House of the Angels

Grey suddenly jumped awake, his deep and dreamlike sleep shattered by a frantic voice that had called to him from somewhere not far from Angel Manor. He looked around his dark bedroom, listening intently for the voice to cry out to him again. When it did, he threw on his sandals and tiptoed out of his room and down the hall to the bedroom where Anne was sound asleep.

“Anne,” Grey whispered sharply. “Anne, wake up!”

“Hmm? Grey what is it?” Anne sleepily asked, brushing the grogginess away from her eyes.

“I think someone’s in trouble.” Grey responded. “I keep hearing a voice call for help.”

Anne was suddenly struck with a nerve rattling panic. She jumped out of bed and with Grey at her side, quietly did a room check to make sure everyone was accounted for. Rowena, Dylan, Rachel, Ash, Gwen and Eve had all returned from Mason Noir at different times, Bill, Keith, Josh and Robert were all sound asleep in their beds as were Edward and his roommate, Anne’s son Eugene St. John. Floyd and Molly were as well but when she got to Kyle’s room she nearly collapsed.

“My God,” Anne muttered fearfully. “My God Kyle never came home!”

She immediately rushed down to Sybilla’s room, throwing open the door and waking her without even a second thought.

“Annie? Everything alright?” Sybilla asked.

“No,” Anne answered. “Kyle never came home.”

Sybilla looked at the digital clock on her bedside. It was now four in the morning and Kyle had told her he’d be back by one at the latest. Sunrise was just around the corner and it wasn’t like him to be out this late.

“Get the others up.” Sybilla ordered. “Tell’em to fan out and search everywhere until they find him.”

Anne obeyed and went around the hall, knocking on everyone’s doors and rousing them from their sleep. “Everybody get up and look lively!” She commanded, like a drill sergeant instructing his troops. “Kyle hasn’t come back yet and we need to start searching. Take to the streets, the rooftops, I don’t care where you do it. But nobody comes back here until he’s found, understood?”

“Yes ma’am!” Everyone replied rather loudly.

Everyone, even Grey, took to the streets with flashlights, a lantern or their cell phone and hurried out the door to begin searching. They branched off down the alleys and sidestreets, but Sybilla had other ideas.

“Grey, Dan, Alex and Joseph, ya’ll come with me.” Sybilla commanded.

The four of them marched down the street with Sybilla at the front, her jaw clenched and set with determination and her eyes glittering like a pair of brown gems.

“Where we startin?” Dan asked.

“Exactly the place you’d expect.” Sybilla responded. “I gotta feelin Kyle got hooked on the wrong end of Sally’s fishin’ line. Grey, I need ya’ll to tell me what you know about Mason Noir.”

“Ok so during the day Sally used to leave me in charge of holding down the house while she and the others would go off somewhere and hold their creepy rituals.” Grey explained as the five of them quickened their pace. “Since I left she’s probably left somebody big and stupid in charge.”

“That ain’t gon’ be no problem for us, especially Dan.” Sybilla chuckled. “Boy’s got bull’s blood in him. If it’s somebody big and stupid that was left in charge, he’ll take care of’em in one shot.”

“Thank you ma’am.” Dan said proudly.

“All of you listen and listen good.” Sybilla told them after they had had a good laugh. “I’m gonna need a few things before we take care of business. Dan, ya’ll got your Mama’s beads?”

“Got’em.” Dan replied.

“Grey I need you to go and fill up a gallon jug at a spigot.” Sybilla ordered. “Then go and find Father Kelley and ask him to bless the water.”

“Got it.” Grey answered. “Who’s got the jug?”

“Go grab one from Berta.” Sybilla told him. “She keeps’em in case the hurricanes hit.”

Grey obeyed and slipped into Berta’s kitchen, returning mere minutes later with an empty plastic milk jug. He rinsed it out at the spigot and filled it up with skin chilling water, occasionally dumping a few splashes out here and there to get rid of the smell of milky residue. Once the jug was full, the group went to find Father Kelley.

It wasn’t hard to find the good Father at all. He had been overseeing a memorial service in St Mary’s Cemetery but was more than happy to do a favor for Sybilla. Each of them thanked him and continued on their way towards Mason Noir.

“Ya’ll think whoever was left in charge is as stupid as they look?” Sybilla questioned.

“Oh I don’t doubt it.” Grey answered. “From what I’ve learned, demons are incredibly stupid.”

“So that gives us the upper hand.” Sybilla mused.

They crossed Pelican Bridge and took a shortcut that would bring them right past Mason Noir. By now the sun had risen and just as Grey had said, Sally and the rest of them were off to a secluded place to practice their unholy rituals. Sybilla and her brood crouched behind the hedges, watching them leave one by one and when they were gone, they snuck through the back gate.

“Shit,” Grey muttered as he tried to open the door. “It’s locked.”

“Hang on, I’ve got this,” Alex said.

From his back pocket he pulled a paper clip and uncurled it until it was straight. Alex inserted one end into the lock, twisting and turning until he heard the mechanism click. With one turn of the handle, the door creaked open and the angels entered the house.

It was eerily quiet with hardly any noise to be heard. No creaky floorboards, no footsteps….nothing. Sybilla at first thought that no one was home but she knew far better. It’s always when things are quiet that things go wrong…..

“Sybilla,” Grey whispered. “Heloise is in the living room.”

She peered around the corner and sure enough there was Heloise, lazily sleeping on the uncomfortable looking sofa in the living room. She laughed on the inside realizing how stupid Sally was to leave such a lazy little miscreant in charge of the house. This oughtta be easy enough….she thought.

Sybilla signaled for them to move from their hiding place and into the living room. They moved in and surrounded the sofa where Heloise lazed away but the moment she woke up, she let out a shrill shriek of terror. Dan pinned her to the sofa using all of his strength, using one hand to hold her arms behind her back and the other to keep her pinned.

“Get the hell off me you big boned bastard!” Heloise shrieked.

“Keep her pinned Dan, I’m gonna find something to tie her up with.” Sybilla informed him before she left the room.

“I said get off me!!”

“Shut your piehole!” Dan thundered.

Grey looked down at Heloise who writhed, wriggled and snarled as she tried to escape. Anger and rage boiled within every fiber of his being, intensifying the more he stared at her disgusting face.

“Oh look who came home.” She cooed poisonously.

“Screw you.” Grey sneered.

“Gladly.” Heloise said with a wicked grin.

When Sybilla came back, Dan, Joseph and Alex tied Heloise to an old wooden chair with a few worn out electrical cords and dragged her into the huge kitchen. She hooted and cackled like a maniac with no regard to the scowls of Sybilla and the others.

“Really guys?” Laughed Heloise. “You think electrical cords are gonna keep me from trying to escape?”

Alex gave a yank and the teenage goth girl let out a choking gasp as the cords constricted around her body. “You’ve got some nerve don’t you?” Alex pointed out, his dark sapphire blue eyes glowing with rabid ferocity.

“A hell of a lot more than you probably.” Heloise cackled.

Alex whipped a stinging slap across her smug face, leaving a red mark on her deathly pale face. “You must really enjoy testing people’s patience too, don’t you?” He remarked coldly.

“Is that all you’ve got is a slap in the face?” Heloise snarked. “If so then you’d better work on your swing……cause I can go all night.”

Alex turned and walked away before he let his anger boil over into something worse. Better to let the others do the interrogating.

“You’d better tell us where Kyle is,” Sybilla stated, inching closer to Heloise. “Otherwise it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Oh like your face?” questioned Heloise. “That’s the only thing that could give the Elephant Man a run for his money.”

Sybilla hooked her arm and sent her fist right into Heloise’s nose with a *WHACK!* that echoed across every corner of the room. “Ya’ll should learn a few manners you uncultured lil’ tapeworm.” She said icily. “Now, I’m only gonna ask this one more time….where is Kyle Boisfontaine?”

Heloise cackled and spat several drops of blood into Sybilla’s face. Sybilla gasped and brushed away the flecks of blood and saliva. “Wicked bitch.” She sneered. “Ya’ll gon’ git what’s comin to you. Grey get’cho butt over here!”

“With pleasure.” He answered.

Dan pulled something from the pocket of his long black gym shorts and tossed it to Grey who caught it in his left hand. Defiantly, he began to tie one of Dan’s good luck objects around the neck of the milk jug, a rosary made from a thin gold chain and emerald green beads with the medal bearing the image of Our Lady of Knock and a large green and gold Celtic cross on the very end. He relished in Heloise’s uncomfortable squirming and loved the glimmer of fear that flashed in her cold eyes.

“You don’t have the balls to kill me.” Heloise hissed.

“Yeah? Try me.” Grey retorted.

“You’re weak Grey.” Heloise told him, a wicked grin playing with the corner of her ugly lips. “Weaker than a skinny little twig.”

“And you’ll always be an annoying little twerp who can’t keep her trap shut.”

The grin disappeared from Heloise’s face in a matter of seconds as Grey shook the water in the jug. The fear Grey had noticed before flashed once again in her cold, dead eyes like fireworks. Now he had Heloise right where he wanted her.

“You’re gonna tell us where Kyle Boisfontaine is or else.” Grey demanded.

“Or else what?” Heloise spat viciously.

“Or else you won’t get out of this alive.”

Grey unscrewed the cap and wet his fingers with the holy water, flicking a few droplets onto Heloise’s face. She let out a small yelp of pain as they stung and seared her skin.

“Tell me where he is.” Grey demanded coldly.

“Screw you.” Heloise hissed, clenching her teeth.

Grey whacked her right in the teeth with a closed fist, the sound of the shock echoing throughout the room. Sybilla clamped her eyes shut, not wanting to see what would come next.

“Tell me where he is, NOW!!” Grey insisted.

Heloise laughed again as more blood leaked from her nostrils and from between her teeth. Grey’s wrath was beginning to materialize from a small spark into an inferno very quickly.

“Fine.” He growled. “Have it your way.”

Grey lifted the jug and splashed some of the water into Heloise’s lap. She let out a hellish wail as her skin burned and sharp pains tore right through her, her wounds sizzling and popping with yellow blisters forming around the burns.

“You better talk or it’s gonna get worse.” Grey sneered.

He dumped several more splashes of water onto Heloise who let forth a staccato of shrieks and yells that all rose and fell in different pitches. When the water didn’t work, he took the cross at the end of Dan’s rosary and held it to Heloise’s forehead.

“Tell me where Kyle is damnit!!” Grey thundered, his high, boyish voice rising above Heloise’s screams.

“Attic!!! Attic!! ATTIC!!!” Heloise screamed before Grey pulled the cross away from her forehead.

Grey felt a chill run right through him as he looked at Heloise with her ghastly burns. “That’s all I needed to know.” Grey told her. And to Sybilla he asked, “What do we do?”

Sybilla didn’t even hesitate. “Kill her.”

Grey turned back to Heloise and dumped all of the holy water in the jug onto her. Heloise writhed and screamed as her body sizzled and tore itself apart from the inside out. Grey didn’t turn away as he watched Heloise writhe and jerk in her last few moments of agony. Clouds of steam filled the kitchen and disappeared when Heloise went still with her cold eyes staring right up at the ceiling.

Grey couldn’t believe what had just happened. He had never killed anyone before let alone demons. The heaviness of his anger was suddenly lifted, making the air around him feel ten times lighter. Now all that was left to do was get Kyle.

“She said he was in the attic?” Sybilla pondered.

“Yes.” Grey answered. “I searched her mind before she cracked. She wasn’t lying.”

“Key?”

“In the sidetable drawer next to the main door.”

Sybilla retrieved the key from the drawer and the five of them rushed up the winding flights of stairs until they reached the attic door. Sybilla turned the key in the lock and the door opened up into a set of wooden steps that led up into a black void. Grey retrieved a flashlight from one of the kitchen cabinets and took the lead, shining the light on their path as they ascended further up the creaky staircase and into the foul smelling attic.

Dan, Grey and Alex all pulled their shirtcollars up over their noses to block out the sickening stench of blood. The beam of the flashlight showed them glimpses of terrible things that had been stowed away in the attic, chains, manacles dangling from the rafters, cages and tools that reminded the angels of sharp, monstrous teeth.

“What is this place?” Sybilla questioned in a low, frightened whisper.

“This is where Sally’s victims go.” Grey whispered back. “But no one’s ever come out.”

Grey suddenly stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the post at the far end of the attic room and the slumped figure lashed to it.

“Oh….my God.” Sybilla muttered, her voice quavering with shock and horror.

Quietly she made her way to the post, her chest tightening in a knot when she saw Kyle slumped still as a statue against the rough wood. “Mon pauvre garçon.” She sobbed quietly. “Mon pauvre garçon.”

Sybilla laid a gentle hand on Kyle’s bare arm, his skin covered in oozed over cuts and scrapes. She felt him shudder beneath her touch and began to cry with relief when he lifted his head.

“Sybilla?” he croaked.

“Oh Mon Chere!” Sybilla cried out. “Praise be to Jesus, you’re alive.”

She pressed a gentle kiss to Kyle’s head but was appalled at the sight of his face, deathly pale, bruised, bloodied and swollen from taking such a beating from the Caulfields. Her horror soon turned to anger when she felt something hot and wet beneath her right hand. When Sybilla pulled it away, she was horrified to find fresh blood staining the entire palm of her hand, from fingertip to wrist.

“Alex, Joseph, cut the ropes.” Sybilla commanded. “Grey find a blanket or something and Dan, go get whatever clothes Kyle might have left here.”

Alex and Joseph both pulled a sharp knife from the sheath hidden away on their shoes and cut away the rough ropes. Kyle stumbled into Sybilla’s arms, shuddering and shaking with the agonizing pain that wracked his body.

“I’m sorry.” Kyle croaked, his voice raspy and weak. “I….s-s-shouldn’t have g-gone alone.”

“Shhh, hush mon chere,” Sybilla soothed, running her slender fingers along his silky red hair. “You’re safe now.”

Grey came back moments later with the navy blue flannel blanket that had once covered his bed and gave it to Sybilla who wrapped it protectively around Kyle’s shoulders. Once Dan had found his shirt, shoes, tie and jacket, they started for home.

Kyle shielded his eyes when they stepped out into the bright mid-morning sunlight, his skin stinging from being locked in the drafty attic all night. Grey and Sybilla helped him keep his balance while Joseph was the last to come out of Mason Noir carrying a paper bundle under one arm. He took one look at the tall, looming black manor before he turned his back on it and walked off with the others.