PATTERNS
by ardavenport
~~O~~O~~ Part 1
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are entering the library." The tour guide ushered her throng into a book-lined room. Dutifully viewing the room, they wandered within the confines of the roped off areas before reforming into an attentive group for their guide. She expounded upon the literary tastes of the house's previous owners while the eyes of her audience admired the room's high-ceilinged splendor. When she was was done they all filed out to the next room. A man and a woman quietly materialized at the end of the line of stragglers and followed the others out.
The group strolled through a wood-paneled study.
/Sapphire, we don't need to be here. We should be looking at the house./ The man told his companion without speaking aloud. He was blond, appeared to be of an indeterminate age between thirty and fifty-five and wore a plain dark gray suit with a black tie and shoes.
/We are looking at the house. Besides, whatever's wrong here has something to do with people. Many people./ She, also blonde and pretty, looked to be in her thirties and wore a simple blue dress and shoes that matched her eyes.
/These people?/ The tour entered a hallway leading to an extension of the house.
/No. At least, not all of them./
The tour group continued down the hall and stopped in a domed, circular almost-room. Gesturing toward the end of the hallway ahead, the guide described new additions to the building; a conservatory, guest rooms and modern plumbing. The men and women admired the windows exposing the gardens outside on either side of the hall and the beautiful circular mosaic on the floor they crossed when they passed under the sky-lighted dome. Further down, the walls were hung with paintings and statues occupied alcoves between them.
/Steel, wait./
Sapphire's companion stopped in mid-stride. A short, balding man shouldered his way past him.
/What is it?/ he asked.
/That woman, there./
/Where?/
/Over there on your left./ Steel saw a brown-haired woman wearing a maroon skirt and jacket. She paused, as if dizzy; the floor seemed fuzzy under her.
Sapphire saw the colors of the mosaic floor stretching up over the woman's feet, like mud trying to suck her in. She stumbled, but continued on. Once off the mosaic she glanced back, concerned, but she didn't stop.
/It's here Steel. Did you see it?/
/Yes. Is it the floor or the woman?/
/The floor./
/That's where Time has weaken then. What about her?/
/She's part of it somehow./ Sapphire's gazed followed the tour group. Most of them had crossed the circular part of the hall, the woman in maroon among them. Steel took a step forward.
/No, Steel. Walk around the edges. Don't step on the pattern./
Carefully they walked on the polished gray marble surrounding the central pattern. A few people glanced their way.
/Act naturally, Steel. You look as if you're stalking a lion. Pretend to admire the view./
They arrived at the far doorway and moved on.
The tour continued with no more mishaps.
"And that concludes our tour of Mayford House. We do hope you've enjoyed this special press tour. We will be opening for the public in exactly two weeks, on the 8th." The guide, her eyes peeking over her horn rimmed glasses, invitingly smiled through thin red lips at her guests. The effect was almost frightening. "And now, you may meet the curator and staff of Mayford House out on the lawn. Refreshments will be served."
On the lawn the crowd enjoyed tea and punch and an assortment of sweets and hors d'oeuvres. A string quartet played appropriate background music. Sapphire and Steel caught up with the woman in the maroon skirt at the the refreshment table where she conversed with a slender, brown-haired woman in a sweater and a Flowered dress.
"Oh, you're from Croydon!" the flowered-dress woman exclaimed.
"South Croydon," the maroon-skirt womand corrected.
"And you write for the newspapers? That must be very exciting. I only work in a bookstore in Rickmansworth."
The maroon-skirt woman nodded politely and sensing the beginnings of a boring conversation excused herself, politely turned away.
"Hello." Sapphire smiled brightly at the smaller woman, who started when she suddenly found herself facing two new people. "Quite a party, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, it is." She looked from one to the other. "I'm Sarah Jane Smith, Sunday Parade." She politely extended her hand. Sapphire took it.
/Human. 155 cm.; 58 kilograms . . . /
"My name is Sapphire. This is Mr. Steel. We're with Stately Homes magazine."
/ . . . . intelligent, but worried. She knows something happened back there in the hallway. Age . . . . /
"Oh really? I've never heard of it."
"It's new."
"Are you a regular writer for Sunday Parade?" Steel asked.
"For awhile at least, but I usually do freelance work.", she answered.
/Steel, she was born on May 16, 1956./
/So?/
"And you're planning on doing a story on this place?"
/She's 30.2 years old./
"Yes, if it sells," she told him, wondering if his questions were leading to anything.
/That's impossible, she's . . . . /
/ . . . . nearly twenty-two months older than she's supposed to be./
"I'm sure it will," Sapphire reassured.
"Ah, Miss Smith!" Their host, the curator of Mayford House, Mr Rosini, approached smiling. "I've been looking forward to meeting you." Sarah quickly reclaimed her hand from Sapphire and turned to the Italian.
"I hope you don't mind if I tear you away from your friends here, but I do so much want to have a little chat with you." He led her away.
/Is she of this time, Sapphire?/
/Yes, she does belong here./
/Then why does she have those extra twenty-two months?/
/I don't know./
/Does it have anything to do with what happened in that hallway?/
/I'm not sure./
/Then we'll need to find out./
/We can't go searching the house openly. There are too many people about. We'll have to slip away casually./ Sapphire helped herself to some tea and cookies. /Would you like some?/
"No." Steel spoke aloud, reigning in his impatience and scannin the crowd. "'Mister Steel?'" he quoted disdainfully.
"Well, people are used to surnames in this time." She sipped her tea. They began to stroll in the general direction of the house.
"You don't have one."
"Of course not. I don't need one."
/Steel./ Sapphire called from where she was observing the kitchen staff.
/What is it?/ Steel paused in his investigation of some of the upper rooms that hadn't been included in the tour.
/The reception is breaking up. The guests are leaving./
/Good./
/Sarah Jane Smith isn't among them./
/Is she still in the house?
/Yes./
/Leave her for now, then. Have you found anything?/
No answer.
/Sapphire? What is it?/
/I thought I saw someone watching me./
/You thought you saw someone? Aren't you sure?/
/I don't know. I only caught a glimpse, a person standing, looking at me. But when I turned there wasn't anyone there. I can't understand how anyone could move so quickly./ Another pause. /The staff, they're gone now. There's no one in the kitchen area or any of the store rooms./
/You said the party was breaking up./ Steel's mental voice was impatient.
/Yes. But the staff has disappeared. They haven't finished cleaning up./
/Where did they go?/
/Downstairs./
/Look into it. See what they're up to. I'll finish up here./
/Have you found anything?/
/No./
Sapphire looked over her shoulder back to the shadows where she thought she had seen movement. She quietly slipped out of the pantry.
"And we have a most special exhibit in the cellar." Rosini ushered Sarah down the narrow but well lit concrete steps. She ran a hand along the gray wall in the absence of a guard rail "It was brought up, piece by piece, from Italy in 1962 by Robert Broadstreet, the banker who purchased this house from Lord Hayford, who needed to pay off his rather substantial gambling debts." At the bottom of the stairs he held e wooden door open for her. Sarah peered into a less well lit basement area suspiciously and then looked appraisingly at the man holding the door.
"Why wasn't it in the tour?"
"Ah," Rosini nodded, a little embarrassed. "We were rather hoping for a dramatic debut for this part, and we thought that with your connections with the Times . . . . " He let the sentence trail off, letting her make her own conclusions.
"I see," Sarah answered. "I'm sure that if you call the Times yourself they'll be very pleased to inspect your cellar." She smiled and turned away.
"Miss Smith."
Sarah turned back. Rosini, his dark eyes no longer friendly, held a gun pointed at her.
"I can't let you go after getting you this far, Miss Smith." He gestured toward the doorway.
"I might scream. Everyone else would hear."
"Then I might have nothing to lose by shooting you."
Sarah weighed her chances. Self-defense had never been one of her strong points. Warily she walked through the door, her host stepped back to let her pass. Rosini switched on an overhead light and she entered a bare room with an unfinished ceiling. Boxes and barrels lined the walls. Rosini nodded toward a metal door alone on the far wall. With his graying black hair and well tailored suit all he needed was a wide brimmed hat to make him into the perfect gangster. Or killer.
"What do you really have down here?" she asked.
"A reconstruction of an ancient temple. Well, not quite a reconstruction. It's in fact the genuine article, brought up, as I said, by Mr. Broadstreet." He motioned her across the cool, stone floor to the door which she reluctantly opened. Sarah stepped to the center of the next room.
"Oh no." She turned around in the large, columned stone room. She stood alone and shadowless under a single bare electric bulb. "The Temple of Demnos."
"You - you recognize it," Rosini whispered lowering his weapon. "You know." Never looking away from Sarah, he began to circle around her toward the raised stone alter.
The overhead light went out. Simultaneously, torches blazed into life, illuminating the black cowled apparitions that held them. The followers of Demnos appeared from behind the altar, pillars, doorways. Sarah recognized members of the house staff and even a few people from the tour. The tour guide smiled evilly at her from the shadows under a cowl. The door slammed shut with the finality of a lock clicking home.
~~O~~O~~O~~O~~
/Steel?/
Steel paused in his visual search of an upstairs closet.
/What?/
/Miss Smith is being attacked./
Steel straightened and disappeared from the upstairs room and rematerialized next to Sapphire in the basement. She waited for him by a gray door, her eyes pointing the way. He placed a hand above the door handle releasing the lock. He then faded and passed through the door.
He stood in the shadows of a torch-lit temple chamber. A crowd of about two dozen black robed humans solemnly watched while four of their number held a resisting Smith to a stone altar at the far end of the room. A red-robed figure wearing a grotesque metal mask presided over the ceremony while another masked human approached with a cup of steaming liquid.
Silently Steel put out the torches, the flames dying quickly in the sudden airlessness immediately about them. He ran across the room and pushed aside the bodies clustered at the altar. He grabbed a forearm and dragged Sarah down the steps. She stumbled in the darkness but he did not slow down, not concerning himself with any mere bruises she might acquire in the rescue.
Reaching the door, he pushed it open and thrust the woman out of the room and towards the stairs. Once outside himself, he relocked the door and froze the mechanism. Muffled shouts came from the door seconds later before it strained from a massed attempt to open it. Having disposed of the immediate technical details, he followed the woman and his partner upstairs. After the three had left, a reddish glow illuminated the crack under the metal door. The shouts increased in volume momentarily before fading away entirely.
~~O~~O~~ End Part 1