Midnight Creek Tales

#4. The Duchess' Lost Portrait / Chapter 10

I feared for my life, and I didn't know if the Duchess knew if I was behind the wall, surely a ghost or spirit could easily go through one? But yet again she wasn't transparent? She did however, display that she had telekinetic powers back there with those darts.

Maybe there was a phone down in the study...

As I stayed quiet, I turned my attention to what was in front of me. I realized why I was here, and then a smile outstretched across my face.

When I was making the mansion, I ordered workers to hide secret escape routes in case of a burglary or some type of emergency! I stood up in amazement, as I noticed that this was my old study!

Rows of books arranged everywhere, more abundant than any library in England! Maybe there could be something to help me defeat the Duchess! Something I could read about her and find her weakness!

I stood up still shaking. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took a deep breath. The coast seemed clear to me, and I slowly began to tiptoe to the librarian's nirvana that stood in front of me.

As I walked up to the shelves mesmerized, I had to remind myself that I had a job to do. Luckily I had my construction men categorize every single book and shelf in this study.

The lights were turned on as if someone was already here, and slowly I began to feel an uncomfortable presence around me...

Troubled, I decided to go ahead and take the risk of looking for a book that could help.

It seemed to be from my angle that I was at the end of the library, so someone must've come in from the front. This was a secret room entirely so I couldn't imagine who else could've known about this prior. As I continued further down the path of shelves I felt more uncertainty growing...

Tap, tap, tap!

I heard footsteps and flipping pages echoing throughout the library, and I froze like an iceberg. The steps began to come closer and closer until I could see a shadow behind me coming from an aisle of books. In a flash, I grabbed my crucifix and raised it up in front of me, now shaking once again in uncontrollable fear.

As I closed my eyes, I heard a familiar voice, "Is that you, Cole?"

I picked my head up and opened my eyes as my face changed from terror to excitement!

"Terry you old sun of a gun, where have you been? I thought you were dead?!"

I let my guard down and walked towards him. Our eyes met, and we gave each other a hearty hug. I could hear his pulsating heart thumping fast against mine. I now knew I wasn't going to have to battle this demon alone.

"How did you manage to find the secret entrance to the study? I don't remember ever telling you about it?"

"I found it completely on luck! When I heard that crash in the parlor room, I started running away. I tried to open the front door, but it was locked. So I began to run, and I had no light! In one hallway I laid my back onto the wall, and to my astonishment, the wall opened for me! I didn't think I'd ever find you! Where are the guys anyway? Are they lost? And what the hell happened to your shoulder?"

My facial expression quickly changed, and I began to tell him what had transpired after he fled. "We had found Starkey hanging from his intestines in the fireplace, as for Brown he was pelted with darts through his vital organs, and she managed to get me on my shoulder, and Radcliffe didn't make it... If you could hear the whole screaming and gushing coming from the end of the study, it was Radcliffe. It was horribly unfortunate that the door didn't open for him."

Terry stood there with his eyes now down at his feet. "How can that be? The door opened for you and me, why not Radcliffe?"

"I think she has telekinetic powers; maybe she kept it shut this time..."

We stood there in sorrowful silence until Terry lightened the mood with a ray of hope, "Look as bad as it seems, I might have some insight on this 'Lost Duchess.'"

My eyes lit up.

I began to follow him as he went down the aisles and suddenly came to a stop as we reached a large long desk with seats. The desk outstretched for meters and was something that a university dreamed of owning.

On top of the massive desk there were tons of books with open and bookmarked pages, notes being jotted down with a quilled pen, and a small little bottle of ink right at the corner of the desk opened with the top off.

"As you can see I've been busy."

"What is all this?" I asked looking through what was on the table.

"Well when you said that this was The Lost Duchess from France, I decided to do a little bit of research on her. That then quickly transpired into an excavation of information, and I'm pleased to say that I haven't come up empty handed."

"So what did you find?" I asked now intrigued.

"Well for starters I found an interesting book on French monarchies, and I happened to locate a lengthy description of her life in it." He opened the huge book up to a bookmark and then gave it to me to read. "Go ahead, read it aloud,"

I started to read from the top of the page, "Agnés Trezeguet was the Duchess of France in 1423. She is most notably known for her assassination, more than her actual position. She was to marry Duke Edwards on the night of her birthday on December 7, 1423. The couple was madly in love, so much so they scheduled the wedding only a week after meeting one another. On the night of the marriage on the ride to the church, her carriage was attacked. The horses were reported to have been slaughtered, and the driver's throat was slit when trying to run away.

As for Duke Edwards, he was already at the church when the attack began, as well were most of the guests and royal families of the two. Although she tried to escape the hijacked carriage, she was grabbed out by one of the assassins and was pushed to the cobblestone road where she was then tied up by the five suspects and then taken under a tree.

All five men took turns raping, taunting, and beating her. When her body was found, bruises engulfed her abdominal and vaginal regions, with many knife cuts slicing through her wedding dress. They left her to die in the blistering cold and had set the carriage on fire. However, when they left her she was still conscious. Now from the report of the executed assassins, she most likely had crawled agonizingly to the now burning carriage and pulled out something she was hiding. The rest is unknown. It was later revealed that her castle had been burnt to the ground, and the wedding had been ambushed with seventeen more homicides. The members of the rebellion were arrested and found guilty of murder. One of them was hanged, the next man was shot to death by an arrow firing squad, another one ripped apart by a pack of wolves, and as for the two others their deaths are still unknown to this day as well."

I took a deep breath and paused after the long reading, and stared up at Terry. "So what do you reckon we do now? I don't know how this is going to help us?"

"Take a look at this," He pulled out a big book from the side of the table. At first, I couldn't tell what it was, but one I saw the cross on it, I knew I was holding a Bible. "How are we going to kill this thing with a Bible?"

"I just have it for protection in case she finds us here. I don't know if it has the same effect like the crucifixes had on her, but it's worth a try. To be bloody honest with you, I have taken out many books looking up how to stop her, but I haven't found anything that would be of help yet. We're the first men to figure out she put her soul into the portrait, and I don't know how were going to destroy a spirit from that."

"Say, have you checked out any books on souls or possessions of inanimate objects?"

Terry tried to think as he looked through the piles of books that were on the table which were toppling off at the sides, "I haven't."

"Look we need to find a book on that subject. When I made this secret room, I had purchased over thousands of books on an array of subjects. All are categorized by their subject and then are alphabetically organized."

"Well, we don't have a moment to lose," Terry put down the book that was in his hands. We then started to walk down the long aisles, not knowing what would be lurking in the corners...