Chapter Four
It should feel silly, being stalked by a Victorian gentleman, looking resplendent in his period garb, at 9am on a Wednesday morning, but it didn't.
"I may not be a demon, like my sister, but I am not an honourable man, Katherine. I was raised with evil and it corrupted me also."
"How?" I asked, backing up but not running. To be honest, the only reason I was backing away at all, was because I wanted to get caught.
"I am wicked. I'm debauched. Depraved."
I wondered if he knew what had happened in the world since his absence. "Oh yeah? What's your magic number?"
"I don't understand."
"How many women," I clarified. "How debauched and depraved are you?" My back hit the wall, nowhere left to run.
"At least twenty. Does that shock you?"
I smiled. "No. I'm not so far short of that myself. I think you might like the new world you find yourself in, Sir Thomas."
He'd been trapped in a neither world for over 100 years, he must be dying to get laid, so I kissed him. Not a gentle or refined kiss (it felt like an age since I had been laid too).
When I pulled away, he smirked at me.
"You're a very naughty girl, Katherine."
"Maybe. What are you going to do about it?"
"What I do to all naughty girls." He kissed me and grabbed me by the hips, lifting me until I could wrap my legs around his waist.
As we pulled at any clothing in the way, the lights began to flicker again, even the ones that weren't on.
"Wait!" I called, pushing him away.
"Do you think you can tease me?"
"No, but we need protection. This is not over, just delayed a little."
He set me down.
I usually travel with condoms, just in case; it's a holdover from my wilder university days. I rushed to the bedroom and pulled my case out, looking in the interior pocket.
"Yes!" I cried.
I turned to go back to him but he had followed me. Without my legs wrapped around him it was far easier to disrobe us both, not that I did a very thorough job of it. I still had one leg in my jeans and his trousers had this weird, buttoned flappy thing that took some fancy finger-work to undo, and no underwear! Naughty boy!
I grasped his length, as I tore the condom wrapper open with my teeth, but he plucked it from my hands and threw it away. I tried to stop him, to explain what it was, but I fell back on the bed and a moment later, he was inside me. He slid in easily, due to how turned on I was, and I decided not to worry about protection for now. I could go to the sexual health clinic when I got home.
Assuming I survived that long, of course, and this was a very welcome distraction from my fears.
"Oh, God!" I cried as he surged into me. He was huge. "Yes. Yes!"
It was quick and rough, except that he kept kissing my neck. I got the feeling that without such urgency, he could actually be a very good lover, and my suspicions were confirmed when he reached between our bodies and began to rub my clitoris.
The lights were flickering hard enough now that some of the bulbs were actually blowing.
I cried out as I came and after another half dozen thrusts, he came also, then he collapsed on top of me.
The lights stopped flickering and stayed off, except from the odd sparking sound.
We were both panting heavily as he raised himself up and brushed a strand of hair off my forehead.
"Thank you," he smiled languidly at me.
"Believe me, it was my pleasure." I was still slightly out of breath. "But dude, your sister's incestuous issues are seriously whacked."
He chuckled. "I'm not entirely sure what you said, but I think I agree."
I sighed contentedly. "Come on, after a hundred years in purgatory, you must be dying for a shower."
"And food," he admitted.
"I can do both."
After we showered together, it was still early enough for breakfast (just) so dressed in his trousers, shirt and waistcoat only, we headed down to the restaurant. He moaned about leaving the stiff collar, cravat and coat off, but I explained how much fashions had changed (as exemplified by my jeans) and he finally agreed.
We'd have to do something about Thomas's clothing though, this look would pass for breakfast, but someone was eventually going to realise he was in period garb and ask difficult questions. As for getting him a legal identity, I had no clue what to do there, yet.
Apparently the electrical problems had been building wide, because there were electricians and maintenance guys running around all over the foyer.
As we were about to enter the restaurant, we both spotted flashing lights through the glass doors at the front of the house.
"What's that?"
"An ambulance," I answered. "Other traffic has to move over or off the roads for them, that's why the lights and sometimes, they have a siren."
"Why is there no siren now?"
"Either because there's no traffic around that need a warning, or because the person they're collecting is already dead."
We waited in the foyer, hoping to overhear more information, and through the rumour mill, quickly discovered that Mr Raymond, a middle aged gentleman, had suffered a heart attack while in the shower.
That sounded plausible enough, and I knew that mornings were a dangerous time for cardiac events but given the supernatural happenings around here, we were both wondering if there was more to it.
We followed the ambulance men to the Mr Raymond's apartment and with all the commotion, managed to squeeze into the room and watch through the doorway as the paramedics went about treating him.
He was still in the shower, which was odd, heart attacks don't usually cause instant death, so I would have expected him to at least try and reach help and even if he hadn't made it to a phone, he should have at least tried to make it out of the shower stall.
Together the paramedics got him out and laid him on the floor, but I couldn't see much of what they were doing to him as there was a crowd around the doorway and I was too short to see over them but when the crowd finally parted for a moment, I could see that they were putting their machines away. He was obviously beyond help.
His expression was the next strange thing I glimpsed, he literally looked terrified. Now, yes, dying and pain are terrifying, but his face seemed frozen in the emotion, as if he was still seeing something awful through his dead eyes.
I kept one ear on the paramedics and one on the conversations the wife was having, just behind me. She had a small group of people around her, trying to console her.
The paramedics were loading the man onto a stretcher now, strapping him to it so he didn't fall off when carried out.
"Why's it so cold in here?" someone behind me said, and I realised that it was freezing. No one answered her but Thomas and I shared a look; we knew what the cold meant.
"Didn't he call for help?" someone asked the wife.
"I heard nothing but running water, then he said something like 'no, please' and then there was a loud bang. When I went in to check on him, he was lying in the shower stall."
I'd heard enough, whatever killed Mr Raymond wasn't natural, so I tugged on Thomas' arm and he followed me out into the hallway, where more people had gathered to chatter and as we passed through them, I caught snippets of conversation.
"Do you think he was electrocuted by the power problems this morning?"
"Maybe."
"I nearly had a heart attack when the bulbs in the kitchen blew! Frightened the life out of me!"
"He was such a sweet man."
"He said at dinner the other night that he'd just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's."
"Are you saying he killed himself?"
"No, just that maybe its better he went while he still had his faculties. That's what I'd want."
We headed down to breakfast and I waited until we were seated to talk.
"It was Lucille, wasn't it?"
He nodded.
"I thought you said that she didn't have much power over this world?"
"She doesn't." He looked confused. "Until closer to Samhain, she can't do anything more dangerous than a few light tricks. I suppose it's possible that in opening a doorway to her realm, you weakened it slightly, making it easier for her to access this world for a time, but it seems unlikely."
"So did she electrocute him?"
"I fail to see why. Perhaps if the gentleman was weak minded, there is a possibility she could have tried to possess him, but even that would be exceptionally difficult."
"What do you mean, weak minded?"
"Feeble or retarded."
"You can't say retarded these days," I schooled absently. "Would dementia qualify?"
He looked puzzled.
"Senility?" I clarified.
"Yes, it very well might. Did the gentlemen suffer that?"
"I heard someone say he had mild Alzheimer's, that's a form of dementia."
He nodded slowly as he considered. "Those with a weak mind are more susceptible to being possessed by her, but his body is hardly ideal and even trying would have weakened her considerably."
"Maybe she didn't care about that," I suggested. "Maybe she was so angry that I freed you, it was worth trying."
I could literally feel myself being smothered by guilt.
"That seems likely. The good news is, she will be weak for a while now. This isn't the first time she has tried to possess someone before everything is in place and for a time afterwards, she… fades. It will allow us some time to investigate what's going on and hopefully, find a way to stop her."
I hardly paid any attention to him, his words were being drowned out my by remembrance of the dead man's face. He had not only died because of something I did, he had died in abject terror.
That poor man. His poor family. This was all my fault. I felt as if the room was closing in on me, the atmosphere getting as thick and as hard to breathe as syrup.
"Stop that."
"What?" I looked over at Thomas, swallowing down the tears that threatened to bubble over.
"Feeling guilt. It will not aid our quest and may well hinder it. Added to that, you are not responsible for her actions. If Lucille chose to kill him, that is her choice, not yours."
"But if I-"
"No buts! She is a skilled manipulator and if she can use your guilt against you, she will."
"But-"
"Did you tear his soul from his body?"
"Of course not!"
"Then you did not kill him."
I didn't exactly feel comforted, my heart still felt as if he were being squeezed and my lungs had halved in size, making it impossible to breathe deeply, but I stopped arguing with him.
I didn't much feel like eating but we needed to, and Thomas deserved a meal after a century without food. Despite the incident killing my hunger, I was surprised to see how much I was putting away. Perhaps I had more of an appetite than I realised.
We didn't talk much through the rest of breakfast.
"You need some clothes and I need to get out of here for a while," I said once I had asked for the bill. "Fancy a road trip?" Keeping busy would help take my mind off the guilt.
After a beat to consider, he nodded.
Considering that literally everything about the world had changed, Thomas seemed to take everything in his stride, giving it little more than a curious look and never asking questions.
"Have you see much of modern life?" I asked as I drove into the largest town in the area, about three quarters of an hour away by car.
"I've been confined to the house, so only what came there. I've seen vehicles like this and larger, but never an ambulance."
So although he didn't ask, I took it upon myself to explain things as we drove, like the different types of roads, dual carriage ways and motorways, roundabouts and road signs.
He listened but didn't ask much and I knew I was chattering more for me than him.
Once in the town, he was fascinated by the tall buildings we saw, but looked in distaste at a few of the brutalist, 60s, poured concrete monstrosities we passed. I parked near the town centre and we walked along the high street.
"Why are there no cars here?"
Finally, a question. I had been starting to worry that something was wrong with him.
"Cars are dangerous so some streets are pedestrianized, which allows shoppers to move about without worrying about being knocked over," I tried to explain. "What kind of clothes do you want, casual or formal?"
"A gentleman always wears a suit."
I took him in to Top Man.
"This is not a suit," he told me, fingering the seams on a jacket. "I wouldn't let my butler wear this inferior product."
I sighed. I could have argued with him, told him that I didn't have the money for a Saville Row tailor, but with all the weird shit that had been going on, I decided not to give a crap. I might not survive past Halloween, so my credit cards could stand to take a pounding. Besides, maybe cosmically, this would help assuage some of my guilt over that poor man's death. I doubted karma used financial penalties to punish wrongdoers, but it was better than nothing.
I took him to John Lewis and of course, he wanted the best, so we left with four suits and seven shirts in various colours, one pair of shoes, one pair of boots, gloves and cufflinks.
Thomas didn't seem keen on ties so we bought him some scarves he could wear in the neck, a little like a cravat, I suppose.
With the neckerchiefs, he looked rather like a dapper 40s gentleman but he was handsome enough to pull the look off.
I also threw a three pack of T-shirts into out basket and I forced him into a leather jacket, winter was coming, he's need more than a blazer. I also thought he'd look hot in it, but I didn't tell him that.
I didn't see any change from £3,000.
As we were exiting the shop, he spotted something in the women's section that caught his eye and began holding dresses up to me.
Now granted, wasn't looking my best today, I was in jeans and a shirt, with an army jacket over the ensemble, but I didn't see anything wrong with my wardrobe.
"I don't need any dresses," I argued.
"But what you're wearing makes you look like a boy."
"I don't care. Besides, I can't afford any more clothes." I rarely buy anything on credit so I did have plenty more space on my cards because, since I always paid my balance off quickly, they kept increasing my credit limit. "I don't want to get into too much debt."
"Debt?"
"Yeah. They didn't give us those clothes in those bags, you know."
"Will they not simply bill you?"
"What did you think I was doing at the tills?"
"I don't know, but I didn't see any coins."
"We don't carry much cash money these days, transactions are electronic so if I pay with a card, it either comes out of my bank account and into theirs, or it's like a loan I take out from a bank and have to pay back some time later."
He put the dress he had been holding back.
"I will repay you for your purchases today."
Yeah, right. "Thanks but there's really no need."
It was a nice sentiment but how exactly was he going to earn 2,000 quid? Still, no point getting angry with him, I could have foisted the Top Man suits on him.
"So, what's our next move?" I asked as I led him towards the exit.
"I would suggest go through the contents of Edith's trunk, she kept diaries which I saw being packed away in that trunk. She seemed to understand more about Lucille than I did, so we must hope she recorded some of her thoughts."
"Didn't she tell you her suspicions?"
"Initially she told me everything but after her father's death, Edith also viewed me with suspicion," he confessed.
"I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "I deserved her distrust, I did not want to hear the truth."
"How did Edith escape?"
"Lucielle and I became trapped in that nether-world you pulled me from."
"But how did you get there?"
"I wish I knew."