Book Eight, Chapter 22: Side Story: The Astralist Part III

Alarmed but without any explicit justification for worry, Logan walked swiftly down the hallway toward the area he knew the maids’ quarters to be. Andrew and Michael were right behind him.

“We asked the help,” Logan said. “She would know where the happy couple sleeps. I bet every dollar in my pocket that’s where Avery is, probably helping out in some way or another.”

It did not take them long to get there. Most of the rooms currently in operation were in one section of the castle.

They approached the small wooden door, and Michael gently knocked on it.

“Lila, it’s Michael,” he said after a few attempts.

There was silence on the other side, though Logan could swear he heard the rattling of a chain or a bolt. Still, there was no answer.

“Lila, I can see light coming from under the door. If you’re in there, we need your help,” Michael added.

Almost immediately, the light under the door disappeared.

Michael continued to knock and call out to her.

“Go away, sir, please,” a voice from behind the door called out. The gentleness and manners the young woman had displayed before were gone. Logan thought she sounded afraid, but that could be explained by the muscular man banging on her door.

“We just want to know if you’ve seen Avery or Doctor Halle, or my sister,” Michael said.

“I haven’t seen anyone. I never do. I am bound to my quarters after my dismissal every night. Please leave me alone. Doctor Halle insists.”

She never did? What did that mean? Still, Simon Halle came from a wealthy family that set strict rules for the help.

“Lila,” Andrew said after it looked like Michael was getting nowhere, “people are missing. Do you know where they might be?”

More silence, and every second that passed, Logan’s stomach dropped further. Somewhere deep within his psyche, instincts screamed at him, telling him that something was wrong. Every moment, he grew more worried, and his imagination began to take off.

“Look, lady,” he said. “We saw that the master bedroom hasn’t been used in years. Where can we find the Halles? Avery must be with them. Tell us. It will only be a moment.”

Still, the door remained shut.

But Lila, it appeared, had finally relented.

“Guests come and go,” she said softly. “I don’t… I don’t see them leave. That isn’t my business. I am to stay in my quarters after being dismissed at night.”

Her voice was trembling, and Logan’s worst fears began to bubble up in his mind. Surely he could trust the love of his life with his oldest friend. What exactly did he fear?

“The housekeeper who trained me went wandering at night once. Doctor Halle dismissed her before morning. I never saw her again. I need this job, and I have no other options. I… I can’t help you.”

“Lila, this is serious,” Michael said.

“Please don’t talk to me,” she implored. “I have to stay put. I must mind my own business.”

As Logan’s fears grew, his desperation did too.

“We will not tell him you talked to us,” he said. “Please. The love of my life is missing, and I have a terrible feeling. Maybe it’s only paranoia, but I don’t think so. Lila, is Avery in trouble?”

“I swear I don’t know anything,” Lila said. “But some nights the lights flicker, like they are tonight. What am I saying? Please leave me be.”

Logan looked back at Andrew and Michael. They were all concerned by the maid’s behavior.

“The poor girl is terrified,” Andrew said.

Logan nodded. “We’ll have to find our own path,” he said. “I assume we’re looking somewhere on the ground floor, with the upstairs being too much of a burden on Anastasia. The castle is huge. Where could we look?”

Andrew furrowed his brow and began to think.

“She says the lights flicker on nights like this, where she huddles in her room and ignores Halle’s comings and goings. You know, Halle’s experiments with astral science were very expensive when it came to electricity. That’s how his more controversial experiments were discovered. Power usage.”

Logan was taken aback. He did not know what logical path Andrew had taken to get to that topic, and he did not want to think about it, but at that point, he had to.

“What controversial experiments?” he asked. “I thought he was exiled from academia for his theories.”

Andrew looked at him sternly, as if considering whether to reveal secret information entrusted to him.

“My understanding, from some of my friends with knowledge of such things, is that his research was in using the astral plane to see over great distances. Remote viewing of the enemy. But he was attempting something more grotesque. He wished to seek out astral energy from the planes beyond and transmute it for its scientific properties.”

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“What the hell does that mean?” Michael asked. “What is astral energy?”

“Souls,” Logan said under his breath. “You’re saying that he was trying to manipulate human souls.”

“He hadn’t had much success. In fact, most merely laughed at his attempts,” Andrew said. “But still, we need to find Avery now.”

Logan was in shock. Were they considering that his oldest friend might be doing human experimentation? Lila had said she had not seen certain guests leave. To Logan’s knowledge, Simon had not entertained any guests at all until them.

“Not to mention Anastasia,” Michael said. “You don’t think he’s been experimenting on her, do you? Trapped all the way in the middle of nowhere in this big castle?”

“On his wife?” Logan asked. “Of course not. Let’s focus on finding them. If he needs lots of power, could that tell us where he is?”

Andrew cautiously nodded his head.

“The most logical place for the electrical breaker to be should be near the kitchen. But then, I’m no mad scientist,” Andrew said.

“Still time to change careers,” Logan said nervously as they ran around a corner toward the kitchens.

They moved from room to room, closet to closet, looking for an electrical breaker or any sign that might lead them to it.

Their search led them to the wine cellar adjacent to the kitchen.

“Just as I predicted,” Andrew said. “And it’s a monster. He must be drawing a lot of current.”

On the far end of the cellar was a large electrical breaker with many different conduits and wires running from it, the bulk of which ran along the cellar wall away from the kitchens and the rest of the castle, down until they disappeared underneath a back wall.

“There’s something back there,” Logan said.