They Always Wait

"Good day to you, Sir!" he called to me from the porch as I rode up. "I take it you're the new Master of Bedlam House."

"I am," I acknowledged. "William Fitzgerald. I've just taken possession and moved in. Out of curiosity, why would you presume I was he?"

"Because no one else but the postman would be barmy enough to be out in this," he told me with a gesture at the sky, "and he uses one of those motor-lorries." I wasn't sure how to take his comment, with the intimation that I was crazy.

"I'm on my way about, to meet my tenants," I told him, choosing to ignore it. "Is your father around?"

"Sorry," he told me. "He and Charlie are out mending fences. That's got to be done, regardless of weather."

"In that case, would you tell him I stopped by and would like a word with him at some point?" I asked.

"Certainly, sir," he told me, so I bid him a good day and rode off. Although he might be eligible to be my handyman, I didn't particularly like his flip attitude, so mentally crossed him off my list of possibilities.

At the second house, I was invited in by Mrs. Cooper, to warm up and share a spot of tea. The fact that her two daughters were home didn't hurt a bit. Her two, very attractive, teenage daughters. They, at least, had the courtesy not to suggest I was crazy for being out in the rain. Not for lack of thinking it, I suspect, but more likely better breeding. Regardless, we chatted about my moving in and the state of the house, along with their farm and its goings-on. In fact, it was a pleasant conversation, devoid of any reference to the mystery of my parents' disappearance. The weather was turning worse, if that were possible, so I decided to head on back, after taking my leave of the Coopers.

On the way back, a rather freakish thing occurred. As I rounded the corner of the lane towards the stables, a cyclone -- or water spout, I suppose -- sprang up around me, spooking my horse. And me, to be honest. It seemed to hover around us no matter which way we went, whether my horse was backing or bolting. I thought I heard a strange sighing in the swirling wind and water, almost crying, sounding quite a bit like my name, before it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. By which time Bonnie, my mare, was almost to the front gates and on her way to town. I got her calmed down and back to the stable. In truth, she calmed down faster than I did.

I made my way to the kitchen, stripped off my wet boots, hat and duster, grabbed a bottle of Scotch and headed for the Library. I stoked up the fire with still shaking hands and sat in front of it, in the overstuffed wingback chair that one could virtually sink into. One glass of Scotch neat was followed by one sipped as my nerves steadied. I told myself the sighing was a trick of my imagination, that it was just the wind of the tempest and nothing demonic or supernatural. I told myself that I was just overwrought from the stress of moving in and adjusting to the new surroundings. I told myself several other lies before I got down to admitting the truth.

It had sounded like a woman's voice, possibly my mother's, calling my name.

I shut my eyes and tried to ignore it, but I kept hearing it over and over, sad, frightened, desperate. Wwiiilllliiaaammmm... it would sigh and a chill would run up my spine. I needed someone to talk to, to set me straight, but there wasn't anyone. Just a huge house with a host of secrets. Secrets which were beginning to haunt me, if I let my imagination go.

I am not crazy! I insisted to myself. One only fears the unknown. So how do I learn about this house and its peculiarities? I realized that I'd left the diary beside my bed upstairs, but I had Mrs. Wearing's ledger, still in the kitchen. I resolved to retrieve it and read it post-haste.

It proved informative, in many ways. To start, I had no idea the amount of property the family held. Not just the real estate, but the art, jewelry, historical collectibles and so forth. My ancestors had apparently done very well in acquiring legitimate and questionably legitimate items down through the years. I discovered that in addition to things like suits of armor and tapestries, there was a reconstruction of a medieval torture chamber dating to the time of the Inquisitions in the basement. One of Mr. Lancaster's keys fit its lock. And there was quite a bit of Renaissance artwork, mostly paintings but including some sculpture. And some manuscripts as well, and very ancient if the catalog is to be believed. For example, Daemonolatreia, circa 1600, Clavis Alchimiae, circa 1630, Kryptographik, circa 1810 and Sadducismus Triumphatus, circa 1680. These were all noted as being kept in The Vault, which I could not find on the map of the house. There were also notations for a copy of Al Azif from circa 900 AD and a copy of Libre Ivonis noted as circa 1100 AD. Oddly enough, they weren't associated with a particular room, like most of the other art was. I resolved to see if these manuscripts actually existed, especially in such a dilapidated old house.

The descriptions of the rooms in the house were fascinating as well. I had expected the many "hidden passageways" that would comprise the servants' access to the various areas of the house while keeping them out of sight of the occupants. I did not expect the listing of rooms which did not appear to have either ingress or egress. They were listed as if an afterthought, separate from the others.

The South Tower loft was listed with a notation DNE next to it, as were perhaps a half dozen other rooms. DNE must have meant Do Not Enter, and to do so would most likely enrage my father, for Mrs. Wearing had said she'd braved his wrath to look for him. It was there that she found the massive amount of blood which caused her to call the authorities. According to the diary, it was his trysting place with Mme. Renault. I wondered what the other DNE rooms held. Some corresponded to the list of rooms with no entrance or exit.

The pure volume of information, plus the rest of the Scotch, proved enough to cause me to fall asleep, though I had many disjointed and surreal thoughts running through me, from the simple what doctor was my father referring to, about my mother? to the question what sort of rituals might have been practiced in secret in this manse of the hidden? and not least, what family curse? Not particularly conducive to a good night's sleep, though the chair was comfortable enough.

* * * * *

[Wednesday]

I woke to that damned cock again, and I had the fleeting desire to wring its neck and fricassee it. I realized incidentally that I had been dreaming, but it faded quickly, faster than I could remember what it was about. This time I knew where my head and body aches were coming from and set about to find some headache papers and some more Scotch. Not the best of breakfasts, but sufficient relief.

I decided to forego riding the estate and concentrated on exploring the house. My memories of it as a child were drastically simpler than it was turning out to be. I thought to explore the taboo first... the rooms which had been marked DNE. Three were easy to access: the infamous South Tower Loft, the Mechanical Room and the North Tower Bedroom, which is where my father allegedly took care of his ailing wife, my mother. Three were inaccessible, according to the map, and simply numbered with Roman Numerals III, V and VII. Servants' passages ran nearby, but did not appear to connect.

With enough headache paper vapors and Scotch in me to compliment the two pieces of toast with marmalade that was breakfast, I headed for the South Tower Loft. As if to emphasize its Do Not Enter status, the entrance was at the top of a narrow winding stairway and the door was decorated with a skull and crossed bones. I did note that the bas relief of the skull seemed to have horns on it, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time.

I found the key which fit its lock and let myself in. There was a twist style switch on the wall just inside the door, so I turned it. To say I was surprised would have been putting it mildly. The yellow glow of the electric lamps threw the contents into stark relief. Seven years had done nothing to improve the look of the room, save to allow the blood to become a deep, dark stain on the floor and walls. The remains of a bed and a dresser lay smashed and scattered about, with evidence of some pieces having been moved, most likely by the police, as well as what appeared to be statuary and other artwork, mostly torn and broken.

There were deep gouges on the walls near the door to the balcony, as if rent by giant claws, and a makeshift job of boarding up the panes had been done. A closer look at the floor showed that the carpet had been pulled back and there were faint traces of paint or dye in patterns where it had lain.

I must admit, even for a skeptic such as myself, a feeling of disquiet settled over me. This room had more the look of the scene of an epic mortal combat than that of a passionate tryst. One thing was certain. The constables were right. There were no bodies here. I resolved to have a look at the North Tower Bedroom next.

It was a trudge across the manor to the other side, made even more frustrating by the difficulties I had finding the hidden latches to the doors concealing the servants' passages, which I had determined would give me the shortest route. I did, eventually, make it there.

It took some sorting through the keys to open the door, for this one had three locks on it, rather than the usual one, and oddly enough, one appeared steel, one copper and one silver. I had thought the loft strange. Opening this door made the other pale in comparison. I felt like I was entering a profane funeral parlor.

There were the normal articles one would expect to find in a bedroom... a bed, dresser, marble-topped commode with basin and pitcher, a built-in wardrobe, an attached bath and so forth. What one would not normally find was the velvet-line coffin with the silver manacles dangling over its sides, nor the painted, mystic looking circle in which it was centered, nor the black candles in the wrought iron candlesticks standing about shoulder height.

This was the room in which my father took care of my ailing mother? Imprisoned looked more likely.

I carefully made my way around the room's bizarre centrepiece until I reached the wardrobe. Not surprisingly, it was locked. Again I foraged among the keys until I found one that fit. Opening the wardrobe made me realize I was beginning to get numb to surprise. Hanging neatly on a series of hangers were cloaks and dresses. The cloaks were of velvet with mystical symbols sewn on to them, while the dresses were not much more than gauze wraps. On a woman, they would be essentially transparent. Also, hanging from hooks were thick, soft cords like one might use to tie back drapes. I noted that in the bottom were a half dozen pairs of satin slippers, some black, some white, some blood red.

I went to look at the dresser and it was mostly empty, save for the top two drawers, side-by-side.

The left-hand drawer contained a number of medical reference books, most of them dealing with pharmacology, toxins and antidotes, and homeopathic medicine. The right-hand drawer must have been the supply cabinet for the left. It contained dozens of phials with labeling in several languages, and some only having formulary numbers on them. My head was spinning with all this new information and I was sorely tempted to go find the Scotch again, but I had set myself a task and at minimum, I intended to visit the three accessible DNE rooms.

Closing the bedroom up behind me, and locking it, I made my way back down to the main floor and thence to the stairwell leading down to the basement. It was there that I had noted the dungeon was located, but more important to my current purposes, that was where the Mechanical Room was. The passageways were tight and damp, the scent being somewhat like a distant swamp. The stairwell gave way to a central foyer where several other passages branched off. The arched tunnels gave more the impression of a castle's undercroft, although these did give access to the coal bunker, wine cellar, miscellaneous storage, the handyman's workshop and so forth. One of them also led to the Mechanical Room. I knew I was there when I found myself standing outside a brick wall with a thick steel door and the words "Mechanical Room" stenciled in paint on it. It also was secured by a huge padlock.

Again, the Ring of Keys came into play and I found one to unlock the door.

This room held quite a bit fewer surprises than the other two... for awhile. When they converted the gas lighting to electric, this is where they had put the distribution and fuse panels. One entire wall was taken up by dials and switches and cloth loom cables.

There was also a pad which had been prepared to receive a boiler that wasn't there. Just before I left for America, my father had talked about putting in steam heat, through radiators, to reduce the need for the less efficient fireplaces. Apparently that had never been completed, although some piping had already been roughed in. There were steamfitters' tools on a pipe bench along one of the walls. A worm auger had been installed, connecting the coal bunker to this room, probably to make stoking the boiler easier. I didn't see anything that would warrant a Do Not Enter, though. Until.

Until I sat down on a sawhorse next to the pipe bench and it moved. The fact that it moved wasn't surprising. The fact that part of a plastered fieldstone foundation wall cracked open was.

Now, you can understand that with all the weird things I'd been experiencing so far, I became immediately suspicious. I looked around and found a spring-operated torch and upon winding it, was pleased to see it light up quite brightly. With torch in hand, I went to investigate the crack in the wall.

Close inspection showed me that it was, in fact, a hidden door. God knows how many tons of stone and plaster, but it was balanced perfectly. I eased it open and looked for a light switch but there wasn't one. The light from the torch told me what I needed to know, though.

I was standing in some sort of study or laboratory. I noticed oil lamps in sconces placed about, so I set about lighting them. By the time I had them all lit, the scene before me amazed me. The walls were floor to ceiling books, and there was a long table down the center with all sorts of books, parchments, diagrams and so forth scattered all over. A quick look at the book shelves showed they were mostly concerned with mysticism and the occult. On the table were a number of sketches of mystic type circles and on top of them, a book on demonology. A bookmark denoted a chapter concerning Banishment.

There were other books nearby containing some of the lewdest, most pornographic pictures and passages I had ever seen. I'd heard rumors, of course. One does, in a boys' school. But these weren't just drawings. These were photographs of some of the most improbable situations one could imagine. One of the books was devoted to Sex Cult Worship, while another was titled The Sacred and the Profane. The emphasis being on the profane, based on the illustrations.

There was a tablet off to the side with a number of handwritten notes -- I presume, my father's -- about how to protect oneself from succubae and incubae. One scrawl, heavily underlined, simply said Don't Sleep! That didn't seem very practical. It is embarrassing to admit, but the graphic nature of the illustrations was having a disconcerting effect on me. Bluntly, I hadn't had any sort of sex -- with another person -- since I left America and the Little Gent was making his desires known. I needed looser trousers. Very much looser. In the meantime, I was also getting disconcerted at the implications of all the material I was discovering.

Obviously, the police investigation had been cursory at best. Non habeas corpus, just a lot of sanguinis. And now, all the signs I was finding pointed to my father battling some kind of sex demons and it would seem they were winning. Taking the book on Demonology and my father's notes, I left everything else where it was, deciding it was safest if it stayed hidden until I needed to reference it again. When the door swung back into place with a ponderous thud! and latched, I decided to retreat to the kitchen for something to eat, and more importantly, to drink.

The sun was setting by the time I had made up a side of stew to go with my Scotch. My head was spinning with all the new knowledge and subsequent implications, mostly challenging my basic beliefs about my life and my family. I was torn between selling the place and leaving forever, or burying myself in uncovering the story behind the strangeness. I finished my meal, took the bottle and the book with me and headed for the Library. I had barely finished stoking up the fire when a chill feeling of foreboding stole over me, like a shadow out of nowhere on a sunny day. I eased into the overstuffed chair in front of the fire as I looked around, as if the source of my unease might be corporeal.

In the end, I was just too spooked. The paintings on the walls seemed to be leering at me. The statuary alternately enticing or threatening. The books moving as if gaining life. I quit the Library and headed for my bedroom. I should have left the book behind.

I stoked up the fire against the room's chill which I thought was due to the weather, then stripped off and climbed into bed, setting the bottle, my glass and the book on the nightstand, alongside my father's diary and the backup candle -- the electricity wasn't particularly stable, especially with the storming. I fell off into dreams. Restless dreams. Dreams I guessed were inspired by the material I'd been reading.

She came out of the glow of the fireplace, voluptuous curves of red skin, black lips and nails, yellow eyes and glistening white fangs... and built like a brick privy. I think the truly disturbing thing, aside from my feeling instantly hard and a compulsion to throw this creature to the floor and fuck her brains out, was the way she used her tail like a sensuous serpent, writhing across her body and exciting me beyond belief. Frightening me, too, actually.

The medical doctors call them "lucid dreams." The spiritualists call them "sendings." The headmaster at St. Egidius called them "wet dreams" and you got punished for soiling the linens. I called this one the sexiest apparition I'd ever imagined and she seemed so incredibly real as she stalked across the floor to the end of the bed.

Well, hello... I heard her husky, sexy voice in my head. You must be the Scion. I am sure it will be a pleasure knowing you.

"Um, I'm not Scion," I tried to tell her. I'm not sure if I was actually saying it aloud, or only aloud in the dream, or maybe just thinking it to her. I was well confused by the reality of it. "I'm William Fitzgerald, the new owner of this place. My father owned it before me, but he's passed on... uh... who might you be?" No one said dreams had to make sense.

You are Charles' son, she smiled, Scion of the Fitzgeralds. He has not passed. He is simply busy elsewhere. But he does not concern me now. I am finding myself much more concerned with you. Young, vigorous, hornier than Samael himself... sweet...

As she talked... thought?... to me, she moved onto the edge of the bed, slinking forward towards me, her luscious breasts swinging gently beneath her, her smile riveting me and almost making me forget those alabaster fangs. My skin was crawling with desire, like a thousand little ants of pleasure tickling me as she pulled down the comforter and slid up my body, pressing her ample bosom into my thighs as she did.