A Haunted Night in the Morris-Jumel Mansion

As you've noticed, the blog has been overtaken by the serialization of The Double Life of Incorporate Things, which has been such a wonderful, fascinating ongoing experiment. But recent experiences ought not go unmentioned.

Fittingly on November 2nd, dia de los muertos, and All Saints' weekend, I spent the evening in the haunted and incredibly historic Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan for a ghost investigation, thanks to dear friend Elizabeth Kerri Mahon, author of Scandalous Women, who found out about it in the first place and invited us along (on her birthday, no less!).

This mansion saw the likes of George Washington, Aaron Burr, Bonapartes, and least of all, the indomitable lady of the house, Eliza Jumel.

Paranormal is my normal. I believe in ghosts because I have seen, heard and felt them, all in various ways and capacities through my life. If you've read my work you know that spirits and spirituality factor in as the major themes.

So I don't NEED proof. I know what I know. I am suspicious of and generally dislike the idea of ghost hunting. I write about ghost-busters, I don't need to patrol them myself, because often if you go looking for things the wrong kinds of things are looking for you.

But in this case, the mansion itself was putting on the evening, billing it in a relaxed manner in which it would be a historical sleepover with tour guides availing themselves to our questions and giving us a whole night in the house to ourselves, what a neat way to live in that house for a day and get a chance to immerse myself in the history of it. If there was a haunting along the way, so be it.

What I wasn't prepared for was the amount of spectral activity that availed itself to us in the house as if it were another tour guide. The lady of the house was certainly active for her guests. Known to actively and unabashedly haunt the house, Eliza Jumel was a fascinating woman who led a fascinating if not oft controversial life. (For more about this amazing lady, please visit Elizabeth's fabulous blog post about her.)

The evening began with the group of about twenty participants interested in history and the spectral (my kind of folk), listening in the small ballroom to gentlemen from Acoustic Archives. They spoke with us about some of the amazing spectral activity captured and recorded in the house, showcased video and audio, and explained a little about what they'd be doing with equipment in the house that night. We continued with a tour of the outside and full inside of the mansion by very talented, knowledgeable guides.

Then we all gathered in the kitchen, the basement of the house and the official "ghost hunting" began. With this, I was skeptical. Ghosts don't necessarily like to perform on command. The questions to "show yourself" and "give a sign" as bidden by the gentlemen with the equipment weren't really garnering a response. But they were amenable to all of us asking questions and participating and the group got an interesting discussion going in the dark, talking about history and positing things the spirits might be feeling or hanging onto. It was a large sort of seance, in a way, but there was just too much activity, too large of a group, I thought, to get a specific response. However there were significant cold spots near me and my friends, and I saw that someone had taken a photo and there were a lot of orbs. I sensed we were not alone, but I knew it would take time before something responded, if anything would. I don't like to test the spirits, and had this not been a welcoming energy in the building, I would not have stayed there. I certainly don't tempt malevolence. A fascinating development began when we decided to split up the group by gender. Men went upstairs with equipment, we ladies remained downstairs and for the next hour. And we communed. Without any real need for communication with spirits (I can sense people's desperation about these things, proof of the paranormal drove a lot of very intelligent persons from Conan Doyle to Houdini a bit batty, so I try to steer clear of ever having expectations of the spirit world, for in expectations therein sets up disappointments), we talked to them anyway.

We all, taking turns, told them of what all had happened for women in the intervening time since women had been there in that basement as slaves or servants, young or old, all of them living a life of great toil and struggle and limited freedoms. We told them of laws, of suffrage, of rights, of careers they likely couldn't have imagined in their day. We thanked them. Profusely. For being our foremothers. For having visions that grew into our modern world. For having stories no one would ever know. We honored them. We tried to imagine what their lives would have been like. We all realized how lucky we are now. How much there is to be thankful for. How much there is still left to be done, in terms of equality. And then, when we wondered if the lady of the house had much hand in the kitchen, all the track lighting flickered on in a wave and then off. (No one was near the switch and it was not on a dimmer so the effect would have been impossible to create by hand). There were certainly spiritually charged feelings about house and housework.

When we rejoined others upstairs, they were taking our questions and comments further, with incredible results. With a small flashlight with its cap unscrewed so that any connective presence from a ghostly response would make it flicker on or turn it back off, the lady of the manor was answering questions.

With a directive to turn the flashlight on to full or off depending on a yes, no, or 'flicker if maybe' question, the lady told us she liked our presence there, was fond of men but never really loved one, had complex feelings about children, was very proud of her home, would like to have a ball in the ballroom (she was hesitant about this until I clarified for her if she would like it if it were a ball done in the style and dance of her day, and this was a resounding flashlight "yes"). And she really liked being spoken to in French. (Thanks to fellow writer and bookseller Stacey Agdern for helping provide insights and some French).

Perhaps the most striking answer to a question was the flashlight blazing in full when asked if she might linger on haunting her own home because of fear. Fear of what was next. Fear of the beyond. Fear of passing onwards...

It's something I muse on in every one of my books. The veil between our world and the spirit world is always very thin in my work. As I feel it is very thin in general if one but focuses upon it. Ghosts play prominent roles; are heroes, antagonists, love interests, plot twists, problems, saviours, complications. What I try never to do is answer those questions beyond what I feel the characters can safely say. What the strictures of my worlds dictate.

I was moved by our night in the mansion, both from a human level of what we accomplished as people, strangers drawn together merely by a very respectful interest in history and what might haunt it. And then from a spirit level as there was no trickery to the flashlight, (I'm enough of a skeptic to have queried the item but there was no incentive for the light to be rigged, no one was filming this, no programs were watching, and no obvious way it could have been rigged, so I simply took the item for what it was) and Lady Jumel's responses matched what we know of history, of her nature, with some surprises and nuance. She deigned to bring herself to life for us and entertain in her home once more. What an honour.

I don't come away from a night like that with any answers, or any different notions about ghosts or about an afterlife. I believe what I believe; that the spirit world is always there for us, but that we shouldn't rush desperately into its arms. As for the Great Beyond, that's the divine mystery. And we'll all find out when we do. I don't go looking for proof of the supernatural, in this case, I went looking to spend time in a historic mansion. I let instances happen to me and then I enjoy and respect them for the isolated incidents they are. Life and the spirit is an unfolding journey. I can be a very impatient person, but when I just trust in process, I'm happier and more likely to be presented with all that I need, moment by moment, experience by experience. For more poetic and lyrical musings of that nature, please read my books.

Soon I'll post another musing of visiting a building that helped define me and my mission in life and art.

Happy Haunting...

 

 

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF INCORPORATE THINGS: Chapter 26.3

(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)

Chapter Twenty-Six (Part Three)

The late Lady Denbury was the body. She was the amalgam of "parts." She was the reanimate terror. The final, desecrating insult to the Denbury legacy…

A yellowed corpse with matted, dark hair that was tousled in what had once surely been a very lovely funereal coiffure now stood as the next parading terror at the dining room door. She was swathed in black robes synched by a golden belt, the flowing fabric hiding the somewhat disjointed and uneven height of her, as her body would have been pieced together from myriad bodies. This was done so that the unnatural creation would tether as many ghosts to the reanimate body as possible, one ghost per harvested body part, harnessing the most amount of life force possible to make the corpse active.

And then the corpse opened its mouth. Everything in the air screamed in response. This was just like it had been for us in Doctor Preston's hospital before; the unnatural tie of spirits that powered the body, the tenor of the dark magic carved into dead flesh, made the very fabric of the air shriek in a pitch specifically designed to undo the sanity of anyone within earshot. As the unseen ghosts that made the room drastically chill by their presence were worked up into spiritual frenzy in the hellish siren wail, plates and silverware lifted off the fine linen upon which they'd been laid. The poltergeist phenomena of the attendant spirits was now made active. One reanimate form created myriad paranormal problems in its wake.

Lavinia and I winced, shrinking from the noise; Nathaniel clapped hands over his ears, unprepared for this turn. Brinkman closed his eyes and remained calm.

Jonathon stared in horror at the openmouthed creature that bore some slight resemblance to his face. This time, this was not something Jonathon could endure without reaction. He stood and pounded his fists upon the marble-topped table, causing all silverware airborne by spirits' affectation to clatter back down onto the marble. "Enough!" he shouted.

Moriel rose and went to the standing, swaying corpse, taking its yellowed hands in his. "That's enough, dear. You heard him." The corpse shut its mouth and turned to Jonathon expectantly. It just stood there like a terrible statue as Jonathon's knuckles went white when he clutched the back of his chair.

"You will not dishonor the late Lady Denbury so," Jonathon growled. "It is an insult to this house!"

"Well played, Lord Denbury III," Moriel laughed, applauding Jonathon. "You did originally have me convinced. You'll have to tell me how you managed to get yourself out of the painting, I simply must know!" he said eagerly. "And also, what you did, then, to one of my demons! If he is not within you, whatever happened to him? He'd have wanted a new place to stay…"

Maggie piped up with a distant, airy voice. Amid the latest horror, I'd almost forgotten about her sitting a seat away from me. "The demon left Lord Denbury because he wanted to be with me. I kept him… I loved him! He became mine!" She swiveled her head to Moriel, her eyes glassy, her lips dry and cracked. I wondered if they'd sedated her with something, or if her mind had simply gone, all the work in Chicago for nothing.

"Ah, did he then?" Moriel asked Maggie gamesomely.

"He did!" she insisted.

"Then you do have your uses, little poppet." Moriel laughed. "Delightful, all of this! What discoveries we make! Sansalme, make a note of all this in the book!" The second-in-command pulled out a fountain pen from his pocket and loomed over me, flipping to a blank ledger page and taking notes in deep, iron-red ink…

Maggie swiveled her head back and looked directly into my eyes. Something hardened there. She pursed her lips. She knew me. A fire flickered there. What was she up to...?

Majesty Moriel looked at the dead Lady Denbury and back to Jonathon with a sick smile. "I knew resurrecting Mumsy would put you to the true test, son. I assume your friend here and your baits, then, are plants." Moriel leered at me, then Lavinia. "But good that you brought them. They're pretty, they'll do." Then he whipped his gaze back to Maggie with an altogether darker intent. "Don't you think, Miss Hathorn? You're very pretty, you've done nicely thus far, to trap a demon for your very own?"

Maggie just nodded primly and regained that airy voice that did not sound inhabited as her own. "Thank you, Your Majesty. All for the greater purpose."

"You see," Moriel said to all of us. "You'll all come around to Miss Hathorn's way of thinking. You'll see it is the only way." He looked over his shoulder. "Isn't that right, Mister Brinkman?" Brinkman nodded. I gritted my teeth.

"Do secure Mister Veil there," Moriel instructed of Brinkman before turning to Jonathon. "It was good you tied up your girls, Denbury. Less we have to do." Brinkman pulled a leather strap from his pocket and secured Nathaniel's hands behind his back. Nathaniel started to struggle, but Moriel whipped out a second knife from another pocket, cautioning: "Careful, Mister Veil. I spend my spare hours testing throwing knives on peasant flesh. I doubt your redhead there would look improved with a blade jutting from her gullet, now would she? Let Mister Brinkman do his work."

As Nathaniel quieted and Brinkman obeyed, I questioned the operative's loyalty. I felt everything begin to spin out of control. We weren't going to make it out alive. The fear I'd kept in check threatened to undo me. I tried to hold back tears, but one escaped.

The Majesty turned to the yellowed corpse hovering beside him and instructed: "Go and tie up your son, my love. I don't want him getting rowdy, but I'd like him to see all this. If he's a good boy, I might even deign to adopt him as my own. He should've been mine all along."

Jonathon spit at the wretched man. If looks could kill, Jonathon's expression would have ripped the Majesty limb from limb, slowly and agonizingly.

The hideous form of what was supposed to represent Lady Denbury lurched over and bound Jonathon's hands behind the back of the beautifully carved chair. He would not look up at the thing as it tied him. I did not blame him. I stared at Jonathon, willing him strength and if he could read minds, telling him how much I loved him. Suddenly, for him, I felt invincible, despite these harrowing turns. God had to be on our side. Heaven had to be watching and waiting for us to make our move... For no one should be meant to endure such hell.

Once finished, the effigy of Lady Denbury shuffled back to stand against the wall, leaning against the marble of the mantel, slightly in shadow, as if it needed the corner to prop itself up. Its milky, cataract eyes were unfocused as it stood awaiting its next orders and purpose.

I wanted to look at Brinkman, to demand, with one glance alone, why he wasn't saying or doing anything. Surely, this was all punishable to the death. The Majesties had damned themselves enough, hadn't they? But no, our rule still stood. We hadn't yet done the countercurse and that had to be done to restore the Winsome souls to their bodies, lest that hapless family be caught up in collateral damage. We had to limit the circumference of this ever-expanding circle of woe.

"Now, dinner! Sit and watch your betters eat," Moriel said to the gathered company gleefully. "That's how it should be. How it should always have been. Always should be!"

The family came in to serve the three Majesties dinner, moving in a daze, their possessed bodies less animate and more unwieldy than when the demon had overtaken Jonathon. Aprons were slung over their fine clothes that had begun to tear and fray. I found I couldn't look at the two children. It was too painful. But I couldn't look at the representation of Lady Denbury, either; she was too horrid. So I stared at my empty plate and prayed for our lives. I struggled to keep focused and not give over to panic and futility.

Food was laid before us. Not that I had any appetite. Not that we were free to eat. The laying out of food seemed symbolic, a representative trapping. The Majesties didn't eat, either; they merely drank a dark wine—if even wine at all, something thick and pitch black like tar—in crystal goblets. I didn't want to know what it was. It seemed too viscous and dark to be blood. It left a black stain upon their yellowing teeth. I imagined all this lavish food going uneaten spoke to the Majesty's desire for wastefulness, greed, for lavish loss at the expense of others. I could see them just leaving this whole table to rot. But not while I had breath in my lungs would I be that passive.

I had been given a second chance at my voice. I was not about to lose that power now.

Bound or no, we all still had our voices. Leveling the countercurse would set things in motion as planned. We couldn't have figured the equation changing so horridly with the corpse of Lady Denbury, but we couldn't let that derail us. It was up to the rest of us to stay strong when Jonathon was doing everything in his power to maintain his sanity. He couldn't look at the creature, either. I didn't blame him. He'd never properly mourned. I longed for the moment he could and put all these nightmares at last to bed, with my help.

"The lintel, please, Vincenzi," Moriel said, some of the dark substance dribbling down the side of his paunchy face.

Vincenzi leaned over toward Maggie, and I saw the flash of a silver knife and blood spurted onto the marble table as Maggie shrieked, her finger dripping scarlet in the instant. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it into the goblet before him. "You could have warned me," she pouted to the large man. He sneered at her. She didn't fight him as he clamped her hand tighter, swirling the blood in the glass. I had to remind myself she had somehow come here of her own volition.

The third Majesty rose with the last offering. With the bloody-tipped knife, he carved a horizontal line meeting the two vertical lines in a tall rectangle. He poured the contents of the glass across the line, scarlet blood dripping down the fine wallpaper in dark, garish streaks. I felt the ground tremble a bit. Vincenzi was murmuring to the wall like his counterpart had done. As I blinked my eyes, it seemed the wall itself rippled. Moriel and Sansalme took up murmuring too. Numbers, in a sequence. It was what Crenfall had been murmuring in his madhouse cell. The golden ratio, but the divine pattern uttered in reverse. It was writ on the floor in tar and blood and now murmured actively on their lips.

The first course was being cleared around us. Soon the possessed bodies of the wretched Winsome family would either be downstairs or hidden again. I tried to catch Jonathon's eye. We couldn't delay. We needed to level the countercurse now, while all four of them were in the room. Even though Jonathon hadn't managed to lure out the Society plan for the recorder in the wings as Brinkman had demanded, if what that carving of the wall meant what I thought it might, we couldn't afford a portal... Whatever was being called or loosed in this room... The police couldn't arrest that... A mouth to hell…

But I couldn't do the countercurse on my own, not with four souls and bodies to reunite. We all needed to do our part and all in one concerted effort. I kept trying to get Jonathon to look at me, but he was transfixed at what was becoming manifest behind Moriel.

A dark rectangular shadow opened up, like a door swinging open. Where there was a wall, there was now a corridor. Inside, just like the girding behind the walls of a home, was the framework between life and death. It was an awesome and terrible sight that was impossible to truly comprehend, even when staring into its abyss.

I recognized this from one of my dreams, a corridor between life and death, between forces for light and those for the dark. Wavering threads hovered inside, weaving and moving like a busy New York street. The fabric of the very universe was laid bare before us, something we shouldn't be privy to, but as the Society was tampering with the very tapestry of the world and tearing at its threads, sticking wrenches into gears, the divine skeleton was visible beneath the flesh.

Five black, vaguely human forms peeled out from the ether and into our world, crossing the threshold with horrible murmurs rising in the air like the cresting of a storm. They were like shadows without bodies, and they whipped about the dining room like careening ghosts.

They were visible, black holes, obliterating chandelier light, firelight, and candlelight as they passed by it. Fomented misery, they made the air not only frigid, but bitter and malevolent. The taste of unadulterated evil. As Moriel laughed the forms flew faster, dizzying in their movement. These were what possessed bodies. These were the host demons. The sweat of panic dripped down my temples.

The corpse of Lady Denbury began to groan again; at any moment I expected another full-fledged wail. The silverware rattled and lifted, hovering a few inches above the table once more. I wished I could, through force of will, like I had seen spirits do once before, shift all the knives and forks and any pointed object. I wished I could drive everything straight into Moriel's chest.

"Come, come," Moriel cried to the shadowy forms. "I am here to give you life. Soon we'll outnumber our enemies. Life by life, blood by blood. Come! Take..."

"Yes, come!" Maggie cried suddenly, pushing back her chair, rising to her feet. "Come unto me, demons! Fill me! All of you!" Maggie cried. "I want you..."

The shadows pacing the room suddenly turned as if dogs catching a scent.

"No..." I murmured, wresting in my chair. My words fumbled in my throat, my old disability threatening to halt my words as anxiety tended to do. "No...don't…do that..."

"I want you," Maggie continued. There was a horrific and unnatural shudder of her body as the shadows all pounced at once, disappearing into her. The Majesties gazed on with a sick, eroticized hunger.

"I want you"—a sudden, fierce fire leaped into her eyes as she retaliated with a scream—"to go to hell!"

From the pocket of the prim pinafore she'd worn, she withdrew a glass bottle with an ornate cross upon it, clear liquid inside.

I realized dimly she was not cursing us to hell. She meant the demons. The demons that had overtaken her. Or, maybe…that she had just entrapped…

Seizing the bottle of what I realized must be holy water—why else would there be the cross upon it?—she drank it down swiftly, emptying the whole bottle, choking but drinking still. Her face contorted in agony. She crumpled forward in a jerking movement. A wretched gurgle sounded in her throat.

"No!" Majesty Moriel cried, his look of ecstasy suddenly turning to rage. "Traitorous little bitch, what do you think you—"

Brinkman suddenly punched Moriel in the face, and he slumped face first into a bowl of pudding. As the other Majesties on either side rose to fight, Brinkman whipped two pistols from his pocket, one trained on either of the Majesties. My heart buoyed. The man was our side after all. Thank God. He waited long enough to prove it. No. Brinkman was smart, the souls weren't yet back in the painting, and him playing their side had bought him more leverage, to be standing so close to the wretches, able to escape being bound like the rest of us.

Just as I swelled with hope, Maggie started screaming.

 
--
(End of Chapter 26.3 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart and/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.

Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF INCORPORATE THINGS: Chapter 26.2

(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)

Chapter Twenty Six (Part Two)

Instead of drinking the blood, Moriel gestured for Sansalme to rise.

Brandishing the knife, the associate moved to the wall behind the Majesty's chair and drove the blade into the fine paper and the plaster behind it. He serrated the blade down the wall in a line, continuing unto the wood-paneled lower wall. He shifted a few paces, the length of a door threshold, and struck another line into the wall from above his head down to the floor.

He then took one glass and tipped it at the top of one of the lines, blood pouring downward in a messy rivulet to pool at the baseboard. Next, he lifted the second glass and poured another bloody line. I heard him murmuring something unintelligible at the wall. The hairs on my arm nearest to that wall began to slowly stand on end.

"One should never waste blood," murmured Moriel in a hungry tone. "It is too precious of a resource. But that is what your kind thrives upon, does it not, Whitby? Forgive me if I do not call you by a more ancient name. You have taken a body in this time, and that is how I shall refer to you, everything and everyone in their place."

"Call me what you wish, but I hesitate at your making assumptions of me. What do you presume I thrive upon?"

"Waste, wantonness, disregard for life." Moriel gestured to the spilled blood behind him. "See how we honor the desires of creatures such as you?"

"Ah. Yes. You have honored my kind perfectly, Majesties."

"And it is how we reach out and call to you," Moriel said with a deadly little smile. He rose. With a scuff of his boot, he kicked back a length of fine Persian carpeting beneath the dinner table, revealing the wooden floor. "Now you see how we built bridges unto you in the first place."

I glanced down to see that the floor beneath the long, thick rug was covered in symbols of varying kinds, runes and numbers, a mess of different religions and traditions, symbols of faith inverted and perverted, some of the floor carved, some covered with chalky powder, some drippings of wax, some patches painted in tar-like substances and burn marks, some washed in an iron-red stain that was surely blood... A deal of it I recognized as being similar to what Maggie had hellishly fashioned inside her empty closet when she was recreating the demon's likeness out of the scraps of Jonathon's damaged portrait.

It was a mess of ritualistic offerings and evocations to bring terrible things to life... The pooling blood behind Moriel's throne of a dining room chair began to dribble toward those grooves and carvings, soaking deeper into the damaged wood as if it were parched earth.

I shuddered. Why didn't we think to look under the surface of things?

Jonathon pretended not to notice, as if everything was perfectly normal, if not boring. Whatever he had done to steel himself to such revelations was the most impressive thing I could imagine.

Brinkman was a statue at Moriel's side. I wondered what was going through both of their minds. Whatever was carved, painted, and bled onto those floorboards was yet another spell to break, and I tried not to panic, as I only knew one countercurse, and that had to do with the poor prisoners on the wall who had, thankfully, remained in their painted positions.

"Before we get to our meal, let's talk a little business, shall we, Majesty Moriel?" Jonathon posited. "Your plans. I need to know what all is unfolding both here and in New York. You've courted us here, to walk the earth, summoned by your dark dealings, lured by your promises. My kind seeks our utopia. I do hope you're getting closer to providing it. I want to know how you'll be doing so, beyond your various tenuous experiments that have suffered as many failures as successes."

Moriel and Sansalme looked like beady-eyed vultures, staring at Jonathon with a strange, collective expression that shifted discomfortingly between starvation and caution. Moriel smiled again, revealing more of his jagged, yellowing teeth. Sansalme reached into the briefcase he'd set to the side of his chair and threw something heavy upon the table with a resounding thud. It was a ledger.

"Before we do that, Whitby," Moriel replied in a singsong tone. "I'd like to summon more of your kind to the dinner table." His eyes swept to Lavinia, then me. "Since you've provided such fare..." He checked his pocket-watch. "And Vincenzi should be here any moment to provide the lintel."

I turned away so that he could not see my fear at being called "fare." The blood offering was not enough, clearly. I did not wish to appear complicit, as that would be too convenient, but I would not let him have the pleasure of my discomfort. Lavinia did the same, and I could feel her eyes boring into me for strength like pulling water from a well.

Lintel, Moriel said. The top part of a door... That's what the two carved and now bloodied lines were upon the wall. The sides of a door... No... I could feel my bruised and punctured hand begin to shake. We had to move forward, quicker, before they opened something to only God could know what...

Moriel gestured for Sansalme to bring the ledger forward, toward me.

"If God writes your name in the book of life," Moriel began in a grand tone, curling his hand in a slow flourish, "so shall your names herein be written in the book of death. The power of the name is vast, as we know. And the more names rent asunder in our cause, the more powerful our book of death."

The long, leather rectangular ledger was black, tipped in red. The lackey flipped it open and shoved it under my nose. The ledger bore names inked down one column.

Lord and Lady Denbury

There was an underline beneath their name that carried over to the X like a smear.

Jonathon Whitby, Lord Denbury III

Another X crossed out Jonathon, as his soul was still presumed dead...

Mister Crenfall

Doctor Neuman
Doctor Preston
Doctor Stevens
The Winsome Family

The top three names were blotted with an X. Crenfall was useless. Preston was dead. Was Samuel, Doctor Neuman, Jonathon's friend in Minnesota, dead too then? Likely presumed so. The last doctor, the one who had been working on the chemicals in New York, did not have his name crossed off. For now. The Winsomes I assumed were in the portraits, though I couldn't be sure.

There was another host of names listed under "parts." All the names were smeared. Parts. I swallowed back bile. Perhaps whatever corpse had been built in the Denbury cellars, these were the names of the poor souls who could never find rest, not while a part of their bodies were sewn up into such unnatural horror. Wondering where that corpse was threatened to undo any false calm I managed. I was frightened it would turn up at any moment, around any corner…

Each name in the book was written in a dark red substance that was surely blood. Whose, only the devil could know. But there was an X and several blank lines...

"Go on, write yourself down, girl," Moriel said to me with a brilliant, nauseating smile. "Just...sign on the line..." Moriel looked toward the ornate screen for the servants to stand behind. "Come here, little Barty Winsome, come when I call you," Moriel cooed.

The little Winsome boy, who looked like such a cherubic little gentleman in his portrait, such a contrast from the hollowed, sickly child before me, shuffled out from behind the staff screen and toward me. Moriel slid his ceremonial knife down the silk runner and with a preternatural motion, Barty stopped it.

I felt rough hands that were not those of a child fumble and pull at the bindings of the hand that hadn't been "cut." Fingers chafing and bruising me with clumsy force, a knife sliced through the fabric around my wrists. Once my right hand was free the possessed boy seized it, brought it around over the book, and punctured my index finger with the tip. I cried out. He forced my finger onto the line of the ledger. "Sign," the boy said in a gravelly voice that was incongruous with his body. I made a feeble, wavy line that in my mind was not putting down my name but instead a scream. In my mind I declared, with that blood: I renounce thee...

There was a slight breeze in response, ruffling the pages of the book. Moriel sneered, as if my blood were in his power. I liked to think it was the direct opposite.

Curiosity seized me, and I rifled through the book before me. The child made a move to stop me, but the Majesty clucked his tongue.

"No, no, let her look..."

The page numbers were not in order but in that reverse of the golden ratio, and each page bore names and plans, some sketches, chemistry, and theory, all madness. The Society's disparate wings of experimentation, horrible upon horrible. A deal of it matched the wretched sprawling scrawls upon the estate floor.

"Are our plans not beautiful, little girl?" the Majesty cooed, drinking in my disgusted expression. "We will rebuild the natural world with unnatural evolution. In doing so, restore natural order, with infernal lineage."

I stared at the ugly man in horror. All of their work was in defiance of divine patterns, of the laws of life. The Society wished to rewrite the very building blocks of all that was good and beautiful upon this earth, withering the sacred, making heaven's natural order unnatural chaos. The theorists and doctors of the day may argue that God could come down to numbers and mathematics. If that were true, then maybe so too could hell be summed up in equations. It was a mad book of possibility, but all of it was most certainly quantifiable.

There was a rustle of noise in the hall, and a figure appeared in the doorway of the dining room. One that caused my heart to tumble deep into my chest.

Oh, God... Maggie...

Margaret Hathorn stood framed by shadow in a lovely pale blue dress the color of a bright New York sky...

A hulking, awkward, bug-eyed man loomed behind her, surely the third "Majesty." They all looked as though they were the worst of what blue-blooded inbreeding had done to elder generations. And then there was beautiful petite Maggie among us, a jewel, a wide-eyed lost lamb offsetting such ugliness.

Maggie's gaze swept the room blankly. As if she didn't know any of us. Her gaze lingered on Jonathon. "Hello, Lord Denbury..." she said slowly, as if she were determining something. I doubted there was anything left of her mind, by the look of her.

I managed to hold back tears. If she would not acknowledge us, I could not act like we knew her. For all the Majesties knew, we were all strangers. That might play to our advantage. A flicker of confusion passed across Brinkman's eyes, but it was soon lost again inside the walls of his cool facade.

Jonathon only stared at Maggie and offered one of the trademark leers the demon had been so good at, and he purred: "Hello, pretty..."

I could not hold back a revolted shudder at that. At those exact words the demon had once used upon me. Jonathon had heard and seen it all from his painted prison, and for a moment I feared that whatever magic was in this house was reverting him back into what his body had become... No... I had to trust him. Even though everything felt like it was sliding against us... There were officers in these very walls... We couldn't lose, surely...

"Majesty Vincenzi," Moriel said, gesturing to the lumbering,  black-and-gray-haired man with sallow olive skin. "How good of you to come." Vincenzi moved forward to kiss Moriel's hand before pulling out a seat for Maggie, two seats away from me, each of us spaced out around the table with a chair between us.

"Before you clutter this home with more of my ilk," Jonathon demanded with a stern tone, "answer my questions." In the end, the demons seemed quite sure that the humans who wished to use them, in fact, answered to them. The Majesties were playing with the most terrible kind of fire, one they couldn't safely control. "Tell me your plans going forward, so that I may approve of them or set you on a new course."

Moriel furrowed his thick, graying brows. "Why, we play for the hearts and minds of the nations that have turned from our power. We seek to take our magic right to the core. The very crux of the matter." Moriel smiled eerily, his milky eyes lit. "You know, Whibty, this isn't a casual association, our being in the Denbury estate today. We're not just here because it's a lovely property we got hold of. One could call my being here a vendetta. Though my perspective was one of a slow-burning flame rather than a constant war. I wanted to be sure that when I went after what I'd always wanted,  it would be unquestionably mine. When you resurrect the dead, they are unquestionably yours."

Jonathon, in playing his part, bowed his head as if he understood. But I knew this was a new and unexpected wrinkle. Something flashed in his eyes. Perhaps his father was right and there had been something to be paranoid about after all, something in the Whitby past to be concerned about. Moriel gestured Brinkman over toward Jonathon.

"Mister Bank, do take up my knife there and use it to keep an eye on Whitby. I'm interested in putting his body to the test." Moriel's sick little smile curved his thin lips. He gestured to Sansalme to his right, who withdrew his dagger again and held it very obviously in front of Nathaniel. Perhaps our valiant gentlemen were not trusted as Society associates after all.

"Majesty Vincenzi," Moriel said sweetly. "Did you bring my lady along as I bid you?"

"Of course, Your Highness," Vincenzi replied in a thickly accented voice I assumed was Italian.

"Very good."

Moriel reached again into his pocket, and this time withdrew a small silver bell. He rang it long and hard, a sharp, high-pitched ringing that went reverberate through the house.

"We've still one more guest to seat," Moriel explained grandly, winking at Jonathon. There was a tense silence. Then a thud from the foyer. And another thud. And a scrape.

Footsteps.

Inelegant, clumsy footsteps. Outside in the hall, the gas lamps that lit the corridor were dimming. One by one. Shuffle by shuffle. Lumbering footstep by lumbering step...

Whatever was coming was taking all the light with it...

"Say hello to Mummy, Johnny..."

Oh, God. Horror of horrors.

Lady Denbury.

Dead Lady Denbury.

Standing at the threshold.

--

(End of Chapter 26.2 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart and/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.

Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF INCORPORATE THINGS: Chapter 26.1

(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)

Chapter Twenty-Six (Part One)

The morning was spent in whatever preparations we could. Lavinia dressed herself, then me, in frilly white and cream lace gowns that she'd chosen, making us look as though we were either dressed for our weddings or our funerals. Which I supposed was sort of the point. Part of the theater of ritual. The gentlemen donned plain black frock coats and waistcoats with matching dark crimson undershirts with wide cuffs.

To Nathaniel and Lavinia, I explained the countercurse and the general properties of the magic as we knew it to be. Jonathon made sure the surveillance properties accessible from behind the library bookcase were in working order.

We tried knots and bindings that looked tighter and more restrictive than they were and set them in place. Jonathon explained any secret passages and their accesses. He and Nathaniel braved the cellar. It was still empty.

Time passed. We swallowed back dread. Jonathon ensconced Lavinia and me in a top servant room where a mirrored trap door offered a view of the downstairs foyer.

 

At noon the family arrived; the four possessed bodies whose souls languished in the dining room paintings. The wife was a brown-haired woman who would have been pretty if she weren't so vacant and dark-eyed. The husband had prominent jowls and bushy eyebrows that accented the sunken quality of his own eyes, reflecting strangely as he and the wife gazed about, sniffing like animals, behaviors signatory of the possession. The children, a boy in breeches and a girl in a white pinafore stained on the edge with a red substance I shuddered to imagine, trailed behind them like animate dolls, and behind them, additional staff.

A few frightened-looking underclass women completed their entourage. I assumed the lot was there to help with the cooking and preparation. When the paths were clear enough to do so, Jonathon moved Lavinia and me into a secret dining room passage behind the walls that connected in a confining path down the great hall and into the library landing. We watched the staff prepare, moving in and out of the dining room to set place settings and down the servants' stairs to the kitchens, the pathway blocked by a large ornate screen the help would stand behind during dinner so as to be out of sight.

The possessed family that had inherited not an estate but a nightmare moved with a slight unnatural pattern that was impossible to look away from.

Just as Lavinia and I were about to be set into our places, thirteen officers filed silently into the passages, and as they passed I tried to bolster myself with the knowledge that the walls themselves were filled with support.

At five, Lavinia and I emerged in the library and were taken to our positions with a bit of a show and mock struggle. The gentlemen said nothing to us, other than the occasional order that we were to mind our place, lest the possessed bodies of the family tell tales of us that would not suit our plan.

We were placed across from one another at the midpoint of the grand dinner table, and our hands were gently bound behind our backs by our respective gentlemen.

"I am sorry to have to do this, beloved," Jonathon murmured in my ear. "Forgive me."

"I will," I whispered. He stared at me achingly and left the room.

The dining room table before us was set with white bone china and soft linen, a red runner bisecting the wooden length where three golden candelabras glittered with tall tapers that set off the crystals of the chandeliers dipping down from above, making the whole room glow and glitter. While  places were set before us, we would not be able to partake unless someone saw fit to unbind us. Lavinia and I stared across the lit tapers at each other. I felt like I was a part of the upcoming courses, there as an appetizer for the demons. I kept reminding myself that the arrests would happen before any malevolent forces were summoned or allowed to wreak any havoc upon us.

The gentlemen took to the front foyer. In time, the summoners of hell arrived. Brinkman was with them. Whatever the Society had over Brinkman was evidently enough to make Moriel feel confident Brinkman was on his side. This leverage hardly bolstered my trust in Brinkman, but I had no choice. I heard voices engaged in a bit of pleasantries, the weather and such, all of it absurd considering the circumstances.

Jonathon, playing as though he remained possessed, a role he had done so well before, led the "Majesties" in, and I quelled my shudder.

A short, thin-haired, bulbous-nosed man I assumed was Moriel entered first.  He was too ugly to be so terrifying, and yet there was an air about him of power and privilege that was as undeniable as he was unattractive. His eyes were small, dark and beady. His gaze flitted about and pinpointing his attention like a fastidious but jittery hawk. Everything about him reeked of unpredictable danger, like a pervasive cologne gone putrid.

Another man followed close behind. Together, they made two specimens that had awoken on the wrong side of the genealogical bed. The other Society operative was a taller, thinner, jaundiced-looking man with similarly limp hair. Both men were dressed in ostentatious suit coats and trousers of a loud red and gold, looking like a bizarre graft of king and a court jester from another century that had long since passed them by.

Brinkman and Nathaniel flanked behind. The Society heads immediately stared at Lavinia and me with an odd, unsettling hunger and smiled sharp, crooked-toothed smiles. Jonathon pulled out the Master's chair and then the second-in-command with a bit of exaggerated flourish. They sat.

"Welcome to what was once this body's home," Jonathon said with a little sick chuckle, taking the head of the table opposite Moriel. The vast dining room fireplace behind Jonathon yawned like a great marble mouth, a dark, unlit maw.

"Ah, these morsels will do nicely, Whitby," Moriel said, appraising Lavinia and me up and down. "Majesty Vincenzi is en route with a third course, a little fly that wandered right unto his web at the office this morning. Three does make a more magical number for sacrificial flow. I do hope you've drugged them, boy. Women can be feisty. Not worth all the trouble, if you leave them unadulterated."

"Ah, no, I've never had a trouble overcoming them, Majesty," Jonathon said, raising the stakes of the Majesty's perversion with an even uglier undercurrent.

"Nor I." Nathaniel matched Jonathon's tone as he moved to take a seat next to Lavinia, leering at her impressively.

"Ah, to be young and virile, then," the Majesty said with a chortle.

I slowly breathed in through my nostrils at this to keep calm. I knew I'd be offended when face-to-face with the "Majesty," and yet I remained impressed—and disturbed—by Jonathon's aptitude for playing the part. Nathaniel's theatrics had clearly rubbed off on his best friend.

I wondered what other poor girl would throw off our number and plan. This was not welcome information in the least. Brinkman surely felt it too, the frustration of another variable in our equation, but he remained visibly unruffled, simply standing to the side of Moriel as if he were a bodyguard, expressionless. Lavinia and I played our worried, scared-looking parts, which was truly not difficult. I tamped down upon my rage for the proper time.

"Come now, gentlemen," the second Majesty said, his voice gravely as if a vocal chord had been cut, reaching into a breast pocket to flourish a small, sharp knife. "Fresh and sweet, give us something to use." He made a piercing gesture that I tried not to jump at.

Jonathon nodded, snapping at Nathaniel. "Of course, Majesty Sansalme."

Both Jonathon and Nathaniel rose, plucking knifes out of their pockets, tucking at their coat sleeves, and came over to us, Jonathon to me, Nathaniel to Lavinia. They bent over us, loosening the bindings of the hands respectively nearest to the Majesties.

"The blood of the martyrs," Jonathon said, admirably trying on the demon's tone. My eyes fluttered shut at the memories of the terror that had breathed down my neck in his visage once before. With a sharp and sudden move, Jonathon drove the knife toward my hand, clutching it between both of his, and I screamed. Lavinia cried out in tandem.

The knife punctured something up Jonathon's sleeve and blood spurted onto my empty plate, and Jonathon moved our entwined hands over the glass goblet before me, filling a few ounces with dark red fluid. He dropped the bloody-tipped knife on the table, and Nathaniel did the same, with a flourish over another goblet. Their bodies slightly blocked us from the Majesty view. Jonathon was the first to rip the lace of my cuff, and he used it to bind up my hand as if stopping a wound. The choice of the gentlemen's crimson cuffs smartly hid whatever telltale droplets sourced the blood. It had to be blood—it looked and smelled of it—I was just wondering whose it was.

I'd been prepared to offer mine in part, within reason and safety. We'd have to see if that was yet further called for. Hoping this was the last of our '"sacrificial'" role, I couldn't help wondering at this impressive sleight of hand but doubted Nathaniel would give up his secrets were I to ask. Blood had been drawn from somewhere, perhaps pre-drawn, as neither of the gentlemen continued bleeding themselves, and though the source had come from them, they disguised it by tying off our hands, letting enough blood to drip around to make the whole thing seem more spontaneous and messy than it was. Jonathon and Nathaniel presented their glasses to the Majesties like an offering.

I thought at first Moriel—and his counterpart Sansalme—were going to drink the glasses and the blood therein.

 

But neither did.

 

What they did do instead was just as odd and disturbing...

--
(End of Chapter 26.1 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart and/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.

Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)

THE DOUBLE LIFE OF INCORPORATE THINGS: Chapter 25

(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Evidently, the British agent Mister Brinkman was just across the street, awaiting a signal. I suddenly felt that, at any minute, any number of persons could descend upon us from unseen corners. The intimate, singular horrors that the Society had perpetrated upon Jonathon and me were now becoming a crowd sport.

Knowles palmed a small, hand-held lantern that had been sitting as a lit globe upon his desk. He moved to stand before the narrow, tall window to the side of his bookcases, putting a hand to block the orb's light and then removing it three times. A minute later, I heard a key turn down the hall, then the front door open and close quietly and then not a sound until an uncanny apparition was seen in the doorway: a distinct form in a black cape. The man set his hood back upon entering the room. Brinkman.

I wondered how intently the spy had been watching us. Reading lips through binoculars, perhaps, poised and on sharp alert to all tells and ticks? When he crossed the room in a few measured strides, his eyes went right to us as if he'd known our positions. He made me feel as nervous as he did safe. I watched Jonathon's face as he stared at the man, I assumed gauging his aura. As Jonathon remained cool and composed, the man's aura must have remained positive…or at least neutral to us. I took a moment to thank whatever magical offsets had granted Jonathon that ability, as it was one of the more useful supernatural traits our situation could have afforded.

Brinkman could see me examining his oddly handsome face, trying to get a read on him. So many years of mutism had made me uncannily adept at reading moods, bodies, intentions, and more, just by look and physicality. This man was a compelling, blank slate. He simply smiled enigmatically at me, giving nothing away but that he was a man not to be trifled with. A consummate spy. I was no less nervous. But I was just a little bit impressed.

"Miss Stewart," he said, bowing his head to me. I inclined mine in turn.

Knowles busied himself at a vast cherrywood credenza, making sure all the gentlemen had snifters of bourbon.

Brinkman turned to Jonathon. "From what you said upon our return ride from the Society office, it seems you laid the groundwork well, Lord Denbury. I'm hoping this little party will allow me to collar Moriel and his two top cronies. I'd like to cuff his whole cabal of six, but it would seem all the 'Majesties' are hardly ever in the same country, let alone the same room. Hopefully, the Society will fall out from under the top tier once we topple them."

"What brought the Society operatives together in the first place?" I asked.

"The only consistent factor is that they are very old aristocracy from three different country's traditions. Each of their line was at one point disgraced and remains relatively forgotten, with little money. However, they've gained traction in property."

"Making a deal with the devil for a return rise to importance?" Knowles asked, taking his place at his desk.

Brinkman shrugged. "That's the only thing I can figure about their aims."

I heard a key in the lock down the hall and then Lavinia's voice speaking in a pouting tone.

At the sound of movement at the door, Jonathon stalked out of the room and met them, lingering there at the mouth of the hall while Lavinia's voice continued, getting closer as she said: "You do realize how much I've given up, Nathaniel, back and forth with you across the pond. I truly needed just one normal evening with my lady friends. Must we strategize at this hour?"

"We'll address your sacrifices in time, dear," Nathaniel murmured as they neared Knowles's office door. "But that isn't for here and now, with lives on the line. Everyone is here. Please appear as sensible as I know you are capable of being."

Whatever Lavinia was feeling, she put on a calm and brave face when she entered Knowles's now-overcrowded office.

The solicitor gestured to a decanter of some sort of rose-colored cordial and raised an eyebrow at Lavinia and me. Lavinia set her jaw and pointed to the bourbon instead. Knowles grinned and despite the departure in custom, included us both in the gentleman's drink without question, a small courtesy that made us feel involved and respected. These were not times of common propriety. No one was looking to drown their sorrows in any substance; such behavior would not help our cause. But having something to hold and busy one's hands with was a tiny comfort to take the edge off the tension in the room.

"I never thought I'd be grateful for anything that has befallen me," Jonathon said as he reentered the room, stalking over to my chair and standing behind it to voice what I'd been thinking when he examined Brinkman. "However, the ability to see the lit aura, the incorporeal traces of any of my potential enemies is very useful. It would seem no one followed you here. I see no spark in the shadows outside."

"I told you I'd be careful," Nathaniel replied. Jonathon nodded at his friend.

"Friends," Jonathon began, addressing all of us. "Let's get to our points. The Society shall arrive at the estate at six tomorrow. I explained to Moriel that I would leave the proverbial 'bait,' the tokens, bound in the dining room." He squeezed my shoulder over the back of the chair. "Do forgive me, my love, for referring to you as such—"

"I understand, Jonathon. That's how they might refer to me. Not you. You will both have to play the part," I reassured, even while I shuddered at the thought.

"They seem to be interested in blood tokens," Jonathon said, clenching his jaw. "If you are bound at the table, my brave ladies, don't worry what will befall you. Nathaniel schooled me in some sleight of hand. I don't want you dreading anything that will be mere show, but please do react accordingly as though you've been affected."

Lavinia nodded. She was used to this sort of thing more than I; surely, one of Nathaniel's vampire bits on stage had her prepared for necessary theatrics. I swallowed hard and tried not to look ill.

Jonathon continued: "Nathaniel and I will meet the company at the door and lead them in, as it would be best they not find us all fraternizing in the dining room when they arrive. Tomorrow morning the Society said they'd return the staff to the premises to prepare the meal." Jonathon turned to Brinkman to explain in a bitter tone: "Moriel confirmed, laughingly, that the staff they retain are possessed bodies. The family that overtook the estate per the Society's coaxing is now enslaved to it. Moriel has taken those poor wretches on as his personal cook, footman, and the children as veritable slaves."

"And their poor souls are trapped in the dining room portraits," I added. "Before any arrests are made, we'll need to invoke a countercurse to return souls into bodies and trap the demons. It's not something I'd trust to leave to the average police officer. With all due respect."

Brinkman nodded and tried to act as if the directives were commonplace, but his halting speech revealed his discomfort. "If you say so. I trust, then, that... you'll handle the...countercurse?"

"We will, you must leave that to us," Jonathon replied. "Natalie, I'll trust you to later explain the principles of the countercurse to Nathaniel and Lavinia."

I nodded again. I sipped the bourbon, and its sting was a nice offset against nerves.

"I'll need a cue for my men to pounce," Brinkman stated. "I don't want it to come too early, but also not too late. I don't want these bastards to try anything."

"Or to let their magic build," I added. "We can't know just how many demonic forces they have, truly, at their disposal. Those we've seen have been embodied, but what about those awaiting a host?"

"We can't allow anything in," Jonathon murmured. "We don't know exactly where these demons come from. How they summon them. If you've ever had a faith, now is the time to hold to it. We must not give those wretched, soul-sucking entities any room for entry."

I nodded and thought of Maggie. I wondered what on earth could have happened to her. "Maggie's gone missing, Jonathon," I murmured. "No one knows where she's gone. Mrs. Northe wired Mr. Knowles here to tell us. If she or Karen has any clairvoyant indications about what went on, we don't know."

"Well, she let the beasts in, Natalie," he replied with a harshness I understood but didn't expect, "and allowed the forces that tried to kill us to grow stronger by her reverence and favor. We can't help her any more than we did. I can't worry what's become of her now. Not right now."

I looked at the edge of Mr. Knowles's fine desk and clenched my jaw, knowing Jonathon was right but still wishing there was something I could have done months ago to prevent her disappearance now. I said a prayer for her soul.

A slight movement of Nathaniel's hand caught my eye, and I saw him clutching a beaded length with a crucifix in his palm, something he'd wound around his wrist, perhaps a rosary. Anglican England still utilized Catholic-associated tokens as they were very similar in structure, just as Reverend Blessing owed a great deal to the Catholic Rite of Exorcism. Every denomination, at its root, directed back to the same governing principles. Symbols of faith were the touchstones of our own retaliatory magic. Ours was a different color and weight, but no less powerful than the breed the Society perpetuated. I had to believe we were as powerful as demons, so long as we stood up to them.

Brinkman's face was pinched; a slight crack in his facade indicated his own trepidation. I could empathize that a man like Brinkman didn't appreciate supernatural variables in a carefully calculated plan. "My men will be instructed to wait for my whistle," he stated, "but I can't cue immediately. Not until there's a bit of dirt under Moriel and company's nails, otherwise we may not have as flush and solid of a case as we need to ensure their downfall."

"If we're drawing out their plan," Jonathon piped in, "someone must be stationed to record what is said for evidence. If we place your men in my secret passages as we discussed, there is a pipe that's perfect for listening in."

"I'll be sure one of my best court recorders takes notes," Brinkman said eagerly. "If the paranormal aims of the Society are to be believed, we'll need as much in the form of a confessional as possible, the madness and desire for chaos expressly stated so that the threat to queen and country cannot possibly be denied."

"Jonathon," I murmured, a dreadful detail resurfacing. "What about the cellar?"

He swallowed hard.

"What about the cellar?" Brinkman queried, looking from one of us to the other. "I thought you said the estate was empty?"

Jonathon took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "There's also the possibility of a reanimate corpse as evidence. Be advised that the infernal magic the Society uses to reanimate the corpse makes the creatures very difficult to endure. There's a terrible mental strain, an inner sound of screaming, as if they creatures are built to rip apart the very fabric of sanity. A horde of ghosts is tethered to a body to make it come to life. The ghosts are the animate spark."

Brinkman's lips curled in disgust. "How horrid. Ghosts as Doctor Frankenstein's lightning?"

"I suppose. I've never seen anything like it before Doctor Preston's work in New York. I discovered all the same equipment we saw in New York down in my wine cellar. So I don't know what to expect."

"The unexpected is all we can count on, it would seem," Brinkman replied bitterly. "We'll all have to play it very safe, moment to moment, and very close to the vest." He bowed to us all and moved to the door, his tone allowing for a slight weariness. "Until morning, my motley battalion."

We stayed the night in London, one of Jonathon's finer carriages escorting the two couples to the Denbury flat, an exquisite set of gas-lit rooms in Knightsbridge. The place had a warm glow about it in all the golden flocked wallpapers, lighter woods, and gilt-accented furniture, a contrast to Rosecrest's deep, dark Gothic charm. The flat was that of more modern romantics, more fanciful in color and lush fabrics.

Nathaniel, being familiar with the flat, led Lavinia off somewhere. I wondered if they'd separate as propriety would dictate or if Lavinia would indeed come away from this a fallen woman. It wasn't my place to judge, she could make her own choices, and I hoped Nathaniel was man enough not to pressure her either way. Women were given little leverage in our world, and a girl's modesty was not something to be given or taken lightly, and men would do best to always keep that in mind.

As I sat upon one of the lavish divans in the main room, I had no idea how in the world I was going to sleep, but Jonathon seemed prepared for that, having stoked a small stove in a rear kitchen and returning to me with teacups in hand.

"Have some tea. It's... powerful tea," he said, handing me a warm cup and saucer.

"What's in it?" I asked, catching a whiff of a foreign scent.

"Some opiates and sedatives. I just took a draught myself. Else I'll never sleep. You and Lavinia can take the far room. Nathaniel is taking my room."

"You may have to untangle them—"

"I'm counting on Miss Kent to make an honest man out of Nat." Jonathon chuckled. "I don't let him play Don Juan in my home. I never have. He knows better."

"Where will you rest, darling?"

"On this very divan, dear. While the draught calmed my nerves, if I need to pace in the middle of the night, I'd best do it away from those I hold dear. You need your rest to be sharp."

"As do you..." I set down the cup and ran my fingers down the sleeve of his magnificent frock coat.

"When I was saving lives in my London clinic, sometimes my clearest decisions as a doctor came when I was truly exhausted and the drive of panic kicked in. Trust me, Natalie. I've faced many life and death battles. Just not necessarily my own. Not those most precious to me," he said, trailing a finger down my cheek, resting a fingertip upon my lips. I kissed his fingertip delicately, slowly, and he closed his eyes and let me see the shudder of sensual delight that coursed down his body.

"You're very brave," I murmured as he trailed the fingertip down my neck.

He set his own teacup beside mine before moving closer to press his lips to where his fingertip had been. After a slow, languorous kiss he murmured, "Didn't I tell you I learned bravery from the best?"

"You were brave long before me."

"But together..." He kissed me again.

Together is how our fates were determined. The course of my life, since the Denbury portrait had entered into it and I was granted a peculiar magic and agency to save this dear soul, was inextricable with his. Whether brilliant or doomed.

That night, in a lovely guest room done up in a soothing pale blue, grateful for a fresh dressing gown in which to sleep thanks to stores Lavinia brought for us, I tucked a bible under my pillow.

Lavinia, to my chagrin, had no trouble falling asleep across the room, not even bothering to change. She just curled up like a black-winged bird upon a lush velvet chaise and drifted off to some uncharted inner waters. I wonder if she'd been drugged harder. Or if Nathaniel had managed to distract her into bliss that powerfully.

I lay back and murmured what had been my mother's favorite psalm, number twenty-three, over and over again until the opiates finally took hold, first of my body, and then my racing mind.

--

(End of Chapter 25 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart and/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.

Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)