Thomas Sniegoski - In the House of the Wicked

The tattooed man had rolled down the window and was hanging out with his rifle, taking aim at whatever it was that pursued them.

Remy gazed up into the mirror just as the beast surged out from the darkness, its flesh blacker than the shadows surrounding it. It had no eyes, but its mouth was enormous and round and ringed with multiple rows of saw blade-like teeth. It galloped on all fours, its powerful limbs tight with muscle. It stretched its neck and was just about to take the bumper in its open maw when the rifleman fired.

The creature reared back with a pain-filled shriek. For a moment it was lost in the shadows, but it emerged at an even faster clip, enraged by its injury. The tattooed man did not hesitate, firing three more times in rapid succession. With the last of the shots, the great beast pitched forward in a tumble, and Remy caught a glimpse of other, smaller monsters of shadow pouncing on their dead pursuer before there was once again only blackness in the rear window.

The driver drew himself back inside, placing his rifle on the seat between them.

“That should distract them,” he said, relieving Remy of his steering duties. “They’d just as soon eat one of their own as chase us.”

“Good shooting,” Remy said.

“Living here in the Shadow Lands, you can’t afford to be anything but.”

Remy was about to ask some questions when he thought he saw something through the ebony pitch ahead. At first he didn’t believe his eyes, but then realized that, in fact, what he saw was real.

A mansion sat in the midst of the darkness, its every window alive with light, tinted the same unearthly green of the car’s headlights.

“Welcome to the Deacon estate,” the driver said, as he blew the car’s horn.

And the wrought-iron gates across the driveway slowly parted wide to receive them.

“Get out,” the tattooed man ordered, bringing the vintage car to a stop in front of the steps of the elaborate home.

Remy gave him a quick glance before doing as he was told. He had barely closed the door again before the limousine sped off around the side of house, leaving him at the bottom of the stairs, bathed in the green glow of the house lights. He briefly stared off into the pitch darkness of the shadows beyond, imagining what nightmares waited there.

The sound of someone clearing his throat startled Remy, and he turned quickly to see a shape standing in the entryway to the house.

Remy began to climb the stairs as the figure beckoned for him to enter, and then came to realize that it wasn’t a someone who had cleared his throat, but a something.

It was dressed in the classic tuxedo of a butler, but the creature appeared anything but human; in fact, it seemed to be crudely sculpted from clay. It was featureless except for the most rudimentary details-deep, shadow-filled indentations for eyes, two holes in the flat of its face for nostrils, and a crooked slash for a mouth.

Remy carefully watched the clay figure for any sign of hostility, but it remained perfectly still as he passed it and stepped inside the house.

He stopped and gazed about the foyer in amazement. Everywhere there could possibly be a source of illumination, there it was: electric lights, candelabra, candlesticks dripping thick trails of wax on just about every flat surface. The floor itself was strangely uneven, the large windows were askew in their frames, and a nearby staircase canted upward at an odd angle. It was as if the home had been disassembled and put back together by someone who had had one too many cocktails.

The door closed behind him, and Remy turned to see the clay butler standing there, waiting. The creature motioned toward a nearby corridor, and Remy followed it from the foyer, doing as the creature did-bracing one hand against the wall to navigate the strangely slanted floor.

They reached the doors at the end of the hall and the butler pushed them open to reveal an elaborate library inside. It too appeared to have suffered the strange, distorting effects that plagued the rest of the house: books piled on the floor in multiple stacks, unable to sit on the slanted shelves.

The butler started to leave.

“I guess I’m supposed to wait?” Remy asked.

The butler paused briefly, nodding its great clay head as it pulled the heavy wooden doors of the library closed behind it.

“Great,” Remy said, struggling with the urge to leave the library, clad in the armor of war, to tear apart the estate as he searched for Ashley. That was what the Seraphim would do, but in this particular instance, Remy believed that a cooler head would prevail.

Everything had to be right with this one. No risks taken unless necessary. He could not allow Ashley to be harmed in any way. He could not give in to the Seraphim’s penchant for violence.

He had to find out more-about Ashley’s captor and about what he wanted from Remy. He had to bring Ashley home safe and sound.

The door opened, and the tattooed man entered.

“Mr. Deacon is getting dressed for dinner. He’ll join us shortly,” the man said. He crossed the library to a large decorative wooden globe suspended within the framework of a stand.

“Drink?” he asked, opening the globe to reveal crystal decanters of liquor sequestered inside.

“No, thanks,” Remy said. “I’m not feeling all that social at the moment.”

The man chuckled, taking a tumbler for himself. “Don’t tell me you’re still upset that one of Mr. Deacon’s vessels tried to kill you.”

“That and the abduction of one of my friends. Yeah, I guess you could say I’m still upset.”

The pale man poured what looked to be some good Scotch into the glass and returned the decanter to the globe, closing the lid. “That was all a mistake,” he said, taking a sip of his drink as he strolled about the room.

“A mistake,” Remy repeated with a nod. “Sure, it was. Who are you again?”

“Me? Let’s just say I’m Mr. Deacon’s right hand.”

“Deacon,” Remy repeated the name thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that the name of the family that owned the farm where that little mistake occurred?”

The man sat down in a leather chair and crossed his legs. “Yes, it was,” he said. “The farm belonged to the Deacon family for a very long time. As a matter of fact, my master was born there.”

“Your master?” Remy asked, surprised at the moniker. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“No, not really. He created me from nothing and gave me life. I really should be calling him my god.”

Remy started to look at the figure in a different light.

“Created you?”

The man had some more to drink. “He certainly did, just as he created that monkey-suited slab of clay that showed you in, and all the others.”

“You’re one of those…vessels?”

“Same basic design, but different function,” the man explained. “I’m not sent out for collection.”

“And what do these vessels collect?” Remy asked, recalling his experience with the creatures. “Energy? Life forces?”

The tattooed man smiled, the dark lines on his pale face taking on an entirely new configuration. “Aren’t you the smart one? You must be a detective.”

Remy felt the urge to wipe the smile from the artificial life-form’s face. “So how about filling me in on the rest?” he suggested instead. “Start with why these energies are being collected.”

The creature was about to answer when there came the tinkling of a bell. “That would be for us,” he said, draining his glass and leaving it on the tilted surface of a table beside his chair as he stood.

“So you’re not going to answer my question?” Remy asked, following him to the door.