Ravens Deep (one) (36 page)

             
“Taken? What do you mean . . . by you?”  I asked, giving him a puzzled look.

             
“Me, others like me, or psychotic mortals.”  He looked pointedly at me.  “It is not only the immortals that are capable of horror.”

             
“I know,” I said quietly. We sat in silence for a few moments and Darius turned to me with an expression of concern.

             
“You cannot go into the village,” he said. I looked at him with wariness.

             
“Darius, I know you are still angry that I went to meet Charlie yesterday, but I have to buy food, I cannot exist here with nothing,” I replied evenly.

             
“I know . . . but you may have been seen yesterday.” 

             
“I wasn’t,” I insisted.  “There was no-one else in the park.”  Darius looked at me.

             
“There is always someone watching when you least expect it,” he observed. “We will go to London for a few weeks. It will be safer for you there.”  Seeing my look of dismay he added, “we will return in a few weeks when enough time has passed and he is forgotten about.” 

             
Only a few weeks, is that how long it took to forget someone? For the searches, the inquiries to stop and for his name to be added to the ever-growing list of unsolved

disappearances
?

             
“Darius,” I said looking at him directly. “Do you think I would be as ruthless as you, were I immortal?” Darius looked at me in alarm.

             
“Why do you ask that?”

             
“I am curious I suppose. I just wondered if women had the disposition for immortality. If your mother or sister had become un-dead, would they have endured immortality as you have or would they have perished unable to deal with the emotional side of it all?” Darius seemed ruffled by my words and was gauging my thoughts, but he appeared to come to the conclusion that I merely wanted an answer to the question. Although it did make me wonder why he seemed so troubled by my line of questioning.

             
“I believe women are actually more ruthless than men,” he replied.  “Men can lead great battles and campaigns and carry out evil deeds, but normally it takes weeks of planning and calculations; sorting out the details.  A woman on the other hand sizes up a situation and acts instantly, you only have to look at a mother defending the life of her child.  She will act ruthlessly and defensively and pay the ultimate price with her life, if there is not an alternative way out. Whereas a man will look for a way out first, he will look for a way to calculate.”  He paused. “Women definitely have the disposition for immortality, probably more ruthless killers at the end of the day with less conscience about doing it.”

             
“You really think so?”  I asked incredulously.  “You think that I would not have a

conscience
?” He looked decisively at me.

             
“You would see the necessity and your logical thought process would tell you what had to be done. You would not allow your conscience to get in your way and you would justify your actions with your logic.” I looked at him, I knew he was right, that was precisely how it would be.  Maybe I wasn’t so unlike him after all and despite my despair and protest of what had recently occurred, deep down he knew that too.

Chapter Twenty Eight - Underground Tunnels

             
The next evening we relocated to London and in the days that followed I reluctantly settled down to life at Parson Place. Initially, I was irritated not to be at my beloved Ravens Deep, but I understood Darius’s way of thinking.  It could be a risk for me to remain on Exmoor right now and I wondered how many weeks we would have to stay away.

             
Even though no-one knew my whereabouts, I still half expected that fateful knock at the door and the police to be standing there with their questions and accusations directed at me, but as the days turned into weeks, I began to feel confident that was not going to happen.

             
The horror of Charlie’s death slowly began to fade from my thoughts and once again, I became self absorbed in the security of the relationship that I shared with Darius. At first I had been content to read books and discover the house’s own treasures, I had delighted in the amazement I felt at opening door after door and finding the beautiful clothes that belonged to Darius hanging in the ancient wardrobes.  Many of them were modern, but there were outfits that belonged in some costume museum, they were decades old. It was during this time that I became aware of the fact that Darius never threw anything away.

             
But, those discoveries had not held my interest for long and although when Darius

was
with me my discontentment was less, I found that when I was alone, I was bored. I had cabin fever and longed to go out and about as I once had. Just to be able to venture into the garden would have been sufficient, but there was no garden at Parson Place and I felt imprisoned.

             
I did not dare to cross Darius and go out on my own.  Darius’s warnings were not just his possessiveness, there was a real danger for me. I could not risk someone recognizing me and asking me questions.  I needed to keep as far away from the public eye as possible, or at least until Charlie’s disappearance had become old news.

             
It was a cold mid November evening and very dark outside. I looked at the clock which told me that it was already past eight.  I had felt restless all day and now, sitting alone, I could stand it no longer.

             
Darius where are you?

             
He was always with me by now and perhaps foolishly I made up my mind -- I would go to him, he had to be awake by now. Cautiously I opened the basement door and walked down the stairs. I made my way to the room at the back of the basement and very quietly I opened the door.

             
The coffin was open and empty. Darius was not here, but he wasn’t in the house either, I was certain that I would have known. Now, my concern was growing -- where exactly was he?  My eyes came to rest on the floor--the trapdoor.

             
I am not sure what suddenly gave me the courage to attempt to open the trapdoor. Curiosity I supposed, mingled with a sense of concern for him. I pulled up on the iron ring and was mildly surprised at how heavy it was. Undeterred though, I persevered and found that with some force I could lift it.  I looked down into the black hole, and then let the trapdoor rest in an open position.  I ran quickly back through to the basement and up to the kitchen to get my torch.

             
A few moments later I was cautiously peering into the hole again. The beam from the torch illuminated the passageway, and I saw that there was an iron ladder attached to the side of the wall, roughly a foot beneath the floor that I was standing on.  I got down on my hands and knees and shone the torch down the dark passageway.  It was just an empty tunnel, and the beam of light reflected off the glistening wet floor below.

             
Cautiously I got a foothold on the ladder and climbed downwards.  I hesitated at first, but then with more determination I started to make my way along the tunnel.  It was notably cold and damp, and there was a distinct smell of decay that seemed to cling to the ancient mouldering walls. After I had walked a few hundred yards the tunnel suddenly divided into three.  I shone the torch down each of them in turn, they all appeared the same.  I choose the middle tunnel and continued walking. Thoughts plagued my mind.

             
I shouldn’t be down here. I should go back, where is Darius?

             
I felt scared and questioned my actions, but I was also intrigued to find where this underground maze would lead to, even though I was conscious of the fact that this might not have been a good idea, but my own sense of adventure kept me moving forward.

             
It probably dead-ends anyway. 

             
After a few hundred yards my torch light suddenly illuminated another ladder fixed to the wall. I shone the light upwards until it rested on another trapdoor. I climbed the ladder and pushed upwards, the trapdoor moved slightly. I pushed harder and sent it crashing down on to the stone floor above sending a cloud of dust into the room. 

             
What are you doing? Go back before it's too late.

             
But I didn’t’t go back, curiosity had taken over any sensible thought. I pulled myself up and into the room.  As the dust settled I saw it was an old basement of a derelict house, just as Darius had told me existed.  I could see the destruction in the ceiling, either ripped apart intentionally or fallen in from years of damp and decay. The room was empty of any furniture and only old newspapers yellowed with age littered the floor.

             
I crossed the room and opened a door which led into another basement room, similar to our own in Parson Place.  An old stained mattress rested in one corner and cardboard boxes mixed with piles of cloth were heaped in a pile in the centre of the room. 

             
The smell of methylated spirits came to my senses, at the same time as I heard a muffled noise.  I took a step back in wariness, and instantly turned my attention to the pile of cloth that all at once moved into the air.

             
The tramp eyed me suspiciously as he staggered to his feet.  I reacted quickly to the situation and made for the door. I pushed through and almost hurled myself down through the hole in the floor -- but I was not quick enough.

             
My hair was seized by rough hands and I felt the excruciating pain as the tramp dangled me precariously by it, since in my panic I had lost my foothold on the ladder that led down into the passageway.  The pain subsided as a strong hand grasped one of my flaying arms and unceremoniously hauled me back into the basement room.

             
“Let go of me,” I yelled indignantly.  The tramp merely laughed nastily before he spoke.

             
“I don’t often get visitors as pretty as you . . . especially not ones who come into my bedroom of their own accord.” This statement seemed to amuse him and he displayed an idiotic grin which allowed me to glimpse his badly decayed and yellowing teeth.

             
“Just what am I going to do with you?” he said, as his eyes glittered dangerously. I could tell by the way he looked me up and down, what he thought he was going to do with me, wouldn’t be good. From the smell of his breath, I could tell he had been drinking, but he wasn’t by any means drunk and I realized the full implications of this situation.  I was also aware of his filthy fingernails digging into my flesh, I felt disgusted and hoped that I would not catch any disease from him. I tried in to extract myself from his grip. 

             
“Just let me go and I won’t tell anyone that you are here,” I began. He narrowed his eyes and brought his face closer to mine.

             
“You’re not going anywhere,” he stated menacingly and I saw the futility of trying to negotiate my way out of this situation.  I sharply brought my free hand up and dug my fingernails into the softest part of his cheek, before ripping them in a downwards motion to gain as much effect as possible.  Simultaneously, I started to scream at the top of my voice, in the hope of un-nerving him at the very least.  Crying out in pain and anger, he gripped my other wrist and the weight of his body pushed me to the floor.

             
“No one can hear you scream down here,” he hissed maliciously in my ear.  I was

unaware
of the intelligence of the words that flew from my mouth, only that I shouted and screamed under his suffocating force. I tried desperately to twist my body from under the dead weight of him.  This, however, didn’t’t seem to deter him -- it only succeeded to arouse him further.

             
I could feel myself weakening and his resolve was not diminishing, so in a frantic

effort
of desperation, I grabbed a handful of his dirty hair and pulled on it hard. This action seemed to have no effect, but I managed to get my hand to his face and raked my nails across his flesh in the hope of gouging his eyes out.  All at once he let out an agonized scream, I felt his head move backwards in what appeared to be a completely impossible angle. His heavy weight seemed to lift from me, as if by itself, before it went crashing into the wall on the far side of the basement. Astonished, I looked up. Darius stood before me.

             
The coldness I saw in his eyes resurrected my terror once more, but his expression was unfathomable.  It felt as though he was looking straight through me as his eyes did not seem to register any type of emotion. Darius turned from me and approached the tramp's body, which was now convulsing strangely in some reflex of recent death, or maybe he wasn’t dead, but only in a paralyzed state of being.  I realized what Darius was about to do and turned my head, I couldn’t watch this. I got up slowly and although I was shaking uncontrollably, I climbed down the ladder, and leant against the stone wall for support, without it I would have collapsed in a heap on the floor.