Murder at Raven's Lodge (The Freelancers case files)

  MURDER AT RAVEN’S LODGE

  Lee Isserow

  ABAM.INFO

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  Copyright © 2017 by Lee Isserow

  Published by ABAM.info

  Interior design by Pronoun

  Distribution by Pronoun

  ISBN: 9781537889917

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Murder at Raven’s LodgeThe Spirit Box: Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  MURDER AT RAVEN’S LODGE

  ~

  ~

  Rafe Clarke was dreaming.

  He knew he was dreaming, because he was on a case, and it hadn’t resulted in him being punched in the face, electrocuted, or set on fire.

  Those events were all par for the course in the waking world. The cases, crises, problems and investigations that came his way were rarely as innocuous as cheating spouses or missing cats.

  Even when a potential infidelity or lost pet came his way, it often turned out that the partner had been indoctrinated by a cult that worshipped a deity of rabbit-fellatio, who proved their dedication by licking and sucking on one another’s eyeballs–or they had been possessed by a painting. And the missing cat would turn out to have been eaten by a magickian who believed that feline bone marrow gave him heightened reflexes and eight additional lives–or it too had became possessed by a painting. . .

  There were too many possessed paintings out there. If anything, they were the cause of ninety percent of the jobs that fell on his desk.

  The desk itself was figurative, for he had no office, let alone a desk. He had a coffee table, but cases never went anywhere near it. He tried his best not to bring his work home with him. . . apart from when he needed somewhere to store all those haunted paintings, which were locked in his vault.

  His ‘vault’ is what he called his closet.

  Truth be told, Rafe Clarke was not a great detective. But he was never meant to be a detective. . . And that was the very conversation he was having with a mysterious woman in his dream, after successfully reuniting her with her hair, which had become sentient and wandered off in the night to commit arson.

  It wasn’t the most challenging of cases, he had simply followed logic to lead him to the place that hair always seems to end up–the plughole of the bath.

  She was overjoyed, to the point of offering herself to him in way of thanks. He, of course, turned her down. Not only because of his innate gentlemanly status, but because he was all too aware that this was a dream, and he’d rather not have to change the sheets when he woke.

  The client insisted that there had to be some way she could reward him, and offered him a vast fortune, which he also declined.

  “Just the fee for my time is fine, ma’am,’ he told her. His own voice sounded strange to him, words coming out a hell of a lot more British than his mongrel tongue, that still retained a fair amount of its native Australian twang.

  “But there most be something else I can offer you. . .” the woman said, with a bat of her lashes that felt to Rafe as though it had moved past flirtatious into being coyly pornographic.

  As he made to respond, a ringing punctuated the air. He looked around for a phone, and realised there was no phone. And then there was no woman. No hair. No case. He recalled once again that he had not been stabbed, thrown out a window, nor had his face grated in the slightest. . . that it was all too perfect. . . and that as soon as he woke and answered the call, he was just setting himself up for injury of one kind or another.

  But even his house had vanished at that point. He was in the darkness of the Dream Realm, with the ringing now vibrating through his skull, and there was nothing he could do but face the day ahead–and hope, with every fibre of his being, that he wouldn’t end up sewing his body parts back together by the time the sun set.

  ~

  Rafe opened his eyes reluctantly and found himself back in his bedroom, and the ringing far less intrusive than it had in the dream, just a light tring-a-ling in his periphery. He considered ignoring it, going back to sleep, but his hands seemed to be working of their own volition, answering the call before he had a chance to object.

  “Got a job for you, Rafe old chap.”

  The face of the caller appeared in Rafe’s sleepy mind’s eye. Sharp features, eyes like black marbles, and shock of white hair. Beryn Comstock, Director of The Circle, and his former employer.

  “Good morning Rafe,” Rafe muttered, his words drenched with sarcasm. “How you doing, long time since we kicked you to the curb. . .”

  “Pleasantries are for pleasant peasants, Mister Clarke. Do you want the job or not?”

  Rafe thought for a moment. Comstock had legions of his own people that could be sent on whatever the hell case he was trying to recruit him for. The only reason he’d keep it off the Circle’s books was if it were sensitive in nature. . . or if it was essentially a suicide mission.

  “It is rather a sensitive matter,” Comstock sighed, answering at least that much of Rafe’s quandary.

  “Go on then,” he grumbled, all too aware that he needed to refill the coffers if he was planning to eat any time soon.

  “There’s been a murder.”

  “You know I’m not a cop, right?”

  “At the Raven’s Lodge.”

  “The gentleman’s club? Why the hell are you bugging me about it, they got way more juice than I ever had. . .”

  “That may well be, but they can’t exactly investigate themselves. Hence outsourcing to an impartial third party.”

  “Via you, a member, who’s innately connected to that third party. . .”

  A growl rumbled around Rafe’s periphery. “Do you truly imagine I have any interest in your smart talking?”

  “Compared to, y’know, apes or whatever, any talking is technically smart.”

  “Have I mentioned how glad I am that you no longer work for me?”

  “He says, whilst trying to get me to work for him. . .”

  “Do you want the bloody job or not?!”

  “Send a door. I’ll head over as soon as I remember which pile of my clothes is closer to being clean.”

  Comstock agreed, and Rafe’s head was once again clear of peripheral voices. He glanced around the room, and realised that the statement laden with wry intent, about not knowing which pile of clothes was clean was actually far too accurate. He dug around at random, until he found a shirt that looked clean, but smelled like something had died in it. With a quick enchantment, the stench was vanquished, and he began the arduous process of investigating where he left his shoes.

  ~

  It was a full hour later when he actually walked through the door Comstock had sent. As he stepped across the threshold and glanced up at the building, Rafe realised that as much as he had heard stories of the famed Raven’s Lodge, he had never seen it with his own eyes. It looked as though the architect had been inspired in one part by gothic design, two parts generic castle, with a sprinkling of McMansion.

  Of course the building being of such import, it was warded from translocation straight into its inner sanctum, and thus Rafe found himself standing on the doorstep, directly behind two massive pale men that he instantly recognised as homunculi–magically created humanoids with a single purpose to their lives, and once that purpose was complete, or their short li
fespan was over, they ceased to be and exploded into a cloud of dust. In this instance, their purpose was security. And much to Rafe’s chagrin, they did not look as though they were going to be done with that purpose any time soon.

  He knocked on the door to the Lodge, which garnered the attention of the creatures on guard.

  “What are you doing here?” the one on the left asked, in a deep monotone.

  “Here to investigate the murder. . .”

  “Do you have the word of passage?” asked the one on the right, who sounded identical to the one on the left.

  “Word of. . . no, I’m here to work, not sip whisky and laugh maniacally about how wealthy and powerful I am. . .”

  A large, grey hand grabbed hold of Rafe’s collar and dragged him from the doorstep. “No word of passage, no entrance,” the homunculus grunted, as he took hold of the back of Rafe’s coat and lifted him into the air in a bid to throw him as far as his massive arms could heave.

  “Khare’shak!” shouted a voice from the door.

  “Khare’shak?” Rafe repeated, with more than a little ‘what the hell’ in his tone,.

  The gargantuan monochromite delicately placed him back down on the ground. “Thank you, enjoy your evening sir.”

  Rafe glanced at the two magicaklly made men, and decided it was best not to question it. He walked to the door, which was being held open by the man who had shouted the pass-phrase at him. He was short and stout, with the whitest hair Rafe had ever seen on a man, whiter than Comstock’s. Even his eyelashes were white, looking as though he had fallen asleep in a model village whilst the curator was painting the zebra crossings.

  “Is it too early for a preliminary accusation?” Rafe inquired.

  “Excuse me?” asked the man.

  “The butler did it.”

  “We don’t have a butler. . .”

  “It’s always the butler on TV murders in big stately homes.”

  “Are you sure you’re a detective?”

  Rafe shrugged. “Detective is a stretch. . . ‘Investigator’ might be more accurate.”

  The man glanced over his shoulder to a collective of old white men who were observing the exchange. “Is it too late to call in a real detective?”

  “How about you let me look at the scene, and save your insults for when my back’s turned. . .”

  The white haired man gestured to a door across the entranceway, which led to a thin wood-lined passageway, that seemed as though it went on for close to a quarter of a mile. At the far end, the corridor opened out into a glass-walled conservatory, with parquet flooring and a Persian rug, atop which stood a massive mahogany table. There were sixteen chairs around the table, and every single one of them, along with the table, the rug, the flooring and the windows, were covered in blood.

  Rafe looked around for signs of a body, or congealing parts of organs, let alone fragments or shards of bone, but found nothing–not even flayed skin.

  He glanced back over his shoulder to the man that had followed him, who was now flanked by the rest of his cadre, each waiting anxiously in the doorway to hear the deductions.

  “Can I ask you something?” Rafe asked.

  “Of course.”

  “This might be a stupid question.”

  “Frankly, I’d expect nothing less, given your manner thusfar.”

  “Did your man have bones and organs before he exploded?”

  The men exchanged glances, each of them almost certain that Comstock’s man was the worst possible choice for the investigation at hand.

  “Yes,” the white haired man said, coldly.

  “Well, then there’s a mystery, isn’t there.”

  “A mystery?”

  “Of where his bones and organs went. . .”

  “That would, one assumes, be solved as and when the murder itself is solved.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Rafe muttered, as he circled around the table, leaving footprints in the blood, that was thick and sticky on the parquet flooring.

  He glanced around the room. The windows and walls were stained red, but it did not seem to be dripping downwards. He raised a finger to the window and ran it through the blood, making a clear channel to the glass that ever so slowly healed up from the left side of the clear gap he had made. Rafe inspected the tip of his finger, and discovered that none of the blood had come away, and a closer look to the blood, it appeared as though particles of dirt or dust were travelling along the surface to the right.

  “Interesting,” he mumbled, as he glanced back to his footprints on the floor, each of which had vanished.

  “What is?”

  Rafe glanced to the door. “That was more a statement of confoundment, than it was the start of a conversation.”

  “You should be clearer about such things.”

  “You have no idea how often I hear that. . .” Rafe said under his breath, as he turned back around and looked at the walls. Something wasn’t right about them.

  The assembled men stared at Rafe as he dug into his pocket and fished around until he found what he was looking for, and tugged it out. The slightest of snaps sounded as he pulled his hand from the pocket and placed the contents against the blood on the window, and took a step back to watch what would happen next.

  The men continued to stare with confusion, and each found themselves stepping closer to see what mystical item had been placed in the blood, trying to work out what magick had been performed upon the surface. But as they got closer, they discovered there was no magick. All that had been placed on the blood that coated the window was a single torn thread from the inside of Rafe’s pocket.

  “What on earth are you expecting that to do?” The white haired man asked.

  A smile came to Rafe’s lips, as the thread reacted exactly as expected: slowly shifting to the right, floating on the ever-so-slow tide of the blood.

  “Lets us where the blood is going. . .”

  He looked around the room, and grabbed hold of a blood covered chair. With a wipe of his hand along the surface, he confirmed that the sanguine fluids reacted just as those covering the rest of the room, and sat down on it. He reclined as he watched the thread climb up from the window to the frame, then back down to the next window along. It was going to take a while for the thread to get to its destination–wherever that might be–and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stand for the entire duration of its trip around the room.

  “What are the chances of getting a coffee while we wait?” he asked.

  The growls and murmurs from the men behind him seemed to indicate that no matter how long it would take for the stray thread to get to the source of the mysterious murder, he was not going to be treated as a welcomed guest.

  ~

  Three hours later, all of the men that had gathered to watch the investigation had grown tired of waiting, and either sat themselves on the blood covered chairs, or retired to other rooms in which Rafe assumed they supped whisky and smoked cigars, and did whatever else obscenely wealthy and powerful old men did. Checkers. He figured they’d play checkers. Perhaps they’d play bridge too, which was a game he couldn’t even begin to understand. Or whist, it seemed like the type of establishment that had regular games of whist–tournaments, if whist was a tournamenting game. Rafe wasn’t convinced that tournament could be a verb, but decided it worked well as one.

  Meanwhile, the thread had made its way from the windows, and was climbing its way across the wood-lined wall that connected the conservatory to the Raven’s Lodge itself. Rafe rolled his eyes and let out an almighty huff as he rose to his feet. He could tell where the thread was headed, and now that he thought about it, its destination was so obvious, he could have probably picked it out just by having a proper look around the room.

  He walked over to the thread and picked it up, taking it over to a painting at the centre of the wood-lined wall, and placed it just on the edge of the frame.

  The thread followed the tide once more, climbing up the frame and settling
on the canvas. Once its entire mass was on the surface of the painting, it stopped moving. It had reached the source of the tide’s motion.

  Rafe could feel the men’s stares on his back, but chose to ignore them. He leaned in, placing his ear close to the painting, and closed his eyes. There was a sound coming from the surface. Ever so soft, but it was most certainly there. A subtle, quiet sucking sound. The painting was drinking the blood down. Slowly, so very slowly, but it was definitely imbibing.

  A sigh rumbled from Rafe’s lips. The murder weapon was–much to his aggravation–yet another haunted painting.

  He turned to the men that were left in the room, and glared at each of them in turn.

  “Who bought this?”

  The men looked at one another.

  “Bought what?” said their white haired spokesperson.

  Rafe shot a thumb at the painting, which caused more looks back and forth.

  “I would imagine that the Lodge bought it.”

  “Imagine?”

  “Well, it is rather covered in blood. . . Hard to tell which painting it might be.”

  Rafe growled to himself, and reached to the surface of the painting. He took hold of the sleeve of his coat and wiped the canvas. The blood came away, and did not return as it had done on the floor, window and chair. He scowled at his coat sleeve, which was dripping with thick, sticky blood.

  “You’re paying for the dry cleaning. . .” he muttered. “Does that look familiar?”

  The painting was of a young man with a monocle and a frightfully delighted grin on his lips.

  “Ah,” the man uttered, his face taking on a pallor that was almost as pale as his hair.

  “That sounds like you got a story to tell. . .”

  “Not a story, exactly.”

  “A tale? A fable? I’ll take a nursery rhyme if that’s what you got, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to have answers. . .”

  The pale man glanced again at his colleagues, inhaled deeply and let out a long, deep exhalation.

  Rafe continued to stare at him, in the hope that his unblinking eye contact would make the point that he was waiting for him to start to tell his story.