Chapter 18: A minimum of Effort

Raymond was on his way, far away from the station. He could not believe he had been so stupid to trust that a mortal would have survived for more than three days at the mercy of the Darklighters. Here he was, one down, and he knew that all his sources were slipping out at this very moment because he had been discovered just a week before, when he had boarded the plane from Frankfurt and to Charles DeGaulle. Quite suspicious that he had had a one-way ticket to London. Why had his superiors not thought that he would come back?

Of all the things that S.M.E. dealt with, the Darklighters were the cruellest, the most ruthless and the most despicable of all. Partly because they always ended up having things their way while S.M.E. had nothing at all - or very little, at least - and partly because their rules were the rules for the game. It was a game, both sides knew this. One side gained information as the other side gained its information. It was a win-win situation in all cases, but somehow the Darklighters constantly outsmarted the poor field investigators.

And Raymond was even rather good at his job. He had been appointed the task of meeting with two sources from inside the very mansion! And at the same time he had to find a way to get rich detailed information about the mansion grounds and the forest.

He had believed Miss Wright was going to get inside the mansion, as the first mortal for once to actually live through an investigation, although, as he thought now, that scenario was practically impossible. With creatures such as the Darklighters, one never knew where to put down a foot in order to survive the sharks in those murky waters. Everything was unpredictable and unreliable, only the family itself could see the pattern and recognize the real meaning behind all the madness. And even when it took a Darklighter mind to figure out the Darklighter ways, their lord, Matthew Darklighter, was impossible to interpret even by his own family. His cold, cynical self was not meant to live, not meant to actually exist, and yet he did, and his very existence, that he walked this earth, was a contradictory fact. He was not meant to be.

S.M.E., Studies of Metaphysical Existences, was a world-wide organization which Raymond had served loyally since his teens. He was dedicated to the investigation on witchcraft, folklore and mystical tales from far and wide. Legends such as dragons and aliens had always amused him, but the folklore, now those tales had actually been told once, and told by so many that they had survived. Stories of men howling against the sky as they turned into wolves, people rising from the dead to feed on the living, cold corpses leaving their coffins at night to drink blood and a pin in a voodoo doll can make you break your leg.

Of course there were people better than he was, and of course they were also on cases just as pressing as that of the Darklighters and their family. They had always been a mystery to S.M.E., but who they were and exactly how and why they were there, remained hidden.

New alliances were being made however. A family by the name of Rayfair, a former subject for S.M.E. investigators, had turned out to rival the Darklighters, and the two families were in an ancient feud. Now this would be fun. Their leader, Lucius, had agreed, on certain circumstances, to supply as much information as he could, to the organization, about the Darklighters.

This had proved to be a useful tactic, and the organization had been flooded with papers and even video tapes of the Darklighters, now and then. Mostly from a place they called "the Liberty Bar", where "their kind" came and celebrated the night. Those who appeared on the tapes were mostly the younger generation of Darklighters, the heir Gabriel, his cousin Rachel and all the other kids. There were thousands, it seemed, and all the same. Distinctive features, bright, attentive eyes, a group of vultures just waiting for the next man to tumble over in the desert sand. Ready to swoop down and feed on the bloody flesh.

Now, what were they? That question had always had many answers. Their lord, Matthew, was certainly not the man he presented himself as in the press, neither was his youthful and wild son, who liked parties and everything that came along with it. Some of the others seemed ordinary enough, well-dressed, well-spoken. Even Matthew's personal lawyer, Zacharias, who was of the young generation, was indeed a very handsome and mannered youth.

Now what made these Darklighters so despicable? Nobody could tell, nobody could even remember how they'd risen to power and when, they'd just always been there, like a lurking shadow in the corner of an eye, slowly forcing its way up and claiming more and more property world-wide. The family firm was business, buying and selling shares of other companies, and with a fair amount of prediction, the company had gained more and more part of other different companies, and trade had started. Some say it evolved during the industrialization and commercialization with trade between Asian and European countries, that it was very successful and lucky to avoid the most of the piracy in those days to keep their cargo intact and therefore their shipments always sold best at the trade markets.

But there was no telling where they actually came from, when it all begun and such. Indeed the family itself originated out of the medieval times. The mansion is said to have been built around the year 1000, but no real accounts were available on the subject matter. The construction of the mansion is actually said to be even further back, and that the year 1000 was merely a time where the mansion was being restored and rebuild after a violent fire had ruined the most of the building. They say that the ruins up north of the present mansion are the ruins of the old, and that they are even more haunted than the present home of the family.

Nobody has ever made a record of what is in the forest and what is in the ruins. Nobody. Not even after almost a thousand years.

The place had always been surrounded by mystery ever since it was known to mankind that someone actually lived there. Before the centralization of the state, the mansion itself had been a home of the family and its lord, several farms belonging to it and on them peasants, their families and their servants, who came from all over the country to get paid work. Soon the lord also appointed knights at his service, but only those he saw fit to the task of protecting him, a lot of them even came from the family itself.

And so time passed on. Nobody ever really knew what went on in the house. Only trusted servants were allowed in there, and the peasants told stories that would send chills down anyone's back.

They told stories that they had seen a lonesome raven fly from the forest and land on a field at night. Suddenly it would come alive and their lord would stand there, as if he had just flown like the raven, across the sky. He would then transform again and come near the farm to snatch a new-born baby or a child, and carry it with him back to the mansion, the peasants and servants fast asleep. A shadow lingered constantly above them, a gloom, a foreboding presence; even far from the mansion, the peasants didn't like the fields near the forest, and they avoided it if they could until the last of the harvest season and the corn had to be chopped.

During the late medieval times and the beginning of the renaissance, the family had risen to power and their members were well-known among the aristocracy in London. Their reputation was that of an unusual but extremely wealthy and noble family. During the Reformation, they kept to themselves and the peasants stayed loyal to their lord as the changes swept across the land. The French revolution gave way to new ways of thinking among the hard-working peasants, and those who wished to leave and search fortune on their own were released from their vow of loyalty. The remaining servants were initiated into the household itself and the most of the farms were closed down.

The firm took over a more capitalized business, and trade with foreign wares became the main source for the income. Slowly, the firm evolved and in London, it was known among almost every merchant. While the civil war raged overseas, the family spent their money on raising funds and they even donated money for the warfare. This opened a door into the political world to the family, and ever since it was part of important decisions, because of its financial support of the government.

At the outbreak of the First World War, the youngest of the family were sent to war. There were different accounts on how they reacted to the horrors of the trenches, but the most common was that they seemingly had been laughing hilariously as they had run around and played hide-and-seek while betting on who could hit the man furthest away from their outpost. They remained in the battlefield until few months before the final struggle. They were drawn back, and the story goes that every son - even a pair of girls who had disguised themselves to go to war too - returned safely and suffered no trauma.

The heir of the family, this must have been the father of Matthew Darklighter though his name was not recorded in any files, was sent to Germany during the 30's, and infiltrated the SS-force. In fact, he ended up in the high ranks, well-disguised as he was, and participated in developing the concept and idea around the concentration camps. He helped with the first deportation and gassing of - in the beginning - enemies of the system, and then later the Jews from the ghettoes. He was drawn out of Germany in 1944 and back to England, before the war turned out to the favour of the Allied forces.

The world changed, and with it the technological revolution. Electronics were mass-produced and companies betting on the new and unknown devices of public service, such as the radio, the television and white goods developed after the war, had immense success. It was important to be visionary, and so were the Darklighters.

And so Raymond was left to ponder these facts as he headed back to his hotel to call his superiors and tell him that the plan had failed, that the woman was dead and that the leads on the family had drawn out.

He unlocked the door and threw the key on the drawer in the hall before finding the phone and dialled a number. He got hold of the secretary; he could almost picture her sweet face like the morning he had left the headquarters in Vienna. "Studies of Metaphysical Existence, how can I help you?"

"Fienne, it's me, Raymond," he said, his voice still shaking after the assault by the agent in the police station. "I've been discovered, I need a way out. They're tailing me, probably in these very moments."

"Ah, Raymond, yes sure! Where are you?"

"I'm -" and the line died. The secretary looked up his supposed destination, called another investigator by the name Ivry Pershia, in London, and sent her to the hotel. But as she arrived it was already too late. A dead body had been found by room-service only an hour ago in his hall, the phone still hanging from the drawer beside him. "A stroke", they said. The investigator stood looking as the stretcher was rolled into the back of the ambulance and drove away. She looked around and saw a young police officer with a notepad scribbling something down before he gave a nod to the witnesses he was interviewing and set off. His name tag said "Thomas Rolando."

He paid a visit to the mansion the same evening. Tired but confident that he had done the right thing; he walked up the stairs and entered. Rex advanced him; the faint smile on his pale lips was barely distinctive in the dim light.

"Mr. Rolando, did the Lord sent for you?" he asked and took Thomas' coat.

"Not at all, Rex, I just wanted to give a verbal report instead of filling all the papers," he said.

"He's in the garden parlour," Rex informed and Thomas gave him a short nod before heading through the dark hall way at the left of the stairs. As he walked, the lights at the end were visible and he took a turn right to a great parlour, a long room with more modern, minimalistic furniture than the old-fashioned style which was so common in the mansion.

Black leather couches and arm chairs stood neatly organised and the glass walls shielded the magnificent greenhouse - known in the mansion as the glass garden - with all the flowers, beets and wines, and the wicker chairs and tables arranged for lazy, sunny afternoons in a tropical climate. A fountain splashed delightfully and he could see Rachel walking around out there, tending to the flowers with such care that even her numerous lovers must have been jealous at the petals when she kissed them and made them grow another inch as the eye watched.

He saw Matthew in the couch with a newspaper lightly clasped between his slender fingers. At the floor next to a bookcase, sat a little nine-year-old girl dressed in a soft pink dress with a big ribbon in her hair. Her face was so sweet, round like a doll's, her eyes large and bright blue. But despite her sweet appearance, there was something terribly wrong with her. Her motions were stiff and her head tilted from side to side slowly as she hummed a sinister melody. She sat playing with a headless doll, and as he walked in, she turned her head and her eyes narrowed into slits before she gave a broad grin revealing a mouth full of small, sharp teeth.

"Father, Thomas is here," she said gleeful. Matthew lowered the newspaper and merely looked at Thomas with an expressionless face.

"Thomas, what a pleasant surprise," he said and straightened up in the couch putting away the paper. "For what reason do I owe your company?"

"I wanted to inform you that Mr. Carlstein is no longer a field investigator," Thomas said quietly, walking further into the parlour but keeping his distance to the girl on the floor. He had never liked Rose, nobody liked her. She was an artificial being, neither living nor dead.

"Retired, has he? I see," Matthew raised an eyebrow indifferently before calling upon the girl. She rose from the floor and skipped joyfully to the couch where she crawled up into Matthew's arms and snuggled her face against his neck while fingering the tattered clothes of her headless doll.

"Are there any other threats to be eliminated?" Thomas asked.

"Not at present, but I'd like to have you at the plaza on Friday," Matthew said as he hugged Rose closer. "We're having the most of the clan gathered Thursday."

"What's the occasion?" Thomas frowned. Matthew looked despondently at him.

"My anniversary. No, the opening of the Darklighter Tower," he explained with a heavy sigh before he turned and planted a loving kiss on Rose's cheek, not really caring for his servant's presence.

"Yes, my Lord." Thomas bowed his head apologetically but somehow also to avoid the sight of that little demon-girl being treated like a part of his Lord's harem. "Anything else you wish?"

"No, return to your duties," Matthew said. Thomas bowed and left quietly. On his way out he gave a nod at Rex, who was sweeping the floor in the entrance hall. There was no way he could say anything about what he had seen, and neither did he intend to. Rose would never complain. She was created for that purpose. That little monster.