"Doctor?" she called out. "You up there?"
The hammering came to an abrupt halt, and a few seconds later his face appeared in the hole. He looked a little pinker than usual from the exercise.
"Ah, there you are. Find everything all right?"
"Weighs a ton," she complained, hefting the straps where they dug into her shoulders.
"Oh. I suppose I should have specified we didn't really need that much of any of it. Never mind. Ditch them in the corner there and come up here. I think I've found where your friend from last night got into the house."
With poor grace Alison did as she was told and scrambled up the ladder to join him. The attic was a vast space, covering the entire area of the mansion under its sloping roof, the stacked crates and tea chests barely lit by a single oil lantern, a hundred dark and hidden spaces behind the cobwebs and chimney columns. The Doctor picked up the lantern and led the way over to a point just at the lowest point of the roof, where a row of heavy planks had now been crudely but sturdily nailed to the rafters.
"See? It managed to dislodge these tiles here. Then, as far as I can make out, it made a hole in the ceiling so it could slip down into the wall cavity, then found its way down under the floorboards, all the way to your room where it just pushed its way up through a loose board. Crafty little creature."
"Little?"
"Oh, yes. Judging by the holes, and the gaps it managed to squeeze through, it can't be more than about..." He gestured vaguely with his hands, expressing the concept of something about as big as medium sized dog. "Just as well, too. It filled its little belly with your blood without taking enough to kill you."
"Oh, Doctor." Grey faced with nausea at this image, Alison turned away and he looked apologetic, but she changed the subject before he could say anything. "Did they say how long this has been going on? They seemed to be pretty much taking it for granted."
"They're just closing ranks. Carstairs is fooling himself he's man enough to take whatever comes and the women don't know better than to drift along with him. Seems the first they knew about it was three weeks ago. Charlotte was asleep with her husband, young George Carstairs, and one of those things found its way in and attacked her. George woke up, chased it out of the house and across the moor. Carstairs and a couple of men followed, just in time to see him brought down by a whole pack of them. Ever since they've been catching little glimpses of them here and there, but they're still too stubborn to go looking for help. Too proud to make fools of themselves talking about hideous goblins that drink blood. And this house is no castle. The creatures are out there every night, scrabbling at the woodwork, clattering about on the roof, gnawing at the weak points, no matter how carefully barred and barricaded the place is, it's inevitable they find a way in once in a while."
"Always the same way?" asked Alison with a nod at the hole in the roof.
"No, apparently the first time was just through an open window. The second time one found its way in through the cellar and nearly killed the footman. That's when all the servants left except the cook. They took Jenny on at short notice straight afterward. Since then, there's been a couple breaking in through loosely bolted shutters, one down a chimney, and one up a drain. That last one, that's the one that got Lady Carstairs two nights ago. No wonder the poor old thing doesn't feel like greeting visitors."
"So what are we going to do?"
"Ah!" With a flourish the Doctor lifted his index finger. "I thought you'd never ask."
--------------------
By nightfall, every possible means of entry into the house was bolted and boarded up tight. All except a single window of a corner bedroom which stood invitingly open, the cool night air wafting gently in. The only light that of the three-quarters moon, Alison pressed back into her corner to the right of the window and clutched tightly in her hand the first of the four little phials of anaesthetic fluid the Doctor had given her. In her left she held a wad of cotton wool treated with smelly chemicals. Throw the phial in the right general direction, he had told her, then press the pad over your nose and mouth, then hope for the best.
The Doctor leaned back casually in his own corner, staring into space as if daydreaming. Carstairs lurked about behind the bed, the top of his head frequently visible as he shifted about in search of a more comfortable position.
"If we're going to see one it'll probably be soon," he said, placing his hands on the edge of the bedspread to peep over at them. "The ladies are asleep, the house is dark and quiet. That's the way they like it."
Alison shook her head in disbelief.
"What I want to know is how anyone in this house can get off to sleep knowing those things are creeping about outside. I don't even like knowing there's a spider in the room."
"Oh, my doctor gave us a supply of an excellent sleeping draught. They'll be out like a light, I can assure you."
"What? With vampires sneaking into their bedrooms? You really think knockout drops are the way to go?"
"I don't want them getting overwrought."
"There's worse things in life than being overwrought, you know!"
"Excuse me." Awaking from his reverie, the Doctor arched his eyebrows at them. "Ambush, remember?" His attention drifted away again, with a muttered: "Amateurs!"
Time passed. Alison had no way to measure it, except by how tired, stiff and crotchety she was becoming. After much thumping about Carstairs had gone very still now and she suspected he had dropped off. Even the Doctor looked like he was starting to fret.
"Maybe they got suspicious," she offered quietly. "Maybe the open window was a bit too obvious."
"Perhaps," he said with a frown. "But their predatory pattern is animalistic. It doesn't suggest sentient reasoning."
Looking unhappy, he sidled over to the window, just far enough that he could sneak a one-eyed look at the drive and gardens outside.
"Well, I can't see anything. Perhaps it's time we called it a night."
"Shhh!" she hissed urgently. He rounded on her archly.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I can hear something!"
"Really?"
Looking unconvinced, he turned his head to one side, cocking an ear towards the open window.
"No!" she whispered. "Not outside. In the corridor!"
As one, in utter silence, they turned to stare at the firmly closed bedroom door. There was a faint but clearly discernible creak of floorboards from outside.
"Oh dear," the Doctor murmured. "I may possibly have slipped up."
Painstakingly pressing their feet down onto the rug, on edge for the slightest sound which might betray their movement, they made a cautious progress across the room. Past Carstairs' snoozing form to the door, while the sound outside creaked to a halt just outside. The Doctor cast his eyes down at the phial in Alison's hand.
"Be ready," he said under his breath
In a swift, smooth movement he seized the handle and yanked the door open, and Alison lifted her hand to hurl the phial... right into the maid's startled face.
"Jenny!" Quickly she dropped her hand, to hold the little glass tube out of sight by her side. "What are you doing here?"
The girl hesitated, her eyes darting nervously between them.
"I... er..."
The Doctor sighed, pushing the door back against the wall so that he might stand at Alison's shoulder.
"Spit it out."
"I've... I think I've done a terrible thing."
Jenny was almost curling up in distress and worry, and Alison's instinct was to step forward and try to comfort her. She was startled to find herself restrained by the Doctor's hand clamped tightly but unobtrusively about her elbow.
"Well?" he said.
Weakly Jenny let her story tumble out.
"I had to go out. Down to the village to fetch something. So... I know you said not to, but I took down the boards you fixed up over the back door. I locked up behind me, I swear, and I know those little things have tried to get in that way before, I've seen the scratch marks, but they've never managed it so I was sure it would be all right this time too. But... but when I got back just now... Well, that lock's very old and it should have been replaced years ago, and it looks like somehow they managed to tear it loose, and... and the door was open when I got back." She dropped her head in shame, swallowing hard. "I'm so sorry."
The Doctor had listened, sharp-faced and unblinking.
"Right," he said. At a quick pace he walked back across the room to close and bolt the window, then picked up the oil lantern left standing ready in the corner. "We have to check the bedrooms."
---------------------
The three of them made a furtive progress along the silent passageway, their shadows stretched and distorted by the lantern's smoky yellow light. It was impossible to move with complete silence across the warped old floorboards, and the high pitched creak of rusted nails in rotting wood twisted about them as they made their way to Lady Carstairs' door.
Jenny pushed the door open and the Doctor lifted the lantern up high. The richly furnished room was still and silent. Bess' face was visible in sleep, her ashen hair sprawled about her on the pillow, her mouth hanging just open, a wheezing hint of a snore audible on her inward breath.
"One down," the Doctor muttered, and Jenny pulled the door softly shut.
Charlotte's room was behind a heavy white door at the far end of the corridor and they found themselves clustering together as they approached.
"If it's not in here..." Alison whispered.
"Then there's still the cook, remember?" said the Doctor.
"I checked on her already," Jenny said quickly. "She's fine."
"Oh?" The tension hunching her shoulders demonstrated that she could feel the straight look he was giving her, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. "Good."
Alison pushed open the door, and even before the Doctor could lift the lantern her stomach shrank coldly at the soft slurping sound from out of the dark.
The yellow glow picked out the scene. Charlotte lay sprawled and oblivious, her arms spread wide, the covers mangled about her, and at her breast crouched a nightmare made flesh. A greenish-grey homunculus, three feet high, its sunken chest and spindly limbs out of proportion to its distended belly, great flat hands and feet, and heavy, bony head. Its face was clamped to Charlotte's throat, its shoulders heaving in time with that rhythmic gurgling, supping noise, and a trickle of blood was already visible running down her white skin to stain the pristine lace of the pillow. The thing paused, and with an audible "splop" disengaged from its victim's neck. It lifted its head to reveal a pair of black liquid eyes, two flat vertical slits for nostrils, jowly loose flesh hanging from its chin and cheeks, and no mouth but a wizened, puckered hole in its face, stained and dripping with blood.
With a spitting, red-flecked hiss and monkeylike agility it bounded off the bed directly towards them.