The Bloody Masquerade

The door wasn’t particularly hard to open. One bullet to the lock and it swung wide with an ominous creek. As the most sensitive to danger, I stepped in first. The inside was just as grim as the weed ridden gardens outside. The main hallway was long and tall with an ancient chandelier hanging from the dark ceiling above. The few bits of furniture that stood in the hall were covered in white sheets that were now practically black from dust and dirt it had gathered for the last eleven years. Huge cobwebs glowed in the moonlight that filtered in from the grimy windows that covered the walls. There was no movement but the oppressive silence and threatening aura continued, keeping my trigger finger firmly in place.

“It’s clear.” I muttered softly. I didn’t need to raise my voice. I knew the immortals behind me had their ears strained for the tiniest sound.

Lightly Elizabeth ran ahead, darting past me like a little bullet before she reached the first door. She peered in while, observing the room, while Alexis and Hart wondered to my side slowly.

“Where do we start, friend?” Hart asked in his baritone voice.

“I am not sure.” I admitted.

“Well we can’t just scour the whole place. Not with that blood thirsty feeling hanging around us.” Elizabeth hissed as she trundled back to us.

“I know.” I snapped coldly.

“Studies, libraries and major bedrooms would be the first places to look.” Alexis said rapidly in hopes of getting Elizabeth and myself to back down.

Elizabeth’s golden eyes narrowed but she sniffed haughtily and turned around to head for the other doors in the narrow hall. I wordlessly did as she and began to open the doors on the left hand side of the hall in search of something that would’ve been a study. So far we just found numerous lounges and a very long dining hall.

I turned to face Alexis, who stood in the hall listening carefully to the eerily silent house with Hart, and shrugged. Hart pointed at the hallway that slithered away into the back of the house beyond the crooked and broken staircase. I tilted my head as I stared at the corridor that seemed to have a darkness all of its own.

“Let’s go then.” Elizabeth growled then walked off into the hall.

I followed closely with Hart then Alexis behind me. I kept my gun pointed over Elizabeth’s head and struggled to keep my finger still. I did not like the fact that every step we took, the feeling of death was pressing harder on my shoulders. The ceiling for the small corridor sloped up as the new filthy hall began, revealing a long line of doors. Elizabeth and I began opening and shutting them as we made our way up the corridor. I paused at the fifth door however when I noticed that there were paintings littered across the left hand wall. Out of interest, I back tracked to the first one. Gently I blew away the dust and wiped away the thick cobwebs, revealing a face I hauntingly recognised.

The pale blue eyes stared at me blankly. The face was round, puffy even, and framed by fluffy blond hair, making her strangely youthful for a woman in her fifties. I recognised her instantly though and flashes of recent memories blinked in my eyes. This woman was Irma, Eugene’s mother. I glanced down at the bronze plaque under the painting and frantically rubbed away the dirt that covered it. Quickly the name was confirmed and a date was revealed. I stared at the numbers. The death year was correct, it was marked five years ago, but the apparent birth year was completely wrong. It would make her only twenty-five years old.

“What’s wrong?” Alexis asked behind me.

“This is Irma.” I replied stiffly.

Alexis observed the painting then nodded. “It is but you seem anxious.”

“The dates are wrong. She would’ve been twenty-five when she died. She wasn’t.”

“Maybe it was length of her being the Head of the Family.” Alexis guessed.

“Maybe.” I mumbled before an idea came to mind.

Frantically I began to wipe down each painting, observing each woman’s face, before glaring at the plaque beneath. I kept on doing this, ignoring Elizabeth’s snappish demands at what I was doing before I reached the very end of the long hall. It was the ninth and last painting and hopefully I wiped it down. A woman with mud brown hair stared snidely down her beak like nose. She was the least attractive of the nine women I had seen but it was the plaque that sat underneath it that I was after. After getting the image of the bird like woman in my head, I scrubbed at the bronze sign then let out a hissing sigh. It said Ethelinda Allaway. This woman was Ethelinda, the one the scout was talking about before she tried to burn me alive. The one who was in control of what was happening. She however apparently died well over four hundred years ago.

“Alexis.” I called and waved him over then prodded a finger at Ethelinda. “Keep a memory of her face. She may be important.”

His eyebrows frowned but he shrugged his shoulders in acceptance. He had learnt long ago not to question me when I thought something was important.

“I think I have found a study.” Elizabeth said sharply then vanished into the door at the centre of the hall.

I hurried after her and stumbled into the dark room. I stood just beyond the door, staring with what sight my Matter would allow me. The place was filled with books, from the floor to the ceiling, but the single desk littered with old paper and the couple of moth eaten leather chairs was the indicator that this was once a study. The archives of a main Family house would be a lot bigger than this room filled with many more shelves. This is probably where the Head sat, make this the throne room in a sense.

Elizabeth rummaged around in on the desk before her small fingers located the switch. The lamp flickered before it glowed dimly that gradually gained in strength and gave some reasonable light to room. With some internal light, we began to raid the room. We looked through every book, through every bit of paper and through every draw, but nothing about Eugene and Irma could be found. By the end of an hour, I was grinding my teeth in frustration.

“This is only the first logical place where something will be hidden, friend.” Hart said in comfort. “We still have many places in this house to look.”

“But we don’t have the time.” I pointed out. “It is already midnight which means I have about four hours of darkness left.”

“She has a point.” Elizabeth said from her perch on the ladder that led up to the higher shelves. “We should split up.”

“Is that so wise? Whatever is guarding this house is still in here and we don’t know how strong it is.” Alexis said.

Elizabeth shrugged her tiny shoulders. “It’s the only way to cover more ground.” She pushed herself off of her seat and landed lightly on the floor. “I go with you.” She said, pointing her finger at me.

“No, I’ll-“ Alexis began but was cut short by Elizabeth’s sharp tone.

“I will go downstairs with the witch. You are connected to her, I can tell. If anything were to happen to her you would know so at least you would be aware if we find trouble or anything useful. You and Hart are also both werewolves. You may not be kin but you will fight better together than a vampire and werewolf.” She explained. Very slowly and rather grudgingly, Alexis nodded. Elizabeth clicked her tongue. “Good. Howl if you find anything.”

Hart silently did as he was told and floated out of the room like a shadow. Alexis however hesitated. He gazed at me and was obviously torn in wasting time and leaving me alone. Eventually, after Hart called for him a couple of times, he left me with Elizabeth to search for upper floor of the house.

“How do you even know there’s a lower floor to this place?” I asked coolly.

Elizabeth grunted. “You should know too. A witch house always has training grounds for the youngsters and for the older ones to practice.” She replied before trundling out in search of the entrance to the lower floors.

I followed silently. She was right. Outside was just gardens which meant the grounds were hidden. Witches trained their young early, just like anything in the Old World. However when the witch reaches twelve years of age, the child is sent off to the main Halls in the house of the Crone. There they would be trained by the Crone herself until they reached eighteen and returned home to begin her job of hunting down immortals who step into the mortal world and mortals who threaten the Old World.

Elizabeth lead me down a hallway that came to life at the end of the hall and trotted down it happily, opening every door she could find. As she lead me down another two without any luck, I almost gave up hope until she stopped suddenly. She looked like a hunting dog having picked up the scent of its prey before tilting her head back and forth. She suddenly swept up the dark corridor and didn’t stop until her bare toes were touching the matted and dirt covered rug.

“I can hear wind.” She stated before tucking her foot under the rug and kicking it back, revealing the outline of a blatant trap door.

She gave a triumphant cry and, before I could stop her as my eyes picked up the shapes of Matter wards, she bent down and took hold of the iron handle. The Matter reacted instantly and Elizabeth reeled back, letting out a howling hiss and clutched her hand to her chest as the Matter ate at her skin like acid. She growled horribly and took a step back, letting me move ahead of her and let off a round of Matter bullets into the source. Again, there was a twisting hiss as my Matter overcame the Allaway’s and the sign cracked.

Almost instantly I regretted it. The pressured lustful sensation that had been hovering about us since we entered intensified dramatically. I froze and glanced at Elizabeth who had stopped hissing and was now snarling. With one dark glare at me, she pointed at the trap door.

“I don’t care what’s in there. We go down.” She snapped.

Smoothly and without argument, I knelt down and flung the trap door open, revealing a set of stone steps that led to a darkness far thicker than the gloom that clung to this house’s walls. Elizabeth got to the first step before me and slunk down like a cat. I sighed and got my gun ready, before I followed the tiny vampire into the training grounds, forcing myself to be calm as the thick darkness and the ghastly aura enveloped me whole.