Oisín McGann - Ancient Appetites

Opening the door, he stood there speechless for the second time in as many nights. In the dim light of the corridor, Elizabeth was waiting, dressed only in a white nightgown. Her long dark hair hung down over her shoulders and her feet were bare.

'I'm sorry for waking you, Nathaniel,' she said softly. 'But I think we need to talk, you and I.'

Nate remained frozen there for a moment, and then decided that it would be slightly less scandalous to let her into his living room than to leave her standing out in the corridor. Waving her in, he immediately went to the speaking tube to summon Clancy to escort her back to her room.

'If you are uncomfortable with my being here,' Elizabeth told him as she sat down on the sofa, 'I won't take up much of your time. Sit here next to me, so we can talk quietly'

Nate drew in a breath and closed the tube, sitting down at the far end of the sofa.

'What do you want?' he asked warily.

'I need to ask you, Nathaniel, if you are guilty of the treachery of which you are accused.'

'No,' he retorted. 'No, I'm not bloody guilty. You came here in the middle of the night to ask me that?'

Elizabeth regarded him for what seemed like the longest time and then nodded to herself.

'I believe you,' she said. 'Hugo and I both think you were wrongly accused. That is why I am here. We want to ask for your help. We are hoping that the Duke will soon recognize us as being full members of this family, and when he does, we intend to take on our share of the responsibilities. Hugo has paid great attention to what has been happening in this house since God chose to resurrect us, and he has great fears for this family'

She moved closer, and Nate became aware of her scent: clean skin and a faint perfume. The way she turned her head towards him accentuated the line of her throat and her elegant neck and shoulders. There were still the faintest lines on the skin of her face from the leathery wrinkles that had once covered it, and he had to remind himself that this woman was more than six hundred years old. He tried not to meet her eyes; they had a mesmerizing fervour to them he found disturbing, so he watched her lips instead as she spoke.

'Hugo feels that all your modern science – all these marvellous comforts with which you surround yourselves – are making the family weak and vulnerable to attack. Your fighting arts are used only for sport; your armoury is too far from your living quarters. Your windows are too large to prevent missiles from being hurled through them. You have no keep to speak of – the walls around your boundaries are low and would be impossible to defend.'

Nate gave her an incredulous look, not knowing whether to laugh or not. She did not seem to notice, continuing to list the family's faults.

'None of you wear armour when you leave the castle, and you often travel far afield without an armed escort. Your older men have grown fat, anchored to their chairs by their huge backsides. This cannot go on!'

Elizabeth moved closer still, until he could feel her breath on his skin.

'Hugo believes that this is why we were brought back from the dead,' she whispered huskily. 'To save this family from its sloth and gluttony and weakness. And save it we will! But we will need strong, moral men to help us in our struggle – men like you.' She took his hand. 'Is this all you want from your life: spending your days playing with toys, your nights dallying with chambermaids or drinking to excess? Let Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, give meaning to your life, Nathaniel.

'We are only beginning to understand how powerful this family is, but it is clear that decisions here affect the entire land; how you choose to live causes ripples across its people. Don't let sin bury your family, Nathaniel. Work with us, be a warrior for our Lord God and do His work on this earth. Join us, and we can promise you Paradise!'

And as he hesitated, shaken by what he was hearing, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his.

Nathaniel had Clancy start packing the next morning. He wanted to get away from this house and everything in it. Elizabeth's shameless attempt to seduce him into betraying his father had reminded him why he had fled to Africa nearly two years ago. This way of life was unbearable; being surrounded by people who were bred to believe that success was more important than loyalty, or love or even plain, common decency. He needed to find some space, some time to himself. His revenge on Gideon and his brood would just have to wait.

The fact that he was under house arrest meant nothing to him – let anyone try and stop him from leaving. He would wait out the day and make his escape in the early hours of the morning. There was the small matter of Hugo's impending betrayal to deal with, but Nate would corner his father at dinner and warn him then. He wasn't sure how great a threat Hugo could be, but he was still in no position to oust the Duke.

There were a couple of hours before dinner, and he decided to spend them going through the papers he had taken from Marcus's desk. He was not the studious type and had put it off long enough. Besides, he didn't want to have to take them with him – he would have enough baggage was it was.

The business documents threatened to put him to sleep, but he combed through the texts, searching for anything that might relate to his brother's death. But he didn't know enough about the business to determine if anything was incriminating or not. He decided to hand them on to Silas before he left.

Then there were the letters Marcus had kept with him wherever he went: the peach-coloured, scented envelopes of letters that Tatiana had sent to her big brother in America; the flowing script of Roberto's lyrical prose and the spidery scrawls of Nate's observations from Africa. Nate clutched them so hard they crumpled between his fingers and he found himself close to tears. With all the scheming, all the conspiracies, it took these simple pieces of writing to remind him how much he missed his brother.

He was stuffing the letters back into their envelopes with unnecessary roughness when his eyes fell on his most recent letter, which Marcus must have received only just before he left America for Ireland. Drawn on it in hasty lines was a map of what looked like streets. No, he corrected himself – not streets, corridors. It was like the maps they had made as children when they played games in the hidden passageways; but if it was on this envelope, it meant Marcus had been doing some exploring in the week before his death. It appeared to be a route marked in paces… and it started in Marcus's living room. The route ended at a point marked with the words: 'panel next to fireplace'. Seconds later, Nate was rushing down the corridor towards the elevator.

He knew the doorway behind the bookcase in Marcus's living room and wasted no time in pushing the worn copy of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher to open the door. Inside, he found a candle and matches and started along the narrow corridor, ignoring the dust and the insects and spiders that had made the dark place their home.

The route on the map took him deep into the house, through passageways he hadn't known existed. Finally, he reached a ladder extending up through the ceiling and down through the floor. Reading the map with a frown, he took hold of the ladder, gripping the candle as best he could, and started climbing upwards.

The ladder led him up to another corridor, and it was twenty paces along this passageway that the map ended. In front of him was another door, with the compulsory box of candles and matches on a shelf to one side. Blowing out his candle, Nate peered through the tiny peephole in the door. His heart sank as the room he saw beyond confirmed his fears. His hate for his family became absolute.