Page 13 of Unbroken
Widdershins, MA - Unknown vandals defaced the headstone of Mr. David Siewert mere hours after burial. Mr. Siewert died from an accidental collision with a train and was buried yesterday morning. This morning, police were notified that someone painted a crude scene on the stone, accompanied by spatters of what appeared to be blood. Police say the vandalism was the product of a tasteless prank, and vow to prosecute should the perpetrator be found.
That…was not good, to put it mildly. What the crude scene comprised, he couldn’t imagine, but the presence of blood on the gravestone of a man possibly killed by the Book of Blood…
Had the grave itself been disturbed? Or was it even possible to tell given its freshness, at least without digging down to see if the coffin was still intact?
Troubled, he put the newspapers back on their bamboo holders, wished the librarian at the desk a good day, and made for the museum. He was still deep in rumination when he reached his office and opened the door, to find Irene beaming at him with excitement.
“Look at this,” she said, shoving an architectural drawing at him. “I believe I’ve found where Dromgoole hid the final Book.”
Ves stared at the decaying ruin before them, a mixture of hope and wariness interlacing in his chest. The buildings on the street had once been comfortable homes, but time had passed the area by. Though the lights from the amusement park on the pier could be seen across a narrow inlet, this small neighborhood stood in darkness and silence. Waves lapped the nearby beach, and some storm had carried sand and sea wrack into the streets before retreating once again.
“What a dreary place,” Irene observed, leaning back against her auto. Its cooling motor ticked softly in the warm evening air. They’d thought it best to wait until dark to approach the building she’d identified as the spirit trap for the Book of Blood. Though given the deserted atmosphere of this end of the street, they probably could have broken in during the middle of the day and not been noticed.
Noct emerged from the backseat and slithered up a lamp post still fitted for gas, though it probably hadn’t been lit in decades. “Secluded, at least.”
Sebastian put his hands on his hips, eyeing the structure. “So no one will hear our cries for help when it collapses on top of us.”
“I’ll go first.” Ves ventured up the front steps, which groaned beneath him. “If I fall through the floor, I’m the least likely to be permanently injured.”
According to Irene, Dromgoole designed the home in 1853, when the neighborhood was both new and popular. The door bore only traces of dark green paint, the sidelights so grimed with dirt it was impossible to see inside. He pushed the door open, the bottom edge dragging across the hardwood floor with a pained shriek. A thin layer of sand covered the foyer and piled in the corners, hinting as to why the neighborhood had been abandoned.
Though not as abandoned as it seemed, given the clear disturbance in the sand, as if someone had dragged something back and forth through it.
“Someone’s been here,” he said. “Sebastian, can you sense the Book?”
Sebastian’s flashlight clicked on. Ves still sometimes forgot that not everyone could see in the dark. “No,” Sebastian said. “Damn it—are we too late again?”
“Only one way to find out. Stay behind me.”
The foyer let onto a hall. The close air stank of mold and salt, and flood-warped floorboards creaked warningly under Ves’s feet.
Someone had stripped the rotting wallpaper from the plaster, flung it on the floor, and proceeded to cover the walls in scribbled drawings.
“What the hell?” Sebastian murmured. His light played over scenes scrawled in what looked like charcoal: tentacles, decaying flowers, what might have been a distorted tree. Mouths without faces howled, laughed, or maybe cried from every direction.
Irene made a face. “Well, this is disturbing.”
“Look here.” Noct pointed a tentacle at one of the pictures. It showed an automobile parked across train tracks, the man inside still holding the steering wheel as a train bore down on him.
“Well, that isn’t good,” Irene remarked. “Over here—is this Penelope Tubbs?”
A second image showed a woman holding a candle to her dress, her body wreathed in flames. “I don’t see who else it could be,” Sebastian said. “The newspaper article I read said something was drawn on Siewert’s headstone.”
“So not just an act of vandalism.” Irene frowned. “So whoever has the Book has definitely been here.”
“My question is: where are they now?” Noct said grimly.
Ves strained his senses, but heard no whisper of breath, no shift of weight. If anyone else was here, they weren’t close by. “Irene, where was the Book’s resting place?”
“In a hollow column beside the stairs leading down to the basement.”
“I doubt it’s still here.” Sebastian looked down at his forearm. “I don’t feel anything at the moment.”
“Let’s keep looking before we give up,” Noct said. “Where are the stairs to the basement?”
Irene pointed toward the rear of the house. “Through a door in the back of the pantry.”
The kitchen was in as poor a shape as the rest of the house, if not worse. A gaping hole revealed where the heavy cook stove had fallen through the weakened floor; the sound of lapping water echoed up through the void. Sagging cabinets held cobwebs and mice. Whoever had drawn on the walls must have been eating their meals somewhere else.
