Serpent's Gate Read online

  “Maybe not. Remember what Geoffrey said about— bad things happening here? Two servants disappearing might fit the bill, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, really, Stephen. I hope we’re not going to rehash poor Geoffrey’s unfortunate fantasies again. In fact, the clippings you found might very well set his troubled mind at ease. Two servants running way might well have inspired lurid gossip among a few less-educated members of the public. That hardly means there was anything to such rumors.”

  “But what if—”

  The library door swung open, startling him into silence. Justin strolled in and grinned at their startled expressions. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. Just checking in, as promised, to see how everything’s coming along.”

  “I’m pleased to say that our work is proceeding well,” Uncle Vernon said, recovering his composure. “Stephen and I have made some intriguing discoveries.”

  “Really?” Justin peered at the book Stephen still held in his gloved hands. “Is that one of them? It looks old, for sure.”

  “That it is,” Uncle Vernon confirmed. “And I’m afraid it got Stephen’s imagination working overtime. I’m sure I needn’t remind either of you that books can’t hurt you unless you drop one on your foot.”

  When he examined the drawing, Justin whistled. “Is this what freaked you out? No worries there. Good old Istharios sure is an ugly dude, but he’s been part of our family lore for a long time. My ancestors didn’t have scary movies and TV shows to keep them occupied, so they had to find other ways to entertain themselves and their servants. Now he’s become kind of a joke. Sort of like those weird-ass cupids carved into the fountain.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be a joke as far as Leo is concerned.”

  “Well, like I told you—Leo’s a bit different from most people. He’s not great at distinguishing fantasy from reality. He would have fit right in with those nutjobs in the old days.”

  “He’s fortunate to have a position here,” Uncle Vernon observed primly. “I hope he’s suitably grateful.”

  “My dad always watched out for him, and Roark and I still feel responsible for him in a way. Leo’s father was the groundskeeper here when Leo was a kid—he got the job years before I was born, and I think Leo’s grandfather held the positon before him. About seven years ago, when Leo had just turned twenty, his father died in an accident right here at the house.”

  “Here? How horrible,” Stephen said.

  “It was bad, all right. He fell from the roof.” Justin gestured toward the ceiling. “It’s a long way down, right onto the stones in the garden. I didn’t see it, but Roark did. He said there wasn’t much left of the poor guy when he hit bottom.”

  “Tragic,” Uncle Vernon said. Stephen wondered if the macabre scene had scarred Roark in some way. Maybe that was why he seemed so downcast and hostile. Had Mr. Fairbourne ever sent him to counseling?

  “After that, my father considered it his duty to look after the family. I have to admit, considering his…you know…challenges, Leo does okay at his job. One thing’s for sure—we never questioned his loyalty to this house or to my father. He’s like a big, furry, faithful dog where this family is concerned. But a dog that would turn around and rip the throat out of anyone who threatens us.”

  “I’m not so sure that’s a good thing,” Stephen said.

  “Leo has his uses. Listen, I don’t want to keep you from your work, so I’ll get out of your hair for now. We’ll see each other at dinner. Just wait till you taste Mrs. Mulgrave’s cooking. Whatever bad impressions you’ve formed of us and our house will disappear the minute you bite into her double-chocolate cheesecake.” He kissed his own fingertips. “It’s the thing I missed most while I was traipsing around Europe.”

  “We look forward to it.” Uncle Vernon’s gloved hands were already twitching, his eyes darting between Justin’s face and the shelves. Stephen knew which view he preferred, and for a moment he pitied Uncle Vernon.

  “Seven o’clock,” Justin continued. “Do you want me to pick you up from the cottage later and wait for you while you get ready? Heads up—I’m breaking out my favorite tie. Might even put a shirt on under it if you’re lucky.”

  “I’m sure we can find our own way,” Uncle Vernon said. “Most gentlemanly of you to offer, though.”

  “Great. Talk to you a bit later, then.” With a wave and another wink, he left them alone. Stephen struggled not to blush at the thought of Justin shirtless.

  Uncle Vernon brushed off his gloves and raised a brow. “Stephen, I get the distinct sense that these books are not the most exciting feature of Fairbourne House where you are concerned.”

  “Oh, stop, Uncle Vernon. Justin’s been very nice to us both. I appreciate that. Don’t you?”

  “Yet I get the sense you don’t care for Roark. Is there a reason? Has he done anything to offend you?”

  “No. He just…well, he seems kind of stuck up and standoffish. Nothing like Justin.”

  “Roark Fairbourne is the sort you have to get to know. Trust me. I’ve known others like him.”

  “Really? Like who?”

  “That isn’t important. It was a long time ago.” Uncle Vernon grew wistful. “The point is, you have to give people a chance, Stephen. Still, Justin is a nice young man. You could do worse than have him as your friend.” His tone hardened. “But first and foremost, he is a business connection, Stephen. Please remember that while we are at work here.”

  “Okay.” Stephen hid his disappointment. He’d hoped his uncle had been about to reveal a tidbit from his own past. Though he knew Vernon had been openly gay all his life, or as open as one could be back in those days, he’d never mentioned a single past lover or even an unrequited rush. Despite his constant efforts, Geoffrey hadn’t uncovered any details, either.

  As he got back to work, his thoughts shifted to Roark. Was he really being too hard on him? Sure, he was rich and arrogant, but that wasn’t a crime. He’d shopped for rare books at his uncle’s shop, they’d talked about poetry for a while, and now he’d hired them to sort his books. Nothing so unusual about any of that. It was Stephen’s own fault for imagining some deeper connection between them.

  Besides, if anything did develop with Justin, as Stephen hoped it might, he’d have to get along with Justin’s brother. He’d just have to make more of an effort.

  Across the room, Uncle Vernon gave a cry of triumph. “Ah, here we are. A first edition of Longfellow, and in pristine condition. Quite valuable, without a doubt!”

  “That’s wonderful, Uncle Vernon,” Stephen assured him.

  By late afternoon, Stephen was convinced time was moving backwards. The longer he worked, the more hours seemed to stretch in front of him. No matter how often he glanced at the digital clock on his laptop screen, the numbers seldom registered more than few seconds’ change. The dinner party—and more conversation with Justin—would never arrive at this rate. Eventually he positioned himself in front of his laptop, shielded his forehead with his hand, and cat-napped.

  “Be careful of eye strain,” Uncle Vernon cautioned in a loud voice. Stephen looked up to see him hovering over his shoulder, leveling a critical gaze at the uncatalogued books piled up at his elbows. “Staring at those cursed computer screens all day long can’t be doing you young people any good. Be sure to look away from it every now and then. In fact, you should get up and take a turn around the room. Get the neurons firing again.”

  “Okay.” Embarrassed at being caught loafing, Stephen heaved himself to his feet and wandered back over to the shelves. Knowing Uncle Vernon was watching, he feigned interest in some of the larger, folio-sized books wedged just above eye level. Halfway along one of the shelves, he noticed a smaller book, turned sideways, wedged into the tight space between two of them. He waited until Uncle Vernon looked away before he stood on tiptoe and pulled it down.

  Like many of the others in the Fairbourne library, the book seemed to date from the late nineteenth century and appeared well-used. A plain
black ribbon tied its battered cover boards shut. Stephen started to undo the brittle knot, but paused. Really, he ought to call Uncle Vernon over before he applied any pressure to the age-worn strands holding the covers together. The last thing he wanted was another lecture about handling the books too roughly.

  Instead, he paused and stroked the dingy cover, also black. Something about it roused his interest, though he couldn’t really understand why. Most likely the pages contained nothing more exciting than another set of household accounts. Surely they wouldn’t mention Olive and Lucas.

  He decided not to disturb Uncle Vernon while he focused on his own work. Startling him now might even cause him to lose his balance on the ladder. His guidance wasn’t really necessary. If Stephen picked at the ribbon slowly and carefully, what possible harm could he do? The book’s real value, if it had any, lay in its contents and not its dried-out binding. That would need to be restored, anyway. As Justin himself had said, books were made to be open and read. Why would anyone bother writing and printing them otherwise?

  He took it over to the table, using the large fly-fishing book to conceal it in case his uncle happened to glance over. The string resisted his first attempts to undo it, but a steady effort managed to pry the stiff loops open. After one last glance to make sure his uncle wasn’t looking, he slipped the ribbon off and pried the cover boards apart. The long-unflexed spine seemed to groan with the effort.

  Disappointment followed. The frontispiece, printed in coarse, bumpy ink, announced the contents as an incomparably dull mathematical treatise composed in Latin. Following that, a series of diagrams displayed various geometrical lines and measurements. So the book’s apparent concealment had been nothing but an accident—unless its original owner had found the contents so boring he wished to hide it from his sight forever.

  On the off-chance he might find another newspaper clipping jammed in the binding, Stephen browsed from the first page to the last. When he reached the middle, he drew his hand away and stared.

  Bound inside the math book, the pages carefully aligned so they would blend in perfectly, lay another, much shorter volume. The handwritten text displayed a language he’d never seen before, the lettering vaguely resembling Greek but with its own peculiarities. The fifth page contained a drawing captioned in the same odd, symbolic script.

  In it, a group of people wore hooded, floor-length robes that concealed everything, including their faces. They stood around a slab of stone, gazing down expectantly at something hidden in a shadow. Their inked-in eyes bulged wide and glassy. And each hoisted a long, wriggling snake into the air.

  The pages following the drawing contained more of that odd, indecipherable text. The length of the lines and the unusual spacing gave Stephen the idea that it might contain verses of some sort. Poems, perhaps, explaining the context of the peculiar scene depicted in the artwork—or possibly the words chanted during the strange ceremony?

  The last page displayed another jarring image. This drawing used lurid flames, applied in crimson ink, as a border. In the center, outlined in stark black, stood a hideous figure—a human man’s body, naked and abundantly endowed, with a serpent’s face attached to a long neck. His arms were raised and his mouth hung open, exposing the curved fangs of a poisonous snake. Reptilian lips dripped foamy venom.

  While he stared, wide-eyed with fascinated revulsion, the room around him seemed to retract and fade. The dull murmur of chanting voices, distant but earnest, filled his head like the sound of the ocean supposedly filled a shell.

  Stephen jumped when he heard his name. Hastily he closed the book and slid it inside the fly-fishing volume. Looking up, he found Uncle Vernon standing at the opposite end of the table, his white brows sunk beneath the rims of his glasses.

  “Stephen? Is everything all right? I’ve been calling you for several minutes.”

  “Um…yeah, sure,” Stephen fumbled. “I think I’m getting a headache. Eye strain, like you said.”

  “I knew it. Infernal machines. Anyhow, I wanted to show you something. I discovered it on the top shelf, tucked between two larger volumes. I almost didn’t see it.”

  Reverently, Uncle Vernon set a striking blue-and-gold volume on the table next to Stephen. It took his a moment even to register what it was.

  “An 1824 Washington Irving, and a beauty indeed,” Uncle Vernon said when he failed to react. “Not inscribed, sadly, but quite a find nonetheless. Do use your computer and find out what you can about it. No hurry—as soon as you come to a stopping place with your own work, of course.”

  Stephen kept his palm flat on the cover of the fly-fishing book, preventing Uncle Vernon from noticing the bulge in its center. “Sure thing. I’d be happy to.”

  “Anything of interest on your side of the room?”

  “Well…I’m not sure. I need to go through all of these again and do some research on their provenance. That’s why I set them aside.”

  “I see. Carry on, then. Let me know if you find anything significant.”

  “I will.”

  The moment Uncle Vernon’s back was turned, Stephen cracked open the fly-fishing book and stole another peek at the smaller volume wedged inside. The snakelike figure commanding the fire swayed and hissed in his imagination.

  “Istharios,” he whispered, running his hand along the edge of the page. The tips of his white glove came away smeared with red.

  Chapter 6

  The first glimmer of sunset appeared in the sky as Stephen and Uncle Vernon, freshly scrubbed and formally dressed, presented themselves for Roark’s dinner party. Leo opened the door to them, fidgeting uncomfortably in an ill-fitting suit, and wordlessly conveyed them to a small sitting area adjoining the dining room. Beside a table sagging under the weight of various hors d’oeuvres and pitchers of drink, a handsomely-dressed Justin stood chatting to Malcolm, who looked unusually serious despite the festive occasion. Stephen smiled at Justin’s tie, patterned with tiny gray gargoyles on black silk. No doubt he’d picked it up on his European travels. A small diamond gleamed in the center of a silver tiepin. As promised, he’d remembered the shirt—also gray, the exact shade of the tiny stone figures. A black Mandarin-collar jacket and another pair of deliciously tight black pants completed the ensemble.

  When he noticed Stephen and his uncle, Justin broke off his conversation with Malcolm. “Here come the guests of honor. I understand you’ve met our family attorney, Malcolm Argyle. He assures me that he’s keen to hear all about rare books during dinner.”

  “No difficulty there,” Uncle Vernon chirped, while Stephen made a mental note not to sit near them if he could avoid it. He’d heard more than enough on that topic throughout the afternoon. “That happens to be one of my favorite subjects.”

  “Malcolm probably told you that he’s related to us both by blood and marriage,” Justin went on. “I emphasize that connection whenever possible. Always useful to have a lawyer in the family. You’d be surprised how often an estate like this requires one.”

  “Exploit that connection would be more like it.” Malcolm Argyle smiled. “Justin still hopes I’ll break down someday and stop sending my bills. Not happening, I’m afraid. You know the old saying about blood and water, but I say distant cousins should never come closer than necessary.”

  Justin offered a good-natured laugh, but Stephen sensed an edge to their relationship. He wondered what the bills were for. Dull matters relating to Mr. Fairbourne’s will and other estate business, he supposed.

  “Do you live nearby, Mr. Argyle?” Uncle Vernon asked.

  “Within driving distance,” Malcolm answered with a shrug. “And it’s Malcolm, please. I hope things are going well in the library. It’s high time someone attempted to organize that clutter. There’s no telling at all what might be hidden in there. The boys’ father made what we might charitably call an effort to go through it, but sadly he wasn’t up to the task.”

  “No harm done as far as I can see,” Vernon said. “The books are haphazardly she
lved, but undamaged.”

  “Thankfully, Owen Fairbourne didn’t get through all of them,” Malcolm observed grimly. “When it seemed necessary, I put a stop to his effort.”

  “Rampage might be a better word,” Justin said with a smirk “Let’s call it what it is, Malcolm. Over time, my father’s obsession with the Fairbourne library drove him quite literally mad.”

  “Enough, Justin. This isn’t the place,” Malcolm cautioned.

  Justin ignored him. “But don’t worry, Stephen. I’d say you have a better than average chance of coming out of this unscathed. You’re starting with a much more stable mind.”

  “I hope so.” Stephen felt a slight chill prickle down the back of his neck. Thankfully, Justin decided to change the subject. He waved toward a cabinet in the corner, which displayed a variety of bottles and decanters.

  “Apéritif, gentleman? Bourbon, wine, Scotch? Roark’s put out the expensive stuff tonight. As usual, he’s late, but in this case I don’t really mind. He wants to look his best for our guests, and who can blame him? Sadly, that might take a while, so we’ll just have to start the party without him.”

  Malcolm followed him over. “Don’t mind if I do. Thanks, cousin.”

  “Might I trouble you for a sherry?” Vernon asked.

  “Sure thing.” Justin handed Uncle Vernon and Malcolm their drinks and raised one he had poured for himself. He watched Stephen hesitate, unsure what to ask for and not wanting to look foolish by taking something he couldn’t finish. “Stephen, help yourself to anything you like. If you’re not ready for the stronger stuff, we also have iced tea, lemonade, and mineral water. Santé, gentlemen!”

  While he stared self-consciously at a row of glass pitchers, Stephen felt someone loom up behind him. He turned to find Leo standing just a few inches too close.

  “You want me to pour something for you? Don’t want it to spill it on your nice suit.”

  “No…thanks anyway, Leo.” Stephen tried to ease away from him without being too obvious. “I can do it.” With great deliberation, he grabbed the nearest pitcher and poured some iced tea into a glass. Without fail, some of it splashed on the tablecloth.