Page 18 of Farkas: Gothika

“No.”

“Will I become….” Unable to finish the sentence, Lee gestured at him.

Vincent chuckled, but there was sorrow in his eyes. It was the most… human that Lee had seen him. “No. It is not such an easy thing, this becoming, and it is not a process I take lightly. It is something I do rarely, after great deliberation, and with the full consent of the other.”

Relief and disappointment mingled in equal measures. “Oh.”

“Get some rest, my love. Tomorrow night we’ll resume our work.”

After a gentle stroke of Lee’s cheek, Vincent strode to the window, pulled back the drapes, and opened the casement. He cast a quick smile back in Lee’s direction before disappearing into the black void.

Alarmed, Lee sprang out of bed and ran to the opening. He couldn’t see anything. But after a moment he heard a slight scraping come from below, and he looked down.

Belly to the wall and head toward the ground, Vincent was descending the stone on all fours like a lizard.

Chapter Nine

When Lee awakened at midday, the twinges in his body suggested that the events of the previous night had not been a dream. The scent of the oil still clung to him, and when he padded to the bathroom and looked closely in the mirror, he saw a pair of tiny scabs on his neck.

The only thing that surprised him was how calm he felt. It was a relief to have his darkest suspicions about Vincent confirmed—the suspicions he hadn’t even been able to consciously admit. Now he could be honest with himself.

And as he stood naked in the bathroom, he admitted that there were other truths he needed to acknowledge as well. He’d enjoyed being fucked by Vincent. Not just the simple fact of being taken by another man, but also how it had been done. Being ordered about. Displaying himself wantonly. Begging.

Calling Vincent master.

Even now, the memories sent a thrill down his spine and made his cock stand at attention.

Out of some perverse desire to retain the vestiges of what had happened with Vincent, he didn’t shower. He washed his face and shaved and brushed his teeth, and when he walked back into the bedroom, he saw that one of his suits had been returned, freshly cleaned. After he put it on, he spent some time staring out the window, feeling strangely normal for a man who’d done… what he did the previous night. And with whom.

He could go back to LA now, to his office downtown and his nondescript apartment. He could return to reading caselaw and statutes and contracts, and to dictating documents for the steno pool to type up. The Bunker Hill project would very likely occupy him for years, during which he would make partner. Then maybe he would buy a house and marry a senior partner’s daughter, and any trysts with men would have to be extremely brief and discreet. He could live precisely the life he’d been planning for and working toward for years.

But what if he didn’t want that anymore?

Eventually he realized that he was hungry, and he ate the food that had been left for him. There was some kind of cold meat pie, a pile of fresh fruit, and an assortment of fresh pastries. Everything tasted good, but he found himself wishing for the wine instead. He wondered if it was drugged or… adulterated. But if so, the idea didn’t distress him. In fact, today nothing distressed him. His soul was more serene than it had ever been.

Lee spent a couple of hours sorting paperwork and writing up documents. He was almost done, in fact. Just a little more time and the signatures from Laszlo and Vincent, and it all would be settled. Vincent would own or inherit everything.

But as the afternoon continued, Lee grew restless and decided to wander the mansion one last time. He wouldn’t be looking for an exit; he was certain he wouldn’t find one. And he had no wish to meet those creatures who’d molested him, although he suspected he’d be safe from them until dark. Now, during the last remaining hours of daylight, was his last chance to view the Farkas home by himself.

He’d been wandering through hallways and peeking into rooms for thirty minutes or so when he opened a door and discovered a narrow staircase. This passageway was free of adornment and perhaps intended for servants, though he had yet to see any other than the chauffeur.

Lee descended, his footsteps echoing loudly in the claustrophobic space. He came to a few landings with doors but didn’t open them, instead continuing his journey down until the stairs ended in a space roughly the size of the drawing room, but far differently arranged. No fireplace here, or bookshelves or rugs or sumptuous furniture. The floor was stone tile, the walls plain and white, and the gas lamps utilitarian rather than decorative. Two rough wooden crates almost as big as automobiles were stacked in a corner. There were three doors. One led to a small closet containing a bucket, a mop, and the desiccated corpse of a rat. The second was securely locked. The third revealed another stairway. This one was wider but darker, and both the walls and steps were crafted of gray stone. There was a sharp turn quite a way down, so he couldn’t see where the stairway led.

“Why not?” he muttered and started down.

He continued for what felt like five or six stories, which surely must have taken him under the house proper. When he opened the wide door at the bottom—wincing as it groaned loudly—he almost expected to find himself outside, in the narrow valley. In fact, he was in a vast, dank cellar.

It smelled strongly of mold and earth. Cobwebs hung from the arched ceilings and stretched over the damp walls; he heard the skittering of rodents in the shadows. The widely spaced gas lamps flickered so much that he feared they would gutter out completely, leaving him stranded in utter darkness. He wished he had his cigarette lighter, but he seemed to have lost it—and his cigarettes—at some point soon after his arrival to the estate.

In a large alcove not far from the stairs, a mound of dirt sat beside six coffins.

While three of the coffins were covered in a thick layer of dust, the other three were as clean as if they’d just been polished. They looked expensive, made of carved dark wood with intricately-wrought metal handles. The largest was made of shining ebony inlaid with abstract designs in silver, ivory, and mother-of-pearl.

Lee raised the lid of the ebony coffin.

It swung up easily to reveal the very pale, still corpse of an old man, hands crossed on his chest. It looked like Laszlo Farkas, but older by a couple of decades. Nothing was left of the hair but a few white wisps, and the parchment-like skin clung tightly to the skull. His caftan was identical to Laszlo’s.

Even as Lee stood frozen in horror, the corpse’s eyelids opened very slowly, until fathomless dark eyes stared at him. The mouth moved slightly, but not enough for the thin lips to part. One long skeletal finger lifted and then dropped down again. The body might have made a low groan—or perhaps that noise had escaped from Lee’s straining lungs.

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