Chapter 45: House of Silence
Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: PlumSauce
“If a specter or ghost is embedded in a wall, can you tell?” John asked Coraci in the bedroom where someone had died.
Once again, Coraci tossed John the book on specter lore. “I can’t tell. The Eyes of Truth can see through magical disguises, but not through physical barriers. For example, I can tell Smith is a shapeshifter. But if he’s hiding behind a wall, I can’t see through the wall.”
“Oh…so if a specter is lurking in the shadows, you can see it?”
“Yes, that I can.”
John wore a conflicted expression, as if wanting to speak but holding back.
He wanted to tell Coraci about Atwood’s lies concerning the basement but feared there might be specters nearby listening. Even if a specter simply passed by, it could relay what it heard back to Atwood. Even if Atwood bore no ill will toward the Association, his concealment certainly meant something was off.
Coraci stared at John for a moment but didn’t ask any questions. Instead, he turned to Liz. “Liz, let’s make a protective circle.”
He meant a spell to temporarily prevent anything from coming close. Anyone outside the circle cannot enter or even hear what happens inside. It was similar to the bloodkin repulsion magic Burton had once used.
“But the circle lasts less than ten minutes,” Liz said, opening her travel bag and pulling out prepared materials. “Are we really going to keep casting this spell all night?”
“No, I just suspect that besides the Atwood family and the specters they took in, there might be others here. Remember, that guy who committed the murders could block the specters and maybe even spy on them. I want to voice my speculations without potential enemies overhearing.”
John silently thought, Although the effect was the same, what I’m really worried about is the Atwood family… He said nothing, patiently waiting for the two spellcasters to complete the ritual.
Though called a “circle”, the spell’s shape didn’t have to be perfectly round. Using silver powder mixed with verbena extract, Liz recited the incantation while drawing a closed shape with mistletoe branches dipped in the liquid. The smaller the area, the longer the spell lasted — typically about ten minutes for an area the size of a single bedroom.
At the moment the spell was completed, a translucent membrane appeared along the room’s inner walls. It took less than a second to close overhead in an arch, then disappeared, leaving the room looking just as before.
“John, you can speak now,” Coraci said, looking at him. “Atwood lied, didn’t he?”
“You knew?” John stared at him in surprise.
“I don’t know what exactly, just had a feeling you had something to say. Also, if it was about an unknown enemy, knowing how easily you get startled, you would have said it already. So I guess it’s something about Atwood and his specters, which is why you hesitated.”
John privately wondered if he was often too easily startled. “Uh, yeah, this house does have a basement. It wasn’t filled in; it’s empty, and the structure feels… strange.”
“A dungeon?” Carolyn’s face lit up.
“No, not a dungeon. Just an ordinary abandoned storage room. I don’t understand why Atwood would hide that.”
John described the pulley elevator connecting the bedroom and study, and the peculiar atmosphere of the basement.
The elevator was already unusual. Houses like this often had dumbwaiters for servants to send breakfast to the master, usually connecting to the dining room — not a study.
This elevator could reach the dining room, but the passage to it had been bricked up. From inside the wall, traces were visible, but in the dining room, the wallpaper concealed where the dumbwaiter’s hatch once was. If guests sat in the dining room, they would think this house never had a dumbwaiter at all.
Also, although John was in mist form at the time, he could see the elevator’s oddities. Having lived in old houses from the same era, he’d seen typical dumbwaiters with small pulleys, ordinary ropes, and wooden platforms meant only for items. But this one was different: the pulley was complex, the rope thick like a ship’s cable, and the platform was made of reinforced metal, strong enough to hold the weight of an average person. Though it was cramped, a person could fit inside.
Who would need to install such a thing between a bedroom and study? And why was there a secret basement under the study?
John couldn’t quite describe the true storage basement precisely. He could express the odd feeling he had inside, but he couldn’t say exactly what was wrong. The basement was roughly the size of a normal large room — not cramped — but it gave off an oppressive vibe.
“Maybe you can see what’s wrong,” John said, pointing to Coraci’s eyes. “If you actually went in there, I suspect you’d feel very uncomfortable. Even I find it off.”
“Claustrophobia is definitely troublesome, but I’m not afraid of a room of a certain size.” Coraci toyed with a sprig of mistletoe in his hand. The real problem now was that he couldn’t personally see the storage room.
What puzzled him was that Mr. Atwood clearly wanted the unusual things in the house cleared out. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have let exorcists in, let alone contacted the Association. The question was: why hide an empty basement that held nothing?
Liz spoke in a dry tone. “The storage room is strange, but…do we want to try to check it out now, or wait until after tonight?”
She gestured toward the bed — a large double bed with carved bedposts. Because people had stayed here before, layers of modern sheets and blankets covered the shabby fabrics, except for the one blanket belonging to the deceased couple that the police had taken away. Now the four of them had added a fresh layer.
The current problem was that Carolyn was already asleep on it. Her navy skirt was pushed up, revealing athletic shorts underneath. She hadn’t taken off her shoes — short boots with a black iron spike tucked inside — and she hugged a modified rifle in her arms.
“Should we wake her?” Liz wrinkled her nose. Carolyn was usually hard to wake. She could fall asleep listening to people who were talking non-stop.
“Or we can just stick to the original plan,” Coraci said. “We came here to sleep anyway. Maybe other discoveries will come naturally, and our suspicions will be resolved. Besides, specters are more sensitive at night and more sluggish at dawn. If we secretly investigate, it should be in the morning.”
Liz pushed her glasses up on her head so she wouldn’t lose them in a hurry. She placed her weapons and spell materials nearby, then climbed onto the bed to lie down close to Carolyn.
“Coraci, there’s a place here for you,” Liz said, patting the spot next to her. “If nothing happens by midnight and you can’t keep going, just lie down and rest.”
“No, no. I’m good at staying up late. I’m not sleeping with you guys,” Coraci waved her off.
“You’ve stayed in tents with your previous partner,” Liz reminded him, referring to the one who had left after marriage and pregnancy.
“That’s different. If I sleep here, then Carolyn will tell Erica at the front desk, ‘I’ve slept in a four-poster bed with Liz and Coraci.’ And if Erica finds out, the whole Association will know. Erica definitely won’t be responsible for explaining the details. I don’t want my mom all the way in America calling me to ask about this.”
Coraci thought for a moment and added, “Also, so John won’t be bored staying awake alone.”
“We’ll disturb their rest if we chat,” John said.
“No, we’ll just read.”
Liz didn’t wear earplugs this time and quickly fell asleep. The dark room was lit only by an emergency lamp. Coraci read nearby, and John flipped through the book about specters.
The world of specters and ghosts was complicated — much more so than bloodkin or werewolves.
For example, bloodkin’s abilities were highly quantifiable. By knowing a bloodkin’s ancestral origin and bloodline, their other attributes can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. Their variations were mainly in whether they could vaporize or shapeshift. John and his father could only vaporize, not shapeshift. Others could only shapeshift into small animals like mice, bats, black cats, or coyotes but couldn’t vaporize. Even with bloodkin that know magic, others can judge the range of their ability by their fields of study.
Werewolves and beastkin were simpler. Like ordinary animals, some were strong, others weaker, and their behavior was obvious. As for other dark creatures — gilomorphs were very conspicuous, with identical abilities and only color variations; shapeshifters were basically long-lived humans who could read minds and change forms; furnace spirits were furry and only appeared in warm areas; Doomcaliber knights followed oaths made in life; black Nightmare horses trotted on fire-hoofed legs…
But specters and ghosts… they had endless characteristics. John had once watched a nature show about insects, which said insects made up half of all known species. He thought specters were like that.
They could be as fragile as a blade of grass or as violent as a hurricane. Some could hold objects; others couldn’t — there was no pattern. Human researchers had studied and recorded ghosts and specters for centuries but still couldn’t summarize all their traits.
The book in John’s hands was an abridged guide, and even so, it was lengthy. He was reading the section on “The Influence of Star Positions and Climate on Ghost Formation…” but by the time he read the next sentence, he’d already forgotten the previous one.
During training, he had been diligent, much like when he studied bloodkin basics with his father. Now, he often felt too lazy to read these things since Coraci was always there to explain.
Looking up, he saw Coraci turning a page, eyes focused.
Maybe I rely too much on Coraci, John thought. Back then, shapeshifter Smith had told him, If you rely solely on your curiosity about the Association or on your favorable impression of Coraci himself, you won’t last long in this job. John had wanted to argue then. Now, remembering those words, he found them fitting for self-reflection.
He lowered his head again and flipped several more pages… But eventually, he gave up.
The old house didn’t even have Wi-Fi, which was one thing, but not being able to chat with Coraci was another. John deeply felt what the phrase “the loneliness of facing darkness” meant — a line often used to describe the life of bloodkin.
John had never experienced anything like that. He had family, colleagues, and friends — and he had certainly never known what it was like to live alone in a castle wearing a silk shirt and sighing endlessly.
He stood up and quietly padded over to Coraci’s side. Bloodkin footsteps, if they wished, could be lighter than a cat’s.
Coraci had just turned a page. The book read:
“The woman on the television is called ‘Lady Arabella’. Her appearance is rather gaudy — her head wrapped in a colorful scarf, a large gold necklace draped around her neck — but she possessed a sincere quality…”
“What are you reading?” John leaned down and whispered in Coraci’s ear.
Coraci showed him the cover. It was a side profile of a sleeping woman, with a yellow dog lying beside her. The Dogs of Babel. (Note 1)
“You’re actually reading a novel!”
“Why can’t I read a novel?”
“But I’m reading the Association’s specter guide…” John muttered softly, pulling his chair closer to Coraci.
In his travel bag, he carried a cooler with enough blood bags for two or three days. He pulled out a blood bag, tore the seal with his fangs, and took the book from Coraci’s hand with his other hand.
By now, he no longer avoided feeding in front of Coraci. They had stayed in the same room before; Coraci would sleep peacefully near the bloodkin, and John no longer felt embarrassed drinking blood bags in front of humans. They had escorted lost constructs together and even found time to visit Sir Kimplin. More than once, they sat in a car together — one sucking a blood bag, the other sipping coffee and eating a sandwich.
John wrapped the empty blood bag in paper and put it back in his travel bag. He skimmed the novel’s summary.
“The man’s wife died unexpectedly, and the eyewitness was their dog. So the dog tells him the truth? Oh, I get it,” he said, nodding. “This book is about a Clade dog.”
“No!” Coraci stifled a laugh until his voice shook. “It’s an ordinary novel, not a supernatural story.”
Then he yawned. Under the weak orange light, the tiny tears glimmering in his eyes looked especially clear.
“You should sleep for a while.” John glanced at his watch. “It’s already past three a.m.”
“No need.” Coraci closed the book, tucked it under his arms, and then leaned forward to rest his head on his arms atop the small round table. “I’ll just lie here a bit. If I lie down fully, I’ll sleep too deeply.”
Now, John was the only one awake in the house. He looked around and suddenly worried that specters might be embedded in the walls to peek at them.
The protective circle had long since faded. If specters or ghosts wanted, they could have overheard the conversation just now.
They hadn’t really said anything secret.
In such silence, John had a funny feeling — that the ordinary conversation with Coraci carried an odd intimacy.
As a bloodkin, John relied on more than just vision; he also depended heavily on hearing.
He didn’t want to keep reading the specter book, and the one about dogs was underneath Coraci’s arm. So John focused on watching the branches outside the window fluttering in the breeze and listened carefully to everything around him.
The night was utterly silent — no night birds or insects chirping. Besides the three people sleeping beside him, the vast house held no other human breaths or heartbeats.
Suddenly, John realized something.
He had vaporized and roamed through different parts of the house before.
It wasn’t just the oppressive storage basement — he’d felt an inexplicable unease in other places as well.
Something was wrong here, but he couldn’t find the reason.
To confirm, he closed his eyes and listened more intently…
— In this house, there wasn’t even the heartbeat of a mouse.
There wasn’t even the sound of a cockroach crawling through the cracks between the walls and old furniture. Undoubtedly, humans frequently came into the house, even leaving behind plenty of trash. Additionally, in a house this old, with so much wooden furniture and decorative molding, there was not a single ant1.
This wasn’t normal. Abandoned houses in the countryside usually became playgrounds for small animals and insects. The wood would get gnawed on, birds would nest under the eaves and in the attic, and if humans occasionally visited, mice or cockroaches would certainly take up residence. But here…there wasn’t even the faintest noise of living creatures in the nearby woods outside the windows.
In the city, bloodkin usually don’t notice these things — because the environment is too noisy, their attention gets pulled elsewhere. But in such a remote, quiet old house, it wasn’t hard for John to pick up on these subtle sounds.
Suddenly, John’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, he thought he was staring at a wall because the darkness around him deepened. The emergency light had gone out, and the darkness was thicker than on any ordinary night. He had only closed his eyes for a few seconds.
Of course, he wasn’t facing a wall. He was still sitting at the small round table looking out the window, with Coraci beside him.
Just as he turned his head toward the window, John swiftly grabbed Coraci and jumped toward the other side of the room!
Coraci woke up, and the sound of the overturned table roused Liz and Carolyn, and Carolyn drew her gun reflexively —
A gray, withered face slowly approached from the dim light of the night. It was like a skull magnified several times, at least as large as the dining table.
It pressed right against the window. From inside the house, its neck and body were not visible — just a swirling mass of pitch-black chaos.
Author’s Notes:
Note 1: About The Dogs of Babel, the cover described here is the English version’s cover. I remember the Chinese edition only has the dog on the cover, no person… (Of course, I don’t know the exact release region or timing of the English edition, but at least it’s not the Chinese cover… OTL)
Also, unrelated: In Supernatural season 9 episode 5 (the one where Dean syncs with the dog), they joke about this book. Sam says there’s a book teaching dogs to talk but it didn’t work, and Dean says if it didn’t work, why was it published?
By the way, the author of this book is also named Carolyn.
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