Page 6 of Farkas: Gothika

“Okay,” he said, standing up from the chair and walking to the bedroom doorway, where he hovered awkwardly. Vincent was looking at him so intently.

“Lee, I imagine you might feel confined in these few rooms. If you wish, you are free to venture into the rest of my home. But do not attempt to pass through any of the locked doors. And I advise against going outdoors. My property is quite untamed, and dangers lurk for the unwary.”

Did coyotes hunt during the day? Lee wasn’t sure. But there could also be rattlesnakes. Were bears a possibility? Mountain lions? Or unmarked abandoned mine shafts? All his time in California had been spent in more urban areas, and he had only the vaguest notions of what hazards might be in this place. Wherever this place was.

“I’ll probably do some preparatory work, now that I have at least a general idea of what you want. You have some good references here.” He waved toward the bookshelves.

“Excellent. Good night, Lee. Sleep well, here in the shelter of your bedchamber.” With that cryptic remark, Vincent stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

* * *

It was shortly before dawn when Lee climbed into the huge bed. He wore boxers and an undershirt, as he often did at night, but now they felt too confining. It was probably the wine—it had confused his senses, muddled his mind, and made his skin feel too tight. He tossed and turned under the thick duvet, trying to make himself comfortable.

Perhaps it was the unwanted reminder of the Hasenkamps that disturbed him. By his eighteenth birthday, one of his brothers had died in Bataan and another had been serving on a ship somewhere in the Pacific. Lee’s parents had begged him to remain at home to help on the farm, at least until he got drafted, but he’d viewed the war as his best means of escape. So he’d hitched a ride the forty-two miles from Beatrice to Lincoln, changed his name, and enlisted. He’d written his parents a few times while he was overseas, just so they’d know he was alive. And when he returned to the States, he sent them a little cash now and then as well as Christmas cards. But he hadn’t seen any of his family since he hopped in that car bound for Lincoln, and he rarely thought of them.

Until tonight, when Vincent had unburied them.

They weren’t terrible people. Strict, yes, and often rigid, but that had been their means of survival. It wasn’t their fault they were poor, and they couldn’t be blamed for not understanding him. Sometimes he salved his conscience by promising himself that when he made senior partner, he would send his parents enough money to ensure their comfort in their golden years.

But if he was going to do that, he first had to succeed at his current task. The legal part might be complicated, but he doubted he’d have much difficulty with it. He’d been managing complex property transfers and somewhat shady transactions as part of the Bunker Hill project. He’d even created fictitious identities as a way of obscuring ownership of various parcels. His work with the Farkases sounded like much of the same.

The problem was that he’d have to do it while stuck in this mysterious, isolated location. And while working closely with Vincent.

At the thought of him, Lee’s cock hardened.

Dammit, he didn’t want that. He never wanted to feel his pulse quicken over the proximity of a man, never wanted to feel a thrill run down his spine when a handsome fellow passed close enough for Lee to smell his aftershave and hair pomade. Never wanted his eyes to track a man, focusing on the curve of his ass or the suggestion of a bulge below the belt.

And he absolutely did not want to become achingly erect as he imagined strong slender fingers stroking him, plush lips pressed against his skin.

Lee jacked off furiously, miserably, and then fell immediately asleep. He dreamed of soaring through a night sky before crashing to the ground and being chased by wolves.

Chapter Four

It was past noon when Lee awoke. He found a maroon silk robe draped over the back of a chair—had it been there last night?—and put it on, then wandered groggily into the drawing room. A meal had been set at the table: cold meats and cheeses, soft bread, an assortment of dried and fresh fruits. There were also carafes of water and orange juice, and a teapot with a quilted cover keeping it warm. Although he appreciated the spread, he would have preferred coffee.

After eating, he embraced the opportunity to see where he was. He unlatched the door to the balcony and moved onto the little terrace, then drew back with a gasp. Below him was a precipice, a sheer three-hundred-foot drop to a rock-strewn ravine. The house was placed directly on the side of a cliff. No, as he looked more closely he saw that the house was built into the cliff. Maybe that explained why it was so chilly inside.

On the other side of the chasm was a steep, scrub-strewn hillside with olive-green plants scattered among tawny grasses. There was no hint of a breeze, not a single cloud in the pale blue sky; nothing moved, not even a bird or insect. Lee had the uncanny feeling that he was perched on the inside edge of a monstrous picture frame, staring at a painting. Or perhaps he was a part of the painting as well.

“Stop scaring yourself,” he muttered. He stepped back inside and latched the door.

He would call the office, he decided, and seek some kind of reassurance from Mr. Graves. He wanted to make sure that the senior partner was aware of the details of this assignment, including—most especially!—the strange setting. And Lee also wanted a promise that when he returned to the office, he would be rewarded for his work here.

But there was no telephone. Not anywhere in his suite of rooms, where the few lights depended on gas rather than electricity. It was entirely possible that neither phone lines nor electric service had been run to this remote location. If that was true, Lee was completely cut off from the outside world.

He shuddered.

The thing to do was stop cowering like a mouse in its hole. He would explore the mansion and find some servants to interrogate. If he was truly lucky, he might even stumble upon Laszlo Farkas; the old man could explain exactly what was going on.

Buoyed by a sense of purpose, Lee got dressed. Although its hinges groaned, the door to the hallway opened easily enough, and he turned left, back in the direction he’d come last night. The corridors didn’t look any cheerier in the daytime, perhaps because virtually no natural light made its way in. Gas lamps flickered anemically on the walls, spaced so widely as to leave much of the passageways in deep gloom.

Out of curiosity, Lee tried some of the doors; most were locked. The three or four that did open revealed rooms empty of everything but dust and cobwebs. Vincent had implied that this house was built during his lifetime, yet it felt ancient, and Lee wondered why the Farkases had needed so much space. Maybe they’d intended it to show off their wealth, but if so, it was unclear whom they’d intended to impress. Lee had the distinct impression that visitors were rare.

Sometimes he paused to inspect a decorative piece: an oil painting, a vase in a niche, a statue at the turning of a corridor—each softly lit by a gas fixture. They seemed to represent a wide range of geographic and temporal origins, but he knew nothing about art so he couldn’t be sure. He had no idea whether any of them were valuable.

Not long after Lee had joined the firm, he’d been given the task of obtaining signatures from a client. He might have bristled at being reduced to an errand boy, except that this particular client was a famous movie director, and the mission had given Lee the chance to visit the studio. He’d met up with the director on the set of, ironically, a courtroom drama that was about to begin filming. While the director skimmed over the papers, Lee had permission to prowl around. He’d been surprised by how fake everything looked. Yet when he later saw the movie in a theater, the courtroom had looked entirely authentic on the big screen.

The Farkas mansion reminded him of that movie set—a simulation of a rich family’s estate that didn’t quite hold up to close scrutiny. But he couldn’t pinpoint precisely where the flaws lay.

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