Reaper's Word

Chapter 9: Another Arrival

Clair knew that the hell hounds were down in the caves. She'd heard him mention something to the one named Beta about taking things down there. The hell hounds had eaten everything left in the kitchen now that they had no humans to snack on. Clair was glad for her small stash that she had.

She moved toward the left wing where she hadn't explored much. Here she found many more bedrooms than actual rooms of use. This was why he stayed toward the right side of the house. Not a lot on this side it would seem.

Clair went down a short set of stone steps and a stretch here had only windows. She looked out at the day and touched the glass. Snow was coming down. It wasn't sticking to the ground yet but it was so soft and pretty. It made her feel a kind of bubble inflate in her chest. Today wasn't such a bad day, she just needed to keep Isaiah ignorant of her being alive. It wasn't so bad then.

She found a kind of greenhouse as she opened a glass door at the end of the stone hallway. Clair had on a tighter fitting turtleneck that she had found. It was a dark red color and made her hair appear almost black. She still wore the pair of jeans that fit her as well. She was hoping to find a better bra though. This one wasn't doing the job all that well anymore. It was hard to run and do physical activities when you had a larger chest. Not that she was huge, but she had enough there.

She looked at the plants growing in here. They were all different shades of green with some reds and purples, one plant was hot pink. Flowers of every color were in here, and she instantly wanted to draw it. She looked at the hot pink plant with its spade shaped leaves and the dark red veins that it had.

"Beautiful." She didn't touch it, probably poisonous.

Clair moved on though and felt the temperature drop as she left the green house. Along with the humidity. She went down the hall here looking for anything that might be an art room. She went down a flight of stairs and was growing discouraged until she opened the second to last door at the end of the short hall.

The room was large and square with a huge table in the center and stools. There were easels against the wall and what looked like closets. Along with large filing cabinets and drawers built into the walls.

She stepped into it and was in awe of the supplies here. Anything she could possibly want to work with was here. Once again she wondered at this place. She went to the cabinets in the wall to see what was in there. Three were drawers with different types of drawing paper. Special types of other paper for different media.

She moved to the next set of cabinets and opened the top drawer. All different types of pencils, depending on hardness or softness. They were covered by a sheet of glass that popped up when pressed. There were also colored pencils here and from lead to charcoal. The next drawer down held contie crayons, compressed charcoal, and oil crayons. She looked down the next three drawers and was amazed at the things in here. It reminded her of her case, but on a bigger scale. She thought about this, there was no denying magic ran through the house. Could it create things once it made contact with them? Refresh them or make a room with them? The one thing she noticed didn’t regenerate was food. This place was wild.

No way that someone just thought to stock something like this. Not to mention the shape that they were in. Perfect like no one had ever touched them. If she were going to have a studio it would be this one. She grabbed an easel and stool and then pulled a little cart to her to grab what she wanted. Before sitting, Clair checked the hall and locked the greenhouse door. All was silent. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Heading back to the room she looked at it. She was going to draw, it kept her mentally sound. Today it would be charcoal and some white contie crayon. With nothing else to do, and no where to really go she pulled up a seat. She felt pretty safe, this part seemed very neglected.

“If Anyone is listening.” She stared up at the ceiling feeling a tear try to escape. “Let me just have this one moment. This one space.” She looked back at the items she picked. She sighed, and for a moment she thought the room might feel warmer but she ignored it.

Clair started in on the picture and worked for a good amount of time. She was coated in charcoal by the time she felt that she was finished and set the picture aside. It looked excellent, one of her best she thought. It was the image she'd memorized from the Piano room.

Isaiah and the three hounds. She moved forward and fixed a couple things and played with the gum eraser in her hand cleaning it. She was inspired now and wanted to do a second one. While it was going to be a bit darker she still wanted to do it. The image was burned in her head.

She started to draw and everything else fell away from her, dangerous considering where she was. Still she felt that this part of the house was extremely neglected and unused. So it gave her a bit of security. She worked through the night on the images and set them next to each other looking at them.

She tipped her head. Her hair was pulled back and bits falling around her face. She kept going up to them and fixing things or adding a bit to them. In the end she had two very life-like pictures. One that gave a calm and peaceful look, the other anger and terror.

The second drawing she'd done was of the hell hounds as they really were. Moving around Isaiah as she figured he must be the thing from the three nights. In the picture were the humans, James holding the weapon up and the other two in poses ready to flee.

Normally one would think this picture with the man facing down the demons and would want him to triumph. But the picture was dark and gave a feeling of helplessness as well. That created a kind of sadness. As if you knew the end was not a good one.

She found some fixative and thought perhaps she shouldn't use it as it smelled a bit. She shrugged, why not? She sprayed the two pictures and then put them in the empty closet space to hide them but kept them so they would stay flat.

Clair cleaned up and left the room making her way back to her home in the walls and crawled over the blankets and grabbed her pillow falling asleep as the first rays of light came over the mountains.

The next four or five days, Clair was losing count now, she made her way down to the art room. She would lose herself in drawing. This was her escape. This was her haven in the house, Isaiah and the hounds had the other side.

She'd taken her music player with her. She had a plug for it and it was in her smaller bag of art supplies. She drew the house, the gardens. She drew the green house and different plants. Sometimes she would paint or use acrylic crayons.

She tried all the media, all the different paper and styles. She kept everything neat and tidy in a large drawer with different separating layers. Every time she left and came back it seemed that the room cleaned itself and renewed the media. Everything was spotless and replenished.

There was a calm and welcoming air to the room. As if it was happy to be used, like being neglected for so long had caused it grief. She felt safe down here, and she had yet to even see Isaiah move in this direction. She did spend a few hours everyday watching him. Making sure he wasn’t doing anything she should worry about.

He was growing a bit lethargic, the color of his eyes slowly turning blacker. They were nearly solid black now. She thought that perhaps she should hold off going down to the room but she just couldn't help it, she kept going. She also kept a closer eye on his movements.

"I'm running low on food." Clair said to herself. She took a bite of her granola bar and took a drink of the water looking at the hell hound picture she had just drawn. She had done one for each of them. Learning their names from the conversations that Isaiah had with them.

She kept Beta's a bit more calm and subdued. His was a side profile with his head down as if he found something very interesting on the ground before him. He was simply moving through a rather nondescript room. Keeping him the subject. Keeping the feeling that he was the calm center.

Next was Zeta, and from what Clair had seen she was fierce and had a temper. Hers was a side profile as well, but the hair on her back was raised slightly and her head was low and looking at the viewer. A great deal of work had been put into the eyes. To make them intense, her jaws slightly agape with something dripping from them.

Alpha came last, he had a regal air about him. The way that he sat there a three quarters view. His head turned toward the viewer but not so focused as she'd made Zeta's. His gaze was more general as if he was taking in the viewer and all that was around him. His large tail wrapped around his side and his body was stiff and straight.

"Perfect." She said to herself. All of the hell hounds had rather nondescript backgrounds too. When looking at it, it felt as if they were nowhere, but somewhere at the same time. Just where they should be. Her last hanging there was Isaiah. They were after all her main subjects in the house besides the house itself, and she was slowly drawing different rooms.

Isaiah she had a harder time with, unsure of how to portray him. She picked a side profile for him. He stood looking out a window and his front was easily illuminated. She had caught the casual look of how he wore his clothes, the way that he stood. At first glance there was a rather thoughtful expression on his face, but it was the eyes that changed that.

They were very focused on something, like he knew exactly what he wanted and was fixed on it. His gaze was at odds with the uncaring way he held his body. She kept the hair unruly as he seemed to wear it. A bit more tamed in this picture to give a refined grace about him as a few locks fell over his forehead.

"There's something messed up with a person who drawers their killers." She gave a smile and then a bow to the pictures. "I do say that I am quite talented. why of course you are." She spoke to herself.

Clair put the drawings into the large cabinet in the closet. She'd missed this one the first few times she'd been in here. It pulled out sideways and had separate compartments that snapped together to hold the art work up straight and flat. She had the drawings and paintings separate in each section and then by subject. They were labeled, greenhouse, general house, I.Z.A.B.

She put her things away and thanked the room for the good session and left. She was almost up the stairs when she felt a shiver go down her spine and a warm sensation rush over her skin. Someone was coming, she didn't know how but she knew.

Clair ran to the front of the house and tried to look out the front. It was a few minutes before she saw several cars pulling up. She tried to move forward but there was an invisible wall there, she touched it and it was solid.

She moved to a different part to get past but couldn't, she was trapped in this part of the house. She couldn't go near the front entrance. She circled back to the kitchen area and found that she could get in here, and that it was freshly stocked.

She grabbed a cloth bag left behind and could see someone walking away from the outside door. Their back to her. They must have just been in here restocking...her panicked shoving of things into the bag slowed.

"Others are coming." This hit her and she swallowed, but deep inside she felt this was a good thing. She wouldn't have to be so on her toes. She could be a little less terrified that she would be found by Isaiah and torn apart or drained dry.

Clair stuffed her bag and opened the fridge. Fresh fruit was there and she needed that, needed vitamins. She'd found a bottle of them but this was good. She grabbed a peach and ate it and then grabbed an apple eating that too.

Clair hadn't realized how starved for good food she was. She rummaged through the fridge and grabbed some of the deli meat and then bread and made herself a large sandwich. It was going to be a while before she got this again. She also continued to glance at the doors and feel around her. She wasn't going to be caught when she made it this far.

The sound of laughter and a larger crowd came to her. She moved toward the kitchen door and peaked in. The dining room table was gone and instead the room was set up for what looked like a gathering of some kind. Not a party per say, but then she noted the stuff on the tables around the room.

"Drugs?" She said to herself in shock. There was definite drug paraphernalia. While she'd never touched the stuff, there was enough there to tell her that a small fortune had been spent on it. She wasn't going to waste her breath on them. One it would go unheeded and she'd expose herself to Isaiah. She moved back and took her bag of food, eating her sandwich and holding a container of orange juice. Honestly she needed to slow down, her stomach hurt. However it felt so good to be full.

As she came to the hall that connected to the main staircase she heard Isaiah's voice. A different man too, she glanced around the corner. Isaiah it seemed couldn't reach the man but it was clear that he wanted to. She'd never seen such a feral look as right then and there. She listened only for a moment, before slipping away unseen.