The Annals of Fear

(Author\'s Note: I\'m not around tomorrow, so this is tomorrow\'s chapter a day early. Next chapter will turn up on Jan 4th)



All four of them walked together through the house. Mello had his leather jacket on again and, if Century suspected what was hidden underneath it, not a word was spoken about it. Deontic shivered, her cardigan pulled tightly across her chest, but she had spent most of their childhoods complaining about the cold, so none of them took any notice. She bent to help Matt set up laser beam sensors in strategic positions. Mello smiled to watch them do it. "Come out, come out, wherever you are." He called out, making them jump. "Century, go find us the priest holes."



The teenager frowned. "You are joking, aren\'t you?"



"You\'re the historian."



"And you\'re the Catholic."



Deontic called over her shoulder. "Please don\'t start fighting again." Her tone held neither authority or plea, just a forlorn acceptance that she didn\'t expect them to listen to her. "Remind me what priest holes are."



Century and Mello were standing watch, their backs to the couple at work. Century peered over his shoulder to find Mello gesturing that he should tell her. Century shrugged. "There is evidence of them earlier, but they really kicked off in the 16th and 17th centuries. Basically secret places in a house, where items or people could be hidden. 16th and 17th centuries, of course, you\'re looking at the persecution of the Catholics in Britain, hence the name \'priest holes\'." He glanced back at Mello. "Are you serious about me finding them?"



Mello nodded. "Yes."



"Most houses had none at all. Some were so riddled with them that even today the custodians occasionally discover a new one." Century warmed to his subject. "But these were intricate! Whole armies would move into a house, with carpenters and smiths, smashing walls with big hammers and shoving hooks into ceilings. They could sometimes be there for a fortnight, searching and not always finding the hidden priest. In fact, there are stories of priests starving to death just the other side of some plasterboard, not daring to breathe too loudly for fear of the soldiers finding him." Century knocked on the nearest panel. "So you want me to succeed, in one night, where an army with associated craftsmen often failed in a fortnight. Is that the story?"



Mello smirked. "Let\'s see how good you really are."



Both Matt and Deontic looked up; three sets of Wammy alumni eyes were trained onto their youngest member. The challenge was implicit; it was noted and understood. Century straightened, his own gaze unflinching. "Starting from the same point that they did, is it?" He turned in a circle, looking up at the ceiling and down at the floor. "No reason to know that these people were Catholics. Probably weren\'t, being Welsh; though they could have been Norman ancestry, I suppose. Might not be a priest hole at all, see?" He pondered the puzzle. "But there might. And it\'s a rational explanation for why we\'re getting weird shit, without recourse to there being a ghost." No-one replied, Century was thinking aloud. Checking the boundaries of his assigned task. There was no reason to respond. "Priest holes could be in fake floors, fake walls, attics were favourite. All those beams disorientating the eye. Anything could be built in there. Had experts, see? People really, really good at building them. Timber that looks like a supporting beam, but you push it just so and it opens up onto a tiny room. Stairs that had panels to be removed and the hole was underneath. Cramped conditions."



Matt rose, his hands on his head as if trying to keep his skullcap from flying off. He had his eyes closed, as he hissed. "Mello, he\'s doing my fucking head in."



Mello flinched. "Oh! Fuck." He reached out, pulling Matt into his arms. "Century, just find the blasted priest holes without the commentary. Please."



Deontic and Century exchanged knowing glances. Deontic stood up. "Is this about when he was abducted?"



"Huh?" Mello gave her a glare, which stated eloquently enough that whatever it was about wasn\'t to be discussed with them, now or ever. Matt just lit a cigarette and seemed more closed down than normal. "Sorry, baby." Mello mumbled, an arm around Matt\'s waist, though the redhead had moved out of a full embrace before it had really begun. "How many more sensors are there left to fit?"



There was a sudden shriek from Deontic and she careered back, straight into Matt\'s arm. He lifted it to steady her, the cigarette burning between the fingers of that hand. She didn\'t move away, gasping out in shock, "Alamak!" Her hands were trembling at her mouth.



A few steps along the corridor, Century had followed her gaze almost immediately, "Ach y fi!" He took several steps backwards, looking ready to run. Warned by their reactions, both Mello and Matt were steely silent, as they peered around Deontic to see. The figurine of the Mother was against the wall, just an inch from where Deontic had been fitting the sensor. Century pointed. "She would have had to reach behind that to put the...." He gushed, falling over his own words, "That, the thingie, device! She would have had to touch it!"



"It wasn\'t there!" Deontic half-screamed. "No-one could have got past us! We\'ve all been standing here! No-one could have got past us!" Matt slowly rubbed her arm, then took his hand away to put the cigarette into his mouth. He took a long draw on it, the tip glowing orange. "It wasn\'t there!"



Mello\'s iron grip on Matt\'s waist finally eased. He took a bite of chocolate and moved around, past Deontic to survey it properly. "No doorways."



Deontic pointed, "There\'s nothing but panelling! It\'s a corridor! There\'s nothing...."



She stopped as Mello kicked each panel behind the figurine and to either side. His army boots solicited the same dull wooden thud there as they did in experimental kicks on their counterparts across the passageway. "Forget the priest holes, Century. It\'s a ghost."



The Welshman frowned. "But I could have found them! If someone was hiding in it, I could have found them, see? I have something that those soldiers didn\'t. I have heat scanners."



"Fine!" Mello barked back. "Heat scan this area." Footsteps sounded on the floor above, running across the floorboards above their heads. They all froze, looking upwards. "Fuckers!" Mello darted forward, pushing past both Deontic and Matt, towards the smaller staircase leading up. They saw the gun appear in his hand. Deontic rushed towards Century, her hands waving in warding against a repeat of his hysteria. But the blond was out of view now, manoeuvring up the stairs with the efficiency and speed of his Parkour training, roaring out, "Where are you?"



Matt had taken off after Mello. A gun was in Matt\'s hand too, grabbed from its hiding place beneath his jacket. They careered along the top landing, past the open doorways into dark and empty rooms, that must have once housed the servants. Running footsteps thudded across their ceiling now. Mello was already at the wooden ladder, polished dark brown and affixed to the wall, leading up to a doorway ajar at the top. He drew to his full height, teetering on the topmost rung, with his fingertips gripping the top of the doorjamb, for fear of going in headfirst. His boot kicked open the door, allowing momentum to take him the rest of him in, feet first. He was in an attic, silvery dark with only the moonlight, pouring in through many sky windows, to illuminate the detritus of ages, stored in boxes and under dustsheets against the walls. At the far end was another even smaller wall-ladder, leading up to an opening in the slanted ceiling. It was open. The wind howled icily through the room.



Mello did not follow. He stood back, against the wall, a hand held palm down to give Matt pause. The redhead waited on the ladder, his gaze sweeping the passageway behind him, in case anyone should emerge from one of the rooms. But he kept a constant watch on Mello too, awaiting instruction from his higher vantage point. Mello was as still and tense as a cat about to pounce. There were too many hiding places in this attic. He held his breath, listening for breathing from beneath a dustsheet or behind a box. He heard none, but neither could they hear the footsteps now. Mello did not want to pass beneath all of those windows, where he would present himself as a target to anyone on the roof. That was where his vision was trained and so he saw the shadow pass across them.



Mello signalled \'back\' and so Matt climbed down again. Mello followed, closing the door behind him and inspecting it for a lock. There was one, but the key wasn\'t in it. "Matt, I need this door securing."



Matt nodded and jogged back to the staircase, keeping Mello in his view. Matt yelled downstairs, "I need my toolbox up here." There was a scuffling, then Deontic\'s face, pale and frightened, appeared at the foot of the enclosed staircase. She held the toolbox in her hands. Matt glanced back at Mello, then leapt down, meeting her halfway to take it from her. "Thanks." He raced back to Mello\'s side. There was the rat-a-tat-tat of Deontic\'s shoes on the wooden stairs, as she followed him up.



Mello, still holding the door-handle with all his strength and body-weight tensed against it, called out, "Dee, you and Century stay together, but go outside. Watch the roof."



"Is there someone up there?" She asked. It sounded like stalling even to her own ears and Mello didn\'t have to answer, beyond an irritated glance, before she had turned and scurried away.



Matt lifted away the top layer of his toolbox to hunt in the assorted oddments beneath. It held an array of fuses, wire and the smaller circuitry for computer equipment, alongside plastic casings and rogue nails. He scanned them all for inspiration. Mello left out an exasperated breath. "In your own time, Matt."



"It\'s harder to secure from this side. From the other side, I could have just hammered a nail into the joist." His hand swooped in to encase a small block of wood. He tended to use it as a surface upon which to solder small pieces of wiring together, but Matt pressed it now against a corner of the door, then hammered several nails into it from all sides. It attached to the floor, the door and the jamb. "Temporary measure. Try that." Mello didn\'t seem convinced, but he did relinquish his hold and tried to open the door. The block held. "Result. Now, how secure do you want this door?"



Mello gave him a long-suffering look. "I don\'t want any fucker getting out, after we\'ve got him trapped up there."



"So reversibly secure?" Matt put down the tube of Hard As Nails and looked thoughtfully at the nearest open door.



"Matt, we haven\'t got time to take a door off." Mello let go of the doorhandle properly, but climbed down the ladder with his gun trained on the closed door. "I just want it secured long enough for me to get out there and gain access in a safer way. But I\'m not leaving you up here on your own. You\'re coming with me."



Matt rolled his eyes, but bit back his retort. He marched into the room to his left, his gun aloft. It was empty and devoid of furniture. He tried the next, then the next, but the situation was the same. Still waiting at the door, Mello radiated impatience. "Fuck it." Matt spat, running back. He took out a claw-hammer and screwdriver, then bent knelt before an open door. Mello\'s heavy sigh prompted him to speak. "I\'m not removing the door. I\'m removing the hinge." He hammered into the woodwork until there was enough leeway to ram the claw behind the hinge. Then he yanked it back, several times, until the wood splintered along the line of the screws. Matt levered the hinge free of both the door and jamb, then carried it to the door that Mello was guarding. Matt used his electronic, power screwdriver to quickly attach it there. "One secured door."



"Well done." Mello smirked and helped him pack up his tools. "Now let\'s get this shit sorted."



They met Deontic coming back, nearly at the point where the Madonna figurine still stood beside the partially fitted sensor. She had her coat on and two earpieces in her hand. She ran, as she saw them, the night air still chill on her clothes and in her hair. "Wear these, we can\'t contact you!"



Mello took them from her, handing an earpiece to Matt. "Where\'s Century?"



"On the mountain." She gestured to where it rose behind the house. "He says..."



"Alone?" Mello gaped. "I said to stay together!"



"He\'s got an overview of the house." Deontic stood her ground. "He said that there\'s no-one on the roof."



Mello\'s gaze swivelled back towards the staircase, down which they had just emerged. "I kept thinking that he was just behind the door that I was holding. I put it down to paranoia."



"But Mello," Deontic stated, "there\'s no-one in the attic either. I\'ve been watching the camera feed."



Mello blinked. "Then he\'s climbed down the side of the house."



She shook her head. "I\'ve watched the historic camera feed. I saw you go up. There was never anyone up there. Nor on the floor above, when we were here last."



Mello jabbed his finger in the air. "I saw a shadow walk across the roof! I saw it through the skylights!"



Deontic grimaced. "We haven\'t got a camera on the roof."



Mello nodded, breathing heavily. "Get Century off that mountain. We\'ll meet again downstairs."