Chapter VII

Quiet draped the path out of the forest, a silence deep and absolute in the wake of the chase. The frigid winter air drifted across the landscape, a whisper of ice, teasing loose snow into a fleeting ballet across the frozen ground. Ahead, the manor stood in austere grandeur, a massive silhouette etched against the stark white of the mountain. Snow-laden pines, silent sentinels, ringed its base, completing the scene of desolate majesty. 

"Finally," Watters exhaled, sliding stiffly from the saddle of the massive horse. "Mayor Mikkelson can summon the Order… end this madness at last." He stretched, his joints protesting with a chorus of pops and cracks. 

Grimm dismounted, his movements fluid and silent, a skeptical grunt escaping his lips. "Why assume the Order will ride to our aid, Doctor?" he countered, his voice edged with steel. "Barrowham lies in ruin, and still no banner flies from the horizon. I fear, Doctor, we face something far more… insidious than mere neglect." 

"You know, Grimm," Watters observed, a thread of genuine curiosity woven into his doubt, "you hold a… rather dim view of the Order. Something more than general principle at play, I suspect." 

Grimm's eyes tightened, the faintest spark of flint striking beneath the surface. "Skeptical?" he echoed, the word laced with a quiet disdain that cut deeper than any scoff. "The Order is not merely flawed, Doctor. It is rotted. A gilded cage built by zealotry and fueled by avarice. They offer protection as wolves guard sheep, and lead the flock to slaughter in their name." 

"The Crusades… that's your touchstone of grievance, is it?" Watters remarked, flicking snowflakes from his lapel. 

Grimm's jaw tightened. "Grievance is too mild a word, Doctor." His voice dropped, hardening like iron in winter. "I speak of the Order's true crusade: control. The Great Crusades… a convenient pretext to seize power, to crush anything that challenged their authority. Cryptids… they were different, yes. Outside their control. And that, Doctor, was the true sin in the Order's eyes. Not danger. Not peace. Control." 

"So, you're saying the monsters are the victims now, is that it?" Watters pressed, his skepticism curdling into open hostility, his gaze fixed accusingly on Grimm. 

Grimm exploded. "Victims?!" he bellowed, his voice ripping through the quiet, raw with fury. "Doctor, you twist my words with a childish willfulness!" Watters flinched back as if struck, his initial defiance collapsing inwards. 

"Right, right, understood," Watters stammered, retreating behind a wall of detached observation. He busied himself adjusting his coat, his earlier bravado utterly extinguished. 

"Cryptid or Crusader… it's all just names for the same bloody cycle, Doctor. Your Order? A whisper on the wind. An empty promise in a storm. Where is their righteous fury now? Where are their angels when the darkness falls? You place your faith in ghosts, and call it skepticism. I see more than doubt in your eyes, Doctor. I see the haunted look of a man who's stared into the abyss. Your hands… they still remember the cold grip of fear. You fought for them, bled for them, believed for them. And still, you question? After all you've seen… are you still so blind, Doctor?" 

The air crackled with unspoken tension, thick and suffocating. The wind lashed against Grimm's coat, a furious, restless energy mirroring the storm within him. 

"Mark me, Doctor," Grimm broke the silence, his voice flat and edged with ice, a clear threat underlying the words. "Your ignorance is a liability here. And your… obstinate doubt will drag us both into the grave." 

"Wait, I—" Watters began, attempting a placating tone, but Grimm's next words cut him off like a knife. 

"What do you intend to do beyond question everything and contribute nothing, Doctor?" 

Before the doctor could respond, a loud slam echoed from the manor drawing attention from Watters and Grimm. "What was that?" Watters whispered. 

Grimm reached behind him, drawing his rifle close to his shoulder. "Put your foolishness aside, Doctor, we have work to do.". Watters grasped the letter opener, following closely behind Grimm. 

What darkness has the Order cast upon this man, that their very name ignites such a firestorm of rage? he wondered. Surely Mayor Mikkelson will see reason. Surely, despite Grimm's pronouncements, the Order must answer Barrowham's cry. I know they will. They must. 

They moved across the manor lawn, the snow crunching softly underfoot, the only sound in the vast stillness. It was almost too perfect, too untouched by the night's violence, that the manor stood, windows blazing warmly. As they approached the main doors, the unspoken unease between them solidified into a cold certainty. 

Watters stopped short, his breath catching in his throat. "It's… open," he managed, barely a thread of sound, clutching the letter opener. Grimm's only response was a silent shift, the almost imperceptible rasp of metal on metal as he readied his rifle. He inclined his head, a minimal, unspoken command. 

They edged towards the open doorway, each footfall heavy with unspoken apprehension, crossing the threshold into the manor felt like plunging into the maw of an enigma. 

The entrance hall unfolded before them, a cavernous space of echoing silence. A sweeping double staircase climbed into the shadows of the upper story, and twin corridors vanished into the depths of the manor's wings. Warmth wafted from within, a deceptive invitation in the face of the absolute stillness. Grimm moved with silent purpose, his senses sharp and alert, systematically clearing the immediate chambers, a phantom stalking through a tomb. 

Time stretched, marked only by Grimm's silent passage through the manor's depths. Each chamber he checked returned the same verdict: empty. "Vacant," Grimm stated finally, his voice flat, devoid of reassurance, lowering his rifle but maintaining a vigilant stance. 

"It makes no sense," Watters murmured, his brow furrowed. "Lights ablaze, door ajar… it's as if he simply vanished. Who abandons a home like this?" A gust of wind sighed through the open doorway, a mournful whisper in the unnerving silence of the deserted manor. They stood alone, two figures adrift in an echoing void. 

Watters scanned the expansive foyer, his gaze settling on a heavy, emerald-green double door nestled beneath the grand staircase. "That room," he began, his voice barely above a whisper, "Have we… checked there?" 

Grimm's eyes followed Watters' line of sight, his gaze sharp and assessing. "No," he confirmed, his tone clipped and decisive, pivoting towards the green doors, rifle held ready. Watters shadowed his advance, his letter opener feeling utterly insignificant in his grasp. Grimm approached the door with deliberate caution, hefting the rifle in a practiced grip, his finger ghosting the trigger. His free hand, moving with agonizing slowness, reached for the handle. Locked. 

"Then a key is needed, it seems," Watters began, a faint trace of his usual intellectualism returning, "Perhaps the west wi–" His words shattered, cut short by a deafening crash that reverberated from behind them, ripping through the oppressive silence. "What in the hell…?" he gasped, turning sharply to find Grimm a looming silhouette framed in the now gaping doorway, the green doors sprung wide with a force unseen. 

"Hm, well then..." Watters muttered, pausing at the threshold, taking in the improbable sight. The room unveiled itself: a towering library, a testament to both intellect and obsession. Row upon row of books, leather and vellum worn with age, pressed against the walls. Below, tables lay laden with the tools of research, instruments arranged in a meticulous, if cluttered, order. A wrought-iron spiral staircase climbed like frozen ivy towards the shadowed upper shelves. And then there was the pedestal, centered precisely in the room, a somber iron stand, its book holder elaborate yet bare, suggesting not oversight, but a deliberate vacancy. 

To their right, a beacon of normalcy in this unsettling place, stood a dusty copper telephone, its base heavy and intricately cast, adorned with a single, aged dial. "There!" Watters exclaimed, a tide of relief washing over him, as he surged towards the phone. It was as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and with trembling hands, he snatched the handset and began to frantically spin the rotary dial, his finger a blur of desperate motion. 

He pressed the receiver to his ear, the stark, mechanical burr of the ringing echoing in his skull, a pulse of fragile hope in the oppressive silence. 

While Watters drummed his fingers impatiently on the pedestal, a nervous tic against the unnerving silence, Grimm moved with quiet purpose, his gaze sweeping over the instruments and texts scattered across the library tables, a detached observer in this scholarly chaos. 

The phone's ringing stretched on, an insistent mechanical plea swallowed by the manor's oppressive quiet. After an eternity, a sharp click shattered the silence. "Yes, yes, hello?" Watters burst out, his voice a raw urgency, "Doctor Theodore Watters, Barrowham practitioner. We are in dire need of Order assistance—immediately!" The line remained thick with static, a ghostly hiss that masked all but the faintest, unsettling sound of breathing. "Hello? Is anyone there?" Watters pressed, his hope fraying at the edges. 

The breathing persisted, a chillingly deliberate pause. Then, a voice, utterly devoid of inflection, cold and flat as winter stone, responded, "State the nature of your communication." "Creatures! They've overrun Barrowham! Killing… everyone!" Watters clambered over his words, panic rising in his voice, "Werewolv—I, I mean, Lycans! Send help now!" he exclaimed, his voice sharpening with desperation. 

A chilling silence descended upon Watters, broken only by the faint, unsettling tick-tick-tick of something mechanical in the distance. "And… your assigned town leader?" the voice inquired, its flatness almost inhuman, devoid of any cadence. "Mayor Galdur Mikkelson," Watters replied, his voice a hesitant echo in the sudden void. The line fell utterly silent once more, the oppressive quiet now laced with a new, icy dread. 

Time stretched, each second amplifying the unnerving stillness. Grimm continued his slow, deliberate circuit of the room, his senses heightened, absorbing the sheer, overwhelming volume of books. There must have been legions of volumes here, a vast repository of forbidden knowledge, blending arcane mysticism with precise scientific inquiry. A prickling unease began to crawl beneath Grimm's skin, a sense of something deeply wrong with this place. As he moved, a sudden, inexplicable rush of hot air brushed against his face, a disconcerting warmth in the heart of winter. 

"Hello, is anyone there?" Watters shouted, his impatience bordering on panic. The audio shifted on the line, a series of rapid clicks giving way to a signal suddenly, disturbingly clear. A gravelly voice, colder and more commanding, emerged from the receiver, sharp with suspicion. "Who gave you this number?" it demanded, the question landing like a gauntlet thrown. 

"Mayor Mikkelson's manor… Barrowham," Watters began, his voice losing conviction. "Doctor Theodore Watters. We urgently require assistance—our town—" 

"Galdur Mikkelson?" the voice snapped back, disbelief and dismissal hardening its tone. Watters' blood ran cold. "There is no Mayor Mikkelson now. He's been dead these past years. We installed a priest. Where are you exactly?" The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken implication. 

"Barrowham…" Watters whispered, the name a lead weight on his tongue, the realization chilling him to the bone. 

Grimm, oblivious to the chilling exchange, turned his attention fully to the unexplained heat, a tangible anomaly in the frigid air. He trailed his fingers along the bookshelf, the warmth intensifying behind the densely packed volumes. Grimm's eyes narrowed, scanning the spines, searching for any disruption, any hidden mechanism. Then, he saw it: a jarring splash of color amidst the somber browns and blacks—a book bound in vibrant red leather, its title emblazoned in gold: "Transmutation." "Watters!" Grimm barked, his voice a command echoing through the sudden tension. 

"Location," the voice on the phone demanded, its patience abruptly gone, before being severed mid-word. Simultaneously, darkness swallowed the manor whole, the lights dying in a sudden, unnerving plunge. 

Grimm's fist gripped the book, wrenching it from the shelf. A mechanical snick, followed by a blast of furnace heat, announced the passage's opening. "Watters! Now!" Grimm roared, his rifle already rising. 

Watters leapt, reacting instantly to Grimm's command. "Go!" Grimm bellowed, his hand shoving Watters towards the opening, his gaze fixed on the hallway beyond. Screams and howls exploded from the outer reaches of the library, closing fast. "Move, damn it!" Grimm thundered. Watters dove into the narrow gap, scrambling through the rough stone opening. Grimm backed into the passage after him, eyes sweeping the doorway, catching the glint of feral eyes in the shadows. He spun, shoulder slamming the hidden door shut, the latch clicking audibly as it engaged. 

Watters pressed himself deeper into the passage wall, his back scraping against the rough stone, staring at the sealed bookshelf, now an impenetrable face in the suffocating dimness. His heart hammered a desperate tattoo against his ribs, his body drenched in a cold, clammy fear that clung to him like the passage walls. He gasped, his voice catching in his throat, a strangled sound of pure, raw panic, "We're…" 

"Trapped," he stated, the words clipped and definitive, devoid of comfort. He stepped deeper into the passage, the confined space pressing in, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and an unspoken, shared dread. The faint drip… drip… drip… of water echoed around them, a metronome counting down to an unknown fate. Grimm's rifle, a dark presence in the gloom, remained raised, a silent promise of vigilance against the darkness that now surrounded them, before and behind. Trapped, they were, not just by stone, but by the silence itself, and the unseen horrors beyond it.