I know, what was I thinking?

It was late on Friday night and I was just leaving my office when the phone rang, "You've reached the Law Offices of Clark, Mathews and Wilkinson this is Christina Wilkinson speaking."

"Good evening Ms. Wilkinson, this is Reginald Owens, I'm so glad I reached you before you left for the night. My sister and I were going back through some of great-grandfather's papers when we came across another key. It doesn't seem to match any of the mansion keys we'd already located so there's a good chance that it may open that locked cellar storage room. Would it be possible for someone from your office to come by for the key?"

Knowing that everyone else had already left for the weekend I reluctantly agreed to drop by in the morning for the key. Anyway, with John away on business over the weekend, I'd have time to complete the probate inventory before the auction service arrived on Wednesday.

Although the mansion felt a bit chillier then I'd remembered everything was just as we'd left it the week before. And best of all, that key actually did unlock the cellar storage room's door.

The mansion's late owner, a truly eccentric collector of rare antiquities, maintained detailed notes concerning each of the items in his extensive collection. We'd found ledgers detailing the history of all the items on display throughout the mansion and thankfully the cellar storage room turned out to be no different. However, unlike the other ledgers we'd found, ones with titles like "Early Ming Dynasty" and "Athens Fifth Century BC", this ledger was entitled "The Accursed". The ledger listed a diverse collection of artifacts, pottery taken from ancient Egyptian and Mayan tombs, gold coins once paid to Cortes by the Aztecs as part of Moctezuma's ransom, even the private library of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, the fabled Blood Countess, each of it's volumes bound in leather made from skin of her victims, and one final entry, the stone pedestal upon which of the infamous Virgin of Nuremberg once stood.

It took most of that morning to enter all of the room's contents into the estate inventory, although, the room's lone leather chair and the gold tray with it's decanter of wine weren't mentioned in the original ledger of the rooms contents.

I only discovered the list by accident. I'd completed the estate inventory and was flipping though the remaining pages of the ledger when I came across some entries on the final pages of the ledger, a long list of names and dates that went on for several pages.


    Joaquin H., 18 April 1949
    Susanne L., 2 May 1949
    Becky W, 21 August 1949
    Rachael M., 17 November 1949
    Carol H., 11 January 1950
    Danielle B., 14 February 1950
    Phoebe S., 6 April 1950

        ...

    Marsha F., 26 February 2010
    Barbara D., 7 May 2010
    Meredith A., 14 July 2010
    Robin F., 26 August 2010
    Donna C., 8 September 2010
    Alexis M., 22 September 2010


Staring at the final name in ledger's list of names I suddenly realized its significance. The mansion owner's house maid had told the authorities that she'd discovered his body on the morning of 23 September, sitting alone in his study with a half empty glass of wine on the table next to him and one of his favorite classic novels open upon his lap. And I suddenly recalled that the coroner's report listed the cause of death as a heart attack, a cause of death not considered unusual for someone 98 years old.

I smiled as I thought, "Why you lecherous old man, I just bet you died with a smile on your face didn't you. And just what were you thinking, a 98 year old man hiring call girls?" Pausing, I realized something didn't add up, "But, why would you keep this list of your conquests down here?"

Looking around the room I suddenly realized that while he'd died of a heart attack, he wasn't sitting in his study upstairs reading Homer, instead he'd been right here in this cellar storage room and I seriously doubted he'd been alone, "But why down here?" It was then that I suddenly recalled the final artifact listed in the ledger, the Virgin of Nuremberg's stone pedestal.

With sudden understanding I turned and stared at the low stone pedestal prominently displayed near the middle of the room. I know it's bad to speak ill of the dead but I finally understood just what kind of a sick and disgusting pervert the mansion's former owner had truly been. But using the stone pedestal upon which the Virgin of Nuremberg once stood as a stage for call girls to strip on? Well, at least he hadn't destroyed the pedestal's value by installing a stripper pole.

Wanting to confirm my suspicions I set the ledger down and walked over to the pedestal and stepped up onto its smoothly polished stone surface. As I suspected, even with the rooms considerable clutter of ancient artifacts, anyone sitting in that chair would be in full and unobstructed view of the pedestal.

As it turned out, stepping up onto the pedestal, was the worst decision of my life as a sudden feeling of vertigo swept over me and time seemed to stop.

Christina felt some unseen force pulling her upright as it forced her arms together behind her back. The unexpected sensation of the room's chill against her bare skin as the clothes simply vanished from Christina's body. And the horrifying realization that something was beginning to materialize around her, something that Christina instantly recognized from the darkest annals of history, something utterly and completely terrifying, the infamous Virgin of Nuremberg.

Christina struggled to escape but straps materialized to hold her tight as the confining body of the Virgin continued to appear around her. She tried to open her mouth to scream for help but a large leather gag suddenly materialized to fill her mouth before she uttered a sound.

Then, suddenly, as quickly as it began, the sensation of vertigo abruptly ceased and Christina found herself tightly strapped within the claustrophobic confines of the legendary Virgin of Nuremberg.

Staring in gag enforced silence at the room's lone leather chair Christina began to fully comprehend the magnitude of former estate owner's twisted little game, "All those women, it bad enough thinking that lecherous old man hired them for sex, but instead he'd been amusing himself by brutally torturing them to death in the Virgin of Nuremberg! Just what kind of sick, perverted monster could do something so horrible to all those women?"

Christina felt a sudden sense of relief as she realized, "Well, at least the bastard's already dead." But Christina's sense of relief was only momentary as the depth of her perilous situation began to dawn, "But, how am I going to get out of this?"

Christina suddenly realized was that she'd neglected to leave as much as a note for anyone at the office, she hadn't even thought to mention to her client that she'd planned to complete the estate inventory over the weekend, "No one is even going to start missing me until at least Monday!"

The second thing she noticed was just how cold she was getting, it had been a typical London winter day outside, cold and raining, when she'd arrived. All morning, as she worked, she'd felt it gradually getting colder inside the mansion. Now, with her clothing taken and her nude form strapped tightly within Virgin's cold metal sarcophagus, Christina suddenly started worrying about the cold, "Great, I'm going to freeze to death long before anyone even starts looking for me!"

Moments later, Christina noticed something that erased all thoughts of the cold and sent a terrifying wave of almost unimaginable horror coursing though her vulnerable exposed body.

The spike-lined front of the Virgin of Nuremberg was slowly closing.

With each passing second Christina watched in mounting terror as the gleaming razor sharp spikes of the Virgin of Nuremberg moved steadily closer toward her eyes. And struggle as she might Christina quickly discovered that she couldn't free herself of the Virgin's impossibly tight restraints.

Although she continued to struggle against the Virgin's tight unyielding restraints, deep down Christina already accepted the horrifying truth that escape was impossible. That in a minute, two at the most, she would be dying upon the Virgin of Nuremberg's diabolically cruel spikes.

But even as the Virgin of Nuremberg slowly closed Christina still struggled to comprehend how this was happening, "It still doesn't seem possible but this is really happening, but how?" Christina suddenly recalled the description she'd read on the first page of the room's ledger."

"The Accursed, a diverse collection of unique artifacts that span the fullness of human history, artifacts so steeped in evil that all that have the misfortune of coming into contact with them are damned to suffer in the fires of hell for all eternity."

With mere seconds remaining before the Virgin's terrifying spike-lined front panel completely closed Christina desperately tried to remember what she'd read of the Virgin of Nuremberg's history, Christina suddenly recalled the Virgin had been used "exclusively for the execution of women found guilty of promiscuous behavior or adultery." Christina felt an ominous chill of perilous foreboding as she realized that while she'd never knowingly committed adultery, by the standards of fifteenth century Europe she'd certainly enjoyed a promiscuous lifestyle.

A faint groan of utter frustration escaped Christina's tightly gagged mouth as she realized, "I guess the Virgin of Nuremberg is going to exact the ultimate price for all those one night stands."

The Virgin's front panel grew steadily closer until Christina felt its cruel spikes pressing into her breasts and belly, their horrifyingly sharp points dimpling the soft fullness of her bosom, as the Virgin's deadly spikes demanded entrance into her flesh.

And despite the mouth filling gag, Christina's high pitched screams of unimaginable agony echoed off the storage room's uncaring stone walls as the front of the Virgin finally closed, driving its diabolically painful spikes deep into her eyes and body.

Over the unspeakably long hours that followed Christina endured her well deserved and agonizingly torturous death within the Virgin of Nuremberg's deadly embrace.

It was well into the following evening, almost 30 obscenely agonizing hours of torment later, that Christina's heart finally gave out and she at long last surrendered to the darkness.

By the time the auction service arrived on Wednesday the Virgin of Nuremberg's spike-lined ominous form had faded away, reabsorbed along with Christina's corpse and a considerable amount of blood, back into that seemingly harmless stone pedestal from which it arose.

As for Christina, like so many other young women her disappearance remains a mystery...

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the final item of this evening's auction. Item 666, a hand polished stone pedestal with catch basin.

"The pedestal's stone work is consistent with other examples produced in central Europe and dates from the early fifteenth century. Thought to be the base pedestal of the long lost Virgin of Nuremberg, the first Iron Maiden, a diabolical instrument of torture constructed in the early fifteenth century and one used exclusively for the execution of women found guilty of promiscuous behavior or adultery. Its use finally outlawed by the church in 1609, it's believed that over a thousand women met their demise within the Virgin's spike lined interior. And, while it's documented that the Virgin of Nuremberg was lost in the fire that destroyed Nuremberg castle in 1710, recently discovered documents in the church archives cast doubt concerning its complete destruction. It wasn't until 1814, shortly after his execution, that French officials discovered this stone pedestal in the cellars of a mansion that once belonged to the infamous Marquis de Sade. The pedestal remained in the storage in one the Louvre's warehouses until it disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the Nazi's invasion of France in 1940. It's rumored, that shortly after the war, the pedestal was acquired it on the Russian black market by its late owner, a gentleman serving as her majesties trade envoy in Moscow."

Bidding for this unique item will start at 200,000 Pound Sterling. Do I have an opening bid?



After the auction, the staff made arrangements to ship the Virgin of Nuremberg's ancient stone pedestal to its new owner, a wealthy young lady from New York...