They Always Wait

The entries in the demonology book just underscored how deep I was in it. Both were considered Queens of Demons, Agrat being one of the four wives of the fallen angel Samael and Ardat being either handmaiden to one of the others or one of the others herself, and both just about as powerful as a succubus could get. I began to understand my father's scrawled and underlined Don't Sleep!

I couldn't avoid sleep. Or at least, not completely. I began to muse that the sleeping pills I'd taken might render me comatose enough to not dream. If they preyed on men in their dreams, then the answer wasn't don't sleep, it was don't dream. I was going to need to make a run to the chemist's in the morning. I should have remembered that my father had been down this road.

Armed with my faulty assumptions, I took my pills and Scotch and headed for bed. It did occur to me to switch to a different guest suite, but that feeling of doom persuaded me that it didn't matter where I slept... she would find me.

The pills were coming on as I lay in the bed, my eyes closed and hoping to make it through the night without being sexually attacked. I felt the black velvet of Hypnos' blessing easing over me and I stopped fighting it. I let go and slipped off to sleep.

He will not be much fun this night, a woman's voice opined. He is intoxicated and I do not wish to spend the time purifying him.

I suppose you are right, a second woman's voice agreed and I knew that voice. I was the one from last night! I will have to take measures to prevent his intentional poisoning of himself before bed.

I looked. I had to. I would find out when I woke up if I'd pissed the bed.

There were two of them! One the self-identified Agrat from last night and another of different coloring but similar shape standing with her, looming over the bed, looking at me.

Ardat, since you want to know, the one I didn't know informed me, straight into my head. She hadn't even moved her lips. And it is very un-gentlemanlike to try to make yourself toxic to us. We could flush the poison from your body and enjoy you, but that takes time I do not wish to spend. She leered at me as she added, so... pleasant dreams!

She and Agrat disappeared in a red mist, but not everything stopped moving. I could sense shadows lurking around the edges of the room and felt a strong feeling of disappointment. And this was supposed to be a dream! I closed my dream-eyes and sought the darkness, hoping to be unaware of anything going on around me.

* * * * *

[Friday]

I guess adrenaline works against barbiturates. At minimum, the combination gives you one hell of a hangover. And a murderous desire to find that damned cock and squeeze the life out of him.

I managed to crawl to the bath with the startling realization that the demonology book, which I had purposely left in the library last night, was sitting on the nightstand. Immersing my head in cold water helped wake me up a little, but it did nothing for the pain.

I struggled through stripping the bed, realizing I hadn't changed the linens after my first encounter with the dream demons, and found the servants' linen closet with fresh bedding. My head was pounding, but I made myself clean up the room before grabbing the book and dropping it in the library on my way to the kitchen and putting together some breakfast. Maybe I should change my invite to Abigail to just being here days and going home at night, like Mrs. Wearing, I thought as I put together some fried tomatoes and mushrooms, bangers and scrambled eggs. Frying was easy to do. For baking, I went to the town bakery. I thought about the headache papers but decided I was getting to where I relied on them too much, so I suffered and made a pot of coffee to go with the fry-up.

This difference between waking and dream states was really confusing me. If I was dreaming, and the succubae visited me in my dream, then my body being filled with Scotch, opium and barbiturates seemed to fend them off in the real world. If they existed in the real world. They would have to, to be able to be summoned. But they didn't attack in the waking world. Or at least, it seemed as if they didn't. I'd have to go back through my father's journal and notes and pay very close attention.

And now I knew there were secret rooms in the mansion, not noted on Mrs. Wearing's maps. Rooms I would have to figure out how to open. And those DNE ones that didn't seem to have any entrance. They probably did and it was just a hidden door. Except that the one in the loft resisted any attempt to breach it. This was getting far more complicated than I thought it would be. But, still... I had to know.

I had to start thinking sneaky. I resolved to ride in to the chemist's, pick up a significant amount of soporifics, hide some in the stable in case Agrat made good on her promise to make it difficult for me to use the pills, spike a couple of bottles of wine with them and definitely read up on getting some form of magical protection from those two. And their minions. I week ago, I could not have imagined thinking like this.

I finished up breakfast, went to the stable and saddled Bonnie. The weather was still horrible, although the gale force winds from the night before had died down to just a driving drizzle, whipped by the still formidable winds. Armed with my duster, slouch hat and saddlebags, I rode into town. First to the chemist where I explained my need for a large amount of sleep aids, not wanting to ride into town all that often, and thence to the Blue Boar Inn where I sought out Abigail.

"It's not been a week, sir," she smiled at me, "and the lamb stew won't be til next Tuesday. So what brings you to be visiting us?"

"Other than your legendary beauty?" I asked and she actually blushed. It looked cute on her. "I have a revised proposition for you."

"You're propositioning me, sir?" she teased. At least, I think it was a tease. She was still blushing.

"Yes," I smiled in return. "Instead of living at the house as my Housekeeper, I would like to offer you the position at fifteen pounds per week, you would arrive in the morning and leave in the evening. I would want you to cook, clean, do the laundry and shopping, and so forth. I am only using a few rooms, so it should not be too much of a burden."

"Fifteen pounds, sir!" Her blushing had gone to a wide-eyed stare. "That is quite a lot!"

"Yes, I suppose it is," I agreed. "And I would still pay for your incidentals. And I am still looking for a handyman, if you know someone." Her expression went from one of surprise to a squint of suspicion.

"What's wrong with the house?" she asked levelly. Damn that female intuition.

"Nothing, really," I offered a bit lamely. "It's too much for me to handle and get about the business of managing the place. Are you interested?" I could see her thinking it over. As smart as she was to be suspicious, I was offering a significant amount of money.

"Can I try it for a week, sir?" she asked, still suspicious. "To see if I like it?"

"That is fine with me, Abigail," I told her. "I suppose you will have to give the owner here notice."

"That'd be my Mum," she told me. "And I would think she wouldn't have any trouble getting a replacement. Just not as cheap. I can start tomorrow morning. What time, sir?"

"Why don't you plan on working from 8 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock in the evening?" I suggested. "I generally rise late and would want breakfast around 9 o'clock or so... as soon as I can find that damned bird and kill it... and dinner would be around 6. Lunch might vary depending on what was going on that day. And if you needed to, you could pick a day for a day off."

"Fifteen pounds a week and a day off!" she exclaimed. "Are you feeling alright, Mr. Fitzgerald?"

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just a bit harried. Tomorrow morning would be great."

"I think I would choose to take Sundays off, sir," she told me. "That's when we do our weekly shop and food preparation for the inn and my Mum could use the help."

"That is perfectly fine, Abigail, and thank you. Here is a key to the servants' entrance. It is around back, down the stairs by the terrace. You can let yourself in, if I'm not available. By the way, did you say next Tuesday was the lamb stew?"

"Yes, sir," she smiled, taking the key. "And since this is Friday, you'll just have to wait out the weekend."

I agreed it was a shame and headed out to the bakery. I figured I might as well kill three birds with one stone. At least the Good Lord was kind enough to keep the downpour until I had the baked goods in the saddlebags and had started home. I was cold and drenched by the time I got there. If this was going to be the norm, I was going to look into a covered carriage. I got Bonnie squared away and my haul into the house, then decided on a ham sandwich and warmed up coffee for lunch. Then I was going after those DNE rooms III, V and VII. After some journal reading, of course.

It was while munching on the sandwich and sipping the coffee, ensconced in the wingback chair in the library, that I had my epiphany. I was flipping through my father's journal when I noticed a strange pattern. The upper right-hand corner of each page had a mark instead of a page number. As I flipped through the pages, they seemed to animate, much like one of those kineographs sold for amusement. So I did it again. And again. And what I finally realized was that the little stars that were moving about looked a lot like the pattern Mme. Renault had used when touching the wall. My heart leapt to my throat.

If this was the pattern to open the room, all I needed was a starting point. But how to determine that point? I closed my eyes and thought back to Mme. Renault touching the wall. I tried to remember where she had touched first, but infuriatingly could not envision it. There had to be some kind of clue, somewhere! I wolfed down the rest of my food and drained my cup, grabbing my messenger bag and hurrying to the loft with the journal in hand. I was damned well going to figure this out!

I went to the wall and began a close inspection. I wanted to remember the first place she had touched had been about shoulder height. Her shoulder height. The wallpaper pattern made the process much more difficult, since it was one of those cute "celestial" prints with suns, moons, planets, stars...

Stars. A bunch of stars, of all different shapes and sizes. I went back to the journal and flipped through the animation. The star was the same star on each page and it was weird because it was seven-pointed. Five and six pointed stars were common. Not seven. I went back to the wall and searched again, looking for a seven-pointed star.

I found it. And touched it. And felt like I'd touched one of those Wimshurst generators they had at school. The somewhat sadistic students thought it funny to trick a new kid into shocking himself with static electricity. That was what this felt like. Then I realized I needed the rest of the pattern.

Referring back to the journal, I thought I had it right, but repeatedly got no results. Until I realized I might be flipping it the wrong way. So instead of front to back, I took a good, hard look at the animation going back to front, put the book down and tried to go through it sequentially from memory.

The panel unlatched. With quite a bit of trepidation, I opened it the rest of the way. I was not prepared for what confronted me.

A shrine. I really don't have a better way to describe it. It was a seven-sided room with panels depicting all sorts of demons in vivid detail. Although there was a single central electric lamp hanging from the ceiling, it appeared the intent was to light the room with candles. Black candles, specifically. And there was an altar-like pedestal in the middle of the room which currently held a book, a malformed candle and a silver colored bell. I decided to leave them alone.

I took a closer look at the panels. They were painted in such a way as to make one think you were looking out a castle window onto a scene in Hell. Red-orange skies, black smoldering hills, demons flying every which way, human shapes in various positions of agony... straight out of the mind of Hieronymus Bosch or Hans Memling. One of the wall panels, directly opposite the corner, or point, where the entrance was located, showed a slightly different scene. In that one, you were looking through a castle window, but onto an orgy. All kinds of people doing all kinds of erotic and taboo things. The figures weren't moving, but the painting was so real it was like a photograph. I reached out to see if the surface image was three dimensional or not.

Bad idea.

I felt like I'd suddenly been wrapped in a cold mist and sucked through the wall.

As the fog and chill left me, I became aware of my surroundings. Nothing was to be done about my heart pounding in my ears and every muscle in my body coiled like a tightly wound spring. By sheer will, I refused to panic. I wasn't in the middle of an orgy. I was in a dimly lit room, circular in nature, and mostly black.

There were a large number of strange markings on the wall, mostly in red but a few in white. There was a low bench along the wall, curved to fit it, and several items on it. Although the place felt creepy and dangerous, I decided to risk taking a look anyway.

The first thing to catch my eye was a piece of parchment with writing on it. Across the top it said, "De summonendo servis suis ad imperium"... I wished like hell that I'd paid attention in Latin class. I picked it up and immediately felt surrounded by a cloud of malevolent creatures, moving in the shadows, watching me. I decided to take the parchment with me, for further study some place more congenial, then realized... I had no idea how to get back.

Now the panic was starting to rise.

I looked around again, hoping for a clue to the egress. If it was there, I didn't see it. There were other items on the bench and some irrational part of me decided that taking them with me would be a good idea, too. Bringing back items was one of the main reasons for bringing the bag. The items included a slightly curved rod that looked like a huge tusk -- maybe walrus? -- with a gold ball capping it, a silver bowl with an incredibly sharp knife in it, a small leather bound book, two candles -- one in the shape of a naked male and the other a naked female -- a small ebony statue of a winged demon and a red-colored amulet with three vertical bars engraved on its face, hung on a leather thong. Most of the items would fit in my bag. For some inane reason, I put the amulet around my neck.

The room came alive. That cloud of malevolence became a crowd of ill-formed imps huddling around the edges of the room, all nervously watching me. The red writing on the wall began to writhe and pulse, and I started to feel myself getting hard. The only thing not gyrating was the white writing and one glyph jumped out at me -- a scrawl of three vertical bars, just like on the amulet. It suddenly dawned on me that it had to be the door. The way into and out of the hidden Room III. I hurried to it and put my hand on the rune. Again, I felt like I'd been sucked through an icy fog. But this time, I was on my hands and knees, back in the shrine in the South Tower loft.

To say I was shaken would be severe understatement.

I managed to stagger to my feet and leave the dark shrine, stumbling out into the loft room and pushing the door closed behind me. I don't know why its click! as it latched gave me some comfort, but I wanted to believe that with that door shut, the creatures on the far side could not come into the house. Or come into the part of the house I inhabited, at least. I made my way to the stairs and locked the door to the loft as well, finally making my way to the kitchen and several jiggers of liquid fortitude.

Best intentions of investigating the hidden rooms aside, a day that had started well was not going so well now. I knew I was going to have trouble sleeping, and right then I wasn't sure it that was a good thing or not. And I still had two other rooms to find. I was beginning to think that a visit to the church for some holy water was advisable. I knew where the rooms were located, because of Mrs. Wearing's map. What I didn't know was how to get in and out, the latter being much more important now.

This moving through the vapors was unsettling, and yet I didn't seem to have taken any physical damage. My mind was probably never going to be the same, but at least I could still press on in my search for what happened to my parents. And for a defense against these demonic succubae which I now believed to be all too real.

Although the storming was picking up outside, I was well ensconced in the house and paid it no mind. Until later. I decided that using Mrs. Wearing's map, which was rapidly being thought of as "The Map," I would seek out the servants' passage closest to Room V. I must have been getting a little deranged, because I found it easier to ignore the sensible part of me that told me I was getting in over my head.

When confronted with a wall of books that should have been the entrance, I realized it was the classic trick bookcase... one of the books would trigger a hidden mechanism opening the passage. Or so I thought. A half hour of pulling out every book that looked like a remote possibility yielded nothing. I was getting disconcerted. Baffled. Annoyed. Where the hell was the hidden latch? In disgust, I stuffed my hands in my pockets as I swore under my breath, and in my irritation bumped into one of the candles placed about on the occasional tables.

Candles! I ran about pulling every candle from its sconce and putting it back, hoping for that magic click! to happen. It didn't. Now thoroughly dismayed, I walked back over to the table and slumped down into the chair next to it. Click!

One of the bookshelves popped out a little bit. I stood up and looked down at the chair, realizing that there was a cable connected to one of the feet and my weight had shifted the chair and pulled on the cable. This house was going to drive me out of my mind... I was becoming convinced that the previous owners, my ancestors all, were completely out of their gourds. Which didn't reflect well on me.

In any case, the bookshelf had moved and I had to investigate it. It was, as hoped, a servants' passage, narrow and dimly lit once I turned the electrical switch on the wall near the opening. I didn't bother trying to close the entrance behind me. In fact, I felt better with it open. I eased down the passage until I got near where I thought the hidden Room V should be, on the other side of the wall, and started looking for something to touch, something to trigger the icy fog. You can tell what kind of mettle I was in when I wanted to be swallowed up by an icy fog.

I set about trying to find some kind of symbol or glyph, some kind of clue about how to get into the hidden room and was having no luck. I looked for hidden levers, or wires, or something that was out of the norm but there wasn't anything. Just plain, dusty, dim, interior walls hidden between rooms. I will admit, my temper got the best of me.

"DAMMIT!" I yelled as I struck my fist on the wall, shaking loose a lot of dusty debris. I was coughing from it when something on the other side growled.

Growled. A low, throaty, bestial kind of growl. On the other side of the thin wall. This was not good.

I was about to give up and go back down the passage when the amulet still around my neck began to heat up and glow... and the wall directly where I'd hit it became a swirling vortex of vapors. I should have been crapping my trousers but something was drawing me towards that cloudy section of wall. Something was controlling me and I could not have stopped even if I'd died right there.