Diamond Eyes - 8. Chapter 8

"Alright, Mr. Fritz. Do you want to tell me what this is?" Vanus tossed the box on the table. To his surprise both Mr. Fritz and Bazzelthorpe flinched. "What is it? It's just a box."

"Now that you live in the Imperium District, never assume anything is what they appear to be," Mr. Fritz said.

"None of that was included in the 'Welcome to the Imperium Package', was it?" Vanus seethed. "'Don't touch a box, it might just unleash a murderous daemon.' But then there's a lot you haven't told me, isn't there, Mr. Fritz?"

Mr. Fritz's jowls turned red. "What are you asking me exactly? I haven't kept anything from you, Mr. Kaufman. Beyond the matters you and I have discussed at length, there is nothing else I know about what has happened in this house."

Van smirked. "But I thought you were invited to all the parties."

"I was, which is why I always made sure I brought my own wine when I attended. I advise you to do the same, as I'm sure you'll be getting many invitations in the near future."

Jill swished in from the kitchen, trying to balance a tray with a tea ensemble. Van moved clumsily to help her, sloshing hot tea on his wrists as he set out the cups on saucers.

"Sorry. I managed to find this tea set in the kitchen…I figured I'd try to throw a bit of somethin' together."

"You didn't have to go through all the trouble m'dear," Mr. Fritz said, giving her a paternal pat on the back.

Jill chuckled tentatively. "I needed something to take my mind off what happened.”

“Which reminds me.” Van looked to Bazzelthorpe who had been eyeing the box wearily the entire time. “What is this?”

“It’s called a malum. I’ve heard tales of them, but they are said to be relics from long ago, used to store information: knowledge, secrets, energy…I wasn’t aware they could be used to imprison a daemon.”

“Yes,” Bazzelthorpe said. The fleshy protuberance above his eyes bunched up with tension; his gaze did not move away from the malum. “It was quite an unpleasant…experience.”

Van studied the daemon for a long moment, frowning. He reached out towards the box. When he touched it, something in the daemon’s face twitched. He’s afraid I’ll put him back in the box, he thought. The idea was more than tempting. He didn’t trust the creature, whether Bazzelthorpe claimed to be his Guardian or not. He did not want to go up against the creature in another physical altercation. Vanus reached for the malum. It wasn't until he picked it up that he noticed the red smear of blood, his blood, and remembered he'd cut himself on it. He repeated this thought aloud to Mr. Fritz.

"It is possible," the lawyer said with a thoughtful nod. "Much of the power a magician uses, the same energy that powers devices such as this, runs through their blood. If your uncle did in fact trap your Guardian in the malum, then I suspect when you bled on the box it could have triggered the mechanism, thus releasing Bazzelthorpe." He ran a finger across his lips thoughtfully, then looked up at the daemon in pity. "You've been trapped in there for almost twenty years."

The daemon stiffened. "Twenty years?"

A heavy silence filled the room. Bazzelthorpe's clawed hands clenched into fists, and his eyes burned with an inner fire. Van reached for his staff and nodded at Jill to head towards the parlor.

"Don't worry your little head," the daemon rumbled sarcastically, "I'm not going to go on another destructive rampage. Though I would like to be excused from the room…I need time to think." He said this last part to Vanus.

"Do what you want, I'm not your babysitter," said the orphan. His fingers gripped the edge of the table hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Once the daemon left the room, Van instructed Mr. Fritz to take the malum and lock it up somewhere safe. Now Jill and he were alone in the house. The first touches of morning light lit the night sky.

The events of the past three days caught up with him. Vanus sat in the chair heavily, hanging his head. What kind of legacy have I inherited? One of death and shadow?

"I'm sorry," he said to Jill. "I never should have brought you here."

She reached across the table and looped her fingers through his. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"How can you say that?" Vanus shook his head in denial. "I wish I'd never come here. I've never felt more like an orphan than I do right now."

Jill squeezed his hand tighter. "Vanus, you always forget you're not just an orphan. You're a magician, a diamond eyes by the Seraphim, and I've always known you were born to great things. Y'are exactly where you need to be. You've never given up before. Don't start now."

                      …

All of Van’s hopes that he would at last find peace in this new life had been dashed in a single evening. As he walked its immense corridors, peering inside each room, searching through every nook and cranny, he hoped he’d find Henry; he entertained the ridiculous fantasy he would find his estranged and remaining uncle crouched in a wardrobe, hiding. Mr. Fritz assured him he’d checked all the rooms before bringing the orphans to the house.

“You checked every room?” Vanus had asked.

“Of course I did!” the lawyer said indignantly.

“This is a big house…”

“I take my job seriously, Mr. Kaufman.”

“Do you? Because so far you’ve done a crack job of it!” Vanis said, glaring at the lawyer. “Someone was in this house last night. I heard them creeping around in the other room. That’s when I went in and found the box. So either you missed something, or more likely, it was placed there so I would find it.”

The lawyer looked doubtful. “That’s very unlikely…”

“Is it, truly? I think not. And even so, I would rather take proper precautions. So while I search the house I want you to stay with and watch Jill.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

“But I think it’s best if you wait for the daemon to return.”

Vanus snorted before leaving the room. “I can take care of myself.”

So now here he was, on the third floor of the manor. He’d already seen the ballroom with its shiny floors and mirrored walls, and the greenhouse with yet another fountain of Azrael - the orphan had the same creeping feeling he was being watched while in the room - with vines of kudzu and ivy creeping up the windows, yearning for sunlight. He’d been seen the chapel, which housed the statues of the Rephaim (he did not have any plans to visit the room in the near future), and been drawn to the great organ he’d seen in the music room. He hoped to learn to play it one day; surely it couldn’t be much different from playing the piano. The difference between the two instruments, other than the sounds they made, was that he would have to learn how to use his feet in coordination with his fingers.

An hour into his search, Vanus came to his mother’s art gallery. All of her work was housed in a large room where one side was completely taken with paned glass. The other was covered with Vanessa’s artwork, displayed in expensive frames for viewers to admire. She’d painted everything it seemed: people she’d met, the things they wore; the places she’d been to, or perhaps wanted to visit, and something even as simple as a tree under a burning sky. Vanus sensed a presence in the room he had not felt in her old bedroom. A sense of bated breath, of an everlasting hunger for freedom that made him feel claustrophobic despite the size of the room, and melancholic.

It was time to inspect the grounds.

At the back of the house was a large graveyard. He stopped at the edge of the wrought iron fence. For a moment Vanus was back in the orphanage, listening to the retellings of ghost stories mischievous orphans used to tease one another with in the middle of the night when they were supposed to be asleep: of the spirits that wandered from their graves at night in search of something they would never find. A life unfulfilled. The orphan thought of Uncle Charlie, was certain the former patriarch’s spirit had paid him a visit last night, and shivered.

He passed the fence. The air smelled strongly of wet soil and grass. No spirits rose up to greet him or tell him to claim all that belonged to him. He moved at a leisurely pace, whispering the names inscribed on the graves aloud to himself. They were all descendants of Azrael, a cruel reminder that he was one of the few remaining left alive. He passed monasteries and statues of daemons with their faces bowed in silence and their faces contorted with sorrow Eventually he found Bazzelthorpe at the very back of the cemetery, kneeling in the damp grass before the last row of tombstones. Vanus pressed his back against a monastery, not wanting to be seen. So far the daemon had made his dislike of his new patriarch all too apparent.

“Come out, orphan,” the daemon said after a moment. He rose, his armor creaking. When he spoke again, Vanus could tell he was sneering. “Or are you too frightened to approach me?”

The daemon’s words poked at Van’s flesh like hot needles. His fingers tightened the staff; he was already used to it enough he no was hardly aware he carried it. The orphan forced himself to take a deep breath before stepping out from behind the monastery. He stopped so they only stood a feet apart. “Do I look frightened?” He lifted his head, challenging the daemon with his eyes.

Bazzelthorpe sneered. “Your heart betrays you.” He tapped a knife-edged ear in explanation.

“I’ve seen worse than you.”

“Indeed.” The daemon sneered. “Lots of monsters in the orphanage, is there?”

Vanus stepped around the daemon and looked at the name on the gravestone. It was Vanessa’s; and the one next to it, dug only days ago, was Uncle Charlie’s. “Are they really dead?” he asked before he could stop himself.

“What makes you think they aren’t?” the daemon asked.

“I saw Uncle Charlie last night, or his…spirit.”

The daemon nodded. “It is part of the ritual to be visited by the spirit of the previous heir.” An uneasy silence rose between them. When Bazzelthorpe spoke, his words came out haltingly. “How did they die?”

“Vanessa, I don’t know,” said Vanus. “Uncle Charlie hung himself.”

The daemon snorted derisively. “The man didn’t commit suicide. He was far too vain to commit such an act.”

“I’ve had the same feeling,” Vanus said. “I think someone killed him and made it look like an accident; probably the same person that trapped you in the box and came into the house last night.”

The daemon nodded in agreement. “And I bet I know who did it, too.”

“Henry,” the orphan said thoughtfully. “I’ve asked and asked but Mr. Fritz doesn’t know anything…or so he claims. I don’t trust him.”

“Then you must take matters into your hands and find out on your own,” Bazzelthorpe said. “Trust me when I say Henry is far more monstrous than I am, orphan. It is his nature, it always has been.”

Vanus scowled. “Stop calling me orphan. My name is Vanus.”

“You will always be an orphan,” Bazzelthorpe said.

Vanus faced him. “And you will always be a bitch who got locked away in a box for twenty years.” He walked away.

“Where are you going?” the daemon boomed after him.

“Wherever I damn well please!” Vanus shouted over his shoulder.