On an early April afternoon in 1806, a melancholic
day, having the brightness of a summer day but a winter’s artic wind, three
knocks came to Jonathan’s humble home. Covered in different colored oils, he
opened the front door, to find a man of short stature, wearing a black suit.
The man, his hand clutching the handle of a black leather suitcase, greeted
Jonathan.
“Are you Jonathan Cole?” the man asked.
Jonathan nodded.
The man smiled a gentle smile, forming a disturbing
contrast with his misfortunate face. Jonathan attempted to refrain from staring
at the man’s face, but failed, finding himself tracing the scars on the man’s
face going from above his lip until they disappeared under his hair. The man did
not seem to mind, probably because he was used to people’s unkindness.
“My name is Vincent Alighieri. I used to be a good
friend and lawyer of Frederick Cole’s,” the man said, in a soft, clearly
clashing with his appearance. “I have important news about your uncle. May I
come in?”
Jonathan, motioning to come in, led him into the
kitchen.
Although his father had mentioned Frederick many years
ago, Jonathan had never met his uncle. Once, he had asked his father about his
uncle, only to receive the same answer his father gave everyone: I do
not want to talk about it. Consequently, Jonathan’s mother forced him to
swear never to inquire about the subject again. He swore and obeyed, for the
most part. Any information he could not get from his parents, he finagled from
the streets; even then, it wasn’t much.
From what the rumors and gossip said, Jonathan’s
father, Jonathan Arthur Cole, moved to San Francisco at a young age after
fighting over his inheritance after his father’s death. The details were shady,
from what anyone understood. Frederick had somehow managed to produce an old
parchment, a worn legal document, proving their deceased father left everything
to him. Jonathan Arthur Cole should have been filthy rich but now worked any
job he could find.
The specificities Vincent mentioned concerning Frederick’s
death were gruesome. Even though Vincent was a professional, Jonathan could see
Vincent’s expression shift with every mention of Frederick’s tragic end.
Nevertheless, Uncle Frederick was dead. He never married, had no sons, and his
only testament left everything to the “heir of Cole,” Jonathan. The man also
produced an item, a decorated dagger with the initials F.C. inside a manila
envelope, police evidence of his uncle’s self-inflicted demise.
Once Vincent left, Jonathan withdrew the paper
denoting his new wealth, reading it one more time in disbelief. With a shaking
hand, he read the number, repeating to himself, six zeroes, over and again. Fearing he would faint, Jonathan sat on
his only chair and rubbed his face. Impossible,
he thought. There was no way this was
happening. This was the premise to some half-baked novel. The truth was, it
happened; he was rich.
The streets of San Francisco were as busy as always,
people running about, to and fro, as if they didn’t even have time to breathe. Jonathan’s
apartment was but a tiny hole in the wall, slightly better than a shack but
porting an unfair rent. Jonathan, in his attempt to make the apartment
comfortable, hung up as many of his own paintings on the walls as possible. But
most of them were too depressing, depicting mistreated land and man’s
industrial conquest over nature. This was the best he would ever do in this city
as a painter. Jonathan would never find inspiration in a place like this, dirty,
cramped, and industrialized. His new estates in the east coast were full of
promise. They could save him.
Jonathan quickly put together two letters, one for his
brother in Los Angeles, and the other for his sister in New York. He left for a
town called Newridgefort on the third Monday of April, 1906, only carrying one
suitcase, mostly filled with oils and canvasses, reasoning to stop at a good
tailor on the way to upgrade his wardrobe. Jonathan expected the journey to be
long, as the town was in the east coast, somewhere in Maine.
-
The train arrived during the twilight hours of the
day, stopping only for a minute to allow Jonathan off. Shaped like a large D,
with the straight line representing the railroad, Newridgefort was a town of approximately
100 people. The town was small as it kept only what was necessary. It was strange
when anyone stepped off the train’s platform, especially when it was an
unexpected outsider.
Jonathan’s suitcase, an enchanted thing he purchased
off a peddler not a year ago, followed him like a loyal dog, fumbling over its
broken front wheels. The station was exactly at in the center of the town, the
perfect vantage point to be viewed by everyone and view everyone, and thus used
in local celebrations, such as in speeches or concerts by the town’s local
band. To Jonathan, the idea of being the town’s center of attraction was not a
welcomed idea as every person’s eyes trailed his every movement. Jonathan,
looking around, stopped a random person, one of the few who stared, and showed
him the paper with his new home’s address. The man, a farmer, did not answer,
but scratched his forehead instead.
He must be
illiterate, Jonathan thought. “Do you
know where Frederick Cole used to live?”
The farmer simply pointed down the road perpendicular
to the railroad and left Jonathan standing alone.
“That was rude,” Jonathan said under his breath.
Whispers immediately erupted among the townsfolk, gossip
spreading like the plague. Jonathan, unable to discern much of what they said,
only understood the most common questions going around. Is he really a Cole? Why is he here? He should not be here. He should leave.
Jonathan kept walking, reassuring himself that the people’s unfriendliness came
from their seclusion. They were not accustomed to visitors, so that it placed
this situation outside of their comfort zone. Much of this would change with
the coming days. Eventually they would have to accept the new man living down
the road; Jonathan hoped.
The moon rose above, shining a regal light, when
Jonathan arrived at the front gate, two pillars attached by arched metal above.
In the metal, the name Cole was weaved with an intricate design, the metal
sporting thorns. Following the long straight road, the house appeared at the
distance, though calling it a house was an understatement. For 200 feet, ending
at the entrance, the road was adorned with stone statues in the shapes of
knights, kneeling for their master, making it seem as a royal hall. Jonathan
walked the part, thrilled by the statues twice the normal size of a man.
The building itself was simply unbelievable. Composed
of two wings, a massive dome in the center and a beautiful entrance, the house
was a three-floor mansion. Its front appeared to be a giant door, two symmetrical
pillars seeming to be a portal to another world. The mansion’s walls were a
combination of dark wood with castle-like cobblestone, the perfect combination
of traditional and modern architecture. On the roof, many large platforms
protruded out, serving as pedestals for mighty beings—part eagle, part dog, all
beast; gargoyles reposed on them, guarding the house from evil spirits.
Dark, ancient, and desolate, the Cole mansion suffered
of severe negligence. The house had no electricity even though Frederick could
have installed it as he had enough capital. Frederick’s death had not been the
most peaceful either, and many traces of his final moments were prominent.
During his last few months, he suffered insufferable visions, illusions of
monsters and living shadows, confining him to a perpetual state of rage. Throughout
the mansion, walls had fist-sized holes, done by Frederick’s berserk frenzy. Broken
doors, torn out of their hinges or destroyed into tiny wooden chips, windows
shattered into thousands of shards, and no mirrors left untouched by Frederick,
allowed for nature to begin its infiltration.
Jonathan made sure to check every room to see if there
was anything salvageable but was always disappointed. According to Vincent,
Frederick had died sometime in January, leaving the house alone for a very
short time, which should not have been enough for the present level of
destruction. His hand holding a melting candle, Jonathan kept exploring the
mansion, hoping to find a hospitable room in the storm-stricken room. Room
after room, each one having served as a guest room or as servant’s quarters,
many of which had generous space, were trashed by the same hands. Growing
tired, Jonathan wondered whether he should go back to town and rent a room, but
kept on going, hoping to find a room he could sleep in for the night.
Down the hall of the west wing, past a massive room
that Jonathan reasoned to be a ballroom, he arrived to a door at the very end. A
knight on each side of the door, Jonathan did not know what to expect. The door
creaked as Jonathan opened it, his candle courageously trusted forward, and
revealed a room like nothing he had seen yet; this was his uncle’s study, the
only room untouched by Fredericks madness.
The study was incredible, its sheer size magnificent.
In fact, the room was so large that Jonathan’s candle did not illuminate the
entire room at once, leaving a section on the west inside a black void. The
walls were covered in books, with the exception of the darkened portion of the
room that housed a large object Jonathan could discern. As Jonathan approached
the west, his candle revealed a metallic platform, raised five feet above
ground. Going up the platform’s stairs, his feet clanked against the metal. Once
at the top, his candle showed what Jonathan had not been able to describe, a
golden monolithic telescope whose long tube disappeared beyond the domed roof
of the study.
Back on Frederick’s desk, Jonathan found several books
spread open and some sheets of paper crumpled on the ground. Files in the
desk’s drawers were out of order and some of their contents missing. Jonathan
looked at the papers, noticing that the missing pages were receipts or legal
papers noting specific transfers of money between Frederick and his lawyers. Strange, Jonathan thought. The scene did
not appear to be a police investigation; it seemed to be created by an act of
larceny, and the thief knew what he was looking for but had not.
Jonathan picked one of the crumpled papers, attempting
to read the writing on them but the writing was more akin hieroglyphics than English
script. However, he did recognize a single symbol, a seven-pointed star within
a circle, all inside square. Every mage, magician and wizard, carried the
symbol visibly on their person as it was the symbol that announced to the
public, I am a wielder of magic.
The symbol was scratched into the cover of a small
black leather-bound book, above the initials F.C. The book was his Uncle’s
journal, written in black ink. The first pages were simple, the journal of a
man without worries or obligations. Frederick spoke about food, drinking, and
parties, and all the matter of things rich men did. However, the closer the
entries neared the current year, they became shorter in nature and spoke
confessions.
November 22nd, 1905. I miss my brother. I
never spoke with him after he left for Princeton. I hope he was able to be the
magician he dreamed to become. It appears I cannot do magic, even after I tried
to learn from all these books.
November 28th, 1905. I tried contacting
Princeton. They do not recognize my brother’s name. Maybe he decided to go to
another university. I don’t know if I will be able to find him.
December 6th, 1905. I finally obtained some
information about my brother. I cannot believe he is dead. He was never
accepted into any magic program either. I don’t know what to think.
December 10th, 1905. He had three children,
the eldest shares his name. I will change my will to leave everything to him.
This is the way it should have been from the beginning. Jonathan is the
rightful heir.
December 16th, 1905. It came again. The
servants fled. Fear.
Jonathan slid the book into one of
the desk’s drawers, the final entry chilling his bones. This was what his
father hid. If what Frederic said were true, Jonathan’s father had tried to be
a magician at an early age and failed. Jonathan felt his stomach turn at the
thought of the old saying: the apple does not fall far from the tree. Vincent
had said Frederick had gone mad in his final days, but this was not what he
expected. Was his uncle truly mad?
Jonathan could not help but wonder.
-
It was hard work, but after three years, Jonathan
restored the house to its former majesty, falling in love with it in the
process as he had single handedly painted the mansion from the inside. A
beautiful azure carpet, covered with intricate designs, flowed like a river
through the hallways, a dark cherry wood floor as its riverbank. The walls
themselves were art, adorned by some of the most precious paintings and even
some of Jonathan’s personal creations; the hallways were those of a museum’s.
With about twenty guestrooms in the eastern side of the mansion, every room had
its own style and decorations. Much of his time had gone into these rooms, its
walls depicting ancient wars or mythological creatures in elaborate murals.
Jonathan had also restored the entrance to the house, mending
the double staircase and adding a large stained glass window above the front
entrance. Much of the original feel remained, for he felt it was his duty to
maintain his family’s heritage. The many gargoyles on the roof and the statues
on the main road remained on duty.
Jonathan did not hold back in any aspect of the
restoration, adding electricity, plumbing, and other modern marvels. However, Jonathan
loved the new additions to his study as he had begun spending more time in that
room every day. Keeping much of his uncle’s book collection, he expanded the
book collection, revamped the wood of the shelves, doubling their capacity.
Where there was space, Indian tapestries hung on the walls. But the decorations
were not the reason he loved the study. No, he loved it because of his recent
obsession over astronomy. By spending a small fortune, he added the best lenses
to his telescope, and even motorized it so that he could turn and reposition
the telescope by pulling levers, instead of manually turning cranks. He had
also paid a handsome sum of money to repair many of the gold trimmings on the
machine, exponentially increasing its value. It all was more than a good enough
reason to look at the stars every night, admiring their endless possibilities.
However, nothing was better than the ballroom. No,
this was Jonathan’s pride and Joy. In northernmost part of the house lay the
ballroom, a circular room, connected to every hall in the residence. Every wall
was pearl white, the pillars shining gold, the floor polished into a mirror
quality reflection. It was a hall of kings.
Having a beautiful home and many servants was useless
if no one was there to see it. Jonathan had to show his work; he had to gloat. On
June 30th, 1909, Jonathan Cole held a large party to celebrate both
his birthday and the completion of the renovation. On that night, the one
residents of Newridgefort found themselves outnumbered, outsiders swarming the
train station. Lost, many of the people asked for directions to the Cole manor,
as it had been come to be known, surprised by the straight roads. Never had the
minute town seen so much action since the Cole family worked the limestone mines;
nothing would ever be the same.
Jonathan hired five carriages, pulled by the most
prestigious horses, in order to ease his guest’s journey across the long from
town. The carriages, painted in black with gold edges, first surprised every
guest as they were impressed by their beauty. However, their conversation
shifted upon witnessing the sublime estate. The Knights in the road were a
popular subject, only to shift after seeing the gargoyles on the manor’s roof.
“I am sorry, brother. Albert was unable to come. I
tried to convince him that this was a very important event but he insisted that
his responsibilities were too great,” Elizabeth said.
Jonathan smiled, his arms opened wide. “It has been
six years since I last saw you,” he said, embracing his sister. “Do you think I
care more about my incompetent brother? He’ll be fine. He is one stubborn
businessman, always jumping from one venture to the other. Do you know what
he’s gotten himself into now?”
“He moved to Chicago and bought a small theater. He
produces and directs his own shows. I think he also writes them. I’ve heard
he’s attained a good audience.”
“See? He will be
fine. How about you? Are you financially stable? I can always help, you know.”
Elizabeth smiled back and took the arm of her husband,
a large man, whose very posture spoke nobility.
More prominent, however, was the seven pointed star on his shoulder. Jonathan
knew the man from his sister’s wedding, but had never noticed the star.
“Recent graduate, Monsieur Cole,” the man said,
noticing Jonathan’s interest.
Jonathan shook hands with his brother-in-law.
“Ah, have you considered taking a magic test? I can
feel… great power within you.”
Jonathan froze, smiling meekly.
“I’ve heard that before,” Jonathan spoke softly. “When
I was young I tried my hand at magic and took some of the magic examinations.
The deans of magic at different colleges said the very same thing, the faculty
even offering to help me obtain scholarships. I fear I am simply unable to wield
it,” Jonathan said.
“Strange, people with any form of potential can always brandish it.”
Elizabeth gripped her husband’s arm, making him flinch
for a second. The man, realizing the conversation was taboo, stopped and
apologized.
“No, no. Worry not. If I had not been discouraged, I
wouldn’t have been able to become the artist I am today,” Jonathan said, his
hand pointing at the walls of his halls.
Motioning forward, Jonathan led them up the entrance’s
double stairs, where he opened two black doors with a golden handle, leading to
the largest room in the mansion.
The spirit of music itself was channeled through the
magnificence of the orchestra. Guests danced in circles, cheering and drinking
to their heart’s content. On the side of the dance floor, several guests, university
level magicians, performed their most powerful, most illustrious magic. One of
the students, wearing the magical symbol as a tattoo on his bare arm, after ten
minutes of chanting in preparation, shot a sphere of solid light onto the ceiling,
the ball bursting into waves of multi-color splendor, as if it were the most
elegant eastern firework. The party raged as much as parties can and all seemed
good. Something wasn’t.
Jonathan, the heart of the party disappeared sometime
around midnight, when the oldest bottle of wine had been opened and everyone
felt there would be no tomorrow. Up the stairs, down the western hall, where
the music could not reach, Jonathan had sealed himself in his study, sitting on
his desk, not blinking. Sweat oozed from his every pore. Something was in this
house with him. Yes, there were guests, but that is not what he felt. It wasn’t
someone, it was something.
Opening his desk’s right drawer in search of bottle of
whiskey he had kept for a special occasion, Jonathan slid his hand into the
small compartment, his fingers feeling around until coming to a familiar
texture, pulling out his uncle’s black leather-bound journal. Jonathan turned
each page, reading every entry again, as if they would reassure him of something,
forgetting about his thirst for alcohol. Once more, it was the last entries
that surprised him, the pages mentioning beasts, ancient monsters and gods
living in earth for the sole purpose of damning humankind.
Slowly feeling the words cross his lips, Jonathan
repeated his uncle’s last entry aloud. It
came again. The servants fled. Fear. The words meant nothing to Jonathan
but he knew they should. Annoyed at his uncertainty, Jonathan let the journal
fall, hitting the book’s spine against the floor, allowing for a folded slip of
paper to fall out from the back. Strange,
Jonathan though for he had not seen such paper before. A quick glance showed
the calligraphy belonged to his uncle, the strokes in the same fashion, harsh
and erratic. Nevertheless, his words were perturbingly incoherent:
Pardon me God, for I have sinned. I have done many a terrible
thing. I stole out of the purest envy, promised lawyers gold beyond their
imaginations if they were to forge a Machiavellian parchment. They agreed and
now live like kings. But I, I perish like a slave, a slave to my own sins and
to the sins of my ancestors. Tricked! Swindled into a deal of most terrible
consequences, we were forced to sell our soul for a inaccessible power it. We
must now pay the price for our sins. If you are of Cole, beware of the beast that
swims through our veins; beware of yourself.
Turning to his study’s balcony, Jonathan opened the
two glass doors and stepped out, staring onto the mountain behind his home. The
crescent moon shone in a yellow tone, resembling that of a feral beast’s eye. Beautiful, Jonathan thought, unable to
resist its terrifying allure. The stars flickered with passion, temporarily appeasing
Jonathan’s paranoia, until he saw something on the roof of the eastern tower.
In truth, the problem was not in what he saw, but in what he did not.
Across the mansion, on every pedestal, lay a gargoyle,
all of which Jonathan considered to be a type of magical ward against evil. Now,
they were gone. Jonathan backed away from the balcony, ready to scream. The
gargoyles, his guardians had left. Jonathan’s mind began trying to come to a
reasonable conclusion, skipping from one theory to another. There were
magicians in the building, people capable of moving the gargoyles through magic,
but not even all of the magicians in the mansion could make every gargoyle
disappear. If this were a prank, it had gone too far. If it was not a prank,
what was the cause?
Jonathan, remembering the knights, rushed out the
study towards the mansion’s entrance. He had to make sure they were still there. If the knights were gone, something terrible
had happened. The doors flung open and Jonathan sprinted out, the entrance
closing behind him. They were gone. Jonathan
fell back, his back his back hitting the closed doors behind him. The sudden
realization confirmed his fears. Every single statue was gone. True insidious
power was at work.
Jonathan reentered his home, heading to the party,
when he noticed something worse. Once again, it was what was missing that made
everything wrong. An eerie silence had settled inside. The soundless void even frightened
the wind from speaking. Jonathan slowed to a crawl, placing his hand on the
golden handle, a door that led to the ballroom. Sweat made the handle slippery,
forcing Jonathan to tighten his grip. A metallic ring filled the room, the door
handle shaking, synchronized to Jonathan’s hand. Slowly pulling the handle,
Jonathan opened the door.
It was a massacre. People, pieces of people, were
everywhere. Rubble lay on the floor and incrusted on the walls and ceiling, the
room’s pearl pillars resting in pieces on the ground. His guardians were all present,
some destroyed and turned into mere pebbles, while blood covered others. The magicians
had put up a fight. Magic lingered in the air, fire hovering among the dead,
trying to find whom to attack.
Elizabeth’s body was near the entrance, embraced in
her husband’s arms; the man had acted as a shield, his back burnt and
blackened. Jonathan fell to his knees next to his sister’s body. It was
relatively clean, except for the gash where a knife had entered, twisted, and
withdrawn. Then, Jonathan wept, wailed, and screamed out of sheer despondence.
He asked himself, why?
Why had this happened? What was going on?
Jonathan could not understand, he would never understand. But there, the thing,
the cause, stood in the center of the room, smiling..
“Jonathan,” the thing spoke, its teeth gritting
against each other.
Jonathan turned to the creature, half beast, half
human, a thing. It wore a black tuxedo, identical to what Jonathan wore. His
hair was styled, oiled back, just like Jonathan’s. If it were not for its disproportionate
length, like that of a shadow at dusk, its impossibly large smile, and black glasses,
it was Jonathan’s mirror image. When it moved, it was in broken steps, as if
there were frames missing in a film. What
was that thing?
“Happy birthday, Jonathan,” it spoke, in an accent,
one Jonathan had never heard and wished he had not, for it spoke harshly, its
every word loaded with a putrid sound of enunciated hatred. Without removing
that smirk off its face, it snapped its head with an audible pop into a strange
angle, showing its enlarged yellow teeth, the same color as that night’s moon.
A deep cold sapped Jonathan’s breath, almost
asphyxiating him. This couldn’t be
happening.
“What are you?” Jonathan said meekly.
“I am you. I am
your father, your uncle, your grandfather, the power that dwells in your veins.
Your potential and your curse, I am Cole.”
Jonathan wanted to scream; he couldn’t.
“I fear it is time, Jonathan. You must pay the price.”
“What price? Why have you done this?”
The thing laughed a petrifying jeering laugh.
“I did nothing here. You and your guards did this. You did this.”
“You bastard, monster, give me back my friends. Give
me back my sister!”
“Foolish man! No human should have this much power, let
alone control it. Magic is the power of God. It is creation itself! You stand there,
after what your ancestors did, shouting at me for compensation? Insolent human!
You will pay, just like every Cole has. Rot in your madness.”
With that, the thing, the monster, disappeared.
Jonathan alone, walked across the ballroom, towards the western hall, walking
over the dead, trying not to step on any of his guest’s “parts.” He entered his
study’s bathroom, where he looked into the mirror.
His clothes were stained in a deep oxidized brown.
Blood? Had the thing attacked him? No, it had never approached him. Jonathan
looked down at his hands. They were bruised, blackened, and burnt. Fire? No, it
couldn’t be. Then, something poked him from inside his pocket and Jonathan
withdrew it; in his hands, he held his uncle’s dagger, bathed in blood.
“No, I
refuse to accept this,” Jonathan shouted, shattering the mirror with his fist,
a shadow lingering about him.
