Snippet #1530026

The blonde vamp didn’t object to his bold gestures of affection. Indeed Lord Byron already thought of Clarice as being “his” which was no less than natural for a vain man like himself to consider. He would have wanted to continue his little exploration in the dark, but another man interrupted the fun.
Helmut pulled Clarice next to him, covering her bare shoulders with his coat. Byron had to admit that, while showing up as a flashy and frivolous man, Helmut did have some worthwhile tricks. In all honesty, the lord never considered playing gentleman with a woman like Clarice.

His wife decided to answer the missionary’s question, but she was interrupted by the sudden closure of the exit, leaving them in complete darkness. After a few moments of disguised panic coming from everyone in the room, Genevieve started to move forward on one of the pathways followed by a few others. Byron felt the soft and warm hand of another in his and turned back only to see Adelia holding him tight. She apologized while there was red in her cheeks and the lord had no other reply than a nod of the head. He felt strange. It wasn’t desire that stirred in him, any other woman touching him if only for a short time would have made him focus on her attractiveness or lack of it, depending on the case at hand. Yet Adelia was there, young and innocent, an unpicked flower and he felt nothing of the sort, but soothing peace and - dare he say it? – a little bit afraid. Not afraid of the young girl, that would have been absurd, but afraid of that unusual feeling, of the stillness that came with it and cooled down his wild nature.

There was another bang and now they were separated as if the manor itself wanted to play a bad joke on them. Nobody was laughing. Suddenly light came in through the stone wall, making Byron quite uncomfortable. How come there was light when nobody lit the torches?
"Maximilian, I believe this is your field of work!” Genevieve shouted back after asking Byron to take the other pathway. He agreed wholeheartedly, this was surely something from the occult field, definitely not his domain. Helmut backfired immediately, demanding an answer, the kind of answer no one, not even the lord of the manor could have given at the time. He honestly had no idea that Magnolia Manor held such secrets, but as far as he was concerned, that was not a problem. In fact, he was quite happy with the latest outcome, being separated from Genevieve, having both the reason and the chance to spend some time with his new trophy. Too bad they weren’t alone, but if the manor had more of these interesting pranks, that chance was sure to arrive as well.

“Don’t worry, my darling, we’ll see each other soon enough in the house.” Well, not too soon, he continued soundless. At the same time, another thought crept into his mind, the thought of being separated from her in this crazy place. What’s more, she was with quite a few of the other male guests and every one of them could have been the one Clarice might have chose for his scheme. Had she enough time to talk to the man and convince him? No, there was too little time for that and everyone was at breakfast. The only person she spent some time alone with was Helmut and he was right here, next to them.

“Another perfect chance” he thought “I get to see what makes him tick, maybe even get to help a little in his persuasion. If indeed he is the one.” The lord had yet to find out if Clarice had given any thought to his plan by now. Both the woman in question and Helmut were waiting for him to make the first step. "I am placing my trust in you..” she said. He rather preferred that she would place her her lips on his, but that was another thing which had to wait.
Byron stepped forward covered by the dim light from the other side not waiting for the others to catch up. Of course Adelia was right behind him, still holding his arm and the lord literally dragged her along.
“Now don’t let the spider’s eat you up, little one!” he grinned revealing his sharp tooth. They walked in the darkness for about ten minutes, slowly but surely in the right direction – probably because it was the only direction – when Byron stopped for a brief moment. He could see a very dim spark of light up ahead. He ran forcing the young girl to run with him and soon enough they reached an archway that resembled the first one they came in through. The only difference was that a bunch of rocks filled the entrance and the spark of light he saw before was coming from behind them. He tried to pull one of the rocks out of its place, but the darn thing wouldn’t obey. They were heavy and large, not to mention stuck to one another for who knows how many years since then.

“You can let go of me now.” He said to Adelia and bent his knees to peek through one of the many spaces between the rocks. His cold blue eyes narrowed upon seeing the source of light on the other side. It was a magnificent stone, diamond shaped, yet not quite a diamond for it shone like a hundred candles put together. At least a hundred candles. The light wasn’t quite powerful enough to illuminate the whole room or hallway, Byron couldn’t see what exactly was behind the stones, but it glittered enough to light up its surroundings. The stone was placed on a simple sculpture and just beneath it was an engraving. “Alliance” was written on it.
“Hm, yes. Quite interesting” he said standing up and looking at his guests. “It seems we’re at a dead end. Someone has to move this rocks if we want to advance.” He looked at Maximilian and Helmut, slightly raising his head in that arrogant way which meant to say “I can’t have my hands in the dirt, now can I?”.

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Vasile wasn’t nervous or scared at all. In fact, he was quite used to the darkness and old catacombs, having visited a lot of them on his journeys. The only difference was that this time he wasn’t alone. The fact that the torches gained light out of nowhere made him stay alert. He felt some vibrations just a second before the strange thing took place, but there was nothing more to it. No ghosts, no angered spirits.
He took a better look at the new arrivals. There were two men and a woman. The men were very different from one another. The blonde one was nicely shaved and trimmed, while the other looked like he’s been in a fight, had a sleepless night and drank his heart out – all in the same time or not exactly in that order. The lady was intriguing, she didn’t look like the others he saw that morning, maybe because of her unusual attire.
He bowed in front of the three just before Genevieve spoke again.
“Someone has to stay in the center and help the others get on the other side!” Genevieve said looking at them. “…one by one…” she continued pointing out the obvious. “Any volunteers?”
He didn’t hesitate to answer. He knew that this was something he could easily do because as a child he often used to climb trees and get on the monastery’s roof without any fear.

“I’ll go!”he shouted. Although the room was bright as day, the air felt cold and heavy around them. He took off his black overcoat and approached Genevieve with caution because she stood near the ridge.
“This will keep you warm” he said covering her trembling body with his coat. She looked at him with a hint of irony in her eyes, maybe thinking that his gesture had no use since the coat was probably as wet and cold as her own clothes, but out of respect she didn’t refuse his gift. To her amazement, the coat was dry and she could clearly see that his hair and other clothes were the same.
The young priest looked up at the right side of the seesaw. The whole thing was made of wood and it looked like he could reach it if he had the proper tools for it. Remembering that there were some crates around the place, he decided to take a look around. Soon enough he found some rope, moldy and damp, but good enough for his plan. He came back near the contraption with the newly improvised lasso and threw it a couple of times so that it would wrap itself around the seesaw. He managed to do it after a couple of times with the help of his usual prayers. He pulled the seesaw downwards, but the thing was still a little higher than the ground.

Vasile was holding the rope tightly and after taking a few steps backwards he reached the archway. He wrapped the other end of the rope around one of the crates and asked one of the men to make sure it was secured enough to hold the seesaw on the right side. He went back and jumped on the seesaw taking as much space as he could to get near the center of it. His foot slipped on the moldy wood while the seesaw lost its balance and the young man found himself on his stomach on one of the sides. A rusty old nail pierced his left side on the way and Vasile clenched his teeth not to scream. The pain was agonizing. He slowly crawled upwards, holding the seesaw tightly, trying to reach the center. That took him five minutes or so, but it felt like eternity. When he finally reached the center, he stood up and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt revealing the strange animal scratches on his left arm.
“Who’s first?” he asked panting as the pain under his ribs grew in intensity.