Chapter 55
Fifty-Five
Ansel
Istayed in bed until one o’clock in the morning.
I’d found over the years that most humans were asleep by then—barring the occasional shift worker or parent of a newborn. Usually? I’d sleep from nine or ten until after midnight. But tonight I was too tuned into the sounds of the house, to the sounds of Sorcha stirring in bed, clearly not resting.
The big grandfather clock downstairs struck one. I waited until it struck first quarter then slipped out of bed—pulling on socks but otherwise staying in nightclothes, so I could easily claim I was up to take a shit if someone asked.
For the most part the massive house was quiet and dark—rows of bedrooms with locked doors, sleeping inhabitants.
The library was empty. The parlor too. But there was sound.
I couldn’t track it directionally just yet.
But it was near. And it was inside. Not filtering from the street.
Nothing filtered in from the street—the house was set almost twenty yards back from the gate and the gate almost ten yards back from the footpath. Odd. Notable. Likely significant.
Because if I couldn’t hear in from the street? People from the street couldn’t hear out from the house either.
I slipped down the flights of steps. From the second floor where Sorcha still lay and likely didn’t sleep. From the first floor with all the public space. Into the cellar where the main kitchen was.
I crept along the last flight of steps, knowing any claims about looking for the outhouse would be harder to back up now. The ceiling was lined with dull, silver-toned metal—likely lead. They were trying to insulate. But what exactly? Magic?
The noise was louder now. Clearer.
A handful of voices. And then? The sound of a knife cleaving flesh.
I slipped down the darkened hallway and to the kitchen door then dropped to the floor to peer in the crack beneath.
Pig carcasses. They were butchering pig carcasses. And a lot of them. Half dozen by my best count. I saw someone start walking for the door and leapt to my feet, ducking through an unlocked door and tucking myself behind racks of provisions in a pantry.
I heard more footsteps. A lot of footsteps. Grunting and thudding—like they were moving something heavy. Then I heard George’s voice. “We’ll begin shortly, Amos. Are you ready?”
The hall quieted after a few minutes and I dared to creep back out. There was still noise in the house, but different now. Chanting. Rhythmic. Ritual.
They were trying to open a portal.
I saw light down the darkened hall and followed it, finally turning a corner and seeing an open door leading to a dark stone chamber.
There were the six pig carcasses—etched with occult symbols.
There were the participants—chanting, walking, following the patterns, clad in matching black, sigils painted on their skin in blood.
And lying in the center? One of the young men Sorcha had spoken with yesterday—Amos—bound and gagged and naked, with cuts all over his skin.
They were going to open a portal and sacrifice him to whatever beast emerged. And somehow, impossibly, the boy seemed to have agreed to it.
I waited just long enough to watch the portal crackle open and a grey spindly figure emerge. But the moment the abomination wrapped its long, sinewy fingers around the boy’s throat I crept away.
I knew what came next.
The second I was clear of the cellar door I broke into a jog, hurrying back up the steps to our room.
“Wake up,” I hissed, shaking Sorcha’s shoulder. She must have finally drifted off once I’d left to scout.
“What did you find?” Sorcha mumbled, bleary eyed.
“They’re sacrificing someone to an abomination,” I said. “Right now.”
Sorcha was on her feet in an instant, fumbling for clothes in the dark.
“So we go stop them,” she said immediately. I caught her arm.
“No, lass,” I said. Sorcha froze.
“We just let them . . .” she trailed off, skin draining of all color. I nodded.
“We let them,” I said. “And tomorrow we act like this all makes sense. Like we’re still bought in. Same the next day. And again until they let us in on ritual details, spill some important history, get something worth knowing.”
“But they’re—” Sorcha tried to protest.
“I know, lass,” I replied. “I know it’s wrong. But if we go down there right now and intervene? Sorcha, they will kill us. And we’ll have no additional information to show for it. Is that what you want?”
She shook her head.
“So go back to sleep. Pray for the dead. And send Neal a pigeon at first light,” I instructed. “Understood?”