FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Many people believe, thanks to both my own claims and the published works I have released, that my first case was that affair with the forged banknotes. However, since I am now setting the record straight it makes sense to go back to the first real case of my career. Indeed I had not even considered becoming a private detective at the time that this little adventure began.

It was late summer in 1921, and I was returning to Stonehouse Hall from London in one of papa's old motorcars. I remember I had the top down to get a little air through the old car as it was rather stifling that day. I was feeling a curious sense of both elation and anger at my predicament, or more accurately that fate had chosen to hand me such a difficult circumstance out of the blue. My father, may he rest in peace, had died some seven years earlier. His brother, Robert, had taken over certain areas of the family finances which I had just been into the city to enquire about. However I will cover this later, as it forms one strand of a rather convoluted rope.

I can picture myself back then, in my rather shapeless flat cap with a cigarette clamped in my teeth. This was before I acquired the most singular scar to my face that, I fear, has somewhat become lodged in the minds of my fans and admirers. I remember seeing a stage play based on the Yellow Cape affair some years ago, and the poor woman they got to play me practically had half her face buried under makeup. It has never really bothered me, or made me feel a leper or outcast. And I certainly have never been ashamed of it. However, as the means by which I gained it also tie into the narrative I shall digress no more.

Nature or chance had given both myself and my sister a rather slender and art-deco build and figure. However greyhounds have looked like this since time immemorial, so it may have just been the luck of the draw. As this look was becoming the fashion I was finding myself quite in demand amongst a certain set of gentlemen. But with my poor Daniel barely in his grave I was still unable to accept their advances. That snubbing, along with my habit for wearing my hair short and adding gentleman's trousers to my wardrobe had begun to get me labelled as a thoroughly modern woman...and therefore one to be avoided in polite society.

These things were rather far from my mind as I ground the car along the long cobbled drive to the front of the house. The Pointer-Stonehouse's estate was looking shabbier than ever, with neglect and decay creeping over parts of the facade. I was rather sad to see the old place after so long away, but as the bearer of bad news it was an unavoidable reunion. I had, of course, been travelling in Africa for the past three years after the loss of my fiance, and now I was back. Hubert, the family's old butler, was stood on the steps alongside a gaggle of downstairs-folk I had never met before. I brought the car to a halt and jumped out, and they began disassembling the heaps of luggage from the back.

"Hubert, you old rogue," I cried as I embraced my old friend. His wrinkled and drooping face lit up to see me. "How are things? Is Del home?"

"Indeed she is, miss Emelia," he wheezed. "And may I say that its such a pleasure to have you both home." My heart sank a little. The news I brought with me was dire, and I would hate to disappoint poor old Hubert so soon after making him this happy.

I put aside the morbid thoughts as I went through to meet with my sister. She was in the drawing room on the ground floor, sat by the window like an anxious suitor. We embraced and exchanged a few pleasantries. I showed her some of the things I had brought back from my travels and she filled me in on all the day-to-day gossip of the household. We were, both in temperament and colouration, as different as could be. Her with her dark brown coat the colour of rich chocolate, me with my splats of white and cream. She was always such a demure little thing, who disliked the idea of flappers and phonographs, parties and cocktails. I, on the other hand, was a social bulldozer. I didn't mind what sort of do was in the offing, so long as nobody looked down at me for turning up in muddy work boots and my favourite cap. I know I had been off having adventures in Africa, but the sheer lack of any substantial news in her life began to worry me as she her reminiscences petered out so quickly. I was more worried that this was the first room I had come through that didn't smell of damp or have missing chunks of plaster on the walls. It seemed that the old house was in worse shape than I had initially thought.

But all too soon we had to deal with the matter at hand. I brought out a satchel of papers I'd taken from London.

"I'm sorry to say it Del, but it looks like you were a little too late," I referred to the letter she had sent to me expressing mild concern about the state of the family fortunes. If she was sat in a house that was barely holding together at the seams and was only 'mildly concerned' then the place would probably have to be on fire before she tried to trouble anyone about the heat. Typical Delilah. "Uncle Bob's been funnelling money into his back pocket for quite a while. When he heard I was on my way to have a word with the solicitors he stripped quite a lot of what was left. We might be able to get some back if we take him to court...but that would be a gamble." I sighed and lit another cigarette. "On the plus side I've cut him off. But things are going to be a little...tight."

"We won't have to sell the house, will we?" she asked. When I didn't reply she looked like I had just slapped her in the face. We were, for all intents and purposes, destitute. Any financial capital we had was now sat on by bloody Bob and his lawyer friends, and any business contact we had possessed no longer dealt with us over his malicious practises. If we sold the house we might actually be able to be merely poor.

She rose to her feet and stared out of the window. "If only Daniel..." she stopped herself, but I knew what she was thinking. Daniel had been, amongst all his other wonderful charms, quite a man of substance. However, when he decided it would be more romantic to propose when he got back from the war, with a shiny chestful of medals no doubt, that kind of sealed things for us. A promise of a proposal is not very legally binding. More importantly, I had never married him to milk the cash cow, so to speak. It irritated me to hear her almost suggest that should he be alive then we could have relied on his charity.

"Well, you know, Del, if you think that a marriage will dig us out of this we could always take you down to London for a few weeks," I blew a little smoke at her as she turned to me in shock. "We'll find you some floppy-eared classicist from Cambridge. Called 'Wupert', no doubt. He'll be loaded and fall head over heels for you. And be as wet as a mackerel in a blanket." I flicked ash in the vague direction of the ashtray as she stomped over and glared at me. "That should suit you quite nicely."

"You shouldn't joke about it, Em," she shook her head. "If we have to sell the house...well what will we DO?"

I pondered for a moment. "Well I do have some friends in Kenya," I added after a ponder. "We can possibly go down there, grab some cheap land and start up a plantation."

Del looked like I had asked her to bite the head of a chicken. "You mean...go into trade?" she whispered, managing to make the word 'trade' sound like something done to sailors in dark alleys.

"Well its either that or find an old man with a taste for younger women, a big bank account and weak heart," I retorted, most wittily. Delilah was not amused.

"Good God, Em, stop being so..." she paused as she tried to think of an expletive her demure nature allowed her to use. After a moment she settled on "...Modern!"

"And will you stop being so old-fashioned for five minutes?" I shot back, rather cruelly. I slapped my paw down on the satchel of papers. "Uncle Bob has been robbing us blind for years! I was away, so I didn't see any of it. But apparently you were content to sit in this place as it fell down around you!" Her lower lip quivered a little, so I sighed. "At least I'm trying to come up with a solution. We may not have to sell the house if we come up with something clever. Like maybe sell off some of the grounds, the cars...we could let some of the staff go, that kind of thing."

Del sat down as we began to discuss possible solutions to the problem. I was just commenting that we didn't seem to have anyone we knew we could turn to for money when I noticed she had a rather demure smirk on her face. It was her tell; she'd always been terrible at keeping secrets. I pressed her for a bit and she broke down, producing a gilt-edged invitation.

"It's from William Marcell," she added. "I was going to tell you about it, but...well..." Her paw indicated the piles of papers and depressing sums we had been calculating.

I pondered for a moment, trying to put a face to the name. I did, and it was not a very pleasant one. "Wait, you mean the one from school with the big ears and the wonky teeth?"

"His ears aren't that big!" she exclaimed.

"But the man's a veritable Crowley!" I said, quite perturbed. Even at school we had heard rather dark things about the Marcell family, ranging from pacts with the devil to a congenital illness that made them mad. "You can't be seriously thinking of going, surely?"

"I'm sure that's all nonsense and rot," she replied, refilling our cups of tea. "Besides, it would be rude not to go."

I nodded, tapping the edge of the card on the table. "I suppose so. We could do to have a little time off after all this." And, I thought to myself, maybe spending a weekend on a country estate with some bohemians might be good for my dear sister. Especially if she could find a Wupert or at the very least someone willing to help out a pair of distressed damsels amongst them. She shot me a look.

"The invitation was for me..." she said, sounding hurt.

"Oh come on, Del. he probably didn't include me because he didn't know I was back." I lite another cigarette and grinned. "Besides, I'll need to be there to make sure he keeps his paws to himself." How little did I know that those words would become oddly, eerily correct before too long.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

The party was advertised as being a week or so away. Delilah and I had spent several days firefighting our baying creditors and trying our best to sort out the dreadful mess Uncle Bob had left us. By the end of it we were more than looking forward to getting a few days away. Of course, that was when we thought it would just be a little hunting and dancing at some run-down country house. If we'd know what we were really in for we'd have been happy to stay at home, neck-deep in bills.

I was starting to get somewhat cold feet about the whole affair. Unlike Del, I'd been to London and had heard some rather disturbing things about Marcell while I was there. Of course there had always been idle gossip about his family, but most of it seemed to be based on the rather gloomy surroundings they came from. That and a supposed inherited ailment that left them with a rather short lifespan and somewhat singular features. The rumours had hung around Will when I had met him as a child. I remembered him at that point as a sickly, pale thing with bad teeth and floppy, over-sized ears. There was always a hint of the mongrel about his family, and more than a little inbreeding too. Not that my family had managed to avoid crossing branches and roots. I always was rather dismayed by how much I looked like some of my cousins... But I digress.

His family home was wedged between some rather gloomy trees and an even gloomier swamp. I drove us down there as we'd sadly had to let the family driver go as one of the austerity measures. The back of the car was packed with clothes for a few days, as well as a few other supplies and a bit of wine as a present for our host. The invitation had mentioned a masked ball, so we both had a costume tucked up in crates. Del was going in a rather elaborate thing that had been mothballed for years with a feathered opera mask, while i was just going to wear my hunting gear and an old fox mask I found in the attic.

We passed through the little village that the Marcell estate bordered and I was rather dismayed by what I saw. The houses were tumbling and rotten with mold, and the villagers looked singularly backward, especially when it came to modern hygiene. I swear half of them had no idea what a motorcar was, either through parochial ignorance or interbreeding-induced cretinism. We had to stop at one point, gently navigating the old car around the corpse of some unidentified livestock that had been left to bloat in the watery sunlight. The cobbles were patchy and rattled our bones as we drove over them. I was glad to be back outside, on the only 'decent' path to the mansion.

Of course when I saw it I was a damn sight less cheerful. If I had thought our place was beginning to run down, then the Marcell estate was positively decrepit! We rattled past two gates that had rusted open, and through a garden that was half hedge maze and half swampy morass. Pale, ropey fungus hung from the dead and dying trees in intestinal ropes wherever I looked. I also spied groups of men and women moving through the mess in the distance, apparently intent on clearing a pass to some stone folly. The view was soon obscured by more of the undergrowth. We soon drew up on the weedy drive to the front of the house. I shot Del a glance and she made a face.

The front of the house was needlessly Gothic and stained with age and a patina of disrepair. Shutters hung away from the arched windows, and not a few of them were boarded up with warped wooden slats. Now that I paused for a breath I could detect a stench of spores and mold, almost overpowering.

"Do you think they'll be offended if we just go?" I asked. At that moment i would have taken pretty much any excuse to turn the car around and leave. This looked like a rather sick joke if we intended to relax here.

"Too late," Delilah noted as she pointed to the front doors. "They've seen us. Besides, if we head back now we're going to get stuck in that ghastly little village for the night." The doors were swinging open, manhandled on rusty hinges by two disreputable looking types in stained work shirts. There between them was a figure staggering down the steps with a cane. It took me a moment to realise that this was William Marcell. Even at this distance I could tell there was something wrong with him. He looked too pale and his gait was awkward and limping. However, before I could say anything further, Del slid out of the car and waved.

"Yoo-hoo!" she called. "I hope we're not too early?"

I missed the start of his reply, but his smarmy, slightly lisping tone carried through the window as I stepped out and slammed the door. I caught the end of his sentence though. "...on time..." he was saying as he saw me. By this time he and his henchmen (I refuse to think of them as anything else) had come close enough for me to get a good look at them.

Whatever ague or blood disease Will carried, it was terrible. Up close I could see that his paleness was not his thinning fur, but instead blotchy patches of mange that had eaten him bald in places. One of his ears was surrounded at the base by swellings and growths that reminded me of the drooping fungus on the nearby trees. His teeth, which I remembered from my childhood as resembling a decrepit fence, now looked like they had been jammed in randomly into too-pale gums. I could see with some horror where some of them were plucking and cutting the flesh of his lips and face from their awful settings. One of his eyes looked misty with cataracts, almost swollen from within by pressure, while the other fixed on me with all the warmth of the barrel of a rifle.

His face fell into a scowl, which was not an improvement.

"Emelia," he lisped, trying to do his best at a smile. "I wasn't expecting you. I thought you were in Kenya still."

I snapped out of my astonishment at his appearance a little quicker than Del, who's jaw was dropped so far I wondered if she'd ever get it back up. "Sorry for dropping in unannounced," I managed, extending my paw. Will paused before offering his own. it felt like shaking a rubber glove filled with custard and sticks, and I had to do my best not to stare at his bloated fingers, or wipe my paw on my trouser leg. "I thought I'd pop along too. We tried to call ahead but apparently you don't have a phone." I turned to Delilah, who was looking distinctly green around the gills. "Isn't that right, Del?"

"Y...yes!" she stammered. "I hope its not going to be too much trouble."

Will looked up at the two men flanking him. They were big bastards, heavy-set and with short fighters muzzles. I saw scarred knuckles and forearms. But I also saw patches of mange and bulging, swollen growths covered over with ragged bandages and tattered work clothing. I tried not to stare. Maybe Will's family had a disease that they had picked up from the local village, or passed onto them through breeding? Who was I, at that point, to judge? I snapped back to maintaining as much eye contact as I could stand with William. "No, my dear," he said with a phlegmy chuckle. "I don't think there will be any trouble." With that he turned and began to limp up the steps with the aid of his knobbly cane. "Please, leave your bags. My men will take care of them," he shot over his shoulder.

With that my sister and I entered the dubious comfort of Marcell House.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

Although I was quite dismayed at the state of the outside of Will's house, the interior was a vast improvement. Of course that left it somewhere shy of neglected, but at least it wasn't as bad as I had pictured. The floor was bare boards, grimy and clearly unswept for a while, but as we went deeper they were covered in threadbare carpets that at least hid the stains of neglect. Our host hobbled along ahead of us, directing our attention to various curios and keepsakes in boxes and cabinets on the walls. There were odd skulls and strange wooden fetishes, the likes of which I had not seen since my last trip into the darker parts of the African continent. The rumours of devilry and other dark practises that had clung to the Marcell family returned to me as I watched Will gesture with his inflamed paw at a wicked-faced spirit mask on the wall. I suppressed a shudder and walked on.

We were made comfortable in a large study, where logs crackled merrily in a cold, stone grate. The room was large and dim, and the fire merely added a sooty texture to the air as we dragged horsehair chairs closer. Will lowered himself into his own with the air of a gout-riddled elder, although he was not too far from us in age. In the firelight his blank, blind eye seemed to glisten moistly as he made pleasant conversation.

He seemed the genial host, and I felt a little ashamed at my reaction to his deformities. Del, too, had switched effortlessly into being the very picture of decorum, although she seldom looked directly at Will's face. I ended looking around the room from the musty confines of my chair as the conversation became more and more about the inane topics of fashion and society. My eyes kept on picking out faded gilt lettering on the age-cracked leather bindings of the books shoved higgeldy-piggeldy into the many shelves that surrounded us. These days if I saw so much as the glimmer of recognition in someone eyes if I mentioned them it would have immediately put me on guard. However, back then they meant nothing to me other than to confirm that the Marcell line's reputation for occultism was well-founded.

There was, I recall, such horrific works as the Latin translation of The Outer Dark, the shunned poetry of von Host and even a volume of the Anatomica Diabolique. A tattered scroll held in a dusty glass case I now know was one of the pages of the Rites of Affirmation. While I had no idea what it was at the time, and refused to look too closely at the illustration, the sheer grotesquery of the thing made me uneasy. I sipped the brackish and lukewarm tea that a surly butler had provided and tried to get back into the more mundane topics being discussed.

Will was just discussing the ball, informing us that it would be tomorrow evening. There was something covetous in his tone and expression as he gazed at my sister that put my teeth on edge. She had not noticed it as she was still trying not to look at Will's aberrant features. He had either forgotten I was there or assumed I was no longer paying attention, as he was quite obviously leering at her openly. I cleared my throat, and he glared daggers at me for a moment, before apparently remembering he was supposed to be playing the host.

"I recall the invitation said something about a hunt, Will. Will that be after the ball?" The question seemed to throw him for a moment.

"Actually we were thinking about having it in the afternoon," he replied. He broke down into a coughing fit for a few seconds, the violence of which made both Del and I look away, embarrassed. "We'll be tracking some of the game birds on the moors. Nothing too strenuous, you understand. We have to save all our energy for...the ball." He coughed again, although I felt that the noise was to cover up a syrupy chuckle of dark amusement.

When he had finished racking his chest, Will spat something glistening into a handkerchief that he tucked back into his pocket. Del looked most put out at this, and I was sure I did not look much better. "I think we'd best turn in for the night, old chap," I said, getting to my feet. I honestly didn't know what it was that made me want to get away from hoim the most; the possibility of catching whatever he had, if it were contagious, or watching him suffer through another coughing fit. "Long drive and all, you understand. Can you get your man to show us to our room?"

Del nodded eagerly. Will scowled at me again but rang a small hand bell to summon one of his thugs. We were guided to a small, dry room overlooking a weedy courtyard, where our bags had been emptied into various drawers and dressers. Both of us shared a moment of unease; it felt wrong, grimy somehow, for these men to have been through our possessions.

"Good lord, Del," I said, sitting on the edge of my bed. "Will looks like he's on his last legs." I looked around at the brown portraits of brown men on brown horses. "I suppose it must be true what they say about his lot having some sort of inherited disease. My god though...what could do that to a man?"

"I really don't want to think about it," Del said with a demure little shudder. "I'm sorry I ever took him up on his invitation. We need to relax, not spend time with...that!"

I waved a paw at our surroundings. "This is like something out of a bad novel. The creepy house with the sinister owner. All we need is for there to be a pair of eyes staring at us from a portrait and we'll be set." I glared at the nearest oil painting, which refused to bow to the cliche.

"At least it is only two days though. We'll stay for the party, then make our excuses and go home," Del nodded as she dug out her night dress. I lay back and stared at the patchy plaster ceiling. She flashed me a weak smile. "Come on, Em. We'll be fine."

I smiled back, but did not share her confidence.

The night was filled with more then the normal country sounds, which kept both of us up. We heard people moving around the halls of the mansion, shuffling and tapping on the walls. At one point I am sure I woke in the dead of night to hear atonal singing from outside. Del later told me she heard the tread of something heavy and abnormally soft in the corridor outside, and that the door-handle rattled ominously before hushed voices guided the mysterious visitor away.

All in all we were rather grumpy and a little washed out by the time we took a tasteless and greasy breakfast in the main hall. We were joined by more of the guests for the party, which apparently included the mayor and chief constable from the village, as well as some giggling bright young things from London. There was also a stick-thin pastor and a man (or woman) wrapped so tightly in stained gauze and bandages that I could not even determine what they were. All of them greeted my sister with abundant enthusiasm, aside from the mummified enigma. It was actually a little unseemly, the way they pawwed and hugged at her, and Delilah was quite perturbed. Not as much as I was to see how obviously my presence was a cause of immediate distaste from the group.

I found myself pushed the the edge of the crowd, which suited me fine. These people struck me as being somehow strung out and in Will's thrall. They spoke glowingly of him and his 'power' and 'abilities', and asked Del endless questions about how she knew him and if she was honoured to be there. It all combined with the long night and the disgusting food to make me quite queasy.

Around noon Will joined us, dressed for a hunt. He had traded in his cane for a shotgun, and I found myself staring at the gibbet-like callipers he had attached to his right leg. The bulges between the tight leather and metal supports spoke of a limb bloated beyond usability, and explained why he normally walked with a stick. Del decided to come with us to watch, despite Will trying to persuade her otherwise. The day was bleak and rainy, and it was definitely not good weather for it. We, Will, and several of his flunkies ended up spread across a number of little trenches cut into the peaty soil while his servants went out as beaters. I brought down a couple of tattered birds that went up, but it was looking quite disappointing.

I put down the old gun I had been lent for the hunt and sighed. The day was cool enough that my breath misted the air. "Can you run back to the others and grab me some more shells, Del?" I asked. She nodded and padded away through the murky drizzle. I looked around and saw our host speaking with a gangling youth who had reeked of hashish and incense when I shook his limp paw at breakfast. They were nodding and gesturing, and casting surreptitious glances my way. I looked back over the moors, although the view did not improve things at all.

The beaters seemed to be heading out again and I raised my gun in anticipation. At that moment I heard Del yell out my name, so I turned to look. The wall of the muddy trench blew out near my head. Had I been facing forward it would certainly have taken a chunk of my head off. As it was, that motion simply caused the spread of shot to pepper my arm and shoulder. Cursing like a sailor I went down, swatting at my injured arm and trying to figure out what happened. Moments later Del was at my side, trying to get me to lie down, calm down, and stop shouting. I pushed her aside and saw the junkie stood with his gun smoking, looking in my direction.

"You utter arse!" I screamed at him. I went to storm the distance between us so I could give him a good smack, but Del grabbed me. "What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at?"

"I'm...sorry!" he quavered back. Will's deformed face looked like thunder, although I was struck that it was me he was looking at with anger, not the bloody fool that nearly took my head off. "It was a misfire...a misfire!"

Del's insistence, and the ebbing of my shock and adrenaline made me back off. My heavy jacket had taken the edge off the blast, along with the distance. I could feel blood running down my sleeve though, and it hurt like a bastard. But I didn't think it was anything too serious. Shooting the bastard a glance that promised we would speak about this later, I went back to the house to get cleaned up.

Will came to apologise, but insisted that the village doctor would be unavailable. As such it was down to Del to pull about seven bits of buckshot out of my arm with tweezers. She bandaged me up and gave me a hug, which I returned with a wince.

"It was just an accident," she insisted. "Hunting accidents happen all the time. I'm just glad it wasn't any worse."

"That idiot wouldn't know one end of a gun from the other if you clubbed him with it," I replied, desperate for a cigarette to calm my nerves. I had a good mind to go and educate him in that manner, but Del's presence calmed me a bit.

The rest of the afternoon was, for me, a dismal haze of aching pain and resentment. I took food in our room, and Del joined me after a decent time mingling with the other guests. I could tell that they had said or done something to perturb her, but she would not be drawn on it. "Let's just get tonight over with," she insisted. "Then we can go home."

She helped me dress for the ball, reproachfully commenting on my language whenever moving my arm made me wince and swear. I helped her tie her dress at the back as best as I could. Soon we were both ready. Adjusting our masks for comfort, we headed down to the ball...and unimaginable horror.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

Del and I were met in the hallway by some of the roguish henchmen that seemed to act as staff in the manor. They were tight-lipped as they lead us deeper into the house. Eventually we came to what appeared to be some sort of long gallery or adjoining wing. From the end I could make out lights glinting between the panes of a stained glass window. The rest of the passageway appeared to be unlit, and the bare boards creaked and moaned beneath our boots. Del gripped my arm tightly and indicated the walls, which appeared to be hung every few paces with gloomy portraits barely visible in the low light.

The subjects were, I assume, the ancestors of the Marcell line. I could make out very little other than the usual stately figures stood at repose before desks or other furnishings. There was, I could tell in the occasional flickers of light, a lot of pale patches that may have been mold upon the canvas. At least I hoped that was what it was, as the outlines did not conform to the usual shapes nature intended for the canine body. With a shudder of revulsion I turned my gaze to the light at the end of our tunnel and refused to look closer. Del, however, kept her eyes fearfully on the walls. As we came to the great doors of the ballroom she gave a whimper and turned towards me. I glanced at the portrait that had so discomfited her, but then the doors ahead were opening and closer examination was prevented.

I remember there was an impression of dirt, of oily grey and brown walls. And something, looming, hulking, pale and vile in an almost parody of the positions held by the uniformed and dandified gentry in the preceding works. But then Delilah and I stepped into the glittering lights of the ballroom and our immediate surroundings stole all other considerations.

First, there was the room its self. I had read in my youth 'the Masque of the Red Death', and the room seemed a microcosm of those plague-stalked halls. It was roughly circular, and clearly solidly built without windows or skylights to admit light. Large stained glass windows were positioned through the room between titanic pillars, and these were slid open to light the ancient iron candelabra behind to illuminate the room. In terms of furnishing, it came closest to the red room of the poem, with velvet drapes and stiff-backed chairs with crimson cushions. The floor was an interlocking herringbone of polished hardwood, which echoed under the paws of the guests. I remember that there was something subtly 'off' about the pattern, as if the circular room perfectly tessellated with the regular linear design without flaw, even though that would not be possible without some artistic flourishes.

But to be perfectly honest, dear readers, it was the guests that held my attention the most in the initial moment we stepped inside.

It seemed that Will had been a little stingy with introductions. Not only were the guests from that morning there, but a chorus, a multitude indeed, of local villagers and utter strangers to us were present. I would estimate about two hundred souls were comfortably contained inside that ballroom. And every one of them wore the same mask and robes.

Each face was contained behind a strangely bulgy, fibrous mask that hung loosely around the muzzle and jowls of the wearer. They were pale as rancid milk and neatly concealed the eyes in deep, hollow-seeming sockets. The robes, however, were of a dark red equal to any of the furnishings, and held shut with a coil of rope around the waist in the manner of a particularly austere monks' vestments. The overall effect, the uniformity and strangeness of the garb unsettled both Del and I quite a great deal. As her paws gripped my arm a little tighter I cleared my throat and tried to make light of the situation. "Don't you just hate it when you come to a party dressed like someone else," I said, although the words and the punchline seemed to fall quite flat in the suddenly hushed atmosphere of the room.

With a shuffle of parting bodies, Will made his way through the crowd. "My dear Delilah, you look radiant," he crooned, reaching for her paw. She looked at me, frightened by the sudden change in atmosphere. I nodded reassuringly and patted her paw.

"We'll stay for an hour, then we'll leave," I whispered as Will closed in, his cane thumping into the wooden floor as he approached. "We'll just grab a few things, jump in the car and go. Ok?" Del nodded and stepped reluctantly forward to meet our sinister host. As if he was trying to reassure us, or more specifically her, he removed his mask. On the whole the view was not terribly improved.

"I'm sorry about all these theatrics," he rasped. "These old things are part of a family tradition. I should have warned you, of course, but with the..." he glanced at me with a look of mock concern. "...incident earlier today it quite slipped my mind."

The background mutter of conversation began to flare up again, and we were no longer the direct focus of so many hollow and pallid stares. That seemed to invigorate my sister a little, although it put my teeth on edge. I could see that there were still a lot of knots and groups of figures watching our every move. Or more specifically, watching my sister.

I resolved to keep an eye on her myself while keeping, as it were, my back to the wall. I was aided by the almost ridiculous lengths to which the other guests seemed to avoid me. If I had though the cold shoulder at breakfast and during the hunting trip had been severe it was as nothing compared with the dirty glances and mocking laughter I was subjected to. I was pretty quickly written off by the majority of the other people there, which allowed me to circle the room and keep an eye on Del in case she got into hot water. It seemed a little paranoid, as she seemed to be quite welcome by the group. Others, like Will, were removing their masks to speak with her, although this occasionally presented an unwelcome surprise in the form of a bulging growth or blind, swollen eyeball.

During my travels around the hall I discovered the source of the light mentioned above, and got a chance to have a better look at some of the windows. Many of them seemed quite old, and had scenes of pastoral existence which at first glance were harmless enough. But a second or third glance threw up the occasional incongruous and worrying detail. One, I remember quite vividly, showed a farmer ploughing headless bodies into his fields. Another displayed an eviscerated woman holding a torch leading a mob of villagers as they stoned a clergyman. Yet another showed men hurling themselves into a pit from which glowing, open hands received them. In all, with the flickering of the candles behind them, the scenes became quite ghoulish in character.

And then there was the matter of the pillars that surrounded each lit alcove. At first I thought they might have been part of an older hall that had been built around. But soon I became aware of the fact they they had more in character with a stone ring, such as the one at Stonehenge. They were monolithic, although a lot of the bulk was hidden with drapes and furnishings. It was clear that the hall was built with them in mind as the roof supports, although the heavy rafters merely rested on them in places rather than fitted into them for greater support. The stones themselves radiated a damp chill that fogged my breath in the air, and sweated a dirty condensation in the warm air.

I kept an eye on my watch, and time had begin to crawl. I was afflicted with a dual sense of dread and boredom. The former because of the robed congregation and the latter because, from what I could tell, this was merely a rather eccentric party. As the allotted hour crawled forward I glanced up from my watch and saw something that left me rather shocked. Several of the group had retreated to one of the candle-alcoves and were, how shall I put this...in a rather compromising situation. The robes they had been wearing were open, displaying bodies racked with the now-familiar cancer-bulges of pale white tumors. I was hardly a prude, but I looked away with a flush on my cheeks. In doing so I noticed that they were neither the first nor the largest group to be displaying this lewd behaviour.

Clicking the watch case closed I strode through the robed crowd to reach Del. She was exchanging small talk with a matronly woman, who seemed quite pleasant aside from the fist-sized goitre on her throat. "Del," I hissed, "It's time to go." She nodded and turned back to her current companion to make her excuses.

"Go, Emelia?" chortled a phlegmy voice that made my blood run cold. The words were accompanied by a ripple of laughter from around us. I looked back to see Will putting his mask back over his deformed, grinning face. Behind him stood four of his thugs. Surrounding him were more of his masked friends. I spun around, looking for a way out, but Del and I were surrounded by a wall of red robes and lumpen faces. "I'm sorry, my dear, but your sister will not be going anywhere with you tonight."

"What the hell is this, some sort of bloody stupid prank?" I barked the words out, feeling my anger rising. I pulled my mask off and dropped it, glaring at Will. "Because its not very funny if it is." The robed figures moved closer. I heard Del whimpering behind me and kept switching my gaze from left to right to try and make sure nobody jumped on us.

"Oh there's no joke here, you interfering little bitch," Will snapped back. "Now I'm going to ask nicely. Get out of our way and maybe you'll make it through the night alive." He held his paws out in a conciliatory gesture. "We only want your sister. And I promise you...she won't be killed."

Something in his tone and the atmosphere told me that whatever was in store for Del was not going to be a picnic, even if she wasn't going to die from it. I launched myself at a rather stringy looking man to our right, trying to knock him down and drag Del through the press so we could make a run for the doors. However, her dress was immediately snagged by a dozen grasping hands. One of the big brutes shoved me down as I turned to try and pull her free. Immediately, feet began to hammer my ribs and head as the robed maniacs closed around me, beating at me as I tried to roll back to my feet.

Suddenly they parted, but before I could recover I was yanked to my feet and held by two of the thugs. Del was screaming as the cultists began to yank her towards the door. Most of them, however, were beginning to disrobe, chanting in some wet-gargle language as they fell upon each other with frenzied lust. I managed to get a paw free and for a brief, fleeting moment my fingertips brushed Del's. I cried her name...and then she was swept away and through the main doors.

I struggled to get free, but the men holding me were too strong. Will stumped his way over to me, chuckling so deeply that a cough racked his torso violently. He hiked up his mask and spat a glob of fibrous white matter onto the floor, and I swear I saw it curl and wriggle as if alive.

"Well so much for doing this the easy way," he rasped, settling his mask back in place. "You stupid whore...why couldn't you just have kept your nose out of it?" He nodded to his henchmen. "Do what you want with her, then kill her and put her in the hole." With that order he followed the grim, scream-punctuated procession out into the gallery. Fighting and cursing at the ruffians that restrained me, I too was lead once more out of the light and into that darkness.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

The passage through the dark gallery felt like an age, although it could only have been a few moments. I had kicked and bitten at my captors as best I could, and in the end they bodily hoisted me by my arms and legs to prevent too much danger to themselves and prevent me from escaping. I recall they had struck me a few times in the process, and I was still a little groggy from the kicking I had received from the cultists in the ballroom. However my blood was up, both in anger and fear. I had a terrible certainty what these two man had in store for me, and could only imagine what the madmen had in store for my sister.

The grim procession that had proceeded mine had drawn away, the robed members hauling poor Del away as rapidly as they could. The thugs holding me threw me down onto a mildewed carpet in a side room, leering at me as I tried to stand. My movements halted when one of them pulled a chunky pistol from a holstered under his arm and waved it at me.

"Don't get any ideas, slut," he chuckled. His companion sprang at me, pressing me to a cluttered desk and pinning my paws above my head. The gunman began to disrobe while the vile beast atop me began to grope and fondle me through my clothes. His stench and the droplets of slobber landing on me made me want to retch, and it was clear that my disgust was what he was after. His crude gropings lessened his grip on my paws, and I managed to get one free. From the look on his face he expected me to punch him. Indeed, I feel that he would rather have enjoyed it.

Which was why he was rather surprised and, to my satisfaction, quite dismayed when instead I drove my fingers into his eye.

The man squealed and punched me hard, dislodging my fingers in a welter of gore and even less pleasant fluids. He staggered back into his companion, yelling and flailing his paws at his face. I struggled to my feet, my vision a little blurry from the blow I had taken. Reacting on instinct I threw myself forward and stamped my foot squarely in the villain's crotch. He doubled over, retching and wailing, and toppled back into his partially-clothed cohort. The pair went down in a heap, and the pistol clattered to the floor, whereupon I snatched it up.

In a moment I brought the weapon up and fired, striking the wailing man in the side of the neck. He collapsed with a sigh, his companion pinned beneath his dead weight. His head emerged from the tangle to glare at me. Even with the pistol aimed he seemed about ready to throw some vile curse at me. I cut him off with a bullet between the eyes,

It has been my great misfortune that I have, in my many years work against the criminal and cabalistic underworld, taken men's life both in anger and cold blood. This was, however the first occasion on which I was forced by circumstance to defend myself lethally in this way. I am not afraid to say that as time came back from that stretched abyss of the heat of the moment, I was quite unmade by the situation. I remember being ill, and I am sure I fainted for a moment. The pistol, I threw from my hand into the corner of the room as I cried for a moment, my wits rather shredded by the madness I had endured.

Eventually it was the sheer danger of my position that dragged me back to reality. I had no idea how long I had spent leaning against the desk, but I realised that at some point the two villains I had killed would be missed. More over, my sister was currently enduring torments unknown at the hands of her captors. I rapidly searched the room for the missing gun, and found it behind a rotting armchair. I was loathe to search the bodies of the men for more bullets. Indeed, a plan was forming even as my mind came back to me. I knew that the trophy room where I had collected my shotgun for the hunt that morning was on the way to the front of the house from the room where I was stood.

Moving with purpose now, I ran down the hall to collect the more powerful weapon. I encountered no more of the staff, and was glad of it. The pistol shook in my paw, and I was not sure if I could hit anyone at anything but the most intimate of ranges at that point. I was forced to use a pool cue to lever open the gun case when I helped myself to the shotgun. The pockets of my coat were filled with a variety of shells, and the pistol tucked into my belt. So armed, I snuck towards the main hall of the manor. From outside I could hear the distant sounds of screaming, and the sound of my sister's distress did a lot to remove the tremor in my hands the the dryness of my throat.

In case the main door was guarded I slipped into one of the side rooms alongside the main hall. The grimy windows betrayed a great light in the overgrown grounds of the estate, which I assumed would be the focal point of this hellish gathering. I broke one of the panes with the butt of the shotgun and carefully crawled out and headed in that direction. Immediately I could see that my guess was right, as the stone folly I had noticed on the drive in seemed to have become a hive of activity.

I sneaked around through the dank and mouldy undergrowth, cursing every dry twig my feet found. The sound of rattling, wet voices drowned out most sound, and soon I picked up the pace, confident I was not about to be overheard. I clambered up a slippery slope of mud and dying grass that had a decent commanding view of the folly, and what I saw took my breath away.

Will and his inners circle of favoured cultists were arranged in a loose spiral in the base of a ruined tower. Rather than a manufactured folly, this structure appeared to be a genuine piece of historical architecture that had crumbled to ruins beneath time's relentless tread. Opposite me, the ruined grounds gave way to a steaming pit surrounded by the most vile vegetation I had ever seen. Fleshy, nodding growths competed with bony nodules and the rotting remains of trees worn like hollow skins by teeming fungi. The congregation faced this venomous chasm and made rumbling, hawking reverence towards it in a language that sounded like pneumonia victim retching their last breaths.

My attention was drawn to my sister, who was strapped to a wood and stone construction rather like a splayed canine form. Her clothes had been removed, and she was sobbing deeply as she pleaded with them to stop this madness. One of the thugs was ratcheting a lever to force her legs apart, despite her wails of protest. My heart skipped a beat to see her so cruelly displayed in this way, and I tightened my grip on the shotgun.

Will paused in his devotions. He tugged open his robe, and the sight made me glad that I had vomited earlier and so had nothing left to bring up. His body was a bald, hairless thing of bulging sacs and grotesque tumours, with only the area above the neck retaining any sense of sanity and normalcy. His leg, I could see now, was bloated into a balloonish tube of folded and refolded flesh, and only the support of metal rods sutured into the puckered flab could keep it in shape. In addition, this baring of his body showed me that his intentions towards my sister were decidedly carnal in nature.

Del screamed at his display, but fell silent as Will took up a two-pronged dagger from a nearby tray of implements. I checked my gun was loaded with solid slugs and began to take aim at this deformed madman as he spoke. "You scream now, my dearest. But soon you will understand what this is. What this great, holy gift is." His followers moaned and abased themselves at his words. Some of them threw off their robes to display bodies as deformed as his, if not more so. "Soon, Those Below will come, and my true ancestors will reveal themselves to you." He crossed to her, and I cursed, as it meant a clean shot would not be possible. My teeth gritted as I saw him caress her body with his repugnant claws. "You will have to bear their attentions first...and when they are done you will be mine..."

At a gesture two of the cultists stood and began to blow into long, hollow tubes like the Aborigines of Australia use. They produced a doleful, whining note that rose and fell like wind in a hollow canyon. Will moved away from my weeping sister and stood with his arms upraised before the pit. I drew a bead between his shoulder-blades.

At that moment I was still convinced that this was simply the work of some diseased, inbred, senile and disgusting degenerates, weak in the mind and with no basis for their ravings. Then the thing emerged from the pit, and that notion was dashed to pieces.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

At first I thought that the fungal grove beyond the pit had somehow begun to collapse in on its self. I noticed the rotting trees and growths begin to nod and hunch towards that grotesque pit. Then a burst of ghastly steam and smoke, like the exhalation of a mummified body, burst forth from the benighted depths. I threw my paws over my mouth as the stench of it reached me. It was like the rotting remains of some carrion left in still, dark water for far too long. The shotgun slapped wetly into the muddy grass as I battled to breathe, my eyes watering.

As my sight returned I saw that the cause of the movement in the vegetation was several cable-thick tendrils of bloated fungal matter that had emerged from the ground. They hauled on any solid obstacle they could wrap around, tensing like obscene boa constrictors as they dragged some unimaginable bulk up from the deeps.

The cultists threw themselves onto an orgy of mad and blasphemous worship as it emerged. I screamed. Del screamed. I felt like the entire universe was screaming at the sheer obscenity of the thing that pulled its self into the light like a maggot emerging from a leprous wound.

In rough shape it resembled a monstrously obese canine, in that it had two arms, two legs and a head squatting between uneven shoulders. Beyond that existed only madness. The shape of the head, for instance, stuck with me the most. It was like I looked it in the face automatically, trying to recognise some natural, mortal features there. An expression of evil perhaps. A look of smugness, of surprise, maybe. Something that my mind could take hold of and understand. But there was nothing. Instead of a face it possessed a vaguely conical extrusion, like a fleshy screw of overlapping folds of the blubbery, bloodless matter that made up it's bulk.

I looked away, down at the rest of it it, sobbing at the sheer impossibility. The body was dizzyingly asymmetrical and as pale as only something that was never meant to walk beneath the sun can be. It looked like the vandalised offal of a particularly diseased animal, laid out like a man as some mad prank by a sadistic butcher. The stumpy legs were buried to the knee in the jiggling, distended belly as it waddled from the lip of the pit towards my howling sister. The front of the stomach was so taut that I could see shifting, semi-fluid organs knotting and coiling within.

I am not ashamed to say that I nearly ran. My sister's peril was only a secondary concern at the emergence of this globular horror. I just wanted to run until I could run no more and then, if God was merciful, lie down and die rather than share the planet with such a cosmic abortion. In the end the thing that stopped me was not, I am sorry to say, compassion for my sibling, but the fact that my foot caught on the shotgun as I tried to back away.

That contact reminded me that, in the end, I still had a weapon. I would be damned if I was going to allow whatever demented ceremony was taking place to reach the unholy climax.

I scrabbled in the mud for the gun, and paused to settle back into the rise and dab the tears of shock and fear from my eyes. I kept on trying not to look at the unfolding scene, even though it was clear that I would need to stare into the abyss if I wanted to use fight it. With my heart hammering in my chest I looked down into the circle again, bringing the gun up to my shoulder.

The thing, one of 'Them Below' I presumed, was hulkingly squatted at the edge of the ring of torches. The thick cables protruding from its back had gone slack, although other, smaller ones still writhed obscenely from its shoulders and between rolls of jiggling matter. It had one massive, clubbed paw rested on Will's head in a sickeningly paternal gesture. I felt bile rise in my throat and had to blink away tears as I realised that it was quite likely that he and the villagers were genuinely blood-relations of this thing. Will was saying something to it, his voice hushed with awe as he gestured with his own pudgy claw in the direction of my sister. Organs in the things belly writhed as it turned its screw-head in her direction, the folds quivering.

With a sickening slurp, what could only be the things member pushed through the fabric of it's belly. I gagged and watched as Del passed out in terror at the realisation of what was to come. The harpoon-like organ had emerged through a ragged and leaking slit in the monster's stomach, which was dripping rancid juices as bloated sac-like organ clusters lined up around the base of it within that cavernous gut. Will turned and raised his hands in the air, crowing triumphantly.

"Our sacrifice has been accepted!" he bellowed. The cultists threw themselves into the mud and filth, rubbing themselves in the dirt as the monster began its sloshing stagger-walk towards my unconscious sister.

He had more to say, I am sure. But I acted at that point. I tried to aim for the thing's head, but couldn't bear to look directly at it for long. My shot went wide and instead slapped into its hunched shoulder. To the cultists the effect was electric. Many looked around, crying out in confusion. A few actually broke and ran as if they believed some retribution was at hand. Against the monster, the shot had all the effect of pushing ones finger through wet dough. The slug tore right through the beefy shoulder and out the other side in a fleshy plug of matter, but the beast seemed not to notice or care.

Will looked directly at me. I have no idea if he just saw the muzzle flare of it he had some sixth sense. But he saw me and stopped his insane rant to point his dagger right at my position. I'm sure he was about to order his cultists to tear me limb from limb, rape me, or both. But I was already dropping the bead I had drawn on the monster. While I might not be able to look it in the face without flinching, there was a more vulnerable point I could focus on.

My second shot shattered the cartilaginous member at about the midpoint, and tore a massive gash in the taut fabric of the thing's belly. This wound was clearly a lot more effective. I would liken it to accidentally kicking the side of a rotten pumpkin; the fungal matter parted in a great rush, and the liquid and jiggling tubes within came with it in ropey coils. As I began to frantically reload a deathly hush fell on the congregation below.

The thing reeled, bulbous arms dabbing ineffectually at the hole in its stomach that, from the look of things, was widening as the pressure of the beast's unthinkable anatomy was focussed on the wound. Its face...unfurled. I have no other word for it. The flabby folds separated out like petals unfurling, revealing a shockingly meat-pink interior lined with jagged barbs. It's face now resembled a starfish with too many and too abnormal arms. It began to emit a sobbing, gulping noise, stumbling back from the altar and towards the pit with shaky steps. I could see that the thing was beginning to deflate in places, as if the semi-gelatinous mass inside was the only thing giving it solid form.

The cultists went insane. Well, more insane than could have been gathered by their actions to date. Most were overcome by what could only be described as convulsive fits, flailing in the mud until bones shattered and broke. Others ran full-tilt to the pit and hurled themselves in. Most, however, simply began screaming and clawing at themselves, the air, and each other. Will and his thugs ran to the stricken monster as it tried to escape the fatality of the would it had been dealt.

I slapped a fresh pair of shells into the shotgun and ran down the incline. A figure in robes rushed at me, gibbering and throwing his malformed arms up in the air. I shot at them, and didn't stop to see if the round had been fatal. I was determined not to let the moment of supreme confusion pass by while my sister was still in danger now that I had a chance to rescue her.

I wasted little time in getting to the altar and began yanking at the restraints holding her in place. The thick, leather buckles were soon off her hands and legs, and I began to try and bring her round. "Del!" I cried into her face. "Wake up! We have to get out of here!" The things trumpeting death-cry was getting softer. I looked around and saw the horror sagging like a deflated carnival float. It had turned its back to me and was rocking back and forth near the edge of the pit, like it was trying to use its remaining bulk to flop forward another step. I could see where its heavy, flabby folds had crushed one of the men that had gone to help it, although Will and the other seemed determined to render what aid they could.

I slapped Del smartly across the face and she came to with a cry. She fought me for a moment until she saw that it was not some deranged madman or monster set on attacking her. I hugged her to my chest as she sobbed, then dragged her to her feet. She winced at the touch of the cold ground, and I dragged my jacket around her shoulders to give her some protection from the cold, damp night air and restore a modicum of dignity to her.

She looked over my shoulder and cried out. Instinctively I pushed her towards the house and turned. One of the thuggish men was running at me with a look of hate and a drawn sabre. I shot him in the chest and stepped back as Will suddenly came out of the confusion with his knife. I parried the first wild, venom-filled slashes with the now-empty gun. I tried to back away, but stumbled into Del, who had stopped dead like a rabbit in the headlights. In that moment the little maniac stepped in and slashed me across the face.

I actually thought he missed at first, but then my mouth filled with blood and my eyes went blurry with pain. An icy shock slid down the side of my face in a diagonal slash across my lips, and I could feel the heat of my blood leaking down my neck and across my clothes. I wanted to reach up and see the extent of the damage, but I forced myself to focus.

Will backed off a pace and smirked at me with his inhuman visage. "You cunt," he hissed. "You were going to get away easily just servicing my boys. Now I'm going to make sure Those Below fuck your holes ragged before you're allowed to die..." Del chose that moment to scream again in horror, possibly at the sight of my wound, but maybe because of the situation in general. Will flicked a hatefully possessive glance her way. "And as for you..." he began, turning the dagger to point in her direction. I used the opening in his guard to land a heavy kick on his freakishly deformed leg.

It gave way with very little protest, bending at the knee in a sickeningly anatomically incorrect manner. Gelatinous semi-bone tore right through the flesh as white fluid that stank of open graves and flourishing mushrooms sobbed from the holes. Will, for what it was worth, seemed merely discomfited by the strike, cursing up a storm as he fell to the ground and tried to pull his limb's sutured supports into some semblance of working order. I didn't give him the chance. Swinging the shotgun like a club and letting out a yell that aspirated my blood across his deformed features I struck him twice. It seemed that his more canine parts were just as susceptible to damage as any mortal man, and he fell back into the mud, his skull laid open.

Delilah and I fled from the folly as fast as we could, both of us supporting the other. I was feeling woozy with shock, pain, blood-loss, and she was shivering with revulsion and horror over what had happened. The shotgun fell from my hands at some point, but the only time I noticed its loss was when we reached the garage and I found it was not there. We both almost collapsed in a faint when we got into the car, but with an effort of will I started the engine and drove us back down the tattered drive, through the rusty gates and into the safety of the night.

~~~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~~~

The aftermath of the incident passed for me in a blur of pain and painkillers. I was rather out of it when help found us; our car having swerved off the road several miles away from the village when a passing farmhand spotted us on his way to work. He drove us the the farmhouse where a hysterical Del managed to at least convey that we really, really needed the police.

A country doctor, lovely chap that he was, saw to my face. The wickedly sharp blade had cut me from just below my left eye in a diagonal slash across my muzzle. While he was a good sort, he was unable to stop it forming that singular scar that gave me quite the reputation. It has always been a rather slender little thing, barely noticeable for the most part. But where it met my lips it caused a near perfect diamond shape where the skin refused to heal correctly.

I have never been a vain woman, and in the days that followed I had to be all the stronger for Del. She was quite undone by everything that happened. This caused her first breakdown and her longest period of convalescence. I would be a liar to say that the sight of the ugly wound, unhealed and clotted with blood and sutures didn't make me have my own little collapse the first time I saw it. Time, the great healer that it is, has helped me and my scar come to a nice living arrangement. However Del never approved of my habit of blowing smoke out of the gap in my lips. My 'Blowhole' she used to call it.

What I do remember of the final chapter in this adventure was that it was all rather a damp squib. Pulp novels and movies would have you believe that we would be lauded as heroines for destroying this ghastly cult. But obviously reality is never quite as neat or likely to dispense medals or throw ticker-tape parades.

First we spoke to some local policemen, then some rather more senior policemen. I initially tried to go with a more believable story; that we had been the victims of a cruel attempted assault by bohemian elements at a party. Obviously when the policemen went to check they could find all the more ghastly evidence and go from there. However, poor Del told them the whole truth, as she understood it. Warts and all. In the end, I had to support her.

I'm sure that they thought us mad at first. But soon the policemen sent to the village and the Marcell house came back with pale, anxious faces and whispered tales for their superiors.

Next we spoke to some rather nasty detectives and doctors. I am privately sure that all the talking was what aggravated my wound enough to make it heal oddly. We then spoke to some men from the army. And finally we were forced to tell our sorry tale to some men that wore black suits and inscrutable expressions. Neither of the men were introduced to us. They simply came in, sat, and one of the doctors made us repeat ourselves for the umpteenth time. When we were done they got up and left.

The penultimate visitor was the strangest. Del, who by this time was very much worse for wear, was sleeping in the small house we were being kept in. We were not under arrest, per say, but we were definitely not being allowed to tour the town either. I was sat downstairs, sipping tea and wincing when an ancient Rabbi in a bathchair was wheeled in without preamble or comment. The young man that had been pushing him asked me to repeat my tale. I was rather taken aback, but complied. The young man listened and translated into Polish for the elderly man. He nodded and listened, wincing and grimacing. He shifted his stick-thin body beneath the blanket at the description of the monster, and said something that his companion did not translate for my benefit.

When I was done he gestured for me to come closer. He took one of my paws in both of his, and looked up at me with his cloudy brown eyes. With a soft snort he leaned back in his chairs and smiled before his helper wheeled him away. And that, apparently was that. I could still feel the rather dry heat of his bony paws around my fingers for quite some time.

Finally it was over.

Del and I were lead into the dining room where a bulldog was sat, fiddling with some documents. Without hesitation or waiting for us to take a seat he began to talk.

"Ladies, let me please inform you of the facts," he placed particular emphasis on the last word. "You have both been cruelly assaulted by an anarchist group that was part of a cell operating out of the small village of Greycap." He took a deep breath and glared at us both. "This group was wiped out when a stockpile of mustard gas and explosives they had built up in the Marcell house detonated on the night of the attack. We believe that the gas had been leaking for some time causing psychotic behaviour in the members of the group, as well as blisters and boils and other physical ailments."

"Look here," I said, mumbling the words a little because of my bandaged muzzle. "I know what we saw and it wasn't..."

At this the bulldog slammed a fist heavily on the table, causing me to wince and Del to cry out. "We believe that the gas had been leaking for some time causing psychotic behaviour in the members of the group, as well as blisters and boils and other physical ailments" he repeated. Slowly, and deliberately. He looked us both in the eye one after the other and continued. "Exposure to this gas may have also caused some hallucinations in the pair of you, leading to mild delusions. These were fed by the wild tales of the anarchists until you imagined the monster you saw."

I was about to argue again when I saw the look in his eyes. I gritted my teeth and held my tongue. Under the table, Del took my paw and I gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"The group has been taken into custody," the man added. He cleared his throat and forced a smile. "And that's the end of it. On behalf of his majesty's government, please accept this reward for your cooperation." he held out a slip of paper. I went to take it and he pulled back slightly. "For your cooperation...you understand?" I gave a curt nod and he handed it over. The number on it was...large. Large enough that any immediate trouble my sister and I were in was, if not cured, then at least postponed for the time being.

Del and I goggled at the cheque for a moment as the government man stood, adjusting his tie and putting his hat back on. "Your car is outside and you are both free to go," he said, with an air I took to mean he would rather we vanish as quickly and quietly as possible. He tipped his hat and left us in a stunned silence that we soon broke with a discussion as to how we could use the money. Indeed, the pair of us were actually rather chipper as we left for our home.

I remember brooding a little at first, even as we broke the good news to the servants that the house would not need to be sold. I felt like I had been bought. I had, obviously, but by the government. I later learned of the methods of the Undertakers, enough to know that paying my sister off was actually a more preferable option for all concerned. But at the time it felt like a betrayal of the truth.

I found myself pacing a lot. Del, bless her, was starting to show sings of strain and stress again, and I was confident that a doctor would need to be called for to care for her mind. The money, a welcome bonus as it was, was still not enough to ease our money worries in the long term. And what was I to do about this new, dark world to which I had been exposed.

It was while I was sat in the library that the answer came to me. I was sipping some tea, fortified by more than a little whiskey, when I glanced at the shelves. There, in my line of sight, was a copy of my father's collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. In a flash I was on my feet. I knew what I could do with this puzzle; solve it. I was almost certain that such darkness was a lot more rare and refined than the daily sinfulness of mankind. And if, in solving these smaller puzzles I learned more of the bigger picture, then so be it. A little extra money in rewards would also not go amiss.

And the rest, dear readers, is history.

It has felt good to put this troy on paper for the first time. I feel a weight has lifted from my shoulders, one that I didn't realise I was carrying. Looking at the first of the dusty old trunks from the attic filled with these bad memories makes it settle back onto my old bones though. I suppose I will continue this silliness and bury a few more of these ghosts in ink and paper.

As for the Marcell house there is one small post script. The story about anarchists was in all the papers for a week or so after the incident although I cannot recall any trials being held. Then the mansion and the village were quietly bought by the army as a weapons testing ground and barracks. I believe they used it as a proving ground for new designs of flame-throwers. Or at least that was the explanation they gave to the papers at the time.

Now they just use it as a storage ground for chemical weapons. Defoliants mostly. It must be dangerous stuff given the number of men they lose a year to training accidents. Make of that what you will.

Emelia Pointer-Stonehouse