The Tenement*
This was a case that was not only extremely difficult for my colleague, Alex Moreau, but for myself
as well. Although I avoided physical involvement in the situation, its ramifications reached into the very core
of my own emotions and my ability to do my duty as a precept.
The case began innocently enough - born of a good deed. Alex had become aware of a group of
senior citizens who were being victimised by a slum lord. "The Tenement" sat on Mason Street, an
unsavoury part of the city at best; conditions were abominable. Their plight hit close to home for Alex, whose
aunt had lived in such circumstances for over twenty years. Through her efforts, the city stepped in, removed
the tenants, ordered the building brought up to code, and prosecuted the owner.
Alex even helped with the move. It was then that events occurred which turned a humanitarian effort
into a Legacy case. One of the elderly ladies lost her cat. Alex, of course, took it upon herself to find the
errant feline, and while in search, she experienced the paranormal. First the sounds of weeping, then the
vision of a woman, reflected in a mirror. At the time, she gave it little thought. Old buildings are filled with
residual energies; whispers of the past echo through time and space. Those, like Alex, who are more attuned,
are open to such whispers.
A few days later, Alex was called to testify at the sentencing, where she confronted Kyle Vance, the
slum lord, a smarmy young man, who had inherited the building, but preferred ski trips and the "fun" business
of club ownership to responsibilities which involved real lives. Again, she "saw" the apparition and, when
asked what price Mr. Vance should pay for his callous neglect, rather than specifying a monetary settlement
as she had planned, Alex vehemently replied that he should be placed under house arrest in that building
until all repairs were completed. Even then she was somewhat baffled at her own actions, but pushed it aside
as the passions of the moment.
Unfortunately, this turmoil was occurring during our hasty preparations for an archaeological dig near
Aleppo. For years we had been investigating a temple where wall inscriptions were said to detail the late first-century victory of Judeo-Roman, historian Josephus over a powerful, demonic entity, but as yet we had been
unable to gain access to the site itself. It's very frustrating when politics interfere and bureaucrats fail to
comprehend the vital importance of such matters.
The tenement situation was infringing upon Alex's focus. Although we were packed, with suitcases
and chopper waiting, Alex was delving into Legacy.net newspaper files, searching for the source of her
experiences. It was time for me to do something that demanded the persona of Derek Rayne, precept, at
his coldest. Despite the fact that my colleague had worked for four years on the Josephus Wall project and
probably had the most expertise, I ordered her to remain behind to resolve the Mason Street Case. "You
started something and it's your responsibility to finish it," I said. She was not happy. Nick objected as well,
back to the old issue of being in the field without backup. If only it were a perfect world where backup was
always possible, or where backup was never needed. I had to stand firm. End of discussion. More issues had
to be resolved than the Wall of Josephus and the Mason Street tenement. Nick and I left for Syria without
her. Had she not stayed, it would have cost Kyle Vance his soul.
No sooner had Mr. Vance settled into his new, less luxurious home, than he began to experience
the apparition himself - a woman with shining eyes and a lion's mane of red hair who evaporated into cold
mist. Within hours he was going stir-crazy and edging toward panic as lights failed, phone failed, rats made
noise. Call after call to friends, especially lady friends, yielded no assistance. Again he saw the apparition,
who this time spoke, knew his name, invited him upstairs to her abode. Fortunately, she was interrupted by
screams and he hurried away in search of their source.
Vance entered a room to see a man in white tie and tails flee after having bludgeoned a man and
woman, whose corpses lay nude and bloodied, sprawled across the bed in a room, which should have been
empty, but was totally furnished in the style of an earlier period. Golf club in hand, he pursued the man in
evening dress out of the hotel and down the street, only to be promptly returned to the building by the police,
who, of course, did not believe his murder story and found no evidence.
In the meantime, Alex had discovered tragedy after tragedy connected with that structure. A chorus
girl and her lover had been bludgeoned to death at that building in 1926. The prime suspect had been the
owner, the woman's boyfriend, Kyle Vance's great-grandfather. Alex had visited Vance, but he rebuffed her
and, despite her pleas, the court would not revoke his sentence.
She called me at the dig in Syria. She was frighted for Mr. Vance, alone in that building, facing some
unknown phenomenon. She needed her confidence bolstered, her will to fight strengthened. In a none too
pleasant tone, I goaded her. I asked if she was giving up and reminded her that Mr. Vance certainly would
not be alone in that building. It was up to her to resolve the situation.
Furious that I would leave our friend in the lurch, Nick was immediately ready to fly home. I coldly
told him it was none of his affair; his business was that dig. "Someday," I harshly explained, "Alex will have
to cover your back and I need to know the two of you will make it home." Though absolutely truthful, that was
reasoning for public consumption, which is all anyone needed to know.
Next, Mr. Vance saw his own grandfather attack his grandmother. Then he saw her dead body
hanging from the ceiling light fixture. At that moment, Alex returned to assure him that his experiences were
real. These tragic tableaux were for his enlightenment. It was then that he revealed the Vance family history.
A stipulation of his $20 million inheritance was the retention of the Mason Street building. His great-grandfather had arrived from Lithuania as an immigrant with ambitious dreams. That building had been his
first, the beginning of a international real estate empire.
As they talked, Alex experienced the vision of a hand placing a bound parcel behind the bricks of
a fireplace. She hurried off check it out, while Mr. Vance stayed behind, drinking liquid courage. Upstairs,
she encountered the grandmother's ghost, standing upon the hearth, while, downstairs the red-headed
apparition seduced Kyle with promises of power, wealth, courage, all his innermost desires. All he had to do
was make love to her. Suddenly, he heard his own father's voice, crying, "Break the chain, Kyle. Break the
chain!" The woman vanished.
Later, within the fireplace, they found his grandmother's diary, written in Lithuanian. She wrote that
the structure had been built by Kyle's great-grandfather for his mistress, who, in time, had become his
grandfather's mistress. Her husband had become a stranger to her. Father and son had each had made a
pact with the "Mistress of Endless Night". At that moment Kyle's father appeared, as did the demon, who
burned the diary. Alex recognised the apparition as the one she had seen and heard in the mirror and the
courtroom. The demon had used her passion and her "Sight" to have Kyle imprisoned in that building and
at her mercy.
The computer search Alex had been running shortly revealed that the "Mistress of Endless Night"
was an evil entity present in Lithuanian folklore since the twelfth century. Peasants believed that nobles
entered into a covenant with her in exchange for prosperity. The creature took exception to the laptop's
revelation and so it met its valiant end, as all Legacy electronics seem to do - in a display of fireworks that
relegated it to the status of tax write-off .
The creature then appeared to offer Alex a safe exit, but when she refused to leave without Kyle,
the demon attacked her and shut Kyle out of the room. Both were trapped, but separated. The creature's full
attention then turned to the young man. "Touch my hand," she beckoned again and again, and when he
accepted, she drew him upstairs to her lair. There in the midst of seduction, the demon explained the
conditions of the covenant: the building was to be maintained, kept filled with tenants who would feed her
needs; Kyle must sire progeny to continue the chain. In return he would have "wealth and power, without fear
or remorse until the day he died." His surrender to her sensuality was the sealing of the covenant.
Downstairs, Alex's locked door, suddenly, miraculously, opened of its own volition. She fought her
way through a maelstrom of energies to finally burst into the creature's domain. She was again attacked, but
fought back, all the while urging Kyle to resist, to "break the chain". As he struggled through the illusions, he
saw the demon as she was, an monstrous harridan. As she again attacked Alex with all of her fiendish
powers, Kyle called up the prayers and the faith of the alter boy he had once been, and the "Mistress of
Endless Night" was defeated, banished back to hell from whence she had come eons before.
Alex and Kyle fled from the building through a swirling tide of malevolent energies that fought for
survival. On the street it was as though nothing had happened; a neighborhood man, who walked his dog
like clockwork, was oblivious, as was the dog. Sometimes, it is the shock of absolute normalcy that sticks
in the mind.
Meanwhile, in Syria our investigations had come to a disappointing halt. The water table was much
higher than anticipated and the chamber we sought would have to be drained and allowed to dry at a normal
rate. The irony of it! A high water table in the midst of the Syrian desert. No - I take that back. It's decent enough country, prone to earthquakes. So it could be the water table is revealing an increase in tectonic pressure, or the dams the Soviets built on the Euphrates have changed ground water levels. Whatever the cause, there was no reason for Nick and I to stay.
It was late when we arrived. Alex, in a rather disheveled state, was waiting for me in the darkened
library. Either she intended to wait there until Hell froze over or her "Sight" had warned her of our return. I
must admit I've never seen her so furious, and hope to never again. "I want him... alone," she hissed at Nick,
who wisely decided to retire. "So how did it go?" I asked. It was obvious how it had gone, but she was alive
and in one piece, thank God, and needed to vent her hostilities. I'm a big boy. I can take whatever
broadsides she may send my way.
"You know damned well how things went," she responded, trying to face me down. "You knew all
along. You knew all along what was in store for me in that hell hole, and you sent me down there? You knew
what I was up against?" I admire her for her presentation. She has the makings of a formidable opponent.
Many would have cried, perhaps, unwillingly, but they would have been unable to contain the emotion. Alex
did well.
"Maybe I did," I replied, aiming for an almost flippant tone. "Maybe I didn't." No one ever need know
exactly what I know and what I don't know... except me. "The point is you needed to be there," I calmly told
her. "Having you stay was the right decision, wasn't it?" She couldn't deny it, but her rage was not assuaged.
All along I had known that the price would be great, and the healing of wounds would be slow, but many
questions had demanded answers, for all our sakes... and for the sake of this House. Alexandra Moreau
accomplished her mission, but did she pass the test? Did I? I certainly needed a drink.
Personal note:
Alex believes that I "set her up" to face the entity called the "Mistress of Endless Night"... perhaps
she's right.
I did, indeed, know that there was more to the case than met the eye. How much do I even care to
admit to myself? I was not unaware of the building's reputation. A part of me sensed the dangers and sought
to test Alex. For years she has badgered me about a more active role in the field. She bridles at being left
behind. Yet she is invaluable to me as "aide-de-camp" and research whiz.
Perhaps, a part of me wanted to scare her out of the idea of field work. I don't want to lose her as
the anchor of this House. She handled the situation, but the subsequent outburst concerns me in a way I
cannot put my finger on - not so much that she was angry. I do understand that. But did she think she was
"a teacher's pet" above being tested? That I would assume that she was capable, rather than making certain.
We're engaged in dangerous work. As I told Nick, one must know what sort of person one has at one's back.
Did she expect me to insure her safety? I always do all I can, but nothing is ever guaranteed. Did she expect
that she would never have to go it alone? Every member of my House has faced such tests in one way or
another. Would she have herself be the exception? Even now I have nightmares of my own "initiation".
Yet, on this occasion, it was a test of myself as well. Dare I commit this confession to paper? To
whom else can I confide? I care for Alex Moreau and have since we met. But a relationship with a student
would have been unseemly. The Legacy needs talents such as hers, so it was my duty to bring her into the
fold. She chose the Legacy, I pray with eyes wide open to the life and the dangers. But once she was
member of my House, there could be no thought of anything other than friendship. I had to know if I could
place Alex in certain danger and leave her alone, without the life preserver of my own presence, or Nick's.
I needed to know if I could walk away and do my own job and trust her to do hers. If I can not do this, can
I continue to function as a precept must? If I allow Alex in the field, will I inadvertently place Nick or Rachel
or someone else in harm's way so as to protect her? If I choose to risk myself to protect my team or an
Innocent, that is my decision, but it is a different matter to sacrifice one for another because of my own
emotional attachments. I don't feel as though I passed my own test.
For me, it is always the same question. For the sake of my own soul and sanity, and the unending
war against the Darkside, how much seepage do I allow between each little compartment of my mind? If I
permit none, then I become less than human. If I permit too much, I risk the uncertainty and self-doubt that
weakens one's defenses against the Darkside. The truth is I fear my own emotions. I always have. They must
be mastered and controlled or I am vulnerable, and if I am vulnerable, my House is vulnerable. If it were only
myself, I might be willing to allow myself the luxury, but it is never "only" myself. I will not risk the others in
order to salve my conscience, nor to grasp at what cannot be.
* Season 1, ep. 4, originally aired on Showtime 10 May 1996, script by Frederick Rappaport. This synopsis appeared in Jigsaw
