed in black robes strode forward; his eyes blazing with rage and the ghost seemed to be transfixed to the spot. Dolly managed to wriggle her way past the sudden milling vampires as the robed Ordo spotted another ghost and stopped it with a shout. Dolly tried to help Mary sit up; suddenly conscious that for someone who was six months pregnant she was very very big. Traces of water contaminated with the seeds were spilled down the ruins of her nightdress and when she opened her mouth to cough Dolly saw that she’d had her mouth filled with them. Dolly tried offering clean water out of a bottle she carried; but Mary recoiled at the touch of it, crying in terror. She tried offering chocolate instead; and Mary ate it hungrily.

Around them the Ordo milled; and Dolly was slightly bemused to see the one in robes heading towards the yawning corridor. She managed to persuade Mary to stand up and lean on her as she gently half helped and half dragged her towards the corridor that led outside.

She got Mary up and found that a crowd of cars were parked outside the house. She got Mary to sit down and draped her leather jacket around her shoulders to try and get her warmed up; and then wandered about the grounds trying to find a signal.

She got through to Leo and heard him start the engine of the van and then the slurp of coffee as he hung up. She came back to find Twist had emerged looking concerned; and the God King himself was just getting out of a car.

Dolly and Twist gently joshed Leviticus about how they wanted to make a complaint about the delivery service; before explaining what had happened. Twist then added to it; that the Ordo said it was a gate to the underworld and it appeared that a Dragallescu had tricked Follett into opening it in the first place. Follett had last been seen charging into the underworld crying for his daughter; and then Darlington Alton had followed him in; retrieved five chunks of rock from a river’s banks somewhere in the world of the dead and then had buggered off. Leviticus grinned and headed into the house; muttering about exploring the Underworld.

Dolly and Twist sighed. Twist then dragged Dolly to a distance from Mary. He tersely explained that the child was likely to be a “Gatekeeper” – someone whose sacrifice may permanently open the ghost gate. And the Ordo were getting excited about this as an opportunity to study the underworld.

Dolly and Twist turned to look at the crumpled figure of Mary and then back at each other. Dolly pulled out her mobile as Twist went to talk to Mary.

By the time Leo had drawn up, Twist and Dolly ha worked out who was going to organise what. They helped Mary into the seat of the van, and cadged some of Leo’s coffee from him for her. By the time they’d got to Wolverhampton General Dolly had got into contact with David and whilst the nurse and doctor were fussing over her Dolly quickly gave him a cut down version of events and a proposed solution. She then called Michael Pafford and came back into the hospital to find Mary was sleeping peacefully with David holding her hand.

Dolly nodded with satisfaction. Everything was in place. Now all she needed to do was buy a chocolate bar to replace the one Mary had eaten; and hope that the God King would return from spelunking in the Underworld.