The Annals of Fear

"Mello." Matt said, as soon as they were alone in their room. "I have something to show you."



"Oh?"



Matt took out his \'phone. "My report on the secret room omitted a couple of details. I wasn\'t sure if you wanted Deontic to know them."



Mello stared at him, then paced across to see. "What is it, Matt?"



"There were painted walls, but ancient paint. It looked like someone had tried to create Heaven on the ceiling and Christ with Mary on the wall. Century reckoned that was original, dating to when the room was made." He gestured to say that he trusted Century\'s judgement on such things. "But there was more in the room. There was like this bench thing serving as a table or altar."



"You\'ve mentioned this before."



"I know. Stop being impatient, bitch." Matt smiled. "What I\'m saying is that I concur with our discussion in there, that the room was originally a priest hole. It wouldn\'t have been big enough for a whole service, but certainly enough space for a priest and maybe one or two other people. Century would agree with that too. But more recently, it\'s been used for something else."



"What?" Mello frowned. "Matt, this is sounding like important information. Why have you withheld it until now?"



Matt shrugged. "Because you care more about solving the case before Century and Deontic than you do about the case itself." He met Mello\'s eyes. "Stop giving me death glares. It\'s true."



Icily, Mello replied, "What else was down there? I know about the jar."



Matt nodded. They had already identified that object. It had been a Witch Bottle, as Century had stated when it was found. Such things had traditionally been filled with sharp objects, such as thorns, razors, nails, pins or fish hooks, swimming in personal fluids. Urine and blood had been common additions. The aim had apparently been protection or curse. If filled with one\'s own fluids and placed on one\'s own property, it was protection against evil forces. If placed on another person\'s property, then it was a curse. Mello had already rescued Matt\'s shirt from the laundry and sent it for DNA testing on the urine. "There was a skull." Matt showed him the photograph that he\'d taken. "Sheep."



"Ram?"



"No horns."



Mello snorted. "Bless them."



"Then there was this." Matt flicked through until he found the good image of the symbol on the floor. "It matches that on the front of the album."



Mello stared. "Yes, it does." Matt watched Mello\'s gaze turn distant as he looked inwards. Mello at thought was a thrilling sight. It meant that the blond was having fun. "Ok." Mello said slowly, chewing on his chocolate. "Was the priest hole consecrated?"



"I don\'t know."



"Let\'s assume that it was." Mello paused in the act of taking another bite.



Matt opened up one of his laptops and transferred the images from \'phone to hard-drive. "You\'re thinking that they had a demonic ritual in an area dedicated to the Catholic deities."



"Deity."



"But something went pear-shaped, so they later added the Witch Bottle to stave away the evil." Matt brought the images up on his laptop and e-mailed them to Mello. "There was a candle in there with matches." He reached into his pocket. "These matches."



"Which you removed from the crime scene, why?"



"I couldn\'t find my lighter."



Before Mello could respond, there was a sharp rapping on the door. Mello swallowed the chocolate in his mouth and opened it. There was an airwoman standing on the other side. "Flight Lieutenant Lees wishes to see you, Sir."



The Flight Lieutenantl\'s office lacked that air of industry that is the hallmark of one used on a daily basis. It had all of the accruments for work though, including a desk, a computer and some easy chairs. The stark nature of the rest of it meant that those personal effects, which had been added, drew the attention of Mello, Matt and Deontic. Though only Mello had been asked for by name, Matt had followed. Deontic had heard the request from her room and had hurried out to join them as they walked down the corridor. Only Hal had hung back, assuming that her lack of summons rendered her uninvited. The Flight Lieutenant hadn\'t risen as they entered. He faced them over the desk, sitting in his chair there. "Thank you, Airwoman Francis, you may leave us."



Mello gripped the back of an easy chair with one hand and turned it around to sit in. He was meeting the Flight Lieutenant on equal terms. As the airwoman left, Matt picked up a chair with less grace and sat beside his husband. Deontic remained awkwardly standing, her face hot. Mello challenged, "You\'ve had something inexplicable happen in the barracks."



"No." Flight Lieutenant Lees stood. He collected a third chair from the back of the room and carried it across. "Ma\'am." With a chivalrous nod, he deposited it behind Deontic and held it whilst she sat. He marched back behind his desk. "There are sounds of a party happening inside the manor house. As requested, aircraft have used heat sensors and found no living presense in the property."



"Thank you." Mello smiled. "And in the vicinity?"



"None but my own personnel."



Mello nodded. "Thank you. That gets Roberts off the hook. He can be released."



The Flight Lieutenant surveyed him with a long, hard stare. "What is happening in that property?"



Mello didn\'t blink. He watched him with a faint smile on his face. "Do you believe in ghosts, Flight Lieutenant Lees?"



To their surprise, the officer nodded. "Yes, I do."



Mello lifted his chocolate bar to his mouth, but didn\'t take a bite. He spoke over it. "You have done Watari a service. I will tell you what is going on." He licked the chocolate. "The music that your people are hearing is ghostly. It is from a band who died on the premises or else as a direct result of what happened there. My theory is that they enacted a demonic ritual to enhance their death rock music. Do you believe in demons, Flight Lieutenant Lees?" The look that he gave the Flight Lieutenant was of malicious delight. Matt watched them both carefully out of sheer habit. He couldn\'t see where Mello was going with this, other than merely showing off, probably for Deontic\'s benefit.



She, however, wasn\'t to be outdone. "Something was raised, whether demonic in nature or not is yet to be ascertained. However, the entity or chi feeds off fear. It creates conditions wherein the victims frighten themselves." She watched Mello. "There might be something, perhaps a high pitched tone or magnetism in the soil, in the environment itself, but I doubt it. There would be a history of legends if that was the case, yet Century upturned none of them. It is reasonable to assume that the phenomena started with the band."



"Raising the calcium ion levels." Mello smirked back at her. "Too many calcium ions in the blood supply and your victim is hallucinating, over-sleeping, anxious and paranoid. Push that to critical levels and they are going to have a heart attack. All because of fear. Literally being frightened to death. However," Mello raised a finger, "your entity might not be a solo being. We know that the ghosts of the band are separate. Either trapped there or else trying to warn us."



Flight Lieutenant Lees interupted, "One of whom would be female?" They all looked at him now. "Airman Robinson reported seeing a woman looking out of a window in the property. He and Airwoman Newton investigated but found no trace of her inside. He stated that she looked dripping wet."



"Maja Gustafsson." Mello declared with a smile. "Matt and I saw her too."



"Mello, you realise that having my personnel there is an extraordinary provision. This is a job for the local police or your own people." He surveyed them coldly. "What are my men and women guarding?"



Deontic gasped. "Canaries."



They all looked at her. Mello nodded towards the photographs on the desk. "This isn\'t your usual office, Flight Lieutenant Lees. You have entered it probably in order to speak with us in an environment that looks official. Why go to the trouble to set up a couple of pictures?" His gaze locked onto the Flight Lieutenant\'s again. Mello smiled. "Moreover, why are they facing more towards us than yourself? Are we meant to recognise the airmen in the picture?"



Deontic rolled her eyes. Matt just watched the officer. Flight Lieutenant Lees did not break away from staring at Mello. "Do you?"



Mello frowned. He rose and picked up the first picture. It showed a group of airmen and women, laughing in some kind of mess tent. He replaced it and picked up the other. This was of just two people. One was Flight Lieutenant Lees, when he was only a non-commissioned airman himself, alongside another man of similar rank. He replaced it and airily replied, "No."



As Mello sat back down, Flight Lieutenant Lees just shrugged. "Then they are of no matter." He continued to watch Mello. "They are from my first tour with the RAF, seventeen years ago." Some sixth sense told Matt what was coming, but he was only shifted slightly in his seat before the Flight Lieutenant had continued. "We were sent to Yugoslavia. We relieved Gorskica."



The blood had drained from Mello\'s cheeks. His eyes practically bulged in their sockets. His voice emerged rasping through a dry mouth. "Why would you tell me this?"



Flight Lieutenant Lees\'s eyes flickered with a tiny light, which looked a little like triumph. He sat back. "Just being conversational."



"Gorskica?" Deontic asked. Matt quickly shook his head, his hand reaching out to touch the arm of Mello\'s chair.



Mello was holding his rosary clenched in his hand. He looked frightened. Flight Lieutenant Lees reached out and picked up the photograph of himself and another airman. "This is Brian. He\'s retired out of active service now. May 3rd, 1994, we were attached to NATO and were flying food rations to troops stationed up in the Krapina-Zagorje province. I was assigned a billet for the night, as my duties were done for the day. I was bored stupid, so volunteered to accompany some of the soldiers out with the metal pig."



Mello stammered, "W-Why are you telling us this?"



Flight Lieutenant Lees looked at him through lidded eyes. "Does the name Michael Keehl mean anything to you?"



They all started at that. Matt\'s mind swam with how Mello was going to react; and how Watari would deal with this. A second thought was already putting the pieces together. Beside him, Mello crumpled into himself. Matt had rarely seen him dissemble like this in private. It was unprecedented for him to do it in public and incomprehensible that he\'d do so in the presense of Deontic. Yet it was happening. "Mell." Matt reached out, attempting to take Mello\'s hand. "Mell."



"Tell me." Mello\'s voice was hushed, laden with emotion.



"The metal pig is this big roller machine. Basically a glorified steam roller. The army boys would take it out over areas that had been littered with landmines. I wasn\'t involved with all that, but that day I had time on my hands, so I caught a ride to watch it. They were doing a football pitch, playing area. They had to clear the kids off it first, all kicking a ball around there. The kids protested and even got parents out to demand to know what was going on. I watched as that metal pig rolled over the pitch and activated 78 landmines. It\'s a wonder that none of the kids had been blown up out playing there. That shut the parents up, as you can imagine." His gaze never left Mello. "Then the shout went up about Gorskica. All hands on deck. I wasn\'t assigned to the unit. I wasn\'t even in the British Army, but as an Air Force man, I volunteered and off we went. I took my aircraft up with a battallion on board. I\'m ashamed to say that it was a bit exciting. The Yanks had got Voćin and had been going on about it ever since, but their people were stationed on the other side of Zagreb. This shout promised to be another Voćin and the British were the nearest to it. We were young and very stupid. Gorskica taught me what war means."



Deontic had already followed this story to its conclusion and she was impatient to determine the consequences. "1994 was a very long time ago. Why would we have heard of this Mihael Keehl?"



"Michael." Matt corrected. That was what the Flight Lieutenant had said. His stomach was turning. Mello would not take his hand.



"Mihael?" Flight Lieutenant Lees looked to Deontic. "Yes, that was it. I must have misheard at the time."



A tear ran down Mello\'s deathly white cheek. His burn scar looked starkly red in contrast to the rest of his pallor. "What did you find in Gorskica?"



Flight Lieutenant Lees\'s gaze had softened. He was sure now. They could all see that. "Are you certain that you want to hear this, son?"



"Da."



Deontic and Matt both stared at Mello. Matt just wanted to get his husband out of there, away from stories that could hurt him. Mello was growing smaller by the minute, shrinking under their collective gazes and his own memories. Flight Lieutenant Lees nodded. "The place was a genocide, just like Voćin but with a much higher death toll. The place was a large town with outlying farms attached to it. Everywhere you looked there were fires and rubble. And people." He kept the same professional tone, in a voice used to giving orders. There was no emotion in it. "There was some exchange of fire, but the White Eagles were mostly in retreat. They left behind Serbian civilians and those who hadn\'t had time to flee were rounded up. The Croats were mainly dealing with that. The rest of us were assigned the task of hunting for survivors. There were us and other Croatian forces to start with, then the Estonians arrived. Later on, we got the French and the Americans. Understand that when we first arrived, the bodies were still warm. It had happened that recently."



A gasping sob escaped between Mello\'s lips. He leaned forward, his hair falling over his face. Deontic stared in disbelief. Matt hurried out of his seat and stooped beside Mello, an arm around his shoulders. "Mell, we can go back to our room. We can..."



"I want to hear." The words were plaintive, practically a cry.



Flight Lieutenant Lees strode to the door and opened it. "Airwoman Francis, get me a glass of water, please." There was some hurried movement outside, while Matt made soothing noises to Mello, eventually taking him in both arms and hugging him. Mello freely cried. Deontic looked on, nervousness radiating out from her like a miasma. Flight Lieutenant Lees returned with the water and handed it to Matt. He held it out for Mello, who took it and drank it in five long gulps. "Do you wish for me to continue?"



Matt watched Mello\'s face, it was buried now under a gloved hand, but he nodded. Matt sighed and, against his better judgement, relayed the message. "Yes. He does."



Flight Lieutenant Lees paused before he spoke, then continued in that same professional tone. "We found few survivors. Most of those who did survive were either Serbs or else Croats hiding out on the mountainside. All around us were destroyed buildings, each one of which could be housing victims or survivors. We mostly found victims. You didn\'t have to be a pathologist to know that they had been tortured to death. We found people in chains, bound to furniture or hanging off trees, some nothing more than carbonised masses; some with gunshot wounds to the head; some with their skulls cleaved with axes; some chainsawed in half." He bowed his head, the images clearly playing in his mind. "The wounds too. Bruises, cuts. I saw one man who had had the skin filleted from his stomach."



"Fuck." Breathed Matt. Deontic reached out and laid a hand onto Mello\'s shoulder. He didn\'t throw her off.



"Then the shout went up. Some of those ahead of us had just found the Cathedral and that explained where a large number of the population had gone. The crypt had been a storage area for munitions." He glanced at Mello, both of his foster siblings noted that. "Let\'s be clear about this. Gorskica had both a Croat and Serb population, but the latter had been in the minority. There were atrocities on both sides and Gorskica had declared for Croatia. The ammunition down there was Croatian. It was stored for the local paramilitaries, who acted under no authority in Zagreb. Until Gorskica, what we mostly heard from that province were rumours of the execution of Serbs by the Ustashe."



Mello was openly sobbing. A keening wail rose from his throat and he clung now to Matt. "Ne, ne, ne." His fingers gripped deeply into the flesh of Matt\'s shoulders.



"Mello." Matt gulped, too keenly aware that every rule of Wammy\'s House was being broken here. Not only the Watari wall of secrecy, but their own personal vendettas against each other. Moreover, he had no idea how to comfort Mello here. Barriers were crashing down of which there were no precedent. He felt as lost as his husband. "Mello, come on."



Mello mumbled something in his native tongue. There was a tense silence around him. He obviously misunderstood their discomfort and so repeated it, gasping out in English, "My family were not Ustaše!"



"Mello, no-one said they were." Matt muttered, a coldness welling up inside, obliterating all feeling. He was dying for a cigarette. Mello had just as good as admitted that he was Yugoslavian, in the presense of a British official. "Come on. Calm down." He glanced at the Flight Lieutenant. "I\'m going to get him back to our room. I think he\'s heard enough."



"No!" Mello turned his head, his expression pleading with the Flight Lieutenant before his words were uttered. "I need to know. Tell me about the Cathedral. Tell me what you saw."



Flight Lieutenant Lees cleared his throat. "There was masonry everywhere, covering a radius of perhaps half a mile. Six foot thick walls had just exploded outwards. We climbed all over it, listening for sounds of the survivors. Our lot, the Croats, the Estonians. The French and Americans were on the other side of town, but we ended up with a couple of their squads. It was basically all hands on deck, because of the sheer number of casualities." He closed his eyes, reliving the horror of it. "Almost in the centre, there was a bell tower. It was mostly collapsed, but a length of wall was still standing there. Really ominous creaks, as the structure strained under the weight of the damage. It was clearly unsound and so we were leaving it until the lads could arrive with equipment to deal with that. However, I was close enough. I heard a child screaming."



Matt felt all warmth drain from his body. His heart pounded. "No fucking way."



"And you got him out." Deontic whispered.



"I could see that it was only a matter of time before the wall collapsed. It was straining as it was. There were probably minutes in it, not hours. My kids are all grown up now, but they were babies at the time. I thought of them and a cry like that gets hotwired from your ears to your legs. As a parent, I couldn\'t not answer it." He inspected the photograph again. "Brian ran to get the firehoses sprayed in that direction. People were on the comms trying to get the heavy vehicles in there to shift some crap. I wasn\'t supposed to be there. It wasn\'t my unit nor my commanding officer. I just ran into it and yes, I got the child out. He was right underneath a wooden bench and fought like the Furies until I got my arms around him." Flight Lieutenant Lees looked back at Mello. "And that child was you, wasn\'t it?"



Mello stared at him in utter devastation. Matt and Deontic both sought to deny it, but the words had barely formed on their lips, before Mello was out of his chair. He staggered around the sides of the desk towards Flight Lieutenant Lees, who had taken a step backwards. "I-I..." Mello stuttered. He held out both hands as if unsure whether to shake his hand or to hug him. "I..." Mello nodded emphatically. "Da. Yes. Yes."



Deontic and Matt exchanged glances, then Matt left his seat to grab Mello from behind. "Mell." In front of his husband, Flight Lieutenant Lees reached out and patted Mello\'s shoulder. "Come on."



Deontic gushed out, "But I don\'t understand how you knew! You had the photographs out to prompt this conversation. How could you have known?" She sounded indignant about the fact. "He can\'t possibly look as he did then."



Mello\'s legs had gone at the knees. He had leaned forward, as if finally decided upon hugging the man, but now it was only Matt holding him up. "Mell." Matt growled. "Fuck\'s sake."



"I\'m sorry if I\'ve caused you too much distress." Flight Lieutenant Lees stated blankly. "I wasn\'t sure. It was too much of a long shot." He gestured contrition. "But Gorskica was my first." He bit his lip. "The first time I ever saw anything like that. I\'ve been to Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan since then and I\'ve seen enough, but Gorskica was the first and the faces are still etched on my memory."



Matt had succeeded in leading Mello away, taking him towards the door. Deontic wasn\'t satisfied. "Even so! It was a long time ago and he has surely changed between then and now."



Flight Lieutenant Lees nodded. "You are correct, ma\'am. But it wasn\'t him per se that I recognised. It was his mother." By the door, there was a short sob. Mello turned in Matt\'s grasp and stared right back. His mouth shaped into words that he couldn\'t speak. "Also the rosary beads. He was holding them at the time. Like I said, it was a long shot."



"His mother?" Deontic questioned, confused. "She lived?"



"No."



Mello spluttered out the words. "On the floor. Burnt. Her face. Burnt. On the floor." But Matt had bundled him out and they heard nothing more but his sobs, as Matt led him away.