Tenebrae Manor (5 page)

Edweena rolled her eyes. The thought of robbing the man of his life had enraptured her more than once but again the pang of humanity struck her and the idea of killing him seemed barbaric.

“Oh Edweena, why do you look at me in that sneaky way? Make your decision. I find I am at a loss to help you, after all,
someone
has to make sure this lovely night sky remains intact.”

Edweena sighed, she knew the spell must not be all that complicated. Yet Libra had continuously hid behind the notion that it kept her too occupied to attend to other affairs.

Malistorm had managed and he used to bustle about as much as Bordeaux!

With the unconscious man dragged behind her by the arm, Edweena hurled him across the hallway outside Libra’s lavish quarters, abandoning all reason and baring her viscous fangs.

“No! Stop!” wailed the man.

He had come to so suddenly that Edweena was knocked back into composure. Her mind raced with temptation, the man’s warmth emanated from him, his life was there for the taking. She cursed herself again, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him screaming through Tenebrae’s halls, down past the Usher to the front most drawing room of the manor. She kicked at its door and stared into its interior with incredible fury bristling in her eyes.

“Deal with him.”

She threw the man into the awaiting arms of Deadsol and slammed the door behind her.

My last great error.
She sat bemoaning in her seclusion. Life seemed so unfair at times that Edweena cursed her immortality, toying with the idea of racing away from Tenebrae until the blanket of dawn washed the night sky away and she crumbled to ash. Was eternity worth such sufferance? Of what worth was everlasting life when she was unable to completely enjoy it? A rat scurried across the dusty carpets at her feet. Its fearlessness in the face of impending death mocked the vampire. She sneered at its ignorance to the fatal predator above it. No, she would spare this one. Her hunger was unabated, though her apathy overwrote its pangs.

It was too late anyway. From the dusky opening of the cracked door came a stately owl, which resolutely ignored all other instincts and pounced upon the helpless rodent. A squeak at the deathblow, a hoot of the reaper, then the room was silent again. Edweena was unmoved.

Elsewhere, Madlyn had flung herself onto her simple straw mattress in her windowless room and scribbled into her journal with childish penmanship. She sung softly to herself and kicked her feet about like a limp rag doll as she drew spirals in her book. Her only quill was a haggard old crow feather she had found one evening between trips to Libra’s room. Falling apart though it was, the quill was Madlyn’s favourite treasure as its red inked tip scrawled across sepia page. All her drawings were in red ink. It was her favourite colour, the colour of her hero. The spirals she drew almost looked like horns.

5: Irksome Harlequins

In the vast, empty miles of isolation that surround Tenebrae Manor, a world where all is countless pine and prickled crag, hazards of grave fatality protect and conceal it from mortal eye. The woods are still. The woods are quiet. But life is there. Lives of creatures both conceivable and nightmarish, no less brutal than each other, lurk within the sea of gloom. As night is unending, bearings are near impossible to confirm. And it is the night that is oft the death of intrusive fools who venture into Tenebrae’s forests by intent or fortuity. Such natural circumstances have galvanised the defence of the mansion and established a veil of concealment upon it and its relation to the world beyond.

              Still, there are times when, from some divine prank of the deities there comes the arrival of a mortal whose resolve is unyielding to the pressures of insanity and as such, find themselves interloping to the highest degree. It becomes a taxing affair on what to do with such a human and has long been considered a scenario of incredible abhorrence to all of Tenebrae’s residents.

There was a live human wandering in Tenebrae Manor. From all accounts, Bordeaux had gathered that he was a man, one of mental stability in spite of raw fear. One whom, if not dealt with swiftly, could escape, back to his reality and uncover the secret world.

Bordeaux cursed to himself. Usually one of calm composure in the heat of confrontation, the crimson demon had found his patience dwindling to an alarmingly short order. His rank as a head servant of sorts meant that it fell upon him to resolve the present situation. The previous baron, Malistorm, had been of such soothing authority that Bordeaux had rarely felt the fabric of his anxiety torn down to its very fibres as he did now. But Malistorm was gone and in place of his paternal overseeing there appeared Libra in all her grand proportions.

And it was with her portly appearance as head mistress that Bordeaux begun to feel the strains of concern for Tenebrae’s wellbeing. In his years as master of affairs, he had not dealt with many cases of live humans within the walls. The most recent had been Madlyn and the girl had been of such frazzled disposition that she could easily be dealt with without resorting to fatal measures.

The Usher had not moved from his post; not that he should have either, as Bordeaux reached the front foyer of the manor and made his way to the imposing doors of the eastern drawing room. He acknowledged Usher with a tip of head that was observed but not returned by the deadpan doorman.

Bordeaux’s claw-like hand clutched the lion head doorknob and slowly turned it. The burgundy oak creaked thunderously, the echoes of its cries flying off into the spacious black of the hallways.

The first evident feature of the drawing room was that of a sickening heat. Deadsol and Comets had lit a fire in the mantelpiece, a fire that roared with such vehemence as to singe the wallpaper surrounding and cause it to bubble and melt away in peels. A shadow stood before the flames. It was a most irregular shape, a body like that of an inverted light bulb, a chemistry flask, supporting a melon of similar dimensions upon its thin neck. Sprouted from the melon’s sides, a pair of rabbit ear protuberances where the distinct jingle of bells could be heard chiming from their tips. From the mouth of the melon, for it was in fact a head, came a squabbling collection of squeaks and rambles, as the shadow’s small arms thrust a poker into the glowing embers with violent repetition. 

“My boy, that fire is prominent enough,” said Bordeaux.

Visibly vexed at the interruption of his stoking, the small creature heaved his chest in flustered breaths and throwing aside the poker, turned to face the demon. Standing as he was, the creature appeared to be intimidatingly lanky in stature, the light of the flames outlining his unusual shape. His shadow stretched to an end at Bordeaux’s feet. As the creature advanced forward, the shadow receded, until it became discernable that a two-foot tall jester stood beside the crimson demon. The imp’s eyes were mismatched in size, his face seemingly locked in a mischievous smile where two fangs upon a lower jaw sprouted like weeds.

Bordeaux smiled affectionately and ruffled the red and yellow motley cap of the runty jester, his bells jangling obnoxiously. “Comets, my boy.”

Comets attempted to recoil from Bordeaux’s welcomes but instead became unbalanced on his curled silk shoes and fell onto his rear with a thud. He shook his head, sending the rabbit ears of his fool’s cap rattling away again, before running back to his post by the fire.

“Bordeaux!”

Deadsol grasped him suddenly by the shoulders and welcomed him warmly. Bordeaux had to reach for his counterpart’s wrists to remove his hands from digging into his shoulders.

“Deadsol.”

“Why, sir? And why what, you ask? Why are you here? Here, in this very room, when the clock strikes on this very hour.”

“I am but answering to your summons, my brother.”

“Summons? Summons, he says! I made no such summons!” Deadsol flung his arms flamboyantly and placed a hand on his chin. Bordeaux was nonplussed.

“But a few moments ago, with your bust appearing so suddenly in my quarters! Surely you – “

“I am certain I would have remembered such a visit, my dear friend. Now! I am pleased you are here. A most important matter! Of a grave and vital urgency, citizen! A chief concern! The human, sir! Bordeaux, he’s here!”

Deadsol pressed his palms into Bordeaux’s back and gave him an encouraging shove towards a corner closet, where a brouhaha of bangs and bumps rattled the inanimate object into life.

“Now see here, Deadsol; I can manage! Now, this man. What is the state of his cognitive composition?”

“Critical, citizen. Dwindling by the moment, good man!”

Now there’s a good sign
, thought Bordeaux.

The cupboard rocked, the teak groaning under the internal throes of the human.

“Pray, tell. Have you spoken with him? Reasoned with him?”

“Lo! Listen to the words he says, ‘Have you
reasoned
with him?’ To what avail,
you
pray tell?” Deadsol replied. “To what avail do we ever reason with such fallible fellows? Their lives are
far
too fleeting to tax oneself upon such matters as the man’s
feelings
. The very idea!”

Bordeaux tilted his head in a display of chastisement, “A little mercy on his life, brother. They only get one. Fleeting though it may be, you surely see that they deserve at the least a quiet life of settled banality?”

Deadsol, clearly distracted, was curling his fingers together with an inhumane dexterity. His moustache twitched involuntarily. “Sir, a thousand pardons. You must have bored me with your vapid bemoaning of human sentimentality.”

There was a pause in which the two demons stood and stared at each other.

“No need for that look, Bordeaux. I know what that means!”

Here, Deadsol’s voice took on a rather sinister tone. “The human is, shall we say;
under wraps
.”

He planted his foot against the cabinet door in the form of a forceful kick, causing the doors to burst open and a sweating pile of horrified human to collapse outwards onto the floor. He exerted himself in futile squirms, pallor pale with terror.

“And this be him.” Deadsol grasped the man by the scruff of the neck. “Helloooo, mister!”

A frantic cry pattered meekly from the man’s mouth.

“Come now, Deadsol. That’s enough,” said Bordeaux.

“Fiddlesticks! You can be quite the killjoy at times, Bordeaux.”

Deadsol let the man drop back down into a crumbled heap on the floor and Comets had his turn of terrorizing the poor soul. The jester rocked to and fro on his heels with the man’s collar in his gloved hands, grunting like a rocking chair with each sway. The human whimpered like a child.

“Pathetic really,” said Bordeaux, almost sympathetically.

“Hmm, yes, quite,” replied Deadsol, distrait. He had procured a pipe from his brown wool coat and was puffing upon its tip with unwarranted self-importance.

“Now, then, the matter of this elephant in the room,” said Deadsol.

“Elephant? The man?” squalled Comets.

“A metaphor, you imbecile!” Deadsol scolded, uprooting the jester by the rabbit ears of his cap. Comets struggled like some animated turnip before Deadsol gave him a savage swat with the back of his hand.

Comets spun across the room like a meteorite and crashed headlong onto the carpet.

Seemingly unhurt, he leapt to his feet immediately and ran back to where he had been standing next to Deadsol not a moment earlier.

Bordeaux remained erect, a towering intimidation over the crying man, “Sir, can you tell me who you are?”

“
I’ll
handle this, Bordeaux.” Deadsol’s interruption was followed by a slow jaunt in a hemisphere around the man, pipe glowing in a beacon of vermilion in the hazy heat of the room. Halting suddenly, Deadsol prodded the mouthpiece of his pipe accusingly at the human.

“Citizen, explain yourself! Who are you?”

The man’s lips quivered in terror.

“Come now, sir. Edweena didn’t pull your tongue out did she? Your name!”

“J-j-j-Jethro.”

“J-j-j-Jethro, he says. How many J’s in that?”

“My stars, those humans give themselves some strange titles,” said Bordeaux.

“J-Jethro! Jethro Ulysses Hammond.”

“Sounds English! You are far from home… Well, J-Jethro! A hearty name you have. Oh yes, a genuine Prometheus! Robust, diligent, heroic even!”

The man shook his head in a look of quizzical bewilderment that Deadsol ignored.

“Your business, man! Where are you from?”

“A farm, sir, on a hill. Oh, I don’t know where it is.”

“Aha! A likely story, scoundrel!”

Comets, craving the attention being poured upon the intruder, begun to leap about the room noisily,

“The hill! The hill, he doesn’t know where! A deserted hill is where!” His bells rattled on and on.

Haggard eyes of sand - look!

At blackened, brittle trees shook

With gusts of groaning, ravaged fury,

Bursting with the leaves they took!

“On a hill it seems. Well that is less than helpful,” said Deadsol. “The world is one of many hills, many mountains, innumerable even to the birds who fly over head with the greatest vantage point!”

Comets sung;

Like golden stars, they spin and swirl,

Glide on violent gale hurl!

Through grey force, the birds drown

And slide on through maelstrom curl!

“But more, sir!” continued Deadsol. “Indulge me further. On what wind did you ride into the realm of Tenebrae, eh? What zephyr?”

The man’s terror was increased further more by Deadsol’s eloquent speech; he was clearly a man of simple composition, true to his occupation as a farmhand.

Comets sung;

The wind chases onward forth

From empty, endless miles North.

Ivy, creep! Cling to ruin,

Strangle dead a long lost worth!

“I am lost, sir! So lost! I was sent on an errand across country. Oh, what is this awful place? Which way is my home? How long have I been here?” rambled Jethro.

Deadsol smiled, “All are questions that only you would know, young man. What would I know of your fool’s errand, of your
hill
?”

Comets sung;

Warmth forgotten, time is still,

Sun shine weak onto the hill.

Dim as a silver coin in the sky,

Yearning for sleep debt to fulfill!

Comets hereupon grew bored of his recital of the desolation hill and, seeing that neither Bordeaux nor Deadsol seemed likely to give him the attention he desired, he returned to his fire stoking.

“Well, this was a wastrel interview,” huffed Deadsol. “Excuse me.” He snatched up from Comets the fire poker, which was in fact his walking cane and moved to egress.

“You’re leaving, Deadsol?” asked Bordeaux.

“But why not?”

“The human. Surely you see we are, in fact,
not
finished here?”

Deadsol thought a moment. “Oh, very well.”

He returned to Jethro and again lifted him by the scruff of the neck, proceeding to scream a ghastly wail into his face. His fierce baritone droned on, bloodcurdling in its volume, joined in turn by the tenor squeal of Jethro, a squeal that wavered off pitch into frantic falsetto.

Deadsol released grip on the man, who fell to the floor, weeping like a child. The demon laughed victoriously and shoved him back into the closet before moving to complete his exit of the room.

“Deadsol….”

Deadsol chuckled with great mirth. “What is it now, Bordeaux? Look at him! He’s not going anywhere! Did you see the fear in his eyes? It would pluck the very strings of my sympathies, if I were in possession of such things! I bid you good health.”