House of Whispers: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Mortlake Series Book 2) Read online

  The staircase to the attic was steep and narrow. As she made her way up, she tried and failed to think of a way out of disgrace and penury. She would die in the workhouse or the gutter. How could she get a place as a servant now? Even that grim route was barred to her.

  The little attic room seemed far bleaker now as she packed the props away in her ironbound trunk. Then she started to change into her traveling clothes, fine garments that she would have to sell or at least pawn in a matter of weeks. She stood in her underwear for a moment, studying herself in the dressing table mirror. She was not unattractive. Men had made advances, even gentlemen. She might conceivably make money that way…

  “No! I will never be a harlot!”

  The whispering shadows were back. This time, they were bolder, advancing into the light of her feeble lamp, forming into humanlike shapes. She saw faces now, incomplete but undeniable—faces with gaping voids where mouths and eyes and noses should be. And there was something else, something new. A smell of burning wood smoke predominating, but with another undertone. Burning meat. Burning fat. Sickening.

  “What—what do you want?”

  She was afraid now, but Helen also felt resentment. Why didn’t these strange foreign-sounding ghosts perform when they were most needed? Why didn’t they intervene to save her reputation downstairs ten minutes earlier? Why must the ghosts of Haslam House, so many of them, refuse to play by the rules?

  “Go away! I don’t want you, you’re—you’re just useless!”

  The whispering was growing louder, though. She knew it was given to very few to hear those who had passed on. She was privileged since ordinary folk could never see or hear what she perceived. But Helen still felt a sudden need to stop being alone with the spirits, to appeal to anyone for refuge from this swarm of dark phantoms. She jumped up and made for the door. But the shadows rushed to surround her, and she felt the touch of cold fingers on her limbs, her torso, and against her face.

  She then understood that these were not the harmless departed souls she had spoken with so often. These were spirits of another sort. She had misjudged the ghosts of Haslam House, and now they had her. With the whispering shadows was an ancient malevolence.

  With their icy touch came a wave of utter despair, a sense of total powerless futility. It brought with it understanding—the evil that whispered and flowed and gathered in corners had been waiting for this moment, for Helen’s mind to become weak and vulnerable, her spirit to lower all its defenses. Her exposure by Palfrey had opened the way for something far worse than any troubled soul.

  She was their ideal prey. Her talent, the gift she had thought would make her rich and famous, had opened the way to something monstrous. An old darkness was rising, and the whispering ghosts were part of it.

  Helen watched, detached, floating above her own body, as she turned from the doorway and walked to the bed. Her hands picked up a scarf, a fine one of shot silk that had been a gift from the wife of a wealthy industrialist. It was nearly new, long, and strong. Helen watched as her body climbed up onto the rickety chair by the dressing table then flung one end of the scarf over a roof beam. She fought to regain control of herself, but the darkness had her in thrall. She watched in horror as her fingers formed a noose and placed it over her head.

  The chair was already wobbling. It was the matter of a moment for her possessed body to kick it away.

  Dying seemed to take forever. The whispering throng grew louder, its collective voice combining with the pounding of blood in her ears to become a great agonized yell of pain. The stink of burning meat was intense, and Helen could also feel heat and hear the crackle of flames. The screams of dying men were all around her, and at the last moment, as her feet swung limply above the threadbare carpet, she understood the monstrous evil which had her in its grasp.

  And that dying really would take forever.

  Chapter 1

  He wrote his name on the whiteboard—Professor Marcus Mortlake.

  Then he turned to face the half-empty lecture hall. A few students sat alone, mostly near the back. Front and center, the youngsters were ranged in twos and threes. He did not recognize any of them, but then, this was not his course. He was taking over for Monty Carrington, who had been taken ill.

  “Old Yorkshire family, the Mortlakes,” he said. “My middle name is Orlando, which is not an old Yorkshire moniker, and—as you can imagine—I seldom use it. Except when I want to be pitied.”

  It was a feeble witticism, but he had expected at least a ripple of polite amusement. There was, however, nothing.

  “Not even a nano-titter?” he said, determined to be positive. “Tough crowd. Very well, let us consider the question of credulity in relation to the witch mania that swept through much of Europe in the late Middle Ages…”

  He turned to the board again and, below his name, wrote “I DO NOT BELIEVE”. He underlined the “NOT” then turned again to face the students.

  “Belief was central to the upsurge in accusations that led to widespread torture, burnings, and hangings in Britain. I should note that definitions of witchcraft varied. The medieval church rejected the idea of sorcery, but with the Reformation came a breakdown of religious conformity and, with it, an atmosphere of paranoia. In this regard, one might view the witch mania as a kind of conspiracy theory, with the twist that the accused were said to conspire with Satan against God…”

  Mortlake faltered for a moment because the door at the back of the hall was swinging shut. Someone had either come in or left. But he could not make out if there had been an addition or a subtraction to the scattered listeners.

  “Belief,” he said, getting back on track. “What did people really believe in days gone by? It is always tempting to make sweeping generalizations. The ancient Greeks, we sometimes say, were lovers of art, theater, poetry, but that is a view the Spartans would reject outright, arguing their society was more truly Greek. We say the eighteenth century was the age of rational skepticism, pointing to such phenomena as the French Revolution while ignoring the widespread upsurge in religious movements such as the Quakers, Methodists…”

  A hand shot up. A young woman with abundant dark hair that almost covered her face, sitting at the far right in the back row, wanted to ask a question. For a moment, he felt irritation—this was not a tutorial, they were here to absorb his wisdom and knowledge. But then he felt a little ashamed. To want to quench curiosity in the young was unworthy of any man of learning.

  “Yes? I’m sorry, Miz, erm… I didn’t catch your name?” he said, lifting a cupped hand to one ear for emphasis.

  The young woman did not tell him her name. Instead, she asked a question in a low, barely audible voice that he felt he recognized but could not quite place. This distracted him from what she was saying. He asked her to repeat her question.

  “I asked,” she said, “in your own extensive research into the supernatural, have you found any evidence that the paranormal is real?”

  Now there was a ripple of enthusiasm among the students.

  Typical, he thought, seeing a lecturer challenged and perhaps embarrassed got them going.

  This was a tricky situation. Mortlake was employed to teach students about mythology, folklore, and related matters, and was merely a paranormal investigator in his spare time. The Provost of St. Ananias College was already unhappy with the latest bout of internet speculation concerning Mortlake. He had asked the professor some awkward questions about werewolves and a dead aristocrat in a London church. Scandal, the Provost had said firmly, was not good for the college’s reputation and might have funding implications. Whenever the boss mentioned money, Mortlake knew he had to tread carefully.

  But he could hardly complain when students—for whatever reason—asked about his other life. It was hardly a secret. So he had to reply carefully.

  “I have encountered some unusual phenomena while pursuing my hobby—but the only practicing witch I know is a purveyor of herbal teas, love potions, and dream catchers. I’ve
sampled her chamomile on occasion.”

  Again, Mortlake paused. Once more, his weak attempt at humor had fallen flat. In fact, most of the students seemed to be looking at their phones, as per usual. Any spark of interest had flickered and died. He decided to plow on with the lecture as best he could.

  “Now I’m sure my Wiccan friend would claim that the witchcraft tradition in Europe has its roots in the old pagan religions, though there is considerable intellectual debate about that…”

  He faltered again. The young woman, hair still swaying over her face like a black curtain, stood up and stepped into the aisle. The way she moved was as familiar as her voice, and yet somehow, Mortlake still could not recall her name. She started walking down the sloping aisle. She moved with a liquid grace. He felt a stirring of desire, a sudden intense recollection of a day years ago when he had seen a young woman move like that, not far from this lecture hall.

  “Cassandra?”

  She shook her hair away from her face. It was Cassandra, yet it could not be. He had long ago consigned her to the realm of the dead, though her body had not been found after the blaze. This woman was paler than he remembered, her huge eyes darker and sunk deeper in their sockets. But the resemblance was too close to be dismissed. As she got closer, he retreated in confusion until he felt the whiteboard at his back.

  “It can’t be you—her, I mean,” he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I’m sorry, Miss… erm—would you mind resuming your seat?”

  The woman ignored the request. Mortlake looked at the seated students and saw all of them holding up their phones. Their faces showed no excitement, no surprise. They had somber expressions, as if they were recording a funeral or some other sad occasion. Now he had their interest. Now he was faced with a specter that both fascinated and terrified him.

  “Marcus,” said the dark-haired woman. “Don’t pretend—you know it’s me.”

  She was close, so close he could see the curves of her body under her drab sweatshirt and inside her faded denims. There was no doubt now that it was Cassandra. He looked down at her feet and saw the bright red trainers that she had worn on their first date. He remembered the casual way she had kicked those shoes off when they both undressed later that afternoon. The red shoes were also the first things he had seen, one lying upright, one lying on its side, when he awoke the following morning. He remembered the heat of her body, him lying entwined in her strong pale limbs.

  “Yes, Marcus, you can believe it,” she whispered. “My darling, I never left you.”

  Cassandra—impossibly real—reached up and touched the side of his face with her fingertips, and he felt an intense chill run through his skin, penetrating right to the bone and then going deeper. It was like an icicle had been driven into his brain. He jerked his head aside, but there was no way to evade her grasp now. She grabbed him by the shoulders and, with terrifying strength, lifted him off his feet, swung him around, and flung him down onto the desk, scattering his notes, hurling his laptop and bookbag and jacket to the floor.

  “No!” he shouted.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “This is what you want, Marcus.”

  She leaped up onto the desk and pinned him down. The intense cold that radiated from her flesh paralyzed him. She leaned closer, lips a few inches above his, the mane of thick black hair like a curtain, plunging him into shadow.

  “Inappropriate touching!” he protested feebly.

  “Marcus,” she whispered. “I never stopped loving you. I am going to touch you very inappropriately.”

  Her lips were very red. Then they opened and what might have been a grain of brown rice fell out of her mouth. It was not a rice grain, though, because it writhed against his lips. Her mouth gaped wider and a torrent of maggots fell onto his upturned screaming face. Mortlake thrashed wildly, suddenly able to move but held back by bonds of some kind. They were sweat-drenched sheets, and he stopped struggling to breathe for a few moments, to breathe and let his heart slow down.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he gasped. “Oh God, help me!”

  He disentangled himself and swung his legs out of bed. The moment his feet touched carpet, Opal the kitten pounced, darting out from under the bed and grabbing his left ankle. He yelled so loudly that the tiny creature bounced back in surprise then sat gazing up at him.

  “You little bugger!” he said wearily. “Excellent timing, though. Five stars.”

  He reached down and lifted the writhing ball of black fur. Golden-green eyes stared at him, and a pink mouth opened. Opal began delivering her morning diatribe.

  “Meow, meow, I get it. Feed me. I’m cute and helpless,” he said, depositing the tiny feline onto his dressing gown while he stood up and stretched.

  Like Mortlake’s memories, Opal was not willing to be sidelined. She leaped onto the floor and went through her meowing-and-walking-to-the-door routine. He put on his dressing gown and slippers and, yawning, plodded out in the wake of his impatient pet.

  After he had opened a packet of Prime Funkychunks—the only wet food Opal would eat, and by far the most expensive—he slumped into an armchair and checked the time. It was half past five. On this June morning, the sun was almost up. In Germany, he reflected, they were already having breakfast, ready for yet another hard day’s work. In Moscow, they were having their first vodka binge of the day. In Japan…

  He could go for a walk before breakfast, clear his head. He shoved aside the thought that he might again glimpse Cassandra on the street. He told himself that that was simply an error on his part. Mortlake clung to the belief that everyone had a double. To imagine her not only still alive but nearby was too much. It was something he yearned to believe yet feared might be true.

  “Bloody hell, Opal,” he said as he went back into the bedroom to find some clean clothes. “You’re better off without a subconscious. Take it from me, the human mind is a badly designed mess. Tangled wires sparking off each other, short-circuiting reason at every turn. No self-respecting deity would take credit for it.”

  His dreams of Cassandra had come and gone down the years, but he had just suffered the first pure nightmare he had had about her. As he dressed, he tried to focus on practical matters that needed his attention. He had research to do over the long summer vacation. He had two forewords to write and one paper to co-author. There were also two postgraduate students he was supervising, not to mention the dull administrative round of Cambridge. He might also take a short vacation, perhaps to the coast—East Anglia or maybe Dorset.

  Everything was perfectly normal. And if it wasn’t, it was his job to make it so.

  “Easier said than done.” He sighed.

  Having eaten her fill, Opal walked daintily to an empty cardboard carton and leaped inside. Mortlake had bought her a splendid handmade cat basket, which she never used. He had given in quickly and lined the box with an old tee shirt. Opal tended to lapse into slumber when her belly was full then emerge a few hours later as a supercharged, high-speed menace. That gave him plenty of time to have a walk, have breakfast, and check emails, and so forth.

  “Okay, please note that you have a box of nice new cat litter,” he said to Opal, scratching her between her ears. “Do not disgrace yourself like you did last week! That was a genuine Berber carpet, albeit a little threadbare. Shocking antics for a cat of mine.”

  The kitten purred and closed her eyes, small-clawed paws clenching on faded cotton. He envied the small beast. Opal lived life to the full and yet was incapable of shame or guilt or regret.

  “Of course, there’s always love,” he murmured to himself as he stood up, feeling his knees protest slightly. “Romantic love, everlasting love, one true love. Good thing or bad thing? Jury’s still out, I suppose. But not for me.”

  Five minutes later, he was passing through the college gates, inhaling cool morning air. The clear summer dawn was well underway. The streets were empty apart from a few delivery vans, commuters beginning the drive to London, and shift workers. He made his way past King’s Co
llege Chapel, the section of pavement where he had seen the dark-haired woman a few months ago. Her face had been turned away from him, but that walk had been so familiar…

  Memory plays tricks, he thought. Focus on the present and immediate future. Give yourself no time for regrets.

  He started to cross the small square between the university’s Senate House and Great Saint Mary Church. Something had changed. The small pedestrian space had been repaved with black and white slabs instead of the uniform gray of before. Mortlake paused at the corner to take in the new design.

  It felt like standing on a giant chessboard. Only there were too many squares in actuality. A dozen to a side. No, Mortlake recounted and saw that, in fact, there were thirteen. One hundred and sixty-nine in total. It seemed rather extravagant for the council to have gone to so much trouble when it was always pleading poverty.

  Still, he thought, it’s quite attractive in its way. Minimalist decoration.

  Out of nowhere, he felt a wave of nausea, a vertiginous sense of the world shifting under his feet. For a crazy moment, he wondered if serene old Cambridge was having a small earthquake. The familiar sounds of the morning—voices, birdsong, traffic—receded, as did the dawn light. He felt himself suddenly enclosed in some kind of vaulted chamber. Other walkers around him seemed oddly distorted. And above him, peering down, was a hooded visage—a face so ravaged that it was barely human at all.

  “Excuse me, sir, are you all right?”

  He was leaning against a cast-iron lamppost, knees almost giving way. A petite young woman in a tabard—evidently a shopworker—was peering up at him, smiling uncertainly. He assured her he was fine, that he had just had a little dizzy spell. Cambridge had returned to normal around him.