Pt. 3

Gwen drove her Jeep quickly to Angel Island, the box of journals riding precariously beside her. She purposely kept from thinking about the flashes of images she had received upon touching the documents, hoping to keep an open mind about the contents of the books. "Maybe it was just residual energy from the writer's unhappy soul." She mused silently, driving carefully onto the ferry that would take her to the island. "It certainly looked sad enough." She watched the seabirds swoop down to catch their dinner as the ferry slowly approached its destination. The young Archivist wondered whether the woman, Mercedes, had been able to escape her situation. "They say times have changed but some things seemed to stay the same. Bad relationships seem to be timeless."

Once on the island it took her only moments to reach the Luna Foundation mansion perched majestically behind it's secure gates. The guards at the gate called up to the house for permission to allow her entrance, a change she was glad to see enacted. It had long been something of a joke with the Mother House that the San Francisco House might have been a formidable fortress against the forces of Darkness but it was a pushover for a thief with a good lock pick.

"About time you got here." Nick called from the doorway as Gwen pulled up to the door. "What's in the box?"

"That's what you and I get to find out." She replied, handing the moldering cardboard container to her fellow Legacy member. "Where is everyone?"

"Alex and Rachel are off investigating a supposed haunting of an old bookstore near San Mateo. Derek is in his office working on reports and Kat is visiting with relatives of her dad's. So it's just you, me and your box for the next few days."

"How romantic!" she replied dryly, holding the door open for her friend.

"So tell me about the box." Nick led the way through the drawing room, heading for the hologram which guarded the entrance to the House's hidden laboratories. He stopped suddenly, causing Gwen to almost run over him. "Damn, listen I need to get to the computer so that I can let you into the lab. I don't think you're Okayed to get past our security system."

"There shouldn't be a problem." Gwen replied. "My security clearance from my House is still in effect. It's not like I'm not a member of the Legacy. I'm just on loan to the church for a while."

Nick dropped the box at her feet and jogged through a seemingly solid wall, which shivered as he entered. A few moments later he reappeared and retrieved the box. "Okay, we're set. Come on through." The two entered the main laboratories of the Legacy House and started to work, pulling the moth-eaten journals from the boxes with gloved hands. Gwen briefly reviewed their contents, stacking those that were clearly Dr. Madigan's personal notes to one side and those that resembled the first journal on another table. Once the sorting was completed the duo began scanning their pages into the computer. Nick watched as the notes, sketches and articles were assimilated into the database. "So what am I seeing? This all looks like someone's diaries to me."

"That's what it seems." Gwen replied, reading through another journal carefully. "From what I'm seeing, this woman – who I think is Mercedes Lord – was married to a sea Captain by the name of Josiah Duncan in the late 1880's. They lived in a town called Lordsville that was founded by her grandfather just up the coast from San Francisco. Her younger sister Vivian also lived with her and this appears to have been the catalyst from some problems between Mercedes and her husband."

"How is this of interest to the Legacy?" Nick commented sarcastically, tossing the journal on the table. "You said on the phone you had something strange for us to look into. This sounds like a plot from one of those soap operas my last girl friend watched."

"You had a girlfriend?" she teased, picking up another of the journals. Gwen closed the book she was reading slowly and closed her eyes, willing her Sight to activate. It was a futile gesture since the Sight was a capricious gift at best, appearing when she least expected it. She gave up the attempt after a few moments, and then rose to join her friend at the computer. "The thing is, I'd agree with you if I hadn't had a flash of something back at the church when I first picked these books up. It was … disturbing to say the least. I was just hoping to find out more about the family, something to explain the uneasiness I felt after the vision."

"Maybe it was something inspired by the demonic?" Nick asked cautiously. Though he and Gwen were friends, there were things about the red-head's power of Sight that he wasn't sure he would ever learn. After they had met on a case involving her family ghosts, Nick had contacted a friend in the Mother House about the young woman. The friend had called back almost immediately, informing Nick that Gwen Llewelyn was a member in good standing and a particular friend of the House's Security chief, a mysterious man known only as "Warlock". Both he and the House's Precept had vouched for the girl's integrity and gifts but had refused to elaborate. Nick had never pressed the issue, choosing to enjoy her friendship instead of concerning himself about her extra-sensory talents.

"I'm not sure what it was I saw." Gwen replied with a frown. "It wasn't like anything…Nick, Look! A message is coming in from the Mother House!"

Nick quickly switched to the House's secure email account and downloaded the message. It read - "Have received word from our techs that you have been researching a family by the name of Lord and a Dr. Madigan. I may have some information for you pertaining to both those names. Will be in San Francisco tomorrow. Don't bother to meet me – I'll find you." The note was signed by – Warlock.

"Okay, this is creepy." Gwen said, shivering. "How did he know where I was? What "information" could he have in England about two families in California in the 1880's? Better yet – why would he care enough about it to come all the way out here? He never leaves our House!"

"So who is this guy anyway?" Nick asked with a scowl. "Everyone I ask clams up the minute I mention him. What is he – some Black Ops type?"

"He was" Gwen admitted ruefully. "MI5 to be precise. He was on some covert operation about twenty years ago when he ran into a demonic presence in a weapons plant he was suppose to infiltrate. Seems the "Other Side" had built the plant over some ancient ceremonial site and its guardian horrors were awakened by random violence perpetrated by the goons guarding the place. Warlock was the only one to come out alive. Rumor has it that the Precept of the Mother House had connections in Whitehall and managed to get an invitation to Warlock to come and talk to him about what he had seen. It was a match, as they say, made in Heaven. He came on board as Security Chief and has been with the Legacy ever since."

"You know him pretty well."

"We were not always on good terms. When I first came to the Legacy he was of the opinion I was too young and too immature to be a good investigator. He still doesn't even pretend to understand My Sight or my resident family ghosts. But …"Gwen stopped and looked up at her friend with a sad smile. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure." Nick replied, hesitantly.

"You checked me out after that madness with my Cousin's ghost, right?"

"Well… yeah I did" Nick admitted. "The Mother House said you were one of their best investigators."

"Did they tell you why I'm on Sabbatical?"

"No. I guess they figured it wasn't any of my business."

"It wasn't," she agreed with a smile. "But I'll tell you anyway. I was part of a team that was sent into a small community in Wales to investigate the disappearances of several hikers, one of who had Legacy ties. When we got there we discovered the place was over-run with vampires. Problem was we didn't find it out until the locals had managed to lock us in the old desecrated church." She sighed and rose to stretch her tired legs. "They told us the people who had disappeared, a couple of young boys, had been allowed to sleep in the old church since there wasn't an Inn. We started into the place and were set upon by the rest of the men of the village who managed to trap us in the stairwell leading up to the organ loft. That's when we saw them… the vampires. They were up in the choir loft, stretched out in the pews like logs. We tried to get back out but there were only three of us – myself, our team leader Miles Leander and one other researcher Thomas O'Keefe. O'Keefe wasn't much of a fighter – the villagers took him down almost immediately. Leander fought back and we managed to barricade ourselves in the bell tower for a while. Then one of the vampires managed to climb up the outside wall and snatch Leander. I spent the whole night in that tower, fighting for my life, using every trick I could remember from lectures Warlock had made us sit through, with every family ghost who's name I could remember floating through to add their two cents to the situation. I even tried psychically sending an S.O.S. message back to the House, hoping one of my fellow psychics would hear it. In the morning I climbed out of the tower, found our cars and made a break for it. Funny thing, it was Warlock, the one member of the House who we thought was psychically deaf, that got the message. He came in with our backup team and hosed the church with flame-throwers, even salted the ground in and around the churchyard. I think he would have lined the villagers up against a wall and shot them too if our Precept hadn't stopped him." Gwen shivered, remembering the moment when Warlock had walked into her hospital room and told her what he had done. "He came and gave me a full report after it was done. That's when I knew I need some space from the House, from the fight against the Darkness."

"Can't say I blame you" Nick replied quietly. "Anyone would be overwhelmed by that kind of horror."

"No Nick, it wasn't what I experience on the mission that convinced me. It was when Warlock told me what he had done and what he would have liked to do and I found myself agreeing with him on all of it - even on what he almost did to the villagers. I never thought of myself as a particularly vengeful type but that day I would have cheerfully backed him up on an extermination squad if he had asked me. That's when I knew I needed out for a while, to get my perspective back.

Nick sat back in silence for a moment. "I understand where your head was at when that happened. When my unit died I wanted to hit back at the person responsible for their deaths more than anything." He leaned back in his chair and looked up at his friend with understanding "It wouldn't have brought them back."

"I know, but at the time I thought it would feel good to make them suffer as much as my teammates had. But our Precept was right. It would have changed nothing."

"So what do we do about your buddy the ex-spy coming for a visit?" Nick asked lightly, changing the subject before they both grew anymore introspective. "Derek's going to have to be told he's coming. Too bad he didn't give us more notice."

"I know," Gwen replied with a sigh. "But it looks like Warlock isn't giving us a choice. He's coming whether we want him to or not. So, which one of us gets to tell your Precept he's having guests?"