#Crimsonport

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Already Tried Screaming

Darkness surrounded me. Engulfed me.

Fear—I felt no fear. I refused to let it control me. Trapped like this for so long, I needed to keep telling myself the darkness was my friend.

All sense of time had abandoned me, just like the woman who held me captive here. I had no way of knowing when I had last seen candlelight, nor the gas lantern in her pale hand, nor the dim gloom from the cellar beyond the single only door to which my prison ever opened.

I had given up all hope of freedom. Whatever time I had spent here, trapped, it felt like an extension of eternity. It might as well have been. And the longer the darkness kept me in its embrace, and I filled the sanity-eroding silence with whispers in my head, the more I found a strange sense of… comfort.

Comfort in wondering what the world outside looked like. What it would feel, and sound, and taste like. So starved was I, deprived of everything in this dark cell of mine.

If the lady of the house came to me now, I would oblige her every demand.

How long had it been since her last visit?

I had no inkling.

In our very first meeting, I had been very hopeful. The candlelight around us then had lent it an almost romantic air. At the time, I had believed to have found a kindred soul in her heart. And that sweet smile of hers, which I would come to understand later was a cracked mask of grief and loss and madness.

Only when she had revealed her intent to keep me here till I did her bidding, had I understood what monster lurked behind her disguise.

Silken lips pursed to blow out candles, thus she bathed me in shadow once she knew me helpless here. Helpless as I was when I first found myself in this cell, and I screamed. I screamed till my voice no longer sounded human.

Oh, the profanities I hurled at her, first eliciting giggles of sadistic glee, and later falling upon deaf ears. How quiet the mansion above us, that House of Helmberg, empty of all life, but the lady of the house and her deranged butler, shuffling about and whiling away the days I spent here as their prisoner.

Oh, how beautiful her playing of the piano, even muffled through sturdy walls and floor. I enjoyed the sadness in the pieces she played, and they offered reprieve from the silence surrounding me.

The butler sometimes visited alone, just to mock me. What a depraved creature he was, giving me nothing but cellar’s gloom whenever he arrived, bathed in twilight. His wicked grin, a silver crescent, a mad moon sliced across his face; oh, that lesser demon. Had she made him thus, or had he been so deranged all along?

They rarely received guests, but when they did, I tried my best to win attention. Anything as to not give in, to not give up. The only way I could even attempt to fight for my freedom, as helpless as I was here.

Just as now, as they received two new guests. Two men, judging by their muffled voices. One chortled often, the other spoke with a quiet confidence. Without a doubt, the two men were foreigners to this land, for they spoke with strange accents. And together, their oblivious presence instilled me with a sliver of hope, that I may yet find my freedom, if only their meddling proved sufficient.

Alas, my fate was a twisted road, coiled with the serpent of darkness. I dared not hope so soon, and listened carefully.

I schemed with what few options I had at my disposal.

I had already tried screaming with the first visitors, and now their blood fed the soil of Helmberg’s grounds, and the magic circles the mistress of the house had drawn in her dark rituals.

I had already tried singing to those that came next, for I hoped to provoke a different response, and a different outcome, yet my singing sent them fleeing with dread, and I knew not what had become of them.

This was my third chance. Perhaps my last. Who knew what torments awaited me if I failed to escape now?

I knew I needed to be more clever this time. But how? What should I do?

The lady of the house once again played on the piano, this time to entertain her guests. My well of tears was empty, yet she touched me again with her music. Such melancholy, such beautiful sorrow in those melodies, like she yearned for something lost, someone I could never bring back to her but in illusions. Every note, every chorus, every bit and every piece she played, the piano always sang to the hole I could not fill, even if I were to do as she demanded.

As she played, her guests excused themselves, and shuffled through the mansion. Lurking, searching, as if they knew something was amiss. And the butler, he lurked behind them, following them.

That familiar sound, of weight being lifted from a corner in the kitchen, and metal scraping over wood, and I knew he had armed himself with his trusty wood axe, prepared to once again murder the lady’s guests, should they discover her darker secrets. Should they discover me.

Would I scream, they would likely rush to me, and the axe would kiss their skulls from behind, and their blood, too, would feed this fetid dungeon of mine.

Would I sing, and provoke them to ask about another person in the mansion, she and her butler would lull them into a false sense of security, and feed them poison, until the bodies dropped upon soft carpets in the salon. I knew she had such devilry in her.

Thus there was nothing I could do. Nothing I could do but wait, and hope that these two men had been the saviors I had been waiting for my eternity in this dark cellar.

Their hushed murmurs reached me, hissing beyond less and less barriers between us. They drew close, ever closer; they neared, and ignited the flames of my hope. My tortured heart started beating faster, ever faster, as I yearned to glimpse their faces, and find new freedom.

Oh, how fast my heart was beating as they explored the lady’s cellar.

Whatever they had hoped to find in the House of Helmberg, they were only steps away from finding me. Their footsteps drew nearer, and the bottom of the door to my prison glowed with a line of tiny light from a lantern in their hands. The butler, meanwhile, backed away from them, slinking off to his mistress like the craven predator he was, most likely to alarm her of the trespassers, who now stood on the verge of discovering me.

The men found my room locked, as the lady and the butler always left it, though I harbored no hopes of even getting close to that door and to welcoming them inside. One of the men rattled at the padlock, and they hissed at each other in argument. The chortling man urged the other to stop trespassing, lest she call the police upon them. The confident man reminded him of the lives on the line, and told him to step back.

Metal struck metal. Once, then twice, and thrice, with force, until that lock broke, yielding to the confident man’s axe, and they entered to finally see me, standing in the room, before me, face to face.

They stared at me in terror. They stared at my prison in terror.

The ritual symbols, painted in human blood upon the floor, lining a perfect circle all around me, such arcane designs struck fear into their hearts.

The confident man, tall, sullen, and darkly cloaked—he knew. He recognized and understood what these symbols meant, for the terror in his eyes was a different one than the professor’s next to him. The cloaked man’s terror was one of understanding, of knowing what I was, and why such symbols bound me to this prison of mine.

The chortling man who now chortled no longer, a professor of ginger beard and hair and gentlemanly appearance—he knew not. His inquisitive eyes did not recognize the symbols painted like spidery script. Though the arcane writing sparked curiosity in his heart, the terror in him was one of not knowing why I was here, or what the lady of the house may be truly capable of.

“They are coming, and they will murder you,” I warned them, in perfect tongues, in the professor’s own accent, so as to sound familiar enough for them to trust me.

Captivated by the strange hieroglyphs and markings upon all floors and walls outside my circle, the professor remained speechless. The axe-man in his cloak, however, stared at me with a mixture of reverence and dread.

He knew what I was, and I recognized him in turn. Shaman. Sorcerer. If he knew not how to summon me, as the Lady of Helmberg had, then he knew of me, and of my kind.

Both men, I captivated them with my beauty. The body of the fair and fragile woman I had chosen to look like. I could appear however I wanted to appear, and I wanted to look as innocent and helpless as I could. For who knew how long I would stay trapped here if they perished? Trapped until the Lady of Helmberg had persuaded me to do her bidding?

These two strangers now posed my only hope, and they had lived longer than any of the lady’s previous guests since my summoning.

The butler neared. I warned them of his arrival, and of his bloodthirsty axe. I warned them that the butler, like myself, was unlike them. That the butler, too, was not human.

The sorcerer slammed the door shut behind himself, and the professor helped him hold it shut with a single, slender hand. His lantern squeaked in the other, and the sweet, sweet light it cast bounced and bobbed through my prison.

Oh, how wicked my smile must have looked, despite my fragile demeanor, yet my saviors only had eyes for the axe that broke through the wood of the door betwixt, showering them with splinters when the butler struck it with his wood axe. They shouted and yelped in fear and fury.

“Free me, please! I will help you escape!” I begged of them.

They backed away from the door and the professor only shot me a fearful glare. The butler’s axe cleaved through more of the door, shedding new light through the cracks he widened with every strike.

The sorcerer readied his axe, prepared to face their foe, ignoring me as he knew I could not escape my circle.

The professor brandished the holy cross around his neck and held it far in front of himself, like a weapon to keep me at bay.

And at bay it kept me, and I screamed. His conviction shone greater than any divine symbol of this realm, and his purity and fury pained me. I could only back away so far from it, reaching the edge of my circle, feeling my very essence burn where I brushed against the threshold.

And as the door to the small cellar room broke apart, and the butler and the sorcerer engaged in combat, the professor’s grew ever greater. His confidence far outweighed his fear.

He smirked at me, and said, “Counteroffer, my dear. Return to whatever pit from whence you came!”

With that, he tossed the lantern at my feet, and the flames spread quickly.

I now shrieked. Not in agony any longer, but in shock. And in delight. Oh, what delight. Conviction and purity were no replacement for knowing. The oblivious professor screamed as I showed him my true form, my preferred form, my wings spreading wide, feathered black; my fangs long and white, my grin ready to rival the grinning death of the reaper’s skull, wide and merciless.

Oh, professor, how I thank thee for freeing me.

The flames from his broken lantern broke the circle that had entrapped me, and I was free, free at last. Free to explore this world of theirs, unshackled from that witch’s occult tethers.

In a torrent of liquid shadow, as a whirlwind of dark fog, I shot past all of them. With my unbridled fury, I knocked that innocent little professor down onto his rump, and he screamed in terror as I washed over him like a waterfall, even in the wake of me leaving him unharmed—oh, professor, how grateful I was for your meddling that day. I knocked that wretched butler down, ending the deadly struggle between him and the sorcerer and their locking axes.

The last I saw and heard, the sorcerer’s axe cracked the butler’s skull, and I now screamed a different scream, as I flooded the halls and walls and poured outside.

A cry for freedom, as I emerged from the bowels of the House of Helmberg, and rose. And rose. Oh, what a beautiful night sky, dark with clouds of a storm that welcomed me with its open arms, flashing with lightning.

I almost paused, to visit the lady of the house, though I reckoned my liberators and the people of her town would perform their own reckoning with her, and I could spectate when her time had finally come.

I rose, and my darkness poured out from the mansion.

Free at last.

Thank you, professor. I cannot wait till we meet again.

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #literature #spooky #fiction #Crimsonport #tales #dark fantasy #Gothic #gaslight #romance #Helmberg #Professor Hallsey #Llewellyn #Gothic horror #trapped #isolation #helplessness #imprisoned #perspective #darkness #shadow #evil #sorcerer #witch #shaman #magick

[evanthenerd83]

“The Room: Unhelpful”

First Story: https://evanthenerd83.tumblr.com/post/658898716053340160/ekphrastic-fiction-contest-august-2021

Second Story: https://evanthenerd83.tumblr.com/post/661773932525977600/the-room-guest-first-story

“Lady Gwenlyn asked me to pick up—“

The man on the right tilted his head. “A file? Or an artifact?”

His smile betrayed distrust. Not that Jonas could have blamed him. Being an Archivist meant safeguarding the Family’s secrets.

And the Family’s secrets could bring entire universes to rubble.

Jonas blinked, then coughed into a hand. “A… a file.”

The man on the left got up from his seat. “Which one?”

Sweat beads slid. Jonas never enjoyed this part of the job, interacting with the Helpers.

Everything about them made him uneasy. There was just something about the way they blinked, often too slow, or how they would stand in corners, facing corners. Like they’d gotten stuck in a loop.

“Uh. Um. I’m not sure. She didn’t tell me the AIN.”

For a fraction of a second, Righty’s smile faltered.

Ice replaced bland heat. Friendliness revealed disgust.

As if he could see his sins.

“B-but it does involve an adjacent world!”

“What kind?”

Jonas slammed his head on the countertop.

When he lifted it, everything was tinted red.

“What do you mean, ‘what kind’?!”

Lefty blinked. One eye at a time.

“What kind of adjacent world? A Waste? Or a Lively? Or a—“

“Look. She didn’t tell me. All she said was… and I quote, ‘get me the file for—“

“Please do not interrupt.”

The sound of Lefty’s voice froze Jonas. It was twinged mechanical. The mask had slipped further away.

“A… A reflection. Similarity grade unknown.”

Righty’s eyes went blank.

“We can’t help you if you don’t tell us—“

“For goodness sake! Cri—“

“Crimavel? Crim Mia? Crivical? Crimsonport? Cyc?”

Jonas slammed his fist on the countertop.

The sound echoed through the lobby. A woman gasped, and he suddenly felt very foolish.

Very foolish indeed.

“CRIMSONPORT! CRIMSONPORT!”

Very, very foolish.

#evanthenerd83's storytime #the room series #microfiction #sci fi & fantasy #creative writing #original writing #january 2022

[wratts]

5 Things About Me

I was tagged by @faetales-weaver (much appreciated!) to do the 5 things about me game!

The Rules: List five things about yourself you want your followers to know. they can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. when you’re done, send this to (tag) 10 people you want to get to know better.

1. My biggest inspirations for writing, both when I started, back when I was 12 as well as now in my thirties, were the German author Wolfgang Hohlbein, author of over 200 books across multiple genres; the inventor of the poetic sword and sorcery adventures of Conan the Barbarian, Robert E. Howard; and a renowned little horror writer you all may have heard of, Stephen King. The three things they taught me, respectively, were to

not stay in my lane. To write in any genre I felt like writing. If you do it well, you’re allowed to write whatever you want.

use modifiers and poetic rhythm despite common advice to the contrary. Which generally tells me to just do what a lot of people advise against in writing. All rules like “write this way” and “don’t do this” are made up. There’s a time and a place for every stylistic choice. It’s one thing to learn rules just like you need to study grammar, but once you’ve learned them, you’re allowed to break them if you have a good reason.

favor immersion and natural character development over rigid and artificial story structures.

Obviously, back in the day, I just thought their stuff was cool. But I can now identify what must have unconsciously stood out to me, and they became lessons that I continue to internalize.

2. Although I have ridiculous, borderline encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe, I was always more of an Indiana Jones kid. I got into Star Trek much later, and I kind of prefer it over Star Wars by now. Speaking of movies, I will never shut up about how much I love Point Break. Or Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Hmm. Might be some pattern in there.

3. One of my all-time favorite video game series is Saints Row, which is what my avatar pays homage to. I love stories about street gangs, the series has an impeccable sense of aesthetic, and they’re obviously made by people who know how to make games really fun to play. Speaking of video games, the first I ever played was Castlevania on the NES.

4. I’m an avid fan of tabletop role-playing games. I run two game sessions every weekend, in two different groups. I love the format of storytelling it creates where you cannot write the story. It writes itself in play, and as a GM, you only set up situations and then reactively spin tales from whatever the players do. One of the games is a long-running D&D campaign using the Pathfinder scenario Rise of the Runelords, while the other group alternates between different ones in bursts of short series across different systems and genres, notably Unknown Armies, Monster of the Week, or The Mecha Hack. And the latter is currently getting started with Pitchforks & Torches, which uses my own homebrew game, settled in my gaslight romance / Gothic horror / Edwardian era / Victorian era world of the Crimsonport chronicles.

5. My screen name is a synthesis of “wraith”, “wrath”, and “rats.” It’s the chosen name of a devil and pivotal character in a long piece of fiction which I wrote in my early twenties, and will eventually revisit in full when I feel that my skill matches my ambition for the story. If you encounter a “wrattsy” out in the wild of some other platform, that’s usually also me, which I choose as an alternative for whenever “wratts” is already taken.

---

I tag @tlbodine @evanthenerd83 @matt-i-guess @emilyelizabethfowl but no pressure—feel free to do this if you want and say I tagged you!

[spookyspaghettisundae]

They All Lie

Some mistakenly think of demons as a unified force of evil. Legions of hell, believe some. Creatures from the void between the stars, others think.

The reality is more complicated than any single theory.

Regardless of whatever you want to believe, the only thing we all have in common are shared languages.

Demonology is one of them.

Demonology, as most misunderstand it, is used to draw upon these distinct and malevolent forces. To summon them, to enter pacts with them. Some speak of witches, peddling away their souls for demonic magic. Certainly, there are those who wander such paths, but I do not consider them demonologists. Call them witches if you insist.

Another way to understand the word is by seeing it from the point of view of an academic. For the occult scholar, demonology entails cataloguing these entities. It is a language to understand and identify unnatural creatures that common man is too afraid to face.

Then there is a third understanding entirely.

My understanding, shared by my students, is using demonology to keep the demons far away from our world. This obscure language may be wielded like fire, to shed light upon the darkest corners of our lands, to bring heat against the cold of the void between the stars, and to purge away the evil in man's soul.

Like early man must have learned to wield fire.

To me, demonology is a means of battling otherworldly evil. I will leave the battle against human evils to others. I may not respect the king nor respect his authority, but it is not my place to stand against him. I may look down upon men who murder and cheat and steal, but it is not my place to punish them.

I can understand them. Even the most depraved possess scrutable motives if you dig deep enough into the twisted depths of their minds.

What I cannot understand are the dark things that hail from the beyond. The shadows that shift when light stands still, staring back from empty corners. The incorporeal presence that you can sense, but never see when you turn around. The unsummoned whispers that form words in the crackle of flames. The giggling on the wind that mocks man's suffering.

And the guests uninvited, invading mortal minds. Bearing false promises. Infecting them with corruption.

I seek to cleanse this world of both demons and the ones that summon them. One should pursue them without ill will or malice. Without dogma. Without preconceived notions.

Whatever the demons truly are, they are inscrutable. Understanding their ways, there madness lies. Those who call upon the demons are misguided, their souls forfeit, and their very existence to be pitied.

For what but madness, motives most tangled in derangement, must drive man to call upon these forces? The folly of drawing their attention?

The ignorance?

Such shortsighted actions, all oblivious to questions we must pose about these fell creatures.

What came first? The demons to our world, or the men who called upon them? Would they have ever cast their hungry gaze upon our realm, were it not for mortal desire?

Though it matters little. Answers to these questions may reach us long after my passing. Even with those whose means differ from mine, I share the drive to banish these evil beings.

Perhaps you have been so lucky that your life and loved ones remained unharmed by their foul touch. Consider yourself blessed in such ignorance. 'Tis a gift.

To never have sat at a table, dining with someone you trust, unaware of another entity puppeteering their body. As they sample our food and sip our wine, perfecting the art of mimicking our smiles while they study how they may hurt us in unspeakable ways.

To never have held someone you loved, pinning them down as the life escapes them, and the body thief escapes their stolen flesh just before the final, dying breath.

To never have seen the remains of those chosen by the demons, chosen to see how much mutilation and pain they could survive before slipping into the embrace of death.

If you live your life without ever experiencing such horrors, you are to be envied.

It is such violent truths we must embrace if we are to win the battle, and free our world from such wicked influence. While the wickedness of man alone is enough to haunt us with nightmares, blessed we shall be to shed ourselves from the shackles of the unnatural.

Therefore, we must perfect our language. Draw clear lines, identify them. Understand that some men are monsters, while not all monsters are men. That some magick can call upon these monsters, but not all magick serves to summon them here.

Abandon misconceptions guided by belief, unsupported by scientific study of these invaders.

While it is true and observable that people of faith have wielded their holy symbols and scriptures like weapons against the living darkness, it is not any inherent power in the symbols nor words. It is the power of their very souls that can shake the demons.

I have observed the crude and savage methods employed by my contemporary hunters among the "holy" inquisition. All but the true and tried magick rituals they sanction serve nothing but to evangelize their own beliefs, and little to exorcise a demonic infestation. All too often, their techniques only harm and slay the innocent vessels, scarring their minds and bodies alike in the process of freeing them from possession.

If those victims even survive at all.

A cross is a sword. A blade may be used to defend, but against relentless attack, all it can truly do is cut and wound in retaliation.

It is through demonology that we must seek to distinguish between different entities, and how we can send them back to the churning void from whence they hail.

Make no mistake: there is no known definitive way to destroy them. Even the most powerful of sorceries have only done as much as to drive away the most powerful of demonic visitors. In time, they may return. In time, their grudge against true exorcists may only grow. There are some among them whom I have met, time and again, whose grudge against me appears to fester.

Perhaps, if we can render their visits to our world unpleasant enough, they will one day shy away and never return. Perhaps, they will direct their wretched curiosity towards other worlds. Though such an outcome may weigh upon my conscience, it is nothing compared to a conscience weighed down by the idea of doing nothing. It is also our conscience that we unburden by knowing that we have done all we can. To prevent others from suffering terrible loss at inhuman hands.

There is already enough misery in our world as it stands.

We must therefore split our attention between battling both the demons, and the fools who dare call upon them. A paradox, for in using our shared language of demonology, the ends must be that it is one day forgotten, so that mankind can never again summon such beings.

For even the demons fear greater masters behind them. All have spoken the same. Behind every demon lurks a greater one. Though they all may lie, even when compelled to share secrets, the one common thread between them all is how they fear provoking the ire of those shadows, those shadows that rule the darkness between the stars.

And yet, some madmen seek to commune with them. Perhaps even to summon them.

These madmen must be stopped at any cost.

The worst fate mankind may suffer entails these entities becoming curious about our world.

Be vigilant and think true. Our science must near perfection. And one day, when fate smiles upon us, may we all be forgotten, and dust.

—Found upon loose papers inside the Bestiarium Nox, attributed to the anonymous author of the Vampyria Missa

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #written by Wratts #Pitchforks & Torches #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Luca Vadas #Bestiarium Nox #Vampyria Missa #demon #vampire #unnatural #hunt #evil #possession #demonology #magick #occult #epistolary

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Till Death Do Us Part

Emptiness.

Staring at the corpse of her husband, still warm, Milla's heart filled with emptiness and cold, deeper than the chill of autumn air outside the foggy windows. She expected the cold of dread to drape itself over her being, yet the longer she explored the depths of her soul, the more she only uncovered a strange sense of relief.

Deathly, bony fingers had lifted a great burden from her shoulders, though they left in its place the weight of a different concern, casting a veil of deep shadows upon her thoughts.

Not guilt was it that wracked her, but concern over a new problem that needed solving.

Blood still dripped from the silver candelabra in her hand. The thundering thuds of his body striking the carpeted floorboards still echoed in the halls of her recent memory.

Though she knew exactly what lies she needed to tell to cover his disappearance, Milla needed to dispose of the body before anybody noticed.

The city was too lively, even by night.

Conventional means would not help her now.

Spirit? Demon? Whatever it was, it had been with her for a long, long time. Ever since the days of a childhood filled with laughter and color, Sir Pinkerton had been her constant companion.

He had been there for her all along. Long before the woes of growing up, before the envy over things she could not claim her own, or the heartbreak that preceded the wedding. Sir Pinkerton had been there. Offering soothing words of advice to the girl-turned-woman and cutting words of mockery to those who wronged her.

Sir Pinkerton was the name she had given the entity. Often mistaken for an invisible friend, such as other children were wont to invent, he had always kept Milla company. She had never invented, only invited him. When she once envied her friend Connie for her invisible friend Theodore—when an undeserved slap against her own cheek still stung like pins and needles long after the strike—it had been Sir Pinkerton who answered the little girl's crying, offering comfort. And fantasies of revenge.

He always whispered in her ears, inaudible to others, of things she could do to enrich her own life, at the cost of others. The ways she may inflict harm, often to the amusement and glee of Sir Pinkerton. And the mild-mannered disappointment whenever she acted against his whispers, which was often.

No matter how many times she let him down, he had remained her perpetual and faithful ally where all others failed her. Helping her in times of need and offering guidance whenever she felt lost.

"S-sir Pinkerton, what—what shall I do about him? Please, help me."

Steam still rose from the soup bowls on the dinner table. Yellow fluid seeped into the cloth.

He answered with laughter, soft and warm, like a gust of wind blowing through the flames of a campfire, crackling like wood or bones snapping in twain.

"I can make him disappear, darling. Just surrender control."

She stammered before finding the words to protest.

"Oh, Sir Pinkerton, but—but last time I did that, Mister Casey's lips had been stitched shut! It took me forever to wash the blood from my hands."

Another warm laugh.

"Such is the nature of blood, darling. Fortunately, he could not speak without a tongue, even had he wanted to. Never did he bother us again, did he not?"

The steam still rose from the soup. A spoon astray, tossed aside by Milla's belligerent husband, an insult to her cooking.

"Yes, but those awful stares of his, whenever—whenever…"

"Such fear in his eyes—always does he avoid your presence now. We showed him not to put his hands where they do not belong. And you sure showed our dear departed Benjamin Manning here that he would not be pushing you around like some idle possession of his."

In her slender hand, the candelabra weighed as lightly as a feather. She had always imagined such silver decor to weigh so much more.

"And now? You—you promise to solve this? If I… if I let you…"

"Have I ever let you down, darling?"

Pushing down any semblance of guilt, Milla swallowed. Her family and friends had all betrayed her at one point or another; betrayals as tiny as hurtful white lies, and as grand as stabbing daggers into her very heart. While Sir Pinkerton rarely lied, lies only meant to comfort her. She trusted him.

"Very well, then. Please, my beloved shadow. Make him disappear."

The steam rising from the soup choked—or time stood still.

"Your wish is my command."

And the world turned to darkness for Milla. One moment, she was still standing in the dining room, looming over the warm body of Benjamin Manning, her slain husband, crumpled on the floor like the sack of potatoes he had always truly been.

When she blinked her eyes next, she came to her senses in the cellar. The cold she had felt now sliced all the way down to her bones, clinging to her soul, numbing her digits, and rendering her every motion awkward. Cold blood stained her trembling hands and shaking arms and quivering chin. Her lips were sticky with the stuff. Her belly had distended grotesquely, filled to the brim.

"Darling, you awoke too soon. Are you feeling unwell? Please, you should close your eyes and forget what you see."

The dizziness set in immediately, following on the heels of the horrid realization.

Parts of Benjamin were still laid out on the cellar table, its wooden surface slick with same blood and gore she wore. Her late husband's body barely recognizable, hacked apart by cleavers and saws, strewn about, and partially eaten.

The marks on his remains resembled what it looked like whenever she had bitten a chunk out of bread at supper.

Her stomach contents sloshed around, rumbling, and quaking and threatening to rise back up the way they came.

"Shame. Now you must lie whenever asked where he last went. Sleep, darling, please. Just a little bit longer—and you shall never see this rotten sod ever again."

The world dove into a deep sea of darkness once more, robbing her of her consciousness; earning her gratitude, as it also took from her the nausea that had gripped her insides, twisting, and turning them upside down.

Cold. Cold was all she felt. No flash of remorse over the grisly ways Sir Pinkerton helped her, the way that Benjamin's body would disappear from this earth. The cracking and snapping of bones cut through the tides of oblivion. The crackle of wood in the fireplace eclipsed it.

Some part of her, dark, cherished the thought that she had devoured his flesh, his soul. That she had stolen his life force and power that way. No longer would Benjamin dangle any more power over her. Had she sampled the flesh and souls of others before, without knowing it? Had their power enriched her every time?

Or was it the whispers of Sir Pinkerton suggesting as much?

"Wake up, my dear."

She sat alone in the tidy dining room, from which the men from the constabulary exited. One of them urged her to lock her home, reminding her that this part of city of Crimsonport was not safe by night. The front door clicked shut as her senses pooled to the stark white cloth on the table before her, her mind centering on the here and the now. The tingling of warmth in her fingertips, pulsating against the cool air enclosed in this chamber. The dying of voices outside as the unsuspecting men's distance grew.

The candelabra on the table glowed with flickering candlelight. Its silvery body stood pristine and bereft of all blood, cleansed of any evidence.

With tenderness, whispers slipped from her lips.

"Thank you, Sir Pinkerton. You have been—and always will be—my best friend."

"Always, my dear. I will always be here for you. Till death do us part."

"Can only death take you away from me?"

"'Tis not death that will separate us, darling. 'Tis the oath you once swore to our beyond, idle in its wording, yet sincere in its power. 'Twas you, a grown woman, who sought to cheat your way out of the oath."

"But was it truly—was it truly cheating? I failed. And a promise I made as a child? Ironclad and unchanging? Even though I could not have possibly understood the consequences?"

"A promise is a promise. Do you still yearn for the accursed kiss of death?"

Her fingertips caressed her neck, where fangs never broke skin.

"When the time comes, even I do not know the void in which your soul will be dragged into. You are very special, my dear. Yet there is no escaping a pact."

"Not one? Not one ever succeeded?"

"The impossible?"

"What if I am different? What if…"

Sir Pinkerton offered no reply.

"Will you stay by my side if I accomplish the impossible?"

"Till death do us part, my dear. Till death."

The dim light from candles and fireplace cast long shadows, merrily dancing around Milla. Though she no longer spoke out loud that night, Sir Pinkerton heard her every thought. Her vow, sworn to herself in that moment. That death would not be an end, she promised.

Only a new beginning.

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #Crimsonport #tales #gothic #Victorian #gaslight romance #dark fantasy #spirit #demon #possession #control #surrender #murder #Milla #Manning #vampire #Sir Pinkerton #evil #cannibalism

[spookyspaghettisundae]

In Absence of the Silent Flies

Through dreamless sleep, Aurelia Dunn stirred. Trapped under the weight of several blankets, intense heat had led her to breaking sweat, drenching both nightgown and sheets. Something tickled her nose.

Through the fog between the waking and slumber, mist dominated a half-lidded glimpse of foggy windows, frosted by wintry cold. Something tickled her nose again and she groaned.

Through the bitter film on her tongue, she tasted lingering memories of wine and stale bread and the scent of candles, snuffed out before crawling into this very bed. Something tickled her nose again, then buzzed.

She smacked her own face and flinched at the sting of pain to follow. A fly buzzed around her head until she swatted at it again, sending it to sit on the lavishly carved frame of a man's portrait painting on the wall.

The late owner of this city home, whom she had never met, staring back at the spectator with a regal air, befitting of the mysterious tale of his disappearance. Aurelia Dunn had never known him, though she knew the truth behind his murder.

The velvet curtains, the expensive threads in the blankets, and the silvery candelabra on the table nearby—she had never known nor dreamt of living with such luxuries either. Even the nightgown she had borrowed from her beloved felt so alien, a vestige of wealth far beyond her own means. She only found comfort in it because it reminded her of her.

Clarity flooded Aurelia's consciousness.

She sat up and stared at the fly where it clung to the painting. It rubbed its tiny legs together. She felt watched.

Did the fly know? Could it—like a human body—host otherworldly powers that knew what awaited her downstairs?

Had it arrived for the corpse? Or was it sticking around to witness?

To witness how the dead may rise again?

Even through the carpet, the biting cold of the floor burned as she crawled out of bed. Aurelia yawned, stretched, and slipped into a pair of slippers, silken and two sizes too large for her feet.

They lazily scuffled and pattered as she shuffled through the room, blinking away the lingering mist of restless sleep, and regaining her bearings. Remembering what she expected. What she hoped for. Longed for.

Wished.

The fly buzzed and flitted about. Another had joined it, circling together underneath the ceiling like a pair of lovers.

Even more searing than the floors, the cold that clung to the candelabra numbed her callused fingers almost instantly. She did not seek to light the candles now, only have it downstairs with her, for later, when night would fall again.

As if to not wake the dead nor draw unwanted attention, Aurelia took cautious steps, sneaking down the stairs until she reached the darkened den. Part of her hoping to see the dead alive.

Doors, windows, and walls muffled the sounds of busy city streets outside. The silence inside Manning House was deafening. Betraying her hopes.

Empty.

Slivers of light entered through the cracks between curtains, where motes of dust danced like fairy lights, leaving only faint silhouettes and outlines of the sight she expected to see, against all hope.

Part of her did not expect to see Milla returning from the Great Beyond so soon, no matter how much she wanted to believe.

To believe in magick.

The sight remained the same. Same as the days before.

Lips blue with cold. Hands crossed over her bosom in a serene pose, resting like the corpse she was. Encircled by extinguished candles, where the wax had pooled and solidified at their bases on the floorboards, dotting the edges of the magick circle drawn around the body in lines of white chalk.

A wistful sigh escaped Aurelia's nostrils as she stood there, admiring the soft curves and angles of Milla's face. Frozen in time. Eyelids closed. Not alive.

Flies buzzed. Some waited on the furniture nearby, others hung from the ceiling. They watched.

Waited.

Defying Aurelia's expectations further, none of the flies dared land on the dead body of Milla on the floor. Scented oils and cold air conspired to capture a sweet odor in Manning House. Aurelia had been going to great lengths to stave off any smell of death before it could ever arise.

She placed the candelabra on the table and backed away from Milla, retreating into the kitchen. Every step of the way, imagining how those eyelids may flutter open without warning.

Having adjusted to the dim twilight of the den from standing there for so long, her eyes burned in the rays of bright morning sun, flooding the kitchen.

Such luxuries, she fathomed, visiting sink and tap. Aurelia had grown up in this city only knowing water from shallow wells and the Old River running through Crimsonport. Every time the metal valve squeaked, and fresh, clean water trickled out from it, she marveled at this wonder. Mesmerized, she placed the wooden bucket underneath the thin stream of water raining down, letting it gurgle and splash while she watched the icy liquid gather.

The heat from bedtime quickly escaped her thin fingers, turning red, quickened even further as she squeezed out the sponge under the stream of water, rinsing it out, and wringing it before dropping it into the bucket.

She returned to Milla and the flies. She sat down by her beloved's side, careful, as if to not to disturb her slumber, coming to rest within the chalk boundaries of the spirit summoning circle. Aurelia gingerly kept dipping the sponge in the bucket, squeezing it out, and bringing it back to Milla's exposed skin, dabbing and wiping over it to keep the beautiful corpse clean.

The flies had gone silent. Waiting. As if they awaited their turn with great patience, as if they knew that this body resting here had not yet been consigned to the grave nor to rot.

As if these flies were not natural. They watched. A crowd of tiny, leering eyes.

Aurelia understood too little of sorceries, trusted every word that had ever come from Milla's lips. Strange truths spoken with authority, shaming and opposing folk tales and superstitions with that stern and magnetic stare of hers, words carrying uncanny confidence. Lips sealed with fiery kisses that made Aurelia's body tingle with the memory of soft touches alone.

Reflecting the tenderness of such sensations, she cleaned Milla's body anew, the third day in succession.

The silent flies fed that nagging sense of dread in her gut, that growing concern that her beloved may have been wrong about her magick and efficacy.

That the only way Milla would ever rise from this cold floor again would be by the grace of several strong hands, lifting her dead weight, to carry and deliver her body to the soil of a cemetery, to be buried in the same lot as her terrible late husband.

The fireplace stood dormant. Slivers of cold air seeped in from there. Two flies sat upon the mantle, staring, like the rest.

For now, the embers, deep within her heart, still sparked and crackled, rising from the flames of her love for Milla. The fires of hope that she had spoken true of sorcery, that they had committed no mistakes in any step of the strange ritual.

Atop that imaginary fire, what boiled and bubbled in a black cauldron of doubt, rising to the surface, dark memories of assisting her on every step of the spiraling path. The sting of watching as she drank poisoned tea, the same poison that had put Milla to sleep, that had turned those tender lips pale blue and her skin ashen, and oh so cold. That warm smile as she did so knowingly, willingly, confident that she would cheat death and demons alike. Laid down to rest on the floor in that circle, eyes closing as the tears had rolled down Aurelia's cheeks.

A faint smile had stayed frozen upon Milla's lips. Cold as the rest of her body. Now cold like the wintry air, creeping in through the cracks of the walls of this lavish home.

Sounds of walking and talking and carriages and horseshoes clopping against cobblestones; it all sounded so distant and unreal. Of people who passed by, oblivious to the strange mystery unfolding inside the Manning home.

What if they had failed? How would she ever escape the consequences? The constables would hunt her for questioning or worse. Aurelia shook her head, banishing any haunting daydreams of whiling her time away imprisoned, locked in the tower to rot alive.

With saintly patience, Aurelia cleaned Milla's skin until she left the sponge to bob in the bucket's water, set down outside the circle. She stayed sitting by her side, cradling her beloved's cheek in a palm, oh so cold and lifeless to the touch.

New tears flowed again. They did every day. Every night. Driven by that same doubt, that fear of failure. That fear that reality had always only been the life as she knew it. That magick was indeed unreal, that the poison had taken Milla's life, and no sorcery would ever bring her back.

Tears rolled down cheeks, wiped away as she sniffled. And the flies watched all the while. Waiting.

How she missed her voice, that sweet song in her ears, ringing there with echoes of earthly delights, orchestrating the time she spent applying new scented oils, massaging them onto Milla's skin.

The days melted away thus, as did the stores of food in the pantry, and the color from Aurelia's visage as she avoided leaving the house. Awake more at night than by day. Hiding from knocks at the door, and covering her mouth, huddled in dark corners, holding her breath while voices outside asked to see the lady-widow of Manning House.

Lurking while the flies multiplied. Watching. Ever so silent.

Long after the inner fires had waned, dying down slowly, little by little, as the inky-black waters of doubt boiled over the edges of that black cauldron, hissing with steam as they quenched the flames—something changed.

The silent flies were gone one day. Vanished without a trace. Aurelia gasped and rushed to Milla's side, only to find her damned to death as the days before, resting inside that summoning circle, still. Still as the corpse.

Disappointment gripped her heart and twisted her stomach in its clammy vice, and she soon sat at the table nearby, the tip of her finger tracing printed letters while she struggled to read from Manning's many books, just as Milla had taught her to.

The day melted away. The flies never returned.

Expecting to hear the buzz of their wings, she paused from her struggles to read, looking up. Listening intently. Hearing—

Nothing.

The sun set early. Eerie orange light shone through the cracks in between the curtains, pouring in from streetlamps outside. Candles glowed to render the written words legible on the pages Aurelia was poring over. Ink stained her dry fingertip.

Though no sound heralded any awakening, her head snapped away from the bothersome ennui of reading text she fought to understand. Married to the sudden motion, her gaze also snapped around, coming to rest upon her beloved.

Eyelids fluttered open. With unsettling, serpentine grace, Milla sat up inside the circle of candles.

No air of confusion surrounded the rising dead—only an icy determination to match the chill of wintry air. She locked eyes with her beloved Aurelia.

Milla's eyes glowed yellow, with pupils slit like those of a cat, captivating, and hypnotic in her unblinking stare.

Dread and hope and adoration admixed, making Aurelia's heart flutter.

Enraptured, yearning to lock lips with her anew yet fearing to find them as cold as winter's grasp and death's kiss, Aurelia could not break free from her gaze.

Fear robbed her of any speech. Yet her lips parted, forming a timid smile.

Every fiber of her yearned to jump up from the table. To run to Milla and embrace her and never let her go, never again.

Fear held her back.

Milla's lips parted only to release a wistful sigh. Forming a smile of her own.

That smile showed teeth. It bared long, sharp canines.

Fangs.

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #Victorian #Gothic #gaslight romance #dark fantasy #mystery #isolation #Crimsonport #Pitchforks & Torches #flies #dead #corpse #occult #magick #sorcery #necromancy #demon #spirit #ghost #resurrection #undead #vampire

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Beyond the Prisons of Life

Devils rarely revealed themselves as horned, fanged fiends. One such monster hid behind fanciful dress of pearly purple color, adorned with gilded royal crest and expensive silvery watch chained to a pocket. Like they don such disguises, in the face and flesh of simple men, they wear unthreatening names, such as Sir Everett Twaddle.

Steely eyes and a cold stare came from the deep shadow underneath his tall top hat. This devil in the guise of a man now stared into the flames, just as the armored knights flanking him. Like all devils, Sir Twaddle enjoyed the smell of burning flesh, and the screams of human agony, exquisite and artistic to his sensibilities. His ears twitched, eagerly awaiting the chorus of pain from the figure in the fire.

To drink in every second of that burning spectacle, that towering pyre, upon which Aurelia had been nailed to the stake. To marvel as she finally emitted a first shriek while the embers, dancing madly, flew heavenward, and she screamed to the point of her voice breaking, cracking long before her spirit, screaming as she burned alive at the inquisition's stake.

Finally, her jaw distended to grotesque proportions. Teeth gave way to horrid fangs, before the screaming blended with unnatural howls.

The corners of Twaddle's lips twitched. Oh, how he enjoyed this grisly display.

The woman consigned to death, whose fingers and feet had been hacked off by heavy axes of cold-blooded crusaders—she who shrieked inhumanly as her hair turned to smoke and the skin peeled from her flesh—

Indeed, she was a vampire.

And soon, she would be reduced to ashes.

He watched all the while. Even after several people of the small village had turned their backs and left the terrible spectacle behind them, guiding their wide-eyed children away, all satisfied that cruel justice had been served, though the haunting of the horrors beheld that night would leave a mark on their souls and a throbbing scar upon their minds.

The knights and musketeers stood watch with Twaddle, loyal to the clergymen of the inquisition present. Clad in black hoods and armor that lent the remaining crowd a fearsome appearance.

The gilded edges of metal plate gleamed with the dimming glow of the dying pyre.

One last time, a priest whispered a fervent prayer to their Good God, and Twaddle joined in on the recital, cementing his role as the sanctioned court sorcerer of King Michael III.

Unlike a true demon, this devil of a man hedged no qualms in bearing a holy cross, nor did he shy from uttering such hallowed words. Every syllable brushed over his lips like silk, whistling softly through perfectly white teeth, sentences punctuated by the crackling of coals.

Brighter than the light of this fire had ever burned, hatred swelled in the heart of another spectator. She had arrived far too late to rescue her beloved from the hands of inquisition, too late to save her from merciless words and acts of judgment.

Staring from the deepest of shadows, hunched over, her argent eyes shed bloody tears. Long hair, black as night, framed a face with skin as ghostly pale as a sheet.

While the townsfolk retreated into their homes, hoping to quickly forget the horrors they had witnessed in the burning of the vampire which mirrored the deaths of many innocents at the stake, they crawled into their hovels and huddled around fireplaces and hid in their beds, oblivious to the creature atop the roofs above their heads.

She could only imagine the soul-rending symphony of Aurelia's dying screams, turning hoarse and breaking as she burned. Still, they echoed in the dark palace of her darkening mind.

She, who had chosen for herself the name of Milla, now stared upon Sir Everett Twaddle with fiery spite.

This festering heat of hatred reached that devil, and he ran slender fingers along the brim of his hat, casting a sudden glance around him until he locked eyes with Milla. Like metal and magnet finding each other, he had somehow sensed her presence before their gazes met.

She shook with blood and rage. Twaddle met her stare with a shark's icy cold.

The smile hiding behind his lips surfaced, taking form in a hideous grimace.

With delay, the knights and clergy all followed Twaddle's motions. Casting their baleful attention towards the vampire perched high atop the inn, a collective of gasps escaped them. Frightened, even.

Her shape no longer bore the silhouette of a human. A coat of black fur bristled, and a maw worthy of the greatest beasts leered, wide open, large enough to crush a man's skull. Saliva glistened on her saber-like teeth.

The silver of her eyes gleamed in moonlight and fire, rife with burning despise.

Only Twaddle displayed no surprise. The grimacing grin froze upon his mien with sadistic glee. Oh, how he had hoped for this moment.

No dulcet tone carried her voice when she spoke. Only the growl of something animal, low and sinister in the ill it wished upon them.

"The stink of death and demons upon you."

The grin faded from Twaddle's face, as even he was shaken by the voluminous snarls.

"You dare accuse us of stench, foul creature?"

Leathery wings of a giant bat spread from her back, eclipsing the moon behind her.

"Only you, warlock. Only you."

He scoffed and gestured to his allies with two fingers stretched toward sky, a mockery of holy display.

"Men—to arms. Aim for the center. Aim for the monster's heart."

While metal scraped from knightly sheaths and gauntlet-clad fists brandished spears, musketeers leveled their rifles on the vampire.

A crazed laugh of hers echoed through the town.

"Monster? You dare—"

A volley of gunshots cracked, filling the plaza with blinding and biting smoke.

Even through the artificial cloud, her shape barely budged. She screeched like a siren, causing several of the holy warriors to drop their weapons and clutch their ears. All but Twaddle, as if some strange force protected the sorcerer.

A grin, returned to Twaddle's face, accompanied his brandishing of a holy cross, as if presenting a mighty sword before his foe.

He shouted, "Corruptor of maidens and consort of demon-kind! You shall run no longer from the law of the king and the law of the church! Accept your judgment and I promise your trial will be swift!"

Those silver eyes narrowed, and she lifted off the roof with mighty beating wings. The clouds surrounding the moon trembled and the whole inn quaked.

She replied with another crazed cackle, and the cross in Twaddle's hand mysteriously caught fire. He yelled in shock and pain, casting the object aside where its flaming iron clattered across cobblestones before beginning to melt on the spot.

The musketeers reloaded their rifles. With mounting fear, they unleashed another volley of silvered shots, now provoking screams of the villagers from their abodes in response, while the vampire yielded no such sound.

The winged figure only dipped through the air, barely injured by the many bullets that found their mark. The blood that rained upon the plaza sizzled where it met the dying fires of Aurelia's pyre, and one of the knights panicked, smearing the liquid crimson on his shiny armor rather than wiping it away.

"Little men. I have transcended thrallhood to the demons and curses they bring. I am more monster than monster, and more human than human—will outlive all of you wretches and feast upon your doom."

She dove into the crowd of holy warriors. Stone and bone alike crunched under the weight of a wagon, and metal whined as huge claws pried plate apart, cleaving through ribs and sundering organs of an eviscerated knight, spraying others with his gore.

Spears struck true, not one of them strong enough to pierce leathery hide. A flap of her wings sent every man around her flying in every direction, tumbling and crashing to the ground like broken toy soldiers flung away, weapons and holy symbols and books flying in every direction, metal clanging and glass of flasks of holy water shattering uselessly in her wake. Even Twaddle stumbled and bounced over hot coals, exploding underneath him with a spray of embers.

Another inhuman shriek shattered every window around the plaza, followed by agonized screams of the holy men, whose blood now flowed from their punctured ear drums.

The beast reared her head and set her sights on Twaddle. Studying him with her undying fury, pondering every possible way she could maim and dismember him while keeping him alive for as long as possible, while he offered a pathetic performance, scrambling to get back up on his feet again—and failing miserably.

He stammered, then shouted with clarity ancient words of power, eldritch in nature and incomprehensible to any witness, while he slipped on ashes and smashed his nose against cobblestones, spraying them with his own blood.

She leapt to pounce, wings spread and claws jutting out to tear him limb from limb. A bright green light flared up and a sphere of energy repelled the vampire, eliciting another shriek from her, this time pained.

His digits trembled where they hovered above the magick symbol painted in his own blood upon the ground beneath him. At the vampire, he flashed a fresh grin, baring bloodstained teeth.

"Not so fast, Carmilla," he snarled, coughing in between. "Not so simple."

The ground shook with each step she took away from him, circling round her difficult prey like a stalking predator. Seeking the crack in his defenses, the weakness in his magick.

One of the knights groaned and writhed—then screamed as her claws impaled him and shattered stone beneath, forcing a fountain of blood to shoot from his mouth. She flung his broken body aside, which snapped his spine and severed upper from lower body when he smashed into a nearby cart.

Others enjoyed better odds of recovering, regaining their footing, and arming themselves again.

Growled the vampire, "When we see each other again, your flesh with slough off your skin as you meet your death."

Twaddle, still smiling as devilishly as he always did, said, "When we meet again, I will be death incarnate. I will be beyond the prisons of life, and I will see you end headless, burnt by the rising sun. In darkness, you will perish with a pathetic whimper."

Spears unbroken rose, clenched in pained fists. Hands pawed for muskets, and several warriors rose around the vampire.

One of the men screamed, blood-curdling in his pitch, as she snatched him, piercing his belly fivefold and lifting him so the tips of his armored boots scraped over the cobblestones.

"Darkness? You have ignited the darkness within me, and the only thing you shall reap is your own suffering."

Leathery wings flapped and another violent gust of wind, like the taste of a gale, knocked everybody off their feet again as she hovered 'ward sky. Carrying the screaming victim with her into the night, the monstrous silhouette darted across the dark horizon, and the clouds high above roiled like the bubbling waters within a witch's cauldron.

Thundering flaps of her wings resounded and carried her farther and farther away, long before the last volley of gunshots cracked anew, with every bullet missing her as the distance quickly grew.

A sickening snap accompanied the silhouette of her captive priest being cut in half, with his legs plummeting to the grounds, where it would smack against a roof with a ghastly wet sound.

As she flew past the moon, that toothy maw widened to drink from the blood gushing from his halved body, devouring his fleeting fluids till she cast his remaining remains aside. Off into the night she soared, vanishing over the treetops and hillocks of the Steermark.

Twaddle stayed on the ground where he knelt, protected by the sign and circle of his sorcery.

Still, he grinned.

Though he knew better than to banish all fear for his life, he feared little from such a monster, for he believed himself a far greater monster than she could ever dream to be.

In their exchange, he had spoken nothing but truth.

In his dark heart, he fancied himself well on the way to becoming Death incarnate.

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #Crimsonport #tales #Pitchforks & Torches #dark fantasy #gaslight romance #Victorian #Gothic #vampire #magick #sorcerer #Sir Everett Twaddle #Aurelia #Milla #Carmilla #evil begets evil #darkness #Death #sorcery #inquisition #witch #burning

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Answers Found in Silence

Vincent licked his lips.

The blood tasted like iron, but the vision of the masterful painting before him absorbed his entire attention.

He loved paintings. He loved living vicariously through them. The rush it filled him with whenever his eyes followed every stroke of the brush, paint layered as passionate memories upon canvas, the sheer essence that the artist channeled into creating such masterpieces.

Seeing what they saw. Breathing what they breathed. Imagining what they must have heard at the time. Tasting what they sampled upon their tongues.

Absentmindedly, he licked his lips again, only now realizing how much blood must have sprayed his face upon bludgeoning a man to death. It took him out of his revelry. That taste of iron prevented him from embarking on another journey through the lens of the painting.

Vincent dabbed his lower lip, then inspected his fingertips, ensuring with a glance that it was indeed another man's blood.

He turned to the corpse splayed out on the marble floor behind him, in the middle of a pool of his own bodily fluids. Vincent scanned the dead body with silent contempt. His lip curled into a sneer. He shook his head in disbelief.

"Philistine," he muttered.

The knife that Sir Dorsey Dwyer had held now lay on the shiny floor beside him, underneath a reflective surface comprised of his own spilled lifeblood, pumped out to completion by his heart's merciless beating, throbbing until he had exhaled his last breath.

Dwyer had threatened to do harm with that knife. Not harm to Vincent—but to the painting. An act of aggression he could not tolerate. An act of spite which he would not suffer.

That they would not suffer.

"Yes," whispered his favorite voice. That sweetest voice. "You did well, my love. Revenge for a loved one he had lost, I can always fathom, but what he would have done to the painting never would have—"

"Brought him back," said Vincent, Lord of the Bailyview, seemingly to himself.

Nobody but him could hear the phantasmal companion whose sentence he had finished. He stood alone in that spacious hall, company only to his late colleague's corpse growing cold. Sparing little glance to the bent candelabra which had caved in Dwyer's skull, he turned to gaze at the painting again.

He said, "It is a bit of a bother though. I need to figure out how to get his sorry carcass out of here without getting caught red-handed, or our time together may just be spent in a cell in the Tower."

She stayed silent.

He rubbed thumb and bloodstained fingers together, marveling at the sensation of that warm slick fluid trapped between them. Though rare for him to take another person's life, he rarely felt anything even remotely related to remorse.

Like this painting.

A beautiful portrait of a quaintly handsome man. Staring off to the side through hazel eyes, head crowned by messy hair, garbed in a fancy dress likely donned just for the portrait's painter—or imagined, as it contrasted the rest of his appearance so.

The painter had clearly seen something in the motif of his masterpiece. Felt something for the man depicted on the canvas.

And the painter had been nobody less than the infamous Outer Wall Reaper. The murderer who had kept the city locked in a breathless fear, rendered masses afraid of the killer who stalked its streets by night, picking off people and making them disappear until only mangled bodies surfaced in the slums, organs missing.

And now, Vincent owned this painting, stolen from the Reaper's vandalized home by looters before an angry mob fully thrashed it. The piece of art had found its way into the private collection of this rich and handsome playboy.

"So fascinating," said she.

Orinrya.

"The painter? Or the subject?" he asked.

She rendered a whole aria, carried in the singsong of a single word as she replied, "Both."

He chuckled.

"So rare for us to glimpse what such a pure soul saw as attractive," she added.

"Pure soul?" scoffed Vincent. But he smiled.

"Yes. Just look at the way he painted every single hair on his head. What little attention he paid to the shirt's collar or the bow, while having slaved over the sheen he had seen on this man's skin. The hand that guided that brush also guided the needles and scalpels that took all those lives, in all those cold and dreary nights. The warmth of their blood, steaming in the snow—"

"You're right."

"Hm?"

"I see it," breathed Vincent.

He sighed. Shot another glance at the dead man on the floor, repeating his oath, "Philistine. To think—you almost robbed our world of this masterpiece. The single only painting the Reaper may have ever made."

Dwyer had been out of line; he had had no right to destroy it. Nobody did. The stupid fop had foolishly tried to put knife to the canvas, to slice it to ribbons in a fit of rage upon hearing who had painted the portrait. A petty act of revenge, as if it would have brought back his slain brother, the only wealthy victim whose life the Reaper claimed in his rampage through the slums. Caught with a night worker, no less, adding insult to injury.

And to imagine that a simple painting could have been the object of his impotent rage—no, they would never have suffered such petty revenge. After all, it was not the artwork that had taken his brother's life.

Snatching a gas lantern from the table, Vincent raised it in front of the painting and frowned. Though perfect for the simple sandalwood frame, this artificial light did not do the artwork itself any justice. The long, foggy night had swallowed the sun, and Vincent could not wait to behold the Reaper's artistry again in broad daylight.

In a way, the Outer Wall Reaper had just claimed another life. Even if only indirectly. Vincent smiled at that thought. That he had accidentally become the murderer's own instrument.

Almost as if on cue to disrupt his morbid amusement, someone knocked on the door.

Muffled through the entrance still closed, the butler spoke, "Milord, I heard—"

"It's fine, Perry. Brace yourself as you enter. Sir Dwyer had a," Vincent's words trailed off like these thoughts. He smiled again to himself before he finally finished the sentence. "He had an unfortunate accident."

He never turned around. The doors to the gallery opened and Perry entered. His shoes squeaked as he swiveled and froze in place, staring at the corpse.

"An accident with a candelabra, I see," said the butler with his usual measure of dripping sarcasm. "Looks like the poor chap fell backwards into it. Repeatedly."

Vincent chortled, still admiring the painting. He never understood how Perry found it in him to deliver such deadpan remarks without breaking out into laughter himself.

Their gazes met for a second, and as always, Vincent read no fear in Perry's eyes. They would never harm a hair on each other's heads, and knowing each other's dirty secrets assured mutual silence—or mutual destruction.

"What would you have me do about this mess, sir?"

Vincent clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Pay no mind. Fetch me everything for some absinthe. I will take care of the late Sir Dwyer myself. And as you recall, he showed up here all drunk off his arse. I don't think anybody knows he even came here. And someone in the constabulary... still owes me a favor. I'll have it all sorted out soon, no worries."

"Despite the recent disaster at your party?"

"Oh, let them all talk. I love being the center of attention. Next thing you know, I'll be the headline of another lurid article," Vincent said, painting a picture in the air with a hand, fingers splayed as he envisioned the printed piece. "Painting me as the Outer Wall Reaper himself, while others rush to defend my name and trip over themselves in fabricating all the reasons why I would never harm a fly."

Vincent arched his brow as he flashed his loyal butler a twisted smile. The same involuntary expression to mark his face whenever he felt like he was winning a game. And he always won the games that people played in the rumor mill.

"I am less concerned about them, milord. And more about how difficult it will be to clean after the constabulary concludes their investigation." Perry raised his nose and stared down at it, gray cheeks reddening.

"Hm. I am terribly sorry about all that, Perry. You have my word; I'll hire someone to take care of it. Now—how about that absinthe?"

The butler emitted a grunt in recognition, bowed, and backed out of the gallery hall again, leaving Vincent alone with the corpse.

And Orinrya.

The door clicked as it shut completely.

"He's such a good friend of the family," she said. "Three generations, and now the old codger's stuck with handling your caprice."

She smiled through Vincent's own lips. He smiled to himself, as well.

"I'm sure he has his own share of amusements," he said. Focusing on the painting again, he asked, "Now, where do you think this one leads? It's just blank around the subject. Well, not entirely blank. There's some color, some suggestion of gloom. I'd wager he painted it just this same winter. But without background—no context. A blind journey. We've never done that before."

"And that's why we will, darling. You cannot resist."

He smiled even wider.

Orinrya was right. She knew his thoughts, reading them as clearly as if he had spoken them out loud, giving them air. She knew his capricious nature as well as he did, or perhaps even better. Knew he could not pass up on any opportunity to explore the unknown. He bored quickly of things familiar and always sought to visit a new horizon whenever it presented itself.

He flopped down onto the sofa with a heavy sigh, his velvety upholstered oasis in the middle of this opulent marble gallery. Surrounded by alabaster statues of ancient deities, and arrays of exquisite paintings that his family had amassed over all these years to plaster the high walls. The lights from gaslit lanterns cast pockets of eerie glow throughout the gigantic hall.

Vincent tapped his chiseled blood-splattered chin as he once more marveled at the craftsmanship that had gone into painting this portrait.

"What do think is his name? Or was?" he asked.

"Eric," she said. Giggled. "He looks like an Eric to me. And still alive, I feel."

Vincent chuckled.

"So, you're picking up on a name with an 'E'. Perhaps Egon? Egon. Hm. What a funny name," he mused.

"Edward. That must be it, for sure."

"How would you know?"

"Call it—intuition," she cooed.

"Or should I call it whispers? The things you hear from the beyond? You never answered, love. You never told me where you came from."

"And perhaps I never will," she breathed with melody, drawing out another smile from him.

The set of double doors opened into the gallery. The butler entered. Empty glasses and sugar cubes in a small metal cup tinkled and clattered until he arrived by the sofa's side. He set the contents of his tray down onto the table by the sofa, one by one, preparing everything for Vincent's ritual.

Before he could seize the bottle of green liquid to pour him a glass, Vincent raised a jewelry-clad hand to stop Perry.

"That'll be all. Thank you," he told him. "I'll take it from here."

Perry nodded, bowed again, and left the gallery, shedding not even a glance in the direction of Dwyer's corpse.

The doors clicked shut again.

"You know you don't need that, right?" asked Orinrya.

"Yes. But I just—I enjoy it too much. I like the taste. I associate it with our study of these pieces. With our journeys."

He chuckled again.

Perching a sugar cube atop the glass with the ornate spoon—and his family's crest of the eagle cut into the silver piece of specialized cutlery—he poured the sweet green spirit into his clear cup. The trickle of liquid tickled his senses.

And he lived for all manner of sensations.

"It is a lovely taste, I must concede," she said. "Particularly this bottle, this make. More than mere resemblance of licorice. Mint. Thyme? And a hint of other worlds. I do understand the appeal, don't get me wrong."

A delighted sigh escaped his throat as he cradled the glass between the fingers of one hand, swirling its contents like fine wine and sampling the drink's scent.

"Other worlds indeed," he said, the smile never fading from his face.

He sipped from the glass. Heat spread over his palate with a pleasant warmth, like a beautiful wildfire consuming the countryside, burning away every hint of iron and blood. He closed his eyes as he savored the aftertaste, and took another longing sip, kissing the glass like he would his many lovers, the men and women he consorted with behind closed doors at his many lavish parties.

"Drink, sweet prince," she said. "I long to see what lies beyond. I wish to meet this man for myself. To see what the Reaper saw."

"Taste what the Reaper tasted," breathed Vincent, licking his lips again, now only tasting the sweet sting of the green fairy, any tang of blood having been relegated into memory.

He focused on the painting. Drinking in the portrait's details. Warm tones made up the complexion of the artist's subject. Streaks and dabs of gray peppered dark hair despite the youthful and symmetrical face. A faint hint of stubble around the small and tender-looking lips and a soft chin.

And such kind eyes. So utterly kind.

What had the Reaper seen? Who was this mysterious subject?

"The killer became obsessed with him," Orinrya whispered. "Watched him from afar. But not like he watched the others."

Vincent sipped more from his cup; his sights fixed on the portrait. The spirit burned his throat on the way down and blood now rushed in his ears.

"Do you think he would have kept him for last? After torching down the entire world, would he have kept him around, do you think?"

"Not for long," she said. "Those kind eyes, he would not have been able to bear them for all eternity. Those eyes, painted thus, they knew not who watched him. What watched him. What monster—"

"Oh, my dear, let us not wield that word lightly," Vincent said.

His eyes fell shut as he drank more from the cup. The cool steel framing its glass made his silky palm tingle.

"Oh, but my dear, he is one of us," she sang.

"Was," said Vincent, breaking out into another chuckle.

Opening his eyes to continue gazing into the soft amber irises of the portrait's eyes, Vincent's vision blurred.

"Yes, was," she chimed in, joining him with melodious laughter in his mind.

"And this—Edward, you say—"

"Yes. Certainly Edward. I see a room. Orderly. Well-organized. Neatly arranged instruments. Cabinets filled with... medicine."

"A doctor?" asked Vincent with a lopsided smile, arching a brow.

"A doctor."

He drank more from the cup. Lost all sense of time as his senses dulled, losing track of how often he repeated the motion—the trickle of green spirit soaked up by the sugar cube, trailing down through the family crest into the cup, and burning in his throat as he sent it to cascade past his luscious lips and tongue.

"Here, in this very city, am I right?"

"Yes, dear. He is near. I feel it."

As his vision faded, his memory soon followed into the hazy mist.

Vincent cradled the bottle. Empty, save for a few droplets. They laughed as its glass shattered somewhere on the floor, no further mind paid to its breaking after jettisoning it away in a languid arc.

"I can almost taste it."

The lingering smell of the spirit occluded his senses further, but he began to smell another sharp substance.

Rubbing alcohol.

"We're getting closer, love," she whispered.

Every time he blinked, his eyelids grew heavier. His vision of the portrait turned into a blob of warm colors in dim light. The kind eyes of the mystery man in the painting—Edward—soon peeled away from that unseen something off to the right side of the image, and the doctor in the painting turned his head to look back at his spectators.

Then he looked out a window. His motions were slow, deliberate.

They felt that he felt watched.

"A busy street by day, just outside that window," Orinrya said.

"A foggy day," Vincent ventured. "A day not long ago."

"Only days around when the Reaper started his spree."

"Oh, how he cherished knowing how this beautiful man—this oblivious doctor—was unwittingly helping him."

"Did he provide the instruments?"

"Or drugs, perhaps?"

"No, just the thing to stab. A precise thing."

"A needle," they both said in unison, their voices blending until they matched. Orinrya spoke through his mouth. "A syringe."

Two voices. Not one.

The lantern's flame flickered but stayed alight. Turned bright blue. The world began to fade.

"Inspiration."

"He inspired him. Oh, he quaffed the nectar of this man's innocence—"

"Watched from afar, even before he started claiming lives—"

"Twisted it into something darker—"

"Something fierce—"

"Oh, the delicious transgression."

The lights throughout the gallery went out, one by one, until all but the lantern sitting on the floor between sofa and the lonesome painting remained lit. An orange-hued island in the middle of a sea of darkness. On one edge, the dapper lordling lounged, limbs drooping lazily off the sides. On the other, the painting.

The handsome man had disappeared from it.

Vincent brushed over his own lips and the numbness had set in. Unable to feel his own fingers, it felt like someone else caressed him, like she had planted there a gentle kiss.

They no longer saw a portrait, but another place. A window into that other location: a doctor's practice. Vacant of people, with shadows flitting about, hints of its owner leaping from one task to another chore, as day and night cycled rapidly, bouncing back and forth.

Meticulously washing his hands in the sink. Examining a sitting patient's eyes. Carefully bringing scalpel to an exposed arm. A laugh to defuse some fear. Blood, dabbed away with cloth in slender hands. A warm and kind smile to match the gaze from the painting, a patient calmed by his gentle disposition.

Oblivious of the darkness that watched him, reaching through past and present and now seeing that darkened room. A solid night, a roiling fog outside the windows. Like one monster once watched, spying from the outside, they now peered through painting, bridging time and space.

Vincent lurched up onto his feet and stumbled halfway on the infinitely long walk towards the painting. Glass shards crunched underneath his shoe, reminiscent of the blanket of snow outside, melting into the flurries of crystallized precipitation which he saw through the painting, falling softly to cobblestone-covered streets outside the practice's window.

Though numbed by stupor, the bumps and ridges of dried paint surfaced in a texture he traced with his fingertips, exploring the picture of the painting. No longer depicting the kind-faced doctor, but his practice, blanketed entirely by night.

"Push, my love. Let us explore."

And Vincent did. Pressed his palm against the painting, and ripples exploded outwards from it, as if he had disturbed the surface of a still pond. The image swallowed his hand and he pushed deeper, until he dove into that distorted image, neither place nor person, stepping entirely through.

As he stumbled again and blinked to orient himself, he stood inside that doctor's practice.

Rocked back and forth as the absinthe did its number on his coordination, barely able to read the handwriting on letters stacked on a desk.

Orinrya whispered through Vincent's lips, "Doctor Edward—"

"Carnaby," Vincent finished himself, slurring the surname in a drunken drawl, erupting into a stupid giggle.

He slapped the paper back down onto the desk and looked about, letting his eyes adjust.

"Do we truly travel to these places, love?"

"Or is it just a jaunt of the mind?" she countered.

"A little escape that leaves the flesh behind?"

He giggled another drunken giggle as he clumsily knocked over objects on the desk, causing them to clink and clatter and a small broken vial to gurgle out liquid. Something black, likely ink.

"Oh fairy, my green fairy," he murmured with the most melody that a positively drunken man could muster.

"This is all us, darling. No fairy needed. Just some added fun for your pleasure."

He pushed through a door, stumbling down dark corridors, and registering the softness of a carpet beneath his shoes.

"But it's so much fun, love—"

Vincent froze.

Bathed in a bright sliver of silver moonlight from a crack between the curtains, a woman lay in bed. A shapely face, heavily scarred, and peacefully resting, eyes closed.

"Oh, here we go again," mused Orinrya. "Be still, your beating heart."

Arms exposed above the sheets, wreathed in bandages, leaving just enough space for Vincent to take a seat at the sleeping woman's side. The mattress and bed creaked underneath his weight.

The scars on her cheek, as disfiguring they were, he saw past them and found a beauty he would have overlooked otherwise. But it was the scarring that captured his entire attention.

"Yet another fancy for you to entertain, love?"

He shushed Orinrya.

His fingers shook with the green fairy's tremors and an enamored fascination. He traced over the lines of those scars, an uneven drawing from a cut inflicted by a blade, that wandered over cheek to nose. Crisscrossing into another scar that ran across the nose, where ridge had broken once. Gingerly exploring the uneven surface of her warm skin where a hound's claw had raked her jaw. Her soft and shallow breath, he felt even with hands so numb.

So focused, so spellbound—

"Careful now," Orinrya whispered.

Vincent whispered back, "Sound asleep—"

"Look," she said. "Look away."

"No, I shall not."

"Look beside her, I say! Look. On the bedside table," Orinrya urged him. The singsong gone, her tone had fallen deathly serious.

That was when his blurry gaze finally came to rest upon it.

A leatherbound tome. Strange glyphs carved into its face.

Another gasp escaped Vincent's throat, all attention for the beautifully scarred woman now blown away.

An authentic tome of magick. He felt it. He felt its thrum. No ordinary book he had ever seen had ever looked like that. It had to be.

The prize he had sought for so long.

"Take me," Orinrya whispered.

No—the tome had whispered that. In his mind. Like her?

Right?

"Take it," she whispered in his mind. "Take it."

His hands trembled—hovered just above the cool leather surface of the book. How he yearned to rip it open and decipher its inscriptions. But his reverence weighed so heavily, the dread of what terrible secrets it may contain, it boggled his mind. His hesitation dragged on forever, mired in a swamp of lost time and a drunken haze.

"Take it," she hissed. Commanding.

His fingers trembled even more as they crept closer towards the edges of the book, keen on flipping the lid and perusing its mysterious pages.

He hesitated for too long.

"What are you doing in here?" a man blurted out behind them.

In the door to the room stood a dark silhouette. The squeak of metal and a clicking sound preceded a lantern going on.

The doctor. This Edward Carnaby. The kind face from the painting, kindness far from its current expression. Glaring at Vincent.

"Who in the blazes are you?" asked the doctor.

Brows furrowed; the moonlight twinkled with fear in the doctor's pupils.

Vincent rose to his feet and lurched towards him, tripping over a chair's leg. He caught himself against a dresser before he could fully plummet to the floor. Laughed, drunkenly.

"Should he see your face?" Orinrya asked. Another murmur in Vincent's thoughts. "Should he remember?"

"No. Yes!" Vincent said, followed by another clipped giggle.

Alibi, he thought. So convenient. If this was even real.

Doctor Carnaby cried, "Get out! Before I fetch a constable!"

The good doctor threatened, yet he took a timid step backwards, back into the hallway behind him. Frightened by the nightly invader in his home.

"Sorry good, sir," Vincent's words lurched as much as he did with his drunken gait. "I must have been confused. Long night—o-out drinking, you see."

"Get out!" repeated the doctor with more force. His voice trembled with terror.

Leaning against the dresser, sliding, and almost slipping as he propped himself up, Vincent eked out a theatrical gesture with his arm and bowed, nearly toppling over in the process. "I'm Lord Vincent Va—"

"I don't care who in the devil's name you are, you are bothering my patient, you drunken lout! Get! Out! " The doctor's fear audibly subsided. He cleared his throat and pointed a finger down the hallway, directing Vincent to leave that way.

He stepped aside demonstratively and waited for Vincent to follow his instructions.

"Yes, yes, yes. As I was saying, good sir, I must have taken the wrong turn—wrong door, you know, it happens," he said with a smile, growing aware of how much less charming he was whenever he was this heavily intoxicated. "Vincent Vance is the name, Lord of Bailyview. Terribly sorry if I broke anything on the way in—"

Doctor Carnaby's face fell through different stages. The dread dropped into fury, and the fury made way for confusion and mild annoyance, with a dash of pity.

"Just leave, please."

"Right," Vincent said, covering his mouth and feigning the urge to throw up, replete with a retching sound.

Carnaby waited patiently for him to step outside, and Vincent obliged. Stared over his shoulder as he turned into the hallway and stopped there—the scarred woman stirred, and more importantly, that leatherbound tome eyelessly stared back at him.

Beckoning him.

He wanted it so badly. Had to peel his gaze from the book. Had to tell himself he'd be back for it. Flashed a stupid grin at the doctor and stumbled forth.

The glow from the doctor's lantern made it easier to navigate the dark hallway, and in the blurry haze where time and space melted into one misty soup, he braced himself against a wall on the way until he pushed through a door that should have led outside. He slammed it shut behind him, more fiercely than he had intended.

But he did not find himself outside on the street, in the cold, where his breath condensed before his mouth, standing in the pale moonlight as it pierced a ring of clouds—but back in the gallery in front of the living painting of Doctor Edward Carnaby.

The doctor glared into the night outside his front door. Poked his head outside to see where his nightly intruder had staggered off to but paid it no more mind. Did not notice a lack of footprints in the thin layer of snow. He shut the door. The lock loudly fell into place.

Vincent leaned against the wall, watching through the painting.

The snowfall of flurries gently drifting down onto the cobblestone-covered streets made him sway again, made Vincent's legs buckle. Hypnotic as it was, it almost fully robbed him of his senses.

He crashed back down onto that comfortable sofa inside his opulent gallery.

"A fascinating jaunt, darling," said Orinrya.

"And a convenient alibi," he replied, shooting another glance at Sir Dwyer's body.

They laughed at the dead philistine.

The blur continued, as Vincent did not recall how he had gotten from the Reaper's painting of Doctor Carnaby in the main hall—to his private parlor.

Slumped into a different sofa, he peered up at the gigantic portrait of himself.

The renowned painter Léon Choffard had spent months completing this masterpiece. A stylized depiction of Vincent's likeness. Though already statuesque in the flesh, Choffard's artistry had lent the portrait a special something that portrayed Vincent as even more attractive than humanly possible—which Vincent regularly and smirkingly attributed to their brief and romantic tryst.

"It truly captures your pleasant face," Orinrya said.

"Thank you, dear."

Silence.

A large clock tick-tocked away from the edge of the room, with everything around him swamped in shadows, two lanterns shedding just enough light that he could study the rendition of his own portrait.

"I wonder," he suddenly said. "What would happen if we entered that picture? Where would it take us?"

Silence.

Orinrya stayed silent.

"Hm, I like that answer. It is intriguing, love. So mysterious. You say so much by saying nothing, you know that?"

She laughed inside his head. A sweet and seductive laugh. He smiled in response.

"Will you ever tell me what you are? Or is that destined to be our perpetual dance?"

She laughed more.

"In due time," she said.

"Like getting our hands on that book."

"Yes, in due time, darling."

"And the woman."

"The scarred one?"

"No. Yes. Her too," he said. He bit his lip, clamped his eyes shut and sighed. "I meant the lady from the new world, that witch-doctor. And all the others in her company. That bandaged inquisitor—oh, how I would like to peel his bandages away and hear all his stories. It's brilliant how all these fascinating people—and things—are all coming together here, all at once."

"Yes. You feel it," Orinrya said.

"Feel what?"

"The quickening."

"What do you mean?"

"Something new being born. Old dreams that are dying, and a new world being birthed before our eyes," she breathed.

Vincent shuddered with a chill running down his spine.

"And what is this new world you speak? You must know. You know so much. I know you know," Vincent whispered, erupting into a crazed cackle over how silly he found his own words.

She smiled. He felt it. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled as a soft breeze swept through his parlor like a ghostly presence. Like soft fingertips that brushed against his lips, not his own. Or perhaps his own, just numbed from the excess of strong spirits only slowly wearing off.

"The real question, darling—what will you do when you bear witness to the reckoning? Will you hold the reins? Or will you pass them off to see what spectacle others may unfold?" Orinrya asked.

The corners of his lips twitched. Both he and she, they smiled simultaneously.

Not gracing her questions with any straight answer, he only returned more questions.

"Are you angel? Or devil?"

Silence.

"Good answer."

He laughed a hollow laugh, eventually mounting into a long and wistful sigh.

Vincent drifted off into a dreamless sleep. And he never yearned for such, as he lived his dreams in every waking moment.

A lingering thought that swam atop the sea of oblivion.

Sputtering awake, the lanterns were no longer lit. Daylight flooded through open doors into the parlor. He still rested in the sofa, sprawled out across it like his own likeness in the gigantic portrait towering over him.

The air was cold and had left him with a painfully stiff neck.

As he shuffled lazily across shiny marble floors, he surveyed the damage he had wrought the night before. The glass shards scattered across the gallery, and the dead body of Sir Dwyer, still left in his own pool of blood.

Work to do. A body to be rid of. A chief to blackmail. A new slew of rumors to seed.

The rich lord took a deep breath and sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck.

He smiled.

"Oh, the woes of pleasure before business," he reckoned.

They both laughed at the thought.

"But that book—"

"Will be ours."

"Its magick—"

"We will wield it," they sang together, dulcet syllables spilling from Vincent's lips.

"Or will you be wielding it, while I soar to incredible heights on your back?" he asked.

And there was silence.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #gothic #gothic horror #gaslight romance #Victorian #Crimsonport #Tales #Red Coast #Lord Vincent Vance #Baxter Hanrahan #Outer Wall Reaper #serial killer #murderer #painting #murder #Edward Carnaby #Nora Morrissey #doctor #magick #astral travel #teleportation

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Only Skins and Bones

Blood from the body had stained the pristine snow around it. A withered husk of what once must have looked human—it looked more like a pile of discarded clothing.

Hollow eye sockets stared back at the witch.

Agnes knelt by the drained corpse. A sweet and sickly smell emanated from it.

What were they dealing with here? She had never seen nor heard of such a thing.

Though common man would have recoiled at the grisly remains, the herbalist-witch had a strong stomach, steeled from treating patients and truly revolting ailments.

Despite what the people of Altmere had described, this could be no work of a wolf-man. What she now studied, scanning carefully with the eyes of a surgeon, was not the work of a feral beast. No feasting had occurred. The way the skin had split suggested thousands of tiny teeth.

With fingers splayed, her own hand hovered above the drained body. Nothing but skin and bones had been left behind by the unnatural culprit. Even the innards were missing entirely, taken without a trace.

And the husk was still warm.

Twigs snapped and snow crunched behind her.

The crunching accompanied heavy boots digging into the heavier blanket of snow as Luca returned to the desolate site, pushing past the barren trees of this forest. The blunderbuss in his hand rested against his shoulder and he peered over the silvery brim of his spectacles to meet her gaze.

He shook his head.

"Like the other one. Tracks just vanish into thin air. Like it went right up into the trees," he said, clicking his tongue and rolling his square jaw.

"But the trees are not disturbed," Agnes added.

He shook his head again and cast a glance around them.

"Any black rose on the remains?" he asked, letting the rest of his breath escape him as a sigh.

"None," she said.

The cold made her digits tingle painfully, even breathing made her throat burn with the freezing wintry air. She rose to her feet and patted at her dark green cloak, rustling it, and ridding it of some of the snow now clinging to the bottom.

"It is worthy of our attention. And not for nothing, but we can help the—"

"Right, that's where I'm struggling a bit to make sense of why we're even bothering. Where I come from, you have to claw your bloody way up and get nothing for free. If some creature is out here, then let the king's men deal with it, I reckon. We need to find more signs of the black rose, not some random creatures of the night. I—I just do not even understand why you are so invested. They ran you out of Crimsonport, for fuck's sake. Burned your house down for—"

"Enough," she cut him off. Frowned at him.

Using a leather-clad thumb, Luca shoved the spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. Stared at her all the while, unblinking. Studying her reactions, as he always did.

One of the most charming and handsome men she had even known, he also happened to be among the most frustrating company she could imagine.

Always stinging like a scorpion and retreating, always keeping people at arm's length. Testing limits. Expecting people to be here one day and gone the next. Just like her fire-red hair led gullible people to expect the worst superstitions of witches to be alive with her, his silver hair paired with his youthful appearance lent—

"Let's move on," he interrupted her thoughts. "The cards said we would meet our quarry out here today, and I'm inclined to believe them. Whether it is this creature or not. I'm also inclined to find a warm hearth as soon as possible." He groaned, then said, "I hate this time o' year. Why do these damned things like this time o' year so much?"

He held out a gloved hand for her to take, offering help to step over the fallen log that obstructed the path between them, behind which the bloodless, gutless body lay.

Agnes grinned at him and ignored his gesture, stepping over the log without taking his hand.

He tilted his head, flashed her one of his typically roguish smirks, and turned, leading the way.

Snow crunched and resisted their tread. Their boots sank deep and kicked up chunks of the hard-packed frosting on the forest grounds.

No birds chirped.

Most unsettling to Agnes, not even the crows cawed. There should have been crows here.

Every time she looked up, the barren and skeletal trees loomed overhead, their pointy fingers and branches running through the gloomy sky like dark veins, pulsating in how the cold breeze caused them to sway and grasp at the two lonesome wanderers.

A forest devoid of all life. That in itself felt unnatural.

Not a single animal walked these grounds. Even having spent most of her life in that big and smoggy city, Agnes always sensed the presence of the forest's own. And out here, for some reason, the wildland's creatures stayed away.

Far away.

After minutes of walking, sometimes looking over her shoulder and feeling watched—followed, even—and nervous glances over Luca's shoulder indicating he shared the same sensations—

More shoes crunched in the snow. A third figure neared.

A large, plump, pot-bellied man, whose cheeks the biting cold had rendered rosy and red; garbed in a heavy coat, hands buried in his pockets. And his hound, a large, dark mastiff, staring at them through dreary-looking eyes with a piercing gaze.

Their nearing and looks impressed upon Agnes. She could not discern why, but they felt out of place, even if they belonged and looked perfectly normal.

She had seen them in the town of Altmere that same morning, in the streets where the frightened villagers had assembled, well before Luca and she had marched all the way out here to investigate the disappearance. Many had introduced themselves—so, too, this man—but she struggled to recall his name, as she would have with so many others. They all blurred and blended.

"Ya find anything?" asked the rotund man. Raspy voice. Curious.

"Unfortunately, yes," replied Luca.

Luca, the card witch, lowered his blunderbuss to his side and nodded his head in the direction of the mysterious body.

"Not a sight for the faint of heart, but eventually, someone should take care of poor Mister Kirkham. Before any animals claim his remains, yeah?"

The rotund man pursed his lips and nodded. His beady eyes darted back and forth between both Luca and Agnes.

The hound growled. Glowered at Luca.

"My, my, Mister Bigglesworth does not seem to like you very much, Mister Vadas," blubbered the man, chuckling and then admonishing his dog. "Easy now, Mister Bigglesworth."

Luca scratched the stubble on his chin and smirked.

"It must be mutual," he muttered.

"You don't like dogs, sir?" asked the man.

"No—I just don't like your dog," he stressed the specificity. Smirking all the while. "Don't particularly like his face. Like I said, must be a mutual sentiment."

The dog growled again, almost as if it understood Luca's insults.

The card witch raised an empty hand and pointed now past Agnes.

"About ten minutes that way, you'll find Mister Kirkham," he said, the smirk finally fading from his lips and making way for another sigh. "But I warn you, again, prepare yourself. It's not a pretty sight."

The rotund man nodded slowly, shuffling his feet. Clicked his tongue twice, walking up to Mister Bigglesworth and snatching the large dog by his collar.

"Some of us saw what remained of Mister Gardiner, myself included. I believe I'll manage. See what needs to be done and let the others know."

The rotund man's chin crinkled.

Finally interrupting them, Agnes asked, "What was your name again, sir?"

The man studied her, looking her up and down. Lingering a bit too long where her figure curved the most, even concealed as it was under layers of cloak and warm winter clothing.

"Percival Teague, at your services."

"And what was it you did again?" she asked.

"Never told you, as short as all our introductions this morning were, I'm afraid," he said, blinking hastily as he pried his gaze away from below her neck to lock eyes with her. Something unsettling about the intensity of his stare.

Smoldering. Uncomfortably lustful. And something else.

"Town's smith and farrier, ma'am. Not a lot to do, this time o' year, save for some minor repairs, here and there."

"Right," Luca grumbled. "You don't happen to know your way around fixing any firearms, yeah?"

"Afraid not, sir."

Luca nodded. "Well then, we should be on our way."

He shot another glance towards Agnes and motioned to leave.

"What exactly do you do?" asked Teague. "I'm not sure I really caught that on the town square. Things went terribly fast."

Luca smiled widely, the same way he smiled whenever he played a game of cards over shillings. Agnes recognized it. A tell that misled his opponents; a gambit that suggested he was either playing a hand that could make the game or bluffing his way with a pitiful hand that could break the game if only his opponent bought the deception.

"Hunter, sir. I hunt. And truth be told, I don't think you're dealing with a wolf here. Let alone a wolf-man," he informed Teague, erupting into a clipped chuckle.

Teague squinted at him.

"What kind of hunter exactly? You don't look like a hunter to me."

Luca shrugged, "I get that a lot. Not my fault that every single one o' my peers looks like some unwashed sourpuss."

"You don't sound like one, either. Well-traveled, yeah?"

Luca shrugged again, maintaining his coy smile. But his eyes and spectacles glinted with something dangerous as he tilted his head.

Teague asked, "And you? What's a woman doing out—hunting? With a hunter? Are you two married?"

Agnes blinked.

"Yes, I like to hunt with my wife," interjected Luca, lying through his teeth. "I'm told I'm a bit eccentric, but she's almost better than me at sussing out where to find the best game." The smile dropped from Luca's face, followed by a scowl. "What about it? Are you going somewhere with this?"

Teague cleared his throat. Shook his head, stepped past them.

"Pardon, sir. Ma'am." He paused again, both in word and stride. "I think I'd seek to keep such a lovely missus close at all times, too."

Eliciting a shudder to shake Agnes' spine, Teague winked at her with a lopsided grin.

Then his face fell, turning as grave as his tone turned serious. What he next said, he breathed in an almost conspiratorial whisper. As if he feared someone else could overhear them.

"If this is what I think it is, then you're looking in the wrong place. You need to walk deeper into the Deithwynd, east of the Iron Marsh. There's an old glade there—"

The dog growled loudly, snarling at Luca. Even as Teague's big, meaty hand gripped the dog's collar with more vigor to hold the hound back, the handsome card witch took a step back from them, shooting the mastiff a dirty look.

Teague pointed in a direction, roughly northwest of where they stood.

"What do you mean?" Luca asked, without looking up from Mister Bigglesworth. "What do you think this—this thing—is?"

Every fiber and muscle in Agnes' body tightened, taut as iron.

"Fair folk, sir," Teague hissed in another hushed murmur. "Me mum and me mum's mum used to tell tall tales about the fair folk out here, and the children of Altmere were always taught not to go to the queer glade beyond the Iron Marsh."

Shivers ran down Agnes' spine again. Such tales were common and often nonsense, but Teague spoke with such earnestness. She hugged herself more closely, struggling to stave off the wintry cold, but the chill of what Teague had said eclipsed the freezing discomfort.

"Circle of mushrooms grows out there. Eerie, like. All year 'round," Teague added, nodding with growing fervor. "I'm not suggesting you go out there, hunter. But if you are willing to truly earn the alderman's coin, you're gonna wanna poke around there. Bet you a whole shilling you'll find your monster out there. Fair folk or mere man, I cannot say."

Luca exchanged a glance with Agnes.

Finally. A concrete lead.

Luca spoke up, "I'd clap you on the shoulder and express my gratitude, but Mister Bigglesworth seems to be a bit of a bitch—and it sounds like we need to take a long hike anyway. Ta."

The dog growled and suddenly snapped at Luca, prompting him to take another reflexive step back.

"Goodbye, Mister Teague," Agnes said with the least amount of vim and honesty.

Teague's nostrils flared as he looked back and forth between the two, beady eyes curiously scanning their faces once more.

"Happy huntin'," he replied. It carried a snide tone.

The hound snarled, but Teague tugged at Mister Bigglesworth's collar, then yanked, almost dragging him along. The man and his hound followed the trails in the snow that Agnes and Luca had left behind.

The card witch and the herbalist witch shot each other another glance. They wordlessly struck out in the direction that Teague had pointed them towards.

They knew what they had to do.

Thoughts of the fair folk circled in her mind—creatures they had never seen since venturing through the Blackwood and the King's Hold all winter, contrary to common lore.

Minutes later, silence rhythmically broken by the constant crunching of snow underfoot, Agnes finally grinned and asked, "Wife, eh?"

"I'll not hear a word of it, woman," Luca said.

Although she only saw the tangle of white hair on the back of his head as Luca continued to guide the way, she could tell that he grinned.

He easily kept her distracted over what amounted to close to an hour of slow and tedious hiking, drudging through the snow, crossing the pristine countryside outside of Altmere. Ever the jester, Luca engaged her jabs and countered them with playful insults of his own, the typical relaxed back-and-forth that marked their relationship.

It would forever amuse Agnes that, for all the womanizing Luca supposedly steeped himself in, he was not interested in women. She had traveled with him long enough to know that his reputation painted a different picture of him, and he made little effort to correct people about it.

Not even when it came to the more spiteful superstitions regarding his heritage; his olive complexion and the pervasive and xenophobic rumors that people spread about him and his people; calling them cutpurses and witches and child-thieves alike.

Like a scorpion he had become to guard his heart, he reveled in the distance every rumor created. When one got too close, he would sting. He hid behind that smokescreen, maneuvering outside of rigid constructs that society imposed, and conventions he cared little for. He even drew power from the fear that some people felt towards him.

Unlike herself, she pondered, thoughts turning darker amid flashes of how she fled a mob wielding pitchforks and torches as they chased her from the city, and her home burnt brightly behind her in her escape. She fell more and more silent, and Luca likely tired from keeping any playful banter rolling.

The trees eventually thinned out until they fully opened to the wide horizon of the Iron Marsh. Sunlight cut through the clouds and contrasted the gloomy day with luminescent streaks, painting beautiful and glittering, golden lines, mirrored in the silvery pools of water that littered the wetland's tenacious reeds and treacherous patches of snow.

A breathtaking vista that robbed Agnes of her breath and took her mind off more dismal ponderings.

"Don't think it's much farther from here," Luca said, breaking the silence that had spread between them. He gestured with the muzzle of his blunderbuss to the copses forming a tree line to the east.

Luca changed course, leading her along the edges of the marsh instead of cutting straight through it. He muttered, almost more to himself, "Better take the long way 'round."

Snow cracked and crunched with a subtly faster pace, and Agnes welcomed the change. With it came other thoughts, returning to the matter at hand, turning to the reason for their investigation.

In truth, she cared little for any reward the alderman had offered. Her objective was to eradicate the monstrous creatures that haunted this land. Perhaps, one day, she could lead a normal life again, without people mistaking her for the abominations that haunted dark places.

They all had their individual reasons, but all the "hunters" agreed that sightings of the creatures and the trails of bodies they left behind had been converging both on the city of Crimsonport and the King's Hold. And frequently, they featured a connecting clue: a black rose left with the bodies.

An indicting piece of evidence, as the black rose was central to the heraldry of King Michael III. But even in lieu of its absence whenever they chanced upon the dead and the damned, and stumbled across any victims of awful creatures, they often felt a call to action.

Most folk would rather bleed from their buttocks than wrap their mind around any things unnatural—and struggled to separate sorcery from silly superstition, as well as the mundane from menacing monsters. Most folk never noticed the patterns, never followed the trails, never put together the pieces. They closed their eyes to find a shred of comfort, rather than glimpse the world behind the world.

Only ten people had found each other thus, armed with knowledge that cut through the confusion, and collecting the things they had witnessed to even uncover the pattern of the black rose in the first place.

Ten people who feared the things that lurked in the night. Ten people who dared to fight back. Who dared to hunt evil itself.

And here, Luca and she hunted.

Two victims they knew of already, both identical in how they had horribly perished. A tailor and a woodsman. Drained of all blood, muscle, innards—everything. The creature left only skin and bones behind. A puzzling pattern that stumped the duo, a behavior unheard of.

The villagers of course claimed to have seen a wolf-man, standing tall and hairy and with murder in the eyes, always before or after the bodies had been discovered. Some of the people in town even suspected each other of being such a beast in disguise, striking by night. Mere days and perhaps only one more murder away from demanding king and church to mark a triumphant return to their quaint little town and clamp down on it with an iron fist to restore order and dispel the lasting dread.

Her thoughts had strayed far enough to dull her senses that Agnes only registered with delay how Luca had stopped. She continued until she took to his side.

Both stood still, stunned by what they beheld.

They overlooked a wide glade. Brilliant flowers, almost glowing in a veritable rainbow of garish colors, had sprouted mysteriously from the thick blanket of snow. Defying the order of nature, the flowers blossomed in the face of deepest winter.

In the center of the glade, a small mound rose above the rest, barren of any snow, and shaped by what appeared to be a perfect circle. Vibrantly green grass grew there, outlined by white and yellow and brown dots of varying shape and size, clusters of mushrooms that formed a natural border around the verdant patch.

Luca exchanged a nervous glance with her. They both knew deep down what this meant.

A true fairy ring.

Agnes produced a bright red apple from her satchel. Her fingers trembled ever so slightly from the cold that had seeped into them, the pink of her exposed fingertips jutting out from the fingerless gloves almost as red as the cursed apple in her hand.

She bit into it, and Luca's head jerked around in response to the jarringly loud sound.

She smiled at him as she chewed, imbibing the potion that lurked inside the apple's supple flesh—a magicked poison to fair folk, a swift and violent doom such a creature would bring upon itself should it now feast upon her skin and blood.

Between the beds of anomalous flowers, no tracks marred the pristine patches of snow. All untouched by feet, be they human or fairy.

The cold in the air here cut even sharper than it had all day. It did not sting, but it tasted fresher, somehow. With a hint of honey. Bees even buzzed about the flowers, sharing the otherworldly defiance against winter's merciless grasp.

Mesmerized by the wondrous oasis, Agnes almost took a step onto the glade. Almost. She held herself back.

Strange fetishes, little stick figures, dangled from the branches overhead. As if they had been invisible until they stood directly beneath them.

Agnes took another bite from the apple, then held out the remainder for Luca to take. He nodded in thanks and took the fruit from her, helping himself to a healthy bite. The chunk crunched louder than the snow had during their march, echoing in a way that felt almost transgressive. As if they disturbed the surreal serenity of this place.

She added to the transgression by snatching one of the stick figures from the branches. The brittle twine suspending it snapped under little pressure, and she broke it in half, discarding it behind her, then repeating the process for other such fetishes.

After chewing, swallowing, and having another bite from the cursed apple, Luca handed it back into her palm, then cracked his blunderbuss open, loading one of his iron-shot cartridges into it, and clapping the weapon shut.

They exchanged another glance and a nod, and then stepped onto the glade.

The snow here did not crunch, it rustled like dry leaves in the wind. The breeze here did not whistle, it whispered like a lover breathing sweet nothings past the softest pillow.

Veins of the flower petals nearby caught Agnes' eye: scintillating, throbbing, infinite. Living coils within coils within coils, like a fern that had decided to transmute into a flower. And the bees looked no more like bees up close, but more like a cross between wasp and spider. She tore herself free from the eerie chimeric things that should not be thus, and they neared the fairy ring with cautious steps.

The spider-wasps did not simply buzz about the fern-flowers, they hummed as if they laid down keys for a greater orchestra to join in on. The barren trees surrounding the glade did not loom nor sway, they bowed in reverence and yearned to dance.

Dots and lumps on the mushrooms of the fairy ring wobbled and undulated. Spike protruded from them, like a vampire showing its fangs, or like the thorns of a rose growing before their eyes.

The glade welcomed them. And it warned them in kind.

Luca spun around and trained his gun upon a new presence—or one only now perceived—and Agnes swiveled at the same time. They stared at the thing that hid in the shade. A large silhouette that stood between the skeletal trees, by the edge of the glade.

Unmoving like a rock, but shoulders heaving gently with calm breaths. Taller than any man, with eyes that glowed golden, shedding just enough dim light to cast the outline of fangs protruding from a wide maw. And long, slender claws that emerged from the darkness and gingerly brushed against the bark, careful not to scratch its surface.

The creature kept its distance. Its glowing eyes burned, studying the two humans who had invaded this sacred grove.

With the most melody and inviting kindness she could summon, Agnes simply said, "Hello there."

The spider-wasps buzzed. The wind whispered. The snow and the fern-flowers rustled. All sounds melted together, forming words.

"Please leave," answered the glade. Answered the creature as it stared at them, its fanged maw never moving. The voice arrived on other sounds and echoed in Agnes' mind.

"You speak our tongue? I apologize on behalf of my manservant and myself, my liege," she said, curtsying and hoping her gesture would not take the guise of mockery.

From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Luca's furrowing brow, but he cleverly kept his mouth shut this time and swallowed whatever quip must have been burning on the tip of his tongue.

Whispered the grove in its multitude of voice, "Your kin have long forgotten this doorway, and forsaken the wonders we brought in exchange."

Agnes smiled as sweetly as she could manage, and said, "We seek to do no harm. We sort of stumbled here by accident."

The creature stared. Its coat of fur bristled in the breeze. The sounds of the enchanted glade went silent.

Then swelled to a powerful chorus that hissed, "Lies."

She shivered.

The last fair noble she met had tried to strangle her to death, on the wings of butchering a dozen capable men and putting another to sleep for eternity—merely over a passing fancy.

"You lie," breathed the glade. The ground rumbled.

"Yes, alright," she said, bowing her head in deference. "I am ashamed to admit it, but yes, I lied. It is because I sense how ancient and mighty you are, and understand now what peril we're in."

The creature maintained its stare. Unsettling as it was, it exuded a strange calm. Not hypnotic, but soothing, like exposure to a warm sun on one's skin on a cold wintry day.

"No danger from me must you expect," whispered the grove. "Another thing, wicked thing, beyond the marsh, in thine forests, between the brick walls you call homes—that, you must fear."

Luca's hands trembled. He had been keeping the blunderbuss trained on the fair creature all this while, and the gloved finger curling around the trigger trembled, ever so slightly. Ready to pull and release that iron shot as soon as the creature made the mistake of entering optimal range of the weapon's blast.

Agnes felt sick to her stomach but oddly not threatened by this presence. The unnatural fairy ring's power, the glade thrumming with energies that bled through the thin veil between worlds, the fern-flower petals now rhythmically unfurling and closing like a crowd of enthralled spectators—the whole grove breathing like a single organism. All overwhelming, all mysterious, all demanding investigation and deterring her from it at the same time, making her head swim on an infinite and unfathomably deep sea.

She reached out and gently placed her palm on the barrel of the blunderbuss. Over the brim of his spectacles, Luca glared at her until he gave in and let her hand lower the weapon for him. Helped him combat his own instinct.

"Already two people have been slain in these places you speak of, and you would say it was not your doing?" she asked, addressing the creature.

"Not I. Not even my kind," whispered the grove.

"What are you doing here, then?"

The creature's claws danced down the bark, slithering around it and melting into the shadow of the awesome silhouette.

"I seek means of returning home, for only slow death awaits me here. Or swift death, should your bloodthirsty nature get the best of you."

Now Agnes took her turn to furrow her brow in disbelief. She looked back at the circle of mushrooms, that mysterious fairy ring, a fabled portal between their world and the fairy realm.

"Is this not the doorway you spoke of? Can you not simply leave?"

"No longer. Things have changed," replied the creature. The chorus of sounds solidified, coalescing into a single voice. An old man. "One of our eldest formed a pact, and all of us were summoned to return, lest we face a fate of stranding here, to wither away with your dying world."

"I'm terribly sorry. I—I do not quite understand. Can you explain?"

"No," said the old man. Firm, resolute in his response. "I imparted lessons upon a young woman among your kin, for she had nobody else to win such wisdom from."

"Who?"

"I know not her name and it never mattered. All that matters now is that I took too long in teaching her, and now I missed the grace's period. The doorway is closed, and I cannot open it, even with my infinite age. I have seen some futures, you know? And in most of them, my destiny is grim."

"Oh? Please do share."

"I shall not. Such insights belong only to those who exist in four times at once. For all others, that way lies only madness."

"If it was not you who slew those innocent people—"

"Few of your kind are innocent. Perhaps more, once, but your tales have shaped you to be something that reached beyond purity, shedding every last vestige of innocence to explore the darkness between the stars."

"W-well, f-fair," Agnes stammered, then setting her jaw before continuing with more zest. "Now, that aside, if it was not you who slew those two—"

"Seven."

"It has slain seven?"

"Yes, child. Seven it has claimed already."

This prompted another nervous glance to be exchanged between Agnes and Luca, reassuring each other that they were making the same sense of what the fairy suggested.

Luca asked, "Who? Or what? What did this?"

The silhouette shifted, moving behind the tree trunk, where the darkened bark and layer of snow clinging to the side swallowed the eerie golden glow of those eyes.

From the other side of the trunk emerged a figure. Shorter, haggard, clothed in old robes and hides and furs. Animal teeth and claws and strange poppets and fetishes dangled from a cord around his waist. Hands gnarled like old roots ended in long fingernails.

"Something that belongs neither in your world, nor ours," said the fairy in form of this old man, now moving his mouth to speak, baring yellowed teeth. He spoke with a strange accent that Agnes could not place. An accent that reminded her of ages long gone.

The grove stayed silent, lending him no more voice.

"Something I have evaded thus far, but you have lured here in your search, and opened the path for by invading this sanctuary," the old man added. His voice quaked, and his chin quivered, as if only now the cold affected him, or a sad weariness gripped his heart.

"Would you help us find it? Fight it?" Agnes asked him.

"No. I wish to maintain my immortality. I have so many more tales to share, even if not your ears are to receive them."

She paused and let that sink in, dissipating in a soup of half-formed thoughts.

Finally, she said, "I could help you leave our world. I could help you return to yours."

"Wha'?" Luca muttered in utter disbelief.

"How?" asked the old man, narrowing his eyes. He then took a step towards them and stopped again.

She said, "I know how to open such pathways, and how to close them. I could open the door long enough for you to leave. But I request your aid in return."

Everything about her turned fierce, and sharp, and as unbending as the veins of the earth; as if the apple's curse had fully taken root in her body, turning her blood to iron and her will to steel.

"Please," she added, ending her request, and bowing her head respectfully.

Whatever this old man represented, it was ancient. Not necessarily evil, not even selfish. And Agnes sensed he had been telling the truth. Contrary to the things she had learned of the fair folk, this creature spoke with sincerity.

And the creature, in the form of an old man, said, "There is little aid I can offer beyond advice. Advice is all I have given thee since the dawn of your empires and the first of thine towers cast shadows upon the fertile earth."

Luca's mouth opened, but Agnes' response cut him off.

"We will take any help we can get."

The old man folded his hands in front of himself. Not like in prayer that humans understood, yet it resembled occult gestures.

"Your weapons will do you no good against it," said the old man. "You must employ your sorcery. Both of you. I can feel it in both of you. A soft song, echoing the gentle breeze, soothing skin, and soul. And a droning chant, a dark pact that smiles devilishly and keeps hungry maws at bay in its rebellion."

"What is it?"

The old man hobbled towards them, a guise that defied the sheer power he radiated. An illusion, betrayed by each footfall, never sinking into snow, never harming those wondrous blooms of unnatural flowers here. The world around them pulsed with each pace of his, the rushing of blood in Agnes' ears thrumming to the tune.

"It has many names, cares for none of them, and answers to all of them," he said. The tremors of old age made way to a more firm and commanding tone, like a rising storm, or the welling of an earthquake. "It feeds upon fear and thoughts, it feeds the dark desires you dream of in its wake, only to take all what belongs to others, and covet more—forever more."

The old man grew, soon reaching the staggering, towering height of the creature they had seen in the shade of the trees, mere moments ago. The golden glow flaring up in his eyes soon swallowed any guise of humanity.

"But what is it?" Agnes breathed, timid as a child. "Please, speak not in riddles any longer."

"You would call it usurper. Invader, devourer. Evil spirit. Your kind has many names for many things, and mistakes one for another. You who is blessed with greater wit, you would call it—demon."

The last word lingered, reverberating in her skull.

"And how do we find it? Where is it now?"

He towered over them, only steps away. The two humans here posed the only thing standing in between the old giant and the fairy ring.

Luca's hand—the one holding the blunderbuss—twitched.

"It is here."

She looked around with haste. But saw nothing else.

"Too close already, I can feel its rotten presence, taste the death staining its avaricious fingers, and smell the stink of deceit befouling the very air it breathes. It nears," said the old giant. Then he crouched. Or shrank. Whatever it was, his face soon leveled with theirs and he whispered, "It followed you. It followed you here."

"Are you are certain you cannot help us?"

"It is as old as I, suffused with an evil to match. I would endanger you in your struggle. If it drinks from my essence or overtakes me completely, it will be unstoppable. You brought it here. To me. To its true quarry. Masked its scent and distracted me from its stalking approach, broke the safeguards in your careless search. You unwittingly did its bidding," said the old man. His voice trembled again.

With fear.

All true. 'Twas no magick that lent Agnes her empathy. Just an old instinct she had honed from childhood on. The old fairy's words all rang true. The realization of what she had done by breaking the stick figures now sank in, sickening her to her stomach.

There were things that devoured and grew stronger as they did. Wraiths, vampires, and—yes, even demons.

Agnes stammered before finding confidence again, "I—never mind. I—I am sorry. Begone, old one, and may you find peace wherever you wander."

Swiftly she turned from the old man, facing the fairy ring. Felt the inquisitive stares of both Luca and the old man resting on her back, observing her every motion.

From her satchel, she produced a tiny pouch, untying it and sprinkling from it a pinch of quartz sand across the threshold of the mushrooms. The dust glittered in the rays of sunlight, dancing as it fluttered to the lush grass grounds.

Agnes whispered the incantations her mother had taught her, calling upon the favor of Bergiddhe and Morrigaine and Velenn. She knelt and her hand quivered, hovering near one of the impossible flowers. Then plucked it with a loud pop.

She cast the fairy flower into the ring and peered beyond. There, she saw an ocean in the sky, where whales drifted and mountains floated upside-down above a sea of thorny vines, from which a giant castle emerged, slowly growing more and more as she gazed upon it, with its silver cages and magnificent beasts, swallowed by the bramble. And eyes—so many eyes—staring back at her, sensing the opening of this doorway, the breach in the veil, a hole that should have stayed closed.

Things, curious, some of them wicked, they all stared. All springing to life, popping from bizarre hidey-holes, all eager to approach and question the little human whose audacity had pierced the intersection between worlds. Some of them very, very hungry.

"Now," she uttered. Repeated it with more force, commanding the old one. "Go, now."

The old man paced past her, striding into the circle of mushrooms without pause.

Some things approached from the other side. As he stood in the center of the circle, he turned, and raised a hand. As if to wave, but without motion, an alien gesture of farewell. His mien displayed no emotion, but she felt a deep gratitude from that wizened face, eyes glowing golden, still.

Before an onset headache could assault her senses and split her skull, she nodded to the old fairy, and focused with all her might, willing the door to close. The wondrous world beyond the ring began to fade with him.

Gone was that sloshing sky, and the clockwork dancers tick-tocking down paths of gilded roads, and the singing pumpkins, and the waters flowing uphill, cascading into the heavens, where bug-eyed things cackled and waved wobbly wands at her. And with the other world's fading, so did the old man, blending in with the weird world around him, vanishing as it all turned translucent.

And then was completely gone.

A deep, baritone growl echoed across the glade. A ferocious snarl.

As the two swiveled again, Luca had, again, trained his blunderbuss on the newly arrived. Pointing the weapon at that rotund man, Percival Teague, and his foul-tempered mastiff.

The large man still clutched the collar of the hound, holding it back. Ready to unleash its wrath at any moment. The creature barked, but it sounded no more like a dog, and more like a bear, or a tiger, or a boar, or all of them combined.

Teague grinned. The grin crept wider, to grotesque proportions that no human face should ever feature. With more teeth than a man's mouth should ever yield.

"Shame, you sent that ripe old morsel off already," said Teague through rows of eerily perfect, gritted teeth. Every syllable he spoke with unsettling enunciation. "Shame to see such a fine vintage go to waste. But no matter, no matter at all."

His raspy voice turned to growls, blending with those of the mastiff. Rising in volume, drowning out all else. Dropping octaves, turning sinister. Thunderous. And infinitely sadistic.

"YOU TWO LITTLE TARTS WILL SERVE AS ADEQUATE APPETIZERS FOR THE GREAT FEAST."

He let go of the collar and playfully wiggled the fingers that held it, spinning on the spot like a dancer performing an elegant pirouette. The beast charged at them, and the thunderclap of the blunderbuss' shot cracked a fearsome echo. The flare from the muzzle illuminated the glade in a bright flash, and the shot ripped the mastiff apart.

Instead of a spray of blood and brains and intestines, pure darkness and writhing tentacles exploded outwards from the hound, continuing with the same velocity as the beast had pounced, and speeding towards Luca. That living shadow engulfed him, and Luca's angry shouts turned pained and panicked in the blink of an eye.

Teague—whatever his true name was—lumbered over towards them, emitting bellowing laughter that no human throat could produce, raspy as the crackle of hellfire, and hungry as the dark flames that it bore. Bright blue embers spilled from his toothy maw as he sauntered towards his next victims, smacking his lips without the monstrous guffaw ever ceasing.

Agnes crammed her numb fingers into her satchel, pawing and digging around in it until she found the thimble and the needle. Over and over again, she whispered the names of Koronos, and Paan, and Roon, and Uana; beseeching old, uncaring gods that favored only strength born from raw passion, and unbridled chaos that reigned supreme.

Whether they listened or not mattered little. Her precision in saying those names and words, not stuttering nor missing any components was all that counted; that perfect recital of the ritual was all that mattered for their survival.

The darkness that swallowed Luca engulfed her next and her skin began to burn, blister, and peel. Madness seeped into her mind. Voices to drown out her own. Urges to undress, to rip the cloak and clothing from her skin, for the heat was so unbearable, burning up from the inside, boiling her innards, demanding release lest it devour her in a flash.

Blinded by waves of fury and envy and a lust for vengeance upon all who had ever wronged her, it was too late for her to notice the hungry mouth of Teague splitting open. Not just where the teeth parted, but down the center of his face, opening to triangular flaps lined with rows upon rows of sharp spikes and throbbing pink flesh.

Instinctively throwing a hand up in self-defense before her, the flaps enveloped her entire arm, and the teeth sank into her skin by the dozen. The pain took its time, starting as a thousand needles piercing flesh and muscles, and then ripping and tearing and something suckling on her forearm, sucking the blood right out by the pint, threatening to suck the skin right off, and eliciting agonized screams to escape from her mouth.

Yet she lunged and retaliated with a single sting. The needle from her satchel—the cursed little sewing needle—repeating the names of those old forgotten gods, and thrusting that needle right into whatever fleshy, toothy mass she could connect with.

And Teague's hideous laughter ceased instantly. High-pitched, deafening shrieks followed, making it impossible for Agnes to even hear her own trembling voice as she chanted and chanted and thrust and thrust, time and time again, hoping to banish this thing, this foul thing.

The pain overwhelmed her, and she fought the urge to vomit; a losing battle that she soon surrendered to as the stench of rotten eggs and decaying carcasses filled her nostrils and those dozens of teeth that felt like a thousand continued to ruthlessly rend her flesh and suck the blood from her tortured arm.

Somewhere in the bedlam, Luca's screams mingled and canonized with her own and the shrieks of the demon.

The living smoke cleared, but the sky had turned into a pool of inky-black darkness.

Teague had split apart, down the middle, ghastly and indescribably inhuman parts flailing about and flapping around, fused with whatever Mister Bigglesworth had reverted into. A mass of too many milky-white eyes and toothy mouths and tentacles and roiling mounds of pink flesh that oozed with pus and plague.

Rays of pure darkness shot out from every orifice of the abomination, wilting the impossible flowers, and rotting the glade's grass wherever they swept over it, caressing it with kisses of death. Then the monstrosity exploded, showering its environs with stinking slime. The inky black of the sky rippled and then broke apart, flakes of it drifting away like ashes, and the gray gloom and clouded sun returning to decorate the heavens in place of the phenomenon.

Agnes shook all over, gripping her mangled and trembling arm, with far too much blood still pumping from it, dripping from torn holes in the skin in rhythmically pulsating rivulets of dark crimson, staining the snow by her knees where she had collapsed. The world spun around her, the nausea fully taking hold.

Luca embraced her, scrambling to tie her arm, or bandage it, or do anything of use to staunch the incessant bleeding. The symmetrical spectacles on his nose were bent and one of the glasses cracked, and half his face painted vermillion from an injury that bled from somewhere underneath his silver hair.

He spoke to her, trembling almost as much as she, but the rushing of blood in her ears, a pounding that must have reached the heavens, deafened her. His speech sounded like it was a million leagues away, muffled through walls or layers of thick fabric; unintelligible and with nothing she could read in it but despair.

Using his teeth, he uncorked a vial of strange, dark purple fluid, and showered her arm with it, following up with another alchemical tincture from his coat pockets.

Agnes expected unconsciousness to descend on the wings of the pain, to rob her of her senses, but no such luck. The taste of vitriolic stomach fluids clung to her tongue, and she simultaneously wanted to vomit while dreading the agony that throbbed in her growingly numb arm to flare up far worse if she spasmed and retched.

She just rocked gently, in a daze, watching Luca frantically work to do whatever he could to save her arm, speaking to her with concern plastered across his chiseled face, and she understood not a single word he said.

They had won against the demon that had called itself Teague.

But she may have lost her arm if Luca's magick refused to help where conventional medicine could not.

A small price to pay, she wagered, dismissing the dizzying thought of its reality. After all, it had worked. Luca's cursed shot and old pact had bought her just enough time to banish Teague and Mister Bigglesworth.

Any longer—any second longer—and others would have only found their skins and bones.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Gothic #Gothic horror #gaslight romance #Victorian #dark fantasy #pitchforks and torches #Crimsonport #Red Coast #only skins and bones #hunters #snow #countryside #wilderness #forest #isolation #hunt #unnatural #monster #creature #wolf-man

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Yet the Light Refused To Die

Whispers from the intersection between worlds are a strange thing. They are soft and enticing, yet alien, and quick to breed fear.

The fear of death.

The sun that mankind praises casts a long shadow. Most look to the bright light and the vibrant colors that it illuminates. And they turn their backs on the shadow, fearful of that which they cannot see. Like the air of a graveyard, and the dust that collects in abandoned places, such whispers are not death itself, but its quiet heralds.

Shouting and even thinking loudly works well enough to drown them out. To deny that creeping reminder of the inexorable cycle of life and death, the final destination of every mortal's road. The madness of life is filled with distractions, of fleeting moments that occupy human thought. As such, only rare individuals can hear whispers from beyond the grave. Among them, even fewer pause… and listen.

When most do hear the whispers, they question their sanity or close off their minds. Not so, a young girl aged merely fifteen winters. Magdalene heard those whispers and has always listened. Understood.

And sometimes, she even answered.

Connected to the essence of dust and shadow itself, death spoke only in those sibilant sighs.

Magdalene feared not death. Many she had known now gone, taken by age, disease, war, famine, and murder. From a young age on, the specters of death always haunted her.

So much so, that she never really questioned the strange or inexplicable. She never struggled to accept things that others would deny, even when only the implausible remained the alternative.

Where one might think they had displaced a trinket in an empty room that no other living soul had entered since, the girl already knew at a delicate age that something else had moved the trinket.

One year prior to the dire straits she now found herself in, a young man had threatened her life. With little understanding of such ephemeral forces as sorcery, she called upon the power of disembodied spirits that refused to move on. To help kill that man before he could kill her.

Not because she feared for her life. No, she had summoned those ghosts because she had feared that he would escape justice; the just desserts he should have faced for slaying so many before her. More importantly, because she felt guilty; she felt like his killings were her responsibility, as his obsession with her had led him to commit such atrocities.

As a wee girl, she had always found it confusing when others could not see those figures at which cats hissed, or hear their whispers where wind swept through cold and forgotten places. Sometimes, she would awaken, with blood lining her fingernails, and a shadow standing in the corner of her room, watching and looming.

Not all of them were evil. Not in the way most people meant it when they used that loaded word.

More than once, driven by a desire to punish the wicked and deserving, she had called upon the spirits of the lost. They always answered. As if they recognized and served anyone who could sense their presence—and pay them the proper amount of attention.

Undeterred by those chilling gasps that lingered like memories of lives lost, she would sometimes speak with them when not in the company of the living; when removed from the company of those who would question her sanity, if only they saw her speaking to empty corners and cold spots where common eyes could only perceive that dust and shadow.

She would ask them what they remembered.

Not all of them retained their memory. For some of them, the shreds of who they once were just made no sense; perhaps as misremembered identities bled into one another, leading to eternal confusion and endless, aimless wandering between the worlds.

Some of them got angry and blew out candles or slammed doors shut. One even cracked every mirror and window of a room after becoming enraged. Others bore dark obsession in their whispers, attempting to sway her with deception, hoping to merge with her and do unbelievable things if only they had a body once again.

Beyond death, they all shared one thing in common. All of them feared what lies beyond the thin veil between worlds. Though none of them ever answered:

Why?

Yes. Why, asked the necromancers of yore, were they so afraid of moving on?

A mystery that never concerned Magdalene. When it was finally her time to go there, she would find out herself. Exposure to death had inured her to the fears that it brought. She welcomed it, just like she did her best to warmly embrace the cold presence of the disembodied dead.

What curdled her blood now was something else entirely. A debilitating helplessness, spawned by her current predicament, and a crippling fear of failure.

More than that, though, Magdalene feared the absence of the whispers.

For the first time since she had noticed their presence, they were gone. Leaving only a deafening silence in their wake.

Rope chafed against her tied wrists, resting on the clothed tabletop in front of her. Her captors had made a mockery of setting the dinner table, haphazardly tossing cutlery and empty plates in front of them before going off to ransack Bennet mansion.

Her captors must have worked some sort of sorcery that she could no longer sense any phantoms. And likely, she feared, the things that dwelt in the intersection between worlds no longer heard her, either. Where her role model wielded sword and pistol to hunt and combat the evils of this world, Magdalene's communion with the spirits were her blade and bullet.

And as her frail body was weak, that absence rendered her more helpless and meeker than ever before.

Jenny Fisher's nostrils flared with a shuddering sigh. Her fellow captive—a thief and swindler, a grown woman she had met only this very day—sat to her left. Bound as she, mouth also crudely gagged with silk napkins from Lord Bennet's belongings.

Their eyes met.

Jenny's eyes glistened, wet and red, yet she had not succumbed to tears. Fear gripped her, perhaps, fears of fates worse than death, perhaps. A quiet despair, maybe. But no tears.

Their captors had left them alone. Not like there was much of anything they could do to get away with bound wrists and ankles and gagged thus.

The question of the absence occupied Magdalene most. A mystery that she wanted to solve. And its solution may yet prove key to their escape from this awful predicament. She would not leave Jenny Fisher alone or to any dread fate that may await her in the clutches of these scoundrels.

The whispers had told her that Jenny was important. The phantoms sometimes knew things that humans did not. Saw futures that had yet to unfold. Understanding why was never that interesting to Magdalene. Much more tantalizing was the lacking explanations as to why Jenny had a significant role to play in their conjoined fates. The spirits often would not—or could not—provide any conclusive answers.

Jenny's eyes now darted to and fro, the swindler's mind likely hatching one fruitless escape plan after another. Magdalene, on the other hand, harbored no hopes of escape. Not until she solved this mystery.

Boots thumped upstairs. The rogues searched, conversed, sometimes argued; always muffled through layers of carpet and floors and wallpaper and walls. Claws scraped against hardwood in Bennet's halls. Inhuman growls resounded from where those claws scratched and tore fabric, eerily twisting handles and opening doors with an intelligence that exceeded that of mere beasts.

Just like Magdalene conversed with spirits, the leader of these robbers consorted with unclean creatures. Fentin McLachlan, he had named himself. A name that sent chills running down Magdalene's spine, even just thinking about it.

Could he be her missing uncle? The one her mother had shied from ever speaking about after father's demise?

Did calling otherworldly powers simply run in their family's blood? More than anything, the prospect of damnation frightened Magdalene. She suspected dark things to be awaiting her at the end of her road, a balance for her meddling with these forces. And what might await one as this Fentin McLachlan, who summoned these awful creatures that manifested in flesh and blood, with bat wings and claws, and too many eyes, and slavering maws?

She had read of them in the book in Nora's cabin. Eerie sketches inked upon yellowed pages and documented in the occult writings of the Bestiarium Nox. As far as the long-dead authors were concerned, these things all shared a simple name.

Demons.

Jenny's breath shortened and she trained her eyes on the entrance to the opulent dining hall, past the chaos and disarray that the robbers had left in their hasty search.

Maggie followed her gaze. The thundering and thumping of boots neared. The men dragged something. Something that thudded against another something, cascading into something else—something ceramic, perhaps—shattering upon impact.

The three men entered. Two of them dragged the body of Lord Bennet. Blood stained the late lord's face, having flown from now emptied eye sockets. His corpse flopped against the end of the dinner table where they tossed him, breaking a wine glass under a lifeless arm smashing down.

Magdalene winced. The shrill sound of shattering rang almost as painfully as their blatant disregard for the dead.

Fentin grinned triumphantly, displaying a set of eerily white and perfect teeth. His eyes glinted with a fierce and cold air. Like staring into a shark's eyes.

He sauntered past the bound women, carrying a bottle of wine in one hand, and a large wheel of cheese in the other. The buckled boots on his feet, baggy pants, and dirty shirts underneath his wet long coat, altogether lent him the air of a pirate. A strange sight, so far inland, and so close to King Michael III's castle.

The other two men dressed in similar attires. A cutlass clattered on the table as one of them took a seat across from Magdalene, leering at her and Jenny until he cocked his head back, and chugged several greedy gulps from a bottle of hard liquor.

The third man slammed down a stack of old tomes, causing some of the nearby plates to bounce under the impact. The top books slid from the stack, fanning out. They all looked old and the leatherbound cover on one of them featured strange symbols.

Magick symbols.

Blood from Bennet's gouged eye sockets and other lacerations upon his person slowly seeped into the tablecloth. A deep crimson blot grew at a snail's pace, creeping down the length of the table as the dead lord's lifeblood drenched it.

When Magdalene met gazes with Jenny again, she read a mixture of despair and defiance in the woman's eyes. Her nostrils flared again, with a snort of frustration. And fury.

The pirate captain poured himself a glass of wine. Then he carved some cheese from the wheel, using a vicious-looking knife from his belt. Boots thumped again, glass clinked—he swung his feet up onto the table as he slouched into what was likely once Lord Bennet's chair, holding the wine glass in one hand, and a hunk of cheese in the other.

He sampled the creamy treat and shot Magdalene a smirk as he chewed, studying the faces of their two living captives, sloshing the wine around in his glass before taking a thirsty swig.

One of the other men guffawed, grabbing their attention.

"We keepin' them alive for some pleasure before the business?" the guffawing man asked. He sounded different from the leader. Like he had grown up in the city of Crimsonport.

"Keep it in yer pants," replied the captain in his thick northern accent. "These ladies are a little bit too interestin' to give them the usual rough treatment. Besides, Mister Witts. I don't like to damage the product, especially not when they can earn us some good coin overseas. Ya don't think very far do ya? S'that why they used ta call ya Witless Witts?"

Magdalene almost expected a retort. Even an angry glare. But "Witless" Mister Witts' face contorted to reflect the mien of a beaten dog.

The chair creaked underneath the pirate captain's weight as he shifted. He pointed the cheese in his hand at Maggie and said, "This one especially. You're a very interesting little lady, aren't ya?"

Magdalene offered no response. She just met his gaze. Studied his features. Every gesture carried an air of constant calculation. Everything he said aimed to provoke reactions, allowing him to probe the depths of the people in front of him.

And not a single trace of mercy or goodness lurked behind the mask of his eerily familiar visage. This she sensed.

He washed down the cheese with another sip of wine, then growled, "Remove their gags, Mister Hoskins. It's time for the ladies to talk."

The third pirate, Hoskins, had never sat down. He had been hovering behind Jenny and Magdalene, leaning against a cupboard in wait. First, he removed the cloth from Maggie's mouth, then from Jenny. Maggie made no sound, nor did she put up any fight. She simply welcomed the cool air upon her gums.

Jenny also displayed no resistance, but she rolled her jaw to stave off the ache of having the napkin stuffed in there for so long.

"Please, sir," Jenny immediately rattled away. "I'm sure we can work something out. I'm sure we—"

She stopped. The shark-eyed captain shushed her, tapping his lips with a finger.

"I'll admit," he said. "I didn't deem you very interesting at first, but you are a bit of an enigma, Miss—"

"Lady Amelia Hanbury," Jenny Fisher lied, correcting him. She spoke with such confidence and authority that Magdalene intuited how long she had been using this identity as a mask in front of Lord Bennet.

He asked her, "You don't really know what Bennet was up to, eh?"

This must have caught her off-guard. The fast-talking thief remained silent.

In lieu of any answer, the pirate captain's mouth twitched. His lips curled into a devious smile, and he pointed to the stack of books that Hoskins had dumped onto the table.

"Member of a little occult society that calls 'emselves the 'God's Hand'. Bunch o' mystics and mountebanks that dabble in the secret arts, practicing in the shadow of the aristocracy wherever the inquisition can't cast their prying gaze."

Nobody interrupted him when he paused, savoring his ruminations as much as the expensive import wine lingering on his tongue.

"Mighty close to the king's castle, don't ya think?"

He chuckled and sniffed his wine.

Witless Witts leaned over the table, closer to Magdalene. His lips smacked as he chewed on jerky, which took longer than usual, partly owed to some of his missing teeth. He radiated utter contempt.

Magdalene spoke, "So you sought Lord Bennet's library, for secrets it holds. Secrets common folk do not comprehend." She meant to ask, but it rolled out in her monotone. She, too, studied Fentin's face for a reaction.

He smirked again. Pointed two fingers at her. Kept his eyes locked onto hers. There was something magnetic about his gaze. Something unnatural. It slowly peeled away layers of the world around her and froze her into place. Some form of wicked sorcery.

"See, Miss Hanbury. That lass sittin' next to ya—she's a bright one. Quick on the uptake."

"Please, Mister McLachlan, I am begging you," Jenny-not-Hanbury said. "If you tell us what you want, I promise I will help you as long as you don't harm the girl—"

"Name," he said.

"What?"

He had never taken his eyes off Magdalene.

"Your name. Names hold power. And power is what I take. Give me your name."

Ignoring her bondage, Jenny leaned over and hissed at her, "You don't have to answer hi—"

"Magdalene," Magdalene said. "Magdalene McLachlan."

His lips parted and the air about him shifted. He masked a stronger reaction from surfacing.

"Little Maggie," the syllables playfully rolled out. He clicked his tongue. "You prolly don't remember me, but I remember seein' you as a wee lass."

He held out a hand flat by his side, low. Never breaking eye contact. Never blinking.

Shark eyes.

"About yea tall, you were. I knew I remembered your big brown doe eyes. Color me surprised that my useless fuck of a brother's loins produced such a clever girl. But you're not looking too healthy. All skin and bones. What is that prick been feedin' ya?"

He licked his lips, took his feet off the table, and downed the remaining contents of his wine glass in one shot.

"Father is dead," she said. The sentiment flashed in her eyes, finally eliciting a more tangible reaction from him: his eyes widened, even if only subtly so.

"Mister McLachlan, sir," Jenny interrupted them. "I do not mean to interrupt this, uh, touching family reunion of yours, but I would like to stress that there is no need to keep us helpless women tied up like this. It's barbaric, and I swear—upon all that is holy—that—"

"I don't give a rat's ass about anything holy. I commune with powers from beyond this world," Fentin "Shark-Eyes" McLachlan dismissed her, casting a sidelong glance at Jenny.

Witless Witts stifled an awkward giggle. It died in his throat, but he could barely contain his excitement. Hoskins also audibly shifted his weight again.

The rest of the mansion had fallen deathly silent. But the demons—the creatures they had seen earlier—they still lurked, somewhere out there, just out of sight. But far from being out of Magdalene's mind.

"I will not beat around the bush," Jenny said.

Hoskins repeated the last word and chortled behind them.

"We are at your mercy, and I don't care whom I have to swear any oaths to, I only vow to do as you tell me, as long as that guarantees that Maggie and I are not harmed."

She sighed deeply. Her words carved through the air with expertise, timed just before anybody could respond again.

"I will be absolutely honest with you," she said. The lies came so naturally from her mouth and felt like silk brushing softly over skin. The way she spoke transformed a bit more by the end of every sentence.

A different accent emerged. It sounded more like it stemmed from the fog-strangled streets of Crimsonport's lower city wards, blended with foreigners and sporting a hint of the northern accent to match Fentin McLachlan's own. For a split second, Maggie wondered if this was Jenny's real manner of speaking.

"My real name is Marie Cook. I am nobody of grand standing, I am merely someone who was lookin' to make some quick coin off o' Lord Bennet."

She shot a nervous glance in the round, met by arched brows and befuddlement all around, then she flashed an uncannily confident smile before she continued to keep the ball rolling.

"You gents seem to be working somethin'. Somethin' lucrative. I can smell good game seven miles 'gainst the wind, and I know that Lord Bennet's riches can't be the end-all be-all of it, yeah? It's gotta be a bigger score awaitin' you lot here in the Hold, innit?"

Witless Witts guffawed again and slapped the table.

"She's a smart one too, eh cap'n? Yeah, woman. We are gettin' mighty close to the king's—"

"Shut your stupid fuckin' hole," Shark-Eyes growled at Witts. He then sneered at Jenny. "And you must think I am balmy on the crumpet, ya thievin' strumpet. Fuck off."

Witts shrugged and shuddered, growing nervous, then he chugged more liquor.

"I am not stupid, woman. I know you're anglin' for somethin'. Your kind always does. No, we have no use for you and yer yappin'."

"I am also adept at forgin' papers and paintin's, and—oh, even blowin' glass," Jenny quipped, rounded off with a smirk and a playful wink that projected a growing air confidence, which stood in stark contrast with how they had bound her to a chair like Maggie.

The dread captain's lips were wet with wine and oozed a deviousness as they curled into a smirk of his own.

"Where we are headed, what we are doin'—you'd need a much stronger stomach than I fathom you've got, Miss Cook. If that's even your real name. You'd need to be willin' to pact with powers beyond ken. And I don't particularly sense a familiarity with the preternatural on you. How long have ya been here in Bennet's home, oblivious to the treasures he and his ilk are sittin' on?"

"I don't know, but I know enough to know that you are far more clever than you let on. You are far more educated than a man of your station ought to normally be. You are a man who defies conventions, and I am a woman who maneuvers outside of 'em."

The pirate captain awaited more.

He replied, "Unless you're willin' to sell your soul to strange powers, to commune with things from other worlds, Miss Cook, then I have no fuckin' use for ya."

Maggie's attention bounced back and forth between them, like watching a duel of wits. Jenny narrowed her eyes at Fentin.

"Aren't ya afraid of the wrath of God, toyin' with forces o' the devil like that?"

Another smirk from Shark-Eyes. Never blinking.

"In truth, there are no gods nor devils in this world. Those are words that small-minded men have used to make sense of things that resist definition."

A sweeping gesture between Witts and Hoskins segued to his next speech, "These fearless men here are willin' to do what it takes to grasp and embrace such power. They are not blinded by crusty old traditions."

"Hear hear," Witts said, raising his bottle in a crude toast.

"Which takes me to the most interestin' person sittin' at this very here table," Shark-Eyes concluded. Locking eyes with Maggie again. "My dear wee niece, hell forbid I would have expected to ever meet ya again, but here we are. And I want to know what you know. Where ya learned your sorcery from. You summoned a fuckin' psychopomp. I know some necromancy, but that shite is unheard of. Ripped ten sturdy men to pieces without so much as a fuckin' warnin'. If I hadn't had some sigil to deal with our fanged friends gettin' unruly, we would have had an even more serious problem on our hands."

Maggie took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. Stayed calm. Nora had taught her to stay calm in the face of monsters. They always fed upon fear. No need to feed them. No need to lend them power.

"No need to share," she said. "You will kill me anyway—just sooner, if I tell you."

Fentin glowered at her. Struggled to conceal another sneer.

"I had a look at your bags, lass. Found some interestin' reagents in there. Satchels of dust, I'm guessin' from gravestone and bones and pig iron? No writin'. How long have you been practicing? You're so bloody young."

Maggie clenched her lips shut. They formed a thin white line upon her already pale face. Jenny's gaze burnt upon her, but she maintained eye contact with her evil uncle.

"Can't be too long that you're at it. I suspect you're a little bit more intuitive, aren't ya? Wouldn't be a surprise, it's gotta run in the family," he said.

Feeding the sinking feeling in Maggie's stomach, he might deduce more as time went on, even if she stayed silent.

"You and I are not that different, lass. People like us are like doorways. We are vessels for the darkness, as it slowly makes its way into this world. Takes root and grows. Now is the age of darkness, Maggie. The age for it to engulf the world—and transfigure it."

His gaze.

His gaze was truly paralyzing. Rooted in magick. Some power he worked; some demonic power, it suffused his gaze. Could he read surface thoughts? Could he corrupt minds and control weak minds? She dreaded all the possibilities.

"Things like vampyria, wolf-men, fiendish abominations—all real, as you well know if you're workin' necromancy. You should embrace it if you do have that preternatural awareness that so many people lack. Not resist."

Jenny scoffed. She interrupted him, earning a fiery glare from Shark-Eyes. "I know what I saw. Those—things. They were quite real, and if you had told me about 'em just a few days prior, I woulda laughed at ya and said you were out o' your bloody mind. But how much of this is superstition, how much is real?"

Everybody stared at the swindling thief. The confidence in her countenance crumbled.

"What?"

Shark-Eyes bared his teeth again in a hideous, wicked grin.

"All of it, woman. All of it. You're in the presence of experts, folk who have sliced through the shite of obliviousness with blades of knowin'."

Ignoring her again, he said to Maggie, "You and I could accomplish great things. You must hear whispers."

A shiver shook her spine and blood ran cold in her veins. Colder than Bennet's blood, still soaking the tablecloth beside them.

"I, too, hear whispers. They are probably different from the ones you heed. The ones you hear, they come from a place where our kind goes to rot and sleep forever."

Shark-Eyes lost his cool in that moment. The fervor gripped him; droplets of spittle sprayed from his mouth as he whipped himself up into a fevered frenzy with his own speech. He pointed to the ceiling, but all people present knew that he pointed to the stars.

"They are the opposite. The ones I hear, they come from a place between the celestial bodies in the heavens. They are not remembered by the livin', they are the forgotten ones. They have slept long enough, and they stir in their slumber. They ready to awaken. And we can be the heralds of the new age. God-kings that erect our own, new empires on top o' the ruins of an already forsaken world. Have you not felt how the nights grow longer each year? The winters colder? The fog thicker?"

The hairs upon Maggie's nape bristled. She knew what he said was true. Or at the very least, it was one of the few things he genuinely believed in.

"Yes," Maggie said. Nodding slowly. "I admit, our connection to such forces is not that different. But you and I are very different people. We may share blood, and perhaps even madness. Yet I would never join you in your pursuit. I have friends who hunt your kind—"

"My kind? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Monster."

Uncle and niece glared at each other. Murder in both their eyes.

His voice quaked with cold, seething anger, "And what fuckin' friends? Where are they now?"

She kept silent.

The glass in his hand cracked under the growing pressure of his fist clenching around it. Jenny gasped, and even as much as she pretended to stay calm, Maggie shuddered when the glass exploded into a rain of brilliant shards and wine. Fentin slammed his palm onto the tabletop, leaving a red handprint, where blood and wine admixed.

He spat, "It's those fuckin' hunters from the city, isn't it? It's that Merry fuckin' bandit ponce, Johnn Von Brandt. Isn't it?"

Then, with another, more violent slap that caused all cutlery and plates and glasses to rattle, he yelled at the top of his lungs, "I will kill 'em all!"

Jenny's nostrils flared again as she forced herself to display calm, and Maggie shared the same inner struggle.

"Mister McLachlan, sir," Jenny spoke up. Her voice trembled, likely more than she preferred to project. "I have a sudden and dire need to make use o' the restrooms. If you would be so kind to untie me now?"

He thrust out an index finger, pointing it at her face. Blood dripped from his hand.

"Aggressive mimicry, Miss Cook. I have sailed many seas and heard many tales of creatures strange and distant, from all around the world. I have heard of predators that pose as prey, of true wolves that don the sheep's wool and wait until the bigger wolf turns inattentive—then strikes."

"What?"

"I'm sayin' that you can soil your undergarments for all I care. Reckon I already told ya. I am not fuckin' stupid."

"Please, sir. I sense you are not that barbaric. Have one of your fuckin' men escort me, or both for all I care. Hell, I'll piss right in front of 'em, I swear. No funny business."

He began picking glass shards from his hand, not flinching even once. Displaying the same detached coldness that guised the fiery hot rage he had just displayed at his own mention of Johnn Von Brandt.

"Fine. You are right. I am no savage."

He smirked. Nodded at Hoskins.

The pirate standing behind Jenny stepped away from the wall and began working the knots to release her. He knelt to free her legs, then moved to release her hands from the simple bindings made of coarse rope.

"Thank you. Despite what you may be thinkin' right now, I believe we'll find a great way to cooperate in the future," Jenny said, rubbing her wrists as she rose.

She stifled a gasp as Hoskins forcefully grabbed her by the arm.

"Fuck off," Fentin said without looking up.

While Hoskins dragged Jenny out of the room, the captain continued plucking out piece by piece and dropping the bloodied little shards of glass onto the plate before him with soft little clinks.

Clink. Clink.

Several heartbeats after Jenny and Hoskins had left the dining room, and the muffled voices of them reached the chamber from a distance, Shark-Eyes said without looking up, "I have dabbled in necromancy myself, lass. I could learn a thing or two from ya. And you could learn a lot from me. We are not limited to crusty old traditions. We can walk as many roads as we please. How did you call upon a psychopomp, I wonder?"

Maggie squinted and refrained from admitting anything. Nor did she want to revisit the moments of desperation when she first called upon the messengers of death.

"The first necromancers spoke the language of the dead. And contrary to common misconception, they never commanded the dead directly. They bargained with 'em. Where man defies fear of death by embracing the illusion of life, the necromancers defy the illusion. They embrace their fears, and in doing so, understand."

Clink. Clink.

Maggie finally spoke up with a question of her own, "What have you done? Why can I not hear the whispers?"

Another cruel grin marked his face and rested there. He needed not even look up to instill dread upon Maggie in doing so, focused still on removing the last shards from his hand.

"Thorathoth. Zhaal," he hissed, maintaining that grin all the while.

Click. Scrape. Scratch. Click.

Things approached unseen, lurking in the corridors just outside the dining room. Witless Witts' face turned white as a sheet. Claws heralded the creatures nearing.

A set of sharp black talons slid around the corner of the doorway. A hideous head poked inside. Dozens of eyes, like those of an insect or a spider, stared empty into the chamber. The blood drained from Maggie's face as she saw herself reflected in those eyes—too many eyes—and not a shred of humanity, not an ounce of mercy in them.

As it prowled into the room, four bat-like wings furled closely around its lithe body, it made only few sounds. Even Witless Witts inhaled sharply, masking a gasp. Even the pirates in Shark-Eyes' company must have felt fear in the presence of these abominations.

Following the first, another crept inside, ducking through the doorway. Its two heads looked almost like pyramids, with no eyes to see but slavering maws. Its four equine legs stepped silently, and its claws rhythmically opened and closed, as if ready to slash necks and rend human flesh at the drop of a hat.

"I'm sure your moment of glory was born of desperation. My path was the same. I was willin' to sell my soul to survive in this dark world of man, this forsaken world. It is doomed, ya know? Whether we do anythin' about it or not. We can only choose to be the angels of its destruction and rebirth, or to perish alongside the rest of the apes. I chose to stand a cut above the rest of regular men. And they responded."

Clink. The last glass shard landed on the plate. Shark-Eyes folded his hands before him. His voice had fully calmed again.

"I believe not in God nor devil. The things here, the things I speak with—their whispers—I know they are not 'demons', but somethin' else entirely."

The creatures remained conspicuously silent.

Thumping. Footsteps neared. Witts arched a brow as they closed in on the dining room.

Hoskins shoved Jenny through the doorway. She stumbled, tripped, fell to the floor but caught herself. Looked up at the two creatures flanking the entrance as they studied her. One with too many eyes, the other somehow sensing her with no eyes whatsoever. Dark mucus dripped from its fangs and the lustful way it inhaled caused Maggie to shudder.

"The bitch was tryin' somethin' funny," Hoskins said.

"Funny what?" Shark-Eyes snarled.

Hoskins crouched down next to Jenny, grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back, eliciting a sharp cry of pain.

"Talked me into closin' the door but a crack, then tried climbin' out the window. You are not as clever as ya think," he sneered into her ear. And with a wicked smile, looking up at Maggie to lock eyes with her. "And leavin' the girl to us, no less. What was it you were sayin', again?"

The creature with too many eyes hissed. Even though nothing about it looked even remotely serpentine, it emitted sounds like a rattlesnake. From where exactly on its horrendous form, Maggie could not discern.

"She might be cleverer yet than you think, ya dumb shit," Shark-Eyes said, tilting his head. The constant grins and smirks faded from his face, and he glowered at Hoskins with displeasure. "Zhaal here tells me that she set fire up there. And you are goin' to go right back up there and put it out now, aren't ya? Too many books in this fuckin' house that Bennet probably did not keep hidden in plain sight."

Everybody paused, frozen.

Eyes closed; Jenny smiled to herself. Maggie almost cracked a smile of her own.

"Go," Fentin growled at Hoskins.

His underling scrambled off.

The pirate captain sighed and nodded his head at the door, shooting Witts a glance.

"You too, help him. Prove to me you aren't as witless as the name, Witts. Earn your keep and earn that power ye've been promised."

Witts nodded slowly, then with more zest. He quickly got up and stormed out of the room. Leaving Jenny and Maggie alone with Shark-Eyes and the two demons.

Bound as her hands were in front of her, they allowed Maggie still to fold her hands. Like the legs of a spider, her thin fingers interlocked and clasped.

Like praying hands before her.

She focused and released the powers she had gathered in weeks past. Spells she had studied and meditated over for countless, sleepless hours, to the point of exhaustion. Unleashing forces that would fan the flames and feed them with pure essence.

Her own essence.

Maggie spoke, "Tell me, uncle dearest. You know as well as I that our kind can make fire—or make it grow. But do you know of any way for magick to put it out?"

She narrowed her eyes and could not help but smile at him like a cat. Like a cat playing with its food.

His face fell through various stages of frowning until it turned into a hideous grimace, contorting with boiling rage.

Maggie said, "Even if I cannot hear the whispers, I can still wield other forms of thaumaturgy."

"We truly are of the same blood," he snapped. "Are we not?"

The smile already gone, embracing the darkness she harbored in her heart, Maggie said, "Touched by shadow, and touching it." And in a whisper, "Always."

Shouts echoed from elsewhere in the mansion. Hoskins and Witts struggled to quench the growing fire. Jenny had started it, but Maggie's spell had rendered it unstoppable.

She almost jumped up in her chair—Fentin slammed the table with his bloodied fist, leaving another vermillion print. He thrust out another finger at her. Swallowed a remark.

The chair behind him went flying away as he flew into a rage, storming out of the dining room. His footsteps thudded, heavy with fury. He growled at the two demons.

"Watch them. If they run—kill 'em."

Maggie's chin crinkled. She refused to let him get away with this.

Undeterred by the looming threat, Jenny made her way to Maggie and started untying her.

The creatures did not leap. They started inching, creeping closer.

"I will distract them, and you make a run for it," Jenny whispered, so faint that a mouse would have sounded louder, so close that Maggie felt her breath upon her skin more than she heard her.

Her dainty and dexterous fingers trembled as they swiftly untied the knots binding Maggie's hands together—and froze in place.

"We hear you," said Zhaal. Its mouth did not move, but its voice sliced through the air, calm and menacing.

"We understand you," said Thorathoth. It had no eyes to watch, but Maggie felt watched by it.

Jenny started slipping the ropes out of the knots even faster. Clearly not her first time working with rope, but Maggie perished the thought.

The creatures crept closer, four clawed feet each that touched the ground and emitted only subtle little clicks and scraping sounds, drowned out by the rising cacophony outside, caused by three men struggling to put out a raging fire that now threatened to devour Bennet's mansion—and all his precious occult books.

"He is right, you know," said Zhaal. Its many eyes never blinked, like Fentin's. Cold, dark red. Evil.

"We are not so different," said Thorathoth. Its claws cut through the tablecloth as it took the long way round.

Maggie had no time to register the sensation of finally being released from her bonds. Jenny rose to her side and hugged the girl close to herself. More to comfort herself than protect her, probably, but a hint of selflessness hid beneath that cloak of self-preservation. The woman's head whipped back and forth, trying to keep eyes on both the creatures as they encircled them.

"The one you call God does not love you," said Zhaal.

Said Thorathoth, "He has abandoned you. Forsaken your world. But we—"

"We love you," whispered Zhaal.

"We love your world," breathed Thorathoth.

Maggie began whispering.

Incantations.

The occult words spilled out of her mouth. Jenny looked at her with growing dread.

Maggie knew the risks. If this went wrong, she would draw something far worse than these creatures into her world. Something ancient. Something beyond good and evil, something that could swallow thousands of souls in an instant and with little hesitation to annihilate another world in its wake.

But the monsters crept closer. And the whispers—they had told her that this Jenny was important. Even in their absence, she deigned to heed their warnings. Follow their prophetic call.

"We are but shadows of our true selves, stirring in our slumber," said Zhaal, having crept so close that the monster could pounce.

Its claws dug into the floor, like daggers piercing thick oriental carpets with ease and boring into the wooden boards underneath.

"We love your world so much, we wish to fully awaken in it," said Thorathoth, sounding raspier.

Hungrier.

The closer it got, the taller it looked. The greater the shadows it cast. As if it grew with each step, now towering over Jenny and Maggie.

"A valiant effort to banish us," said Zhaal.

"But we are not your enemy," said Thorathoth.

Their claws spread, poised to strike. Ready to slaughter.

"We are your salvation," said Zhaal.

The maws of its two heads opened wide, with spittle dripping from long, sharp fangs.

"We are the future," whispered Thorathoth.

"Inevitable," hissed both.

Inhuman, deafening shrieks left a ringing in Maggie's ears as both monstrosities lunged at them, then retreated several steps, hissing and snarling like feral beasts. The creatures reeled, as if having struck an invisible barrier.

All pretenses of playing nicely had dropped. The slavering beasts now growled and roared, staying just close enough that they could kill as soon as Maggie's spell even so much as waned.

She glowed. With an otherworldly light. Some would have called it a halo, but all definitions are cheap in the realm of the incomprehensible. Maggie could see her bright emanations in the reflections upon Zhaal's many horrid eyes.

"Stay close to me," she murmured, voice trembling.

She felt weak. It ate at away her very being. It taxed her so much. But it worked.

For now.

Jenny gripped the girl with great force, bracing her and keeping her from stumbling even as Maggie's knees buckled.

"Move," Maggie said. Then she shrieked at Zhaal, "Move!"

Jenny took the cue, stepping forward with Maggie, clutching the girl close to her bosom as they advanced. The creature retreated by the same measure. Defiant of abandoning its master's orders, but incapable of piercing that barrier, no matter how sharp its claws, no matter how deep it could cut into human flesh.

Jenny shuddered as Maggie uttered more words of power. They spilled forth from the girl's mouth—like pure instinct given sound. She did not even understand them, serving only as a conduit for something else.

The alien words stopped flowing from her mouth, followed by another shout, "Move!"

Jenny advanced with her, craning her neck to look behind them as Thorathoth followed, the two demonic predators staying as close as they could in defiance of whatever force kept them at bay.

The woman holding Maggie gritted her teeth and drew upon her final reserves of courage. Maggie felt it shining brightly, like a bonfire suddenly set ablaze. The light about her matched its incandescence.

They advanced more steps, and Zhaal shrieked again. Furiously.

Pained. It retreated more than an equal number of steps, suffering terrible agony. Its gnarled and blackened skin sizzled like drops of vitriolic acid landing on wood. The creature's form cringed, rearing back more and more and eventually—reluctantly—allowing them to pass.

The two backed out of the dining room, facing the two demons. The creatures followed every step. Both burned with malice.

"Whether or not you join us, we shall awaken," Zhaal snarled.

"Whether or not you live or perish, we shall outlast," Thorathoth growled.

"We shall rise," they hissed in unison.

Though fear still wracked her visage, Jenny barked at the creatures, "Fuck off!"

She backed away further with Maggie, cautious step by incredulous step, shoving the girl behind her but still holding her close, wary that the demons might tear them to shreds at any given moment. She understood not how any of this magick worked, acting purely on instinct.

Maggie clasped her hands together. Like praying hands. She had long stopped praying to the one the church called God, but now, more than ever, at the end of her wit, and possibly the end of their luck, they needed a miracle.

She needed the strength to work one last spell.

To break whatever kept the whispers at bay. The whispers—their only hope of egress from these monsters. And from the raging fire. The biting sting of smoke began to creep through the corridors, as Bennet mansion turned into a living hell, populated with monsters to match.

To escape from Shark-Eyes and his smoldering wrath.

"Every door your kind opens," said Zhaal, prowling after them like a wildcat.

"Every path your people pave," said Thorathoth, spreading its arms as if welcoming them for a deadly embrace.

"We come closer to our awakening," they said in unison.

And with that, the miracle happened. Coming from the most unlikely place. The creatures lent her the insight she needed.

Maggie imagined a corridor. A narrow, meandering hole. A place of fog and living darkness. Where the whispers reigned. Where the spirits swirled like mists. A place where the veil was weakest. A bridge between all worlds that ever were, and all worlds that ever would be.

Like these demons somehow entered the human world, so did the spirits somehow. And now, she needed to use that same road to escape.

"There," Maggie gasped.

She unclasped her hands and tugged at Jenny's arm. Pointed to a nearby door.

Jenny must have recognized it, confused over how such a useless room may grant them escape. But she trusted Maggie's directions, left with no other options in the face of such deadly horrors.

The woman ripped the door to the kitchen open but froze upon seeing what lay beyond it.

Went slack jawed.

There was no kitchen there, but a yawning darkness. A narrow corridor, roughly hewn into stone. Mists roiled in a deep and infinite, coiling passageway. Inhuman shrieks of spirits reached them from deep within.

And whispers.

The hair on Maggie's nape bristled once more. Not with fear, but an excited solace.

This—this was their salvation. A dark embrace that would grant them escape. Yet a pit of great peril itself.

She swallowed the growing lump in her throat, worried more about Jenny than herself.

"We must enter," she told the woman.

"What? No. What is that?"

"We must enter," Maggie sighed, growing weak, slumping against Jenny's grip.

Darkness encroached from all sides upon the field of her vision. A deep sleep threatened to overwhelm her. And she dreaded the thought of losing consciousness, of this spell of hers ending, and exposing them to the mercy of the claws and fangs of Zhaal and Thorathoth, the demons that still followed, only two steps away at bay. Or worse: to the mercy of Fentin "Shark-Eyes" McLachlan.

The swindler propped her up and groaned, "No! Alright. Fuck!"

Jenny clamped her eyes shut and plunged the two of them into the depths of that corridor.

Light engulfed them.

The demons refused to follow. Consciousness slipped further and further away from Maggie. The deeper Jenny carried her—eventually truly carrying the anemic girl in her surprisingly strong arms—the mists of this impossible corridor swallowed all sounds. Jenny's shoes created no echoes, as if she walked upon thin air.

And perhaps she did.

Even as the whispers gave Maggie comfort, the spirits here were anything but benevolent. The terror in Jenny's face justified, for if the spell ended prematurely, the entities here would claim them. Swallow them whole. Sever their ghosts from their bodies, making them disappear from their world in an instant, never to be seen again.

Only the light that shone from Maggie, mysterious, and bright, and warm, guided the way. Allowed Jenny to carry her deeper and deeper down the corridor.

A speck of light appeared at the end of this infinite and reality-defying hallway. Bennet's mansion had long disappeared behind them, molten into the pool of darkness, taking with it the dread pirate and his demons—Maggie glimpsed as much as she fought to keep her eyelids open.

Spirits all around them yearned to feast on their life force.

To drink their memories and fool themselves into thinking these were the lives they had lost, distorted through the confusion that grew with each passing moment in the intersection between worlds. More afraid than living mortals of the afterlife, whatever it truly was.

A place that bled outwards, seeping, and soaking the fabric of what humanity considered to be… reality. A growing wound.

Only the faerie light that shone from Maggie kept all these hungry, angry, confused spirits at bay.

Eventually, the girl fully slipped from consciousness, long before Jenny even reached the end of the corridor.

Yet the light refused to die.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Gothic #Gothic horror #gaslight romance #dark fantasy #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Magdalene McLachlan #Jenny Rivers #Shark-Eyes #Nora Morrissey #Johnn Von Brandt #whisper #ghost #spirit #phantom #specter #haunting #haunted #necromancy #thaumaturgy

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Crow or the Sparrow

Drops of blood and footprints marked the snow, visible in broad daylight for even the worst of hunters to follow with ease. But no sane hunter would dare pursue such a trail. Neither animal nor man had left these tracks.

Claws that had slain countless men and women and children. Walking upon two legs.

A slight limp, owed to injuries from which it had bled, pushing forward, ever forward, lurching, and shambling farther and farther away from the city.

Snow crunched under every light footstep taken by two shadowy figures. In pursuit of their inhuman quarry, they strode across uneven terrain, far away from man-made roads and paths. Garbed in heavy jackets, with trouser legs and boots and coattails caked in the white powder of snow, their slender silhouettes almost blended in with the forest around them when they came to a stop.

Even in broad daylight, the canopy of barren trees that made up the sprawling Blackwood sufficed to blanket it in a dreary, dreamy gloom. Little clouds of condensing air puffed away from the mouths of the two hunters, forming beyond the scarves and tricorne hats that covered their faces, then dissipating in the cold breeze.

One of them looked around, as if confused. The other stared at him, then followed his erratically wandering gaze.

Were they being followed by something else?

“You sense something?” asked the other in a hushed hiss. The sound of her voice sliced through the wintry air like a knife. “Is it here? Watching us?”

“No,” Johnn muttered. “It's—I’ve been here before.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed at him.

“What is that supposed to mean? You’re a bloody bandit that has been robbing the king’s men in this fucking forest for years. I’d be surprised if you hadn’t,” Nora said.

He almost swiveled, glared at her, then swallowed a response.

The two of them breathed heavily, using the brief respite to recover from their forced march through the layer of unforgiving snow.

He finally replied, with a voice that trembled, “The Blackwood is huge. There’re parts no man has ever stepped foot in. Parts no man should ever step foot in, what with the fair—”

“Shut up. Don’t waste breath on their wretched name. Is this their domain? Is that why we’re stopping?”

“No. Like I said—I’ve been here before,” Johnn repeated.

He pointed to a large boulder, now covered in snow, near a fallen tree, where a tangle of gnarled roots stood out from the ground, where a storm had uprooted the ancient tree. A natural landmark, no doubt.

“You can hear the ocean from here, yeah?”

Nora only nodded.

“And the trickle of a brook nearby?”

“No, what—”

“Well, I can, and I know this place. The brook leads to a cave. You have to dive through water for a bit, then you reach a larger cave, connecting to an even larger one. A cove where some slaver pirates used to hide out.”

“So what? Are you thinking he—”

“I don’t know. But it’s where Terry died, and where I killed their captain. And it is giving me the creeps just thinkin’ about it.”

“Then what in the hell is there to give you the creeps anymore? Thought you Merry Lot did all those windbags in,” Nora said, every word mumbled more than the last.

“I killed Shark-Eyes,” Johnn said, the sentence riding on a sigh. “Have the scars to always remind me and can’t taste sugar anymore where I bit my tongue to break his spell.”

“What—he some kind of warlock?”

“How should I know? The unnatural is your specialty,” he quipped.

Nora’s heartbeat picked up speed when she sensed Johnn smirk underneath his bandana.

“All I know is that he is dead, he used to work some sorta black magick, and his hideout used to be ‘round these parts. Now, what do you think the odds are, that—you know, possibly—the alchemist we’re chasin’ is a bit balmy on the crumpet—what are the odds his magick has got something to do with old dead Shark-Eyes and his warlock—warlockery? What do you even call that shite?”

“I call it bad news. Who cares what it’s called?” Nora said, ending her question on a sharp note that left no question.

Johnn pointed past the uprooted tree and the boulder sticking out of the pristine snow. Before he could say something, Nora said, “Fine, who knows—maybe there is a connection. Maybe not. What say you, though—hear me out—you stop being a poodle-faker, we ignore this for now, and we follow the fucking blood trail we’ve been following since bloody Lesterfield?”

She drew her flint-lock pistol for emphasis and tapped the brim of her hat with the weapon’s fine barrel—now adorned with intricate etchings of crucifixes and mystic seals used to exorcise demons. Johnn’s shoulders heaved and then slumped in a shrug, punctuated by another sigh.

“Fine,” he groaned. “But if we end up following this trail into that cave, then…”

“Then what?”

Johnn stammered several broken sentences that failed to connect, prompting Nora to tell him to shut up. She sprung into motion before he could protest, trudging through the snow. He followed.

Their breathing and the crunching of frosted grounds accompanied them for dozens of paces more, as they gained speed and vigor, staving off the cold. The rest of the forest stayed eerily silent. Not even the crows dared to caw that day.

Johnn murmured behind her, “You could wear a dress if—”

“Shut up.”

He did.

Dozens of paces more they followed the trail. Passing snapped branches, here; holes in the snow turned vermillion, where droplets of blood had fallen, there. And always those lurching motions, like the creature sometimes moved on all fours, then on his legs again. Claws had scarred a tree trunk in his path where the alchemist had braced himself and caught his breath. Now long gone—but the huntress could almost smell the ghost of his presence, only hours ahead of them passing through here.

The trickling sound of water grew louder as they hiked, loud enough that even Nora could hear it despite the noise of their march.

The red dots in the snow and the tracks spoke volumes: Nora read immediately how the transformed alchemist, Baxter Hanrahan, had trampled down the grounds around here, splashing himself with the cold and refreshing water. Cleansing his wound.

A singular bullet rested in the brook, water flowing around it where it jittered. The stream of water was not strong enough to carry it away. He must have extracted that from his injury.

Then he had followed the natural path leading down the flow of the brook. Because it had stopped snowing several hours ago, and these trails had been left after the snowfall, she knew they were gaining on the wounded monster.

Standing still and letting her gaze sweep in the direction in which the thin stream of water flowed, framed by the serene, shining and glistening teeth of ice that lined the brook’s edges, the tracks led right into a small, cavernous opening, yawning with a deep darkness that her eyes could not fathom.

Nora clicked her tongue and raised a hand to silence Johnn before he could utter any stupid remarks about having been right. She swallowed the urge to swear up a storm of profanities that could have made a sailor blush.

More than him having been right, she hated the idea that they had to go search a cave for the damned alchemist. More than that even, she hated the idea that this might somehow be connected to another damned sorcerer.

“We’re better off not going in that way,” Johnn said. “Unless you like your gunpowder wet, I suggest we climb down the smuggler’s cove, rather than crawling through the thief’s entrance.”

Clicking her tongue again, Nora shook her head.

Johnn pulled up his crossbow and she could hear the smugness riding on his voice as he added, “Of course, if you chose to use—”

Pointing a finger at his face and then turning her head to follow the gesture with a furious glare sufficed to shut him up again this time. Seeing only his gray eyes sparkle out from in between his hat and scarf sufficed to convey the smugness he found in his small victory. She knew his face too well.

Then that sparkle froze. His gaze hardened. Stared through her. Past her. At something that only now caught the corner of her eye, like the shadow she always spotted at the edge of her vision. Only tangible now.

Within a split second, they aimed their weapons at the third figure; bodily reactions and instincts that happened without thinking. Nora stared down the sights of her pistol and blinked once her gaze met that of yellow, strange eyes. Wide, with a strip of black glistening wet in them, like looking into the eyes of a goat.

Indeed, the two hunters stared into the eyes of a bestial man, whose face resembled a goat, crowned by a harmonious pair of winding horns, a lot like those of a ram. A figure that resembled a man in that it stood upright, though he stood upon hooves for feet. Garbed in layers of thick linen cloth and a dark red robe, frayed around the edges. His clawed hands clutched an old wooden staff, against which he leaned.

Like the two, this goat-man was frozen. In shock.

Nora recognized the sentiment. She recognized the goat-man.

“No,” she said, clipped.

Lowered her pistol and raised an open gloved palm towards Johnn, adding, “Lower your weapon, he is harmless. Well, maybe not harmless, but—not harmful.”

Johnn’s hesitation surfaced in form of the crack of his leather clad finger loosening from around the trigger of his crossbow, but the tension in his defensive posture remained.

“Isn’t it—isn’t he—”

“Not all fair—not all of them are bad, I suppose. Well, at least he isn’t,” she said, peeling her attention away from Johnn and looking back to the goat-man.

The beast-man tilted his head and his intelligent goat eyes betrayed a fearful intelligence as they darted back and forth in between Johnn and Nora. Cutlery and tiny wooden carvings, hanging from threads of twine attached to his belt, clacked, and jingled softly. How he had appeared out of nowhere, without a sound, such a thing only the fair folk could explain.

Goat-man not only leaned on his staff—he hugged it, as if it offered him protection, yet only rendered his appearance more vulnerable and innocent. Johnn finally, audibly, lowered his crossbow.

Nora had rescued the goat-man in this same forest. Slew a vicious witchcrafter who wanted to eviscerate the creature for his innards, for divining secrets or some nonsense.

Over a whole year prior to this day.

Understandably frightening in appearance to most, Nora still sensed the same softness in the fair creature as he stood before them. The bushy hair on his chin swayed gently in the breeze, almost underlining that notion.

He had helped her before—returned the favor—when she escaped from the penitentiary and almost perished in these same woods, injured and alone, at the mercy of autumn’s chill.

The goat-man nodded his head. Stayed silent, as he always did. A greeting, perhaps?

Nora suspected they spoke no common tongue that they could share. They had yet to exchange any words.

But the goat-man pointed to the cave entrance upon which he stood. To where the brook continued to trickle away, flowing into that gaping shadowy hole. Where a greater, more sinister darkness awaited them.

The goat-man shook his head. With purpose and deliberation, he shook his head back and forth, warning them of the danger below.

“We have no choice, friend,” she said, speaking those words with a softness that felt even alien to herself. She, too, shook her head.

They could not speak to one another in words they understood. Not like this. Yet they both understood.

The goat-man turned slowly, carefully, and raised a hand. He pointed one of his long, blackened claws to the trees behind him, following with his own eyes to draw all attention to it. To where the soothing sound of ocean waves lapped against jagged cliffs.

“Is he showing us where to go?” Johnn asked. “I mean, we would have gone there anyway.”

Nobody answered.

The goat-man turned to peer back at Nora. She nodded deeply at him in return.

“Thank you,” she said.

The goat-man tilted his head again and stood still. Watched.

Nora started in the direction he had pointed to. She shot a glance at Johnn and waved at him to follow.

She stopped again as the goat-man descended from the rocks above the cave entrance, approaching her. Not frozen in fear, but unsure what to expect, she studied the goat-man’s every motion until he halted in front of her, standing only one pace away. He looked so old. So ancient. His fur grayed and silvery. And he smelled of pine resin, and campfires, and a unique, strange musk.

From inside his tattered robes, he produced something, held caringly.

As his sharply clawed fingers unfurled, he presented a tiny object in his weathered palm. There rested a small bird, intricately carved from wood. Impossible to recognize what kind of bird it represented, she locked eyes with the goat-man to discern what this gesture meant.

He stretched his arm out further to her, splaying his fingers to the limit, motioning her to take the carved keepsake from him.

Nora took it and closed her gloved hand around it with the same loving care that he must have applied to craft it. She nodded again to express gratitude and the goat-man mimicked the motion.

They withdrew from him and walked on towards the bluffs, where the sound of the ocean’s upset waves beckoned them.

Looking over her shoulder, Nora found the goat-man to be watching them leave, observing their steadfast march to doom. She found herself studying the carved bird in her palm every few steps.

It reminded her of both of a sparrow and a crow. Which—was unclear.

It felt more like a symbol. Like a charm or talisman.

Spiraling, harmonic patterns, mirroring those upon the goat-man’s staff had been shaved into its surfaces and painted dark, also reminding her of the old ways, the old days of the kingdom that only survived in museums and ruins, driven into fading obscurity by the church’s relentless efforts to quell ancient evils.

She eventually shoved the tiny item into one of her coat pockets and when she looked back to where she expected to see the goat-man still watching them, she only saw the slender black trunks of cold and naked trees. He had vanished. As silently as he had appeared in the first place.

Johnn stared at her till she met his gaze.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” Nora muttered.

She trained her eyes on the snowy grounds before her once again. The ocean grew louder with every step, heavier with every herald of the waves. More powerful. Foretelling the danger they knowingly approached. The crunching of snow underfoot ceased once they reached the edge and naked rocks and gravel crackled underneath the soles of their boots.

They overlooked a steep rocky drop to the crashing waves, reaching from one end of the Red Coast to the other as far as they could see. Fog and clouds swallowed the horizon beyond the sea.

Johnn nodded his head to indicate something on the cliff’s face beneath them. A shadow between the rocks. Likely hard to spot from the water, barely visible from their vantage point. Truly, a perfect location for dubious seafarers to hide out.

“Down there. Hard to spot, but that’s where they ran their boats into the cove. We climb down, there’s a natural ledge we can use to enter. Really—watch your step now,” he said.

They did as he foretold. Nora’s hand slipped once, her boot in a different instance, causing a chunk of rocky earth to plummet into the depths, bouncing down the unforgiving cliffs, and disappearing into the waves far down.

But they took their time. If the mad chemist, Hanrahan, was hiding in these caves, then they would execute him sooner or later. Better than tumbling down these jagged stones, breaking bones, and landing in the icy cold embrace of the sea.

Slowly, cautiously, they descended, bit by bit. As Johnn dropped down the final stretch of a few steps, he landed on a rough and natural surface, staggering as he regained his poise, then readying his crossbow and pointing it at something Nora could not yet see from where she clung to the cliff’s wall.

Nora waited before dropping down, ensuring that he had only drawn his weapon as a precaution. He looked up at her and then nodded to confirm she could safely follow. His stern gaze carried the same tension that she felt in her every joint.

Then she followed, descending with continuous caution, until she dropped down herself and landed on the natural ledge with a stifled grunt.

The darkness of the cave here felt far less foreboding and oppressive at first glance.

Broken and shrunken by the ridges that jotted out of the sea in clusters near the cliffs, the waves sloshed more gently at the edge where they stood. The gaping mouth of this hidden entrance overlooked a deep and wide cavern, large enough to house a significant sea vessel.

Standing in stark contrast to how hard it would be to spot the cave from afar, the natural structure opened to almost monolithic proportions. Stalactites hung from a high and vast ceiling like rows of teeth. Very deep inside, far from where they could see, the darkness swallowed the cavern’s depths.

Somewhere, even deeper inside, a small light glimmered. A torch, or a gas-lit lantern perhaps. Its tiny flame danced, distant and forlorn.

Nora’s hand crept to her pistol, then decided against it. Metal rustled against leather as she drew her cutlass instead.

Their quarry was here.

The two hunters exchanged glances and carefully traversed the grounds, weaving in between broken stalagmites and advancing only slowly to prevent any unwanted noise from announcing their arrival. The ocean swallowed the few sounds they made.

Rotten, old wooden planks creaked once Johnn left the rocky ledge and stepped foot onto the hidden pier. He froze in place and waited, as did Nora, both staring into the darkness, letting their aim travel back and forth, expecting their prey to be hiding anywhere where he could pounce from a place of hiding.

Something blotted out the tiny light in the distance for a split second. Just enough that untrained eyes may have missed it. But both Nora and Johnn had noticed. Not a word was exchanged.

The shadows were many. Many blind spots silently stared back at them, unblinking, unmoving. Testing their courage. Nora felt her scarf in between hat and hair growing damp with sweat, colder, and colder as they lurked deeper and deeper into the cavern, until the shadows engulfed them fully.

Hanrahan had ample space and opportunity to hide and hide well. To watch his hunters and gauge the appropriate reaction.

For as slowly as they progressed, their eyes adjusted to the dark. The gloomy twilight of the fog-covered ocean behind them, they crept closer and closer to the tiny light. Entering a meandering, narrow cave, with only the light of the lonesome lantern left as their guide. Just enough to see where they were going, but not enough to discern the depths of branching paths, through which a cold breeze softly whistled, and Nora’s tension grew, expecting the alchemist to attack from anywhere now.

Johnn had taken the lead, advancing with a certainty that reflected his claim of having been here before. He seemed to not notice a roiling fog or smoke that crawled across the well-treaded rock of the cave floors, coiling around their legs like a carpet of misty serpents.

Nora wanted to say something but refused to alert their monstrous quarry to their presence if she could.

As she reached out to grab Johnn’s shoulder, the unnatural fog expanded rapidly, filling the corridors with a thick soup of gray mist, drowning out that tiny light and delving everything into pitch-black. It strangely smelled like honey. Her gloved fingers connected to Johnn’s shoulder.

He slipped from her grip, jolting forward without a word. Tiny rocks crunched under pressure. Something stifled a gasp from her beloved, as if covering his own mouth.

But carrying his crossbow, he had no free hands to do so.

The leather of Nora’s glove cracked again as she clutched her cutlass tightly and withdrew it towards her own body, flipping it down just in case she bumped into Johnn.

In the ensuing silence that draped itself over her, she hissed like a snake, “You will pay.”

The mists swirled as if they obeyed unspoken commands. Unnatural as it was, commanded by sorcery, this fog dissipated, having served its purpose. A presence loomed above, standing atop an elevated platform. There stood Baxter Hanrahan. His humanity long gone, now an abominable creature of unholy proportions.

Hideous lips parted to display rows of crooked, jagged teeth, no longer a maw that resembled a human’s mouth. Garbed only in rags and torn remnants of fabric, most of the chemist’s mutated body stood exposed. In the faint glow of the gas-lit lantern, his skin looked pallid and deformed, thrumming as if disease wracked every limb or multiple heartbeats pulsed inside his chest, bulging with veins and pustules and patches of mangy hair. A third eye blinked upon his shoulder, making Nora’s stomach knot at the sight.

In the clawed clutches of the monstrous creature, Johnn trembled. He had lost his hat and scarf, which now rested together on the stone floor of the large chamber they all stood in. He did not squirm against the iron grip of his captor, whose massive hand clamped down tightly over the brigand’s mouth—the long, blackened claws twitched with dangerous closeness to the artery on his neck. Another hulking arm gripped Johnn tight, crushing his own arms against the creature as it held him, and leaving him no space to wiggle free or fight back.

And the monstrous Hanrahan just leered at Nora. The pistol hanging from her belt weighed heavy against her hip now, and she burned to sling it out. But the creature’s cruel smile said one thing, and one thing clearly: one wrong move, and he would rip Johnn’s throat right out.

Cages made of wrought iron lined the sides of this sprawling cave chamber, where old pirate pickaxes had roughly hewn its walls into shape. The cages all stood eerily empty, manacles dangling lifelessly from their top bars, their floors littered with old straw and stains of human blood and refuse.

Nora sensed the despair of those who had once been kept here and tasted the evil of those who kept them. She raised her blade, but held it sideways, raising her other, empty hand alongside in a clear gesture: to display surrender.

A throaty, baritone guffaw emerged from the monster’s bulging throat. Johnn squirmed now after all, provoking the creature to grip him more tightly. The tips of Hanrahan’s claws scraped against his captive’s exposed skin, drawing out thin rivulets of blood that quickly ran down Johnn’s neck.

Nora removed her hat and tossed it aside. She pulled her scarf down. The smell of sea salt and rust overwhelmed her senses and a quick scan of the room revealed only two exits. The one she had entered from, and one beneath the ledge upon which Hanrahan and Johnn stood, supported by old, wooden, rickety beams.

“I know what you did in the city, Baxter Hanrahan. I know all about you, Outer Wall Ripper,” she said. She clenched her teeth, holding back the anger that welled up from her gut. Good, she thought. It would mask all else. “Like I said—you will pay. If you think taking another hostage will help you, then you have made a grave mistake.”

The creature growled, “I can tell you what I told all before you.”

His voice sent shivers down Nora’s spine, defying her expectations as she had not anticipated such a creature to be so capable of complete and comprehensible speech.

“You will never stop me. You are just human,” he snickered. “You are just—beneath me in every way. Just a woman.”

Teeth still clenched, so hard they threatened to crack, Nora could only imagine how hideous her own grin must have looked now. She would spite this awful creature.

“I have slain ladies, high and low, strong and sickly alike. I have slain men, one of them three heads taller than yourself, and I have sampled the supple flesh of children. You all fight, you all run, you all whimper and beg for mercy, but there is none. You are all game to me. All sport. All walking sacks of organs that can be harvested for a greater purpose. All your suffering amounts to my victorious innovations and to my pleasure.”

Nora kept her eyes focused on the creature, awaiting his first mistake. They always made a mistake. Especially when they talked this much.

Did all monsters enjoy hearing their own words out loud? Vampyria, wolf-men, demons, wraiths, fair beasts—everything she had ever read of in the Bestiarium Nox and seen for herself—they all monologued.

“Yes, yes. Keep talking. There’s not one ounce of this bunk I haven’t heard before,” she said. As the awful toothy grin faded from her face, a melodiously mocking tone entered her next sentences as she rendered them, “We little humans are weak prey for you to play with. Let me guess—you’ll keep me alive for as long as possible, because you have oh-so-much-worse things in store for me. Am I close? I apologize, it is all the same drivel to me. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.”

She shot a lop-sided smirk at the creature and both Hanrahan’s and Johnn’s faces fell simultaneously. One taken aback by the sheer audacity of this short woman—the other surprised and fearful that she was taunting Hanrahan into slashing his neck.

“You know nothing,” Hanrahan snarled. His claws clamped down. Blood refused to exit Johnn’s neck this time, awaiting only the right amount of pressure and pull to slice through his flesh. “What do you know of me? I am like a god amongst men. Alchemy has made me god-like. You are a fool if you’re too blind to recognize divinity in the flesh, staring back into your wretched little soul. Yes, I can taste your darkness, too. You have killed so many that you have forgotten what it’s like to be human, naked in their innocence and justified in their wrath. To one such as you, I am as a god.”

Nora whistled out a sharp tone, just piling on more derision.

“A god you say? You are out of your bloody mind. The last so-called ‘gods’ I met all bled out like the regular jossers who get the tar kicked out of them by sailors in seedy bars. I’ve just had about enough of you petty pretenders. Why don’t you just slash that fool’s fucking neck already and we can get on with this?”

Johnn’s eyes went wide with dread. All air of superiority had drained from Hanrahan’s presence. Only a glimmer of fury remained, reflecting the tiny lantern’s light, now growing into a flame behind the monster’s eyes.

Nora smirked once more and tilted her blade to show the alchemist the sharp edge of her cutlass.

“Come on, you tosser. Let’s see how godly you are after I gut you like a bloody pig.”

The glint on her blade caught Hanrahan’s eye.

This was the moment. The moment she had been building up to.

Time grinded to a halt.

Defying all, she slung out her pistol with her free hand and fired. The flint struck; a cloud of smoke exploded with the bright jet flame shooting out from the intricately marked barrel. The silver bullet might help, but all she needed was the surprise.

Blood sprayed from the platform, splattering the rocky floors, prompting her to sneer, but Johnn had elbowed Hanrahan and broken free from his grasp, tumbling down onto the ground, and coming to rest on his side, chest heaving and struggling to get back up on his feet after the hard landing.

Only little blood pooled beneath Nora’s beloved fool. As he looked up at her, she saw the vermillion dripping from his collarbone rather than his neck, and the spray of blood had come from Hanrahan’s forehead where her bullet had struck.

The alchemist pawed at his own skull to assess the damage, causing the rage in Nora to make way for fear. A bullet to the skull proved insufficient to stop the abomination, and as he saw his own blood in his monstrous palm, his eyes darted up until they locked with Nora's—a fiendish gaze, saturated with murderous intent.

She reacted quickly but not quickly enough. Her empty pistol had yet to clatter against the stony ground when Hanrahan flew at her like a living boulder, catapulting himself at her with unbridled rage. Her hand had gone to grab another pistol from her belt, but the force of a whole horse-drawn cart barreled into her, knocking the wind out of her lungs, and provoking a shriek of pain as she felt ribs crack upon being crushed between iron cage bars and the monster.

In a frenzy of flailing claws and inhuman screeches, Hanrahan quickly slashed Nora’s coat to ribbons, tearing her shirt to shreds and leaving her with countless cuts in a matter of seconds. The blade in her hand sliced as she swung and jabbed and jabbed at the alchemist-monster, barely connecting but forcing him to retreat a few steps.

Pain soared from a deep cut where a claw had lacerated her leg. Nora groaned and one of her knees threatened to give out under her own weight, but she held the blade out in front of her, in between herself and the monster, who now grinned at her again, baring his crooked and vicious fangs.

One wrong move, and those teeth would tear out her neck.

The sadistic smile wiped itself from his face when a barbed arrowhead emerged from his neck. Both Hanrahan and Nora stared at it with surprise, watching blood drip from its pointy tip.

Following its origin, the bolt from Johnn’s crossbow had lodged itself into the alchemist’s neck. Johnn, still lying on the ground, now held his discharged crossbow in his hands, leaned up against a cage, grinning smugly at the monster, his own bloodied teeth on display. That grin also faded when Hanrahan whipped around.

Undeterred by the projectile sticking out of his nape, he grabbed Johnn and tossed him aside like a broken toy, eliciting a pained shout as Johnn crashed into another cage, collapsing as soon as he tried to get back up after smashing his head against an iron bar.

Hanrahan howled in pain, reacting to Nora ramming her sword into his back—and then twisting the blade. He spun around again, shoving her away, thus disarming her with the masterless blade now sticking out of his back.

That throaty and deep laugh repeated itself as Hanrahan guffawed at her. He laughed at their attempts to kill him. His laughter broke and his newfound grin faltered as he choked and coughed, almost sounding human for a moment. Almost pitiful.

Almost.

Giving no quarter, Nora slung out the other pistol from her belt and shot him in the side of the head. The smoke cleared quickly, and something gravelly and menacing emerged from his throat—a furious growl. Blood sputtered from the injury, yet he wobbled only slightly where he stood.

His rage simmered, ready to unleash his full frenzy. Nora could feel it, like waves of heat and hatred emanating from his hulking, deformed body. Up close, he smelled like rotten fruit and excrements and vomit.

She quickly looked around for something, anything, but pulled a silvered dagger from behind her back—it would serve until she could retrieve the cutlass from Hanrahan’s back.

The alchemist ignored her and picked up a small object from the table upon which the gas lantern sat. A metal syringe in his clutch, Hanrahan’s paw dwarfed it. He laughed again, erupting into another hacking, wheezing cough, and then jammed the needle into his own neck. The sickly pale flesh thrummed and pulsed there, and his veins turned pitch-black, like a disease running from the injection and spreading quickly throughout his monstrous body.

The huntress was not going to find out what this meant—the silver-lined dirk in her hand flashed twice, reflecting the small light’s flame as she stabbed Hanrahan twice with quick jabs, trying to circle around him.

But he turned with her and his left arm grotesquely almost doubled in size. The claws tipping his grotesque fingers shot out to twice their length, rivaling Nora’s dagger.

Her heart skipped a beat, and he swatted the knife from her hand. The pain of several cuts on her arm flared up with delay, upon which she clenched her teeth and paced backwards.

Hanrahan continued to grow, all over, hunching over and bracing himself against the floor with his meaty fists, like a gorilla she had seen in the zoo.

“I am not merely like a god,” he spoke, now sounding like four voices spoken in unison, so deep that they threatened to open a yawning abyss straight to hell. “I am god.”

The crossbow bolt lodged into his neck now snapped under the roiling masses of his transforming flesh. The cutlass shot out of his back, clanging as it rattled and rolled across the stone floor. Johnn crawled towards it, but nowhere nearly as fast as he needed to be. His strength waned.

Hanrahan lunged at Nora again, leaving several gaping cuts across her chest despite her attempts to leap back, and causing her to roll backwards across the ground, away from him. The grit and dust burned in the many scratches where stone all chafed against her injured skin.

The dirk had rolled right out of reach.

“Time to die, worm.”

This was it.

Nora steeled herself, ready to finally meet her end. Out of options.

Out of all the places, to die in a dark cave, forgotten by its owners, unknown, unseen, in a haunted place where nobody would find her. Would she join its phantoms?

Hanrahan lurched forward and he arched backwards, raising that hand of lethal claws high above him, ready to bring it down and impale her once and for all. Ready to rip her heart out with the ease his new form afforded him.

Something whipped out at the alchemist. Coiled and wrapped itself around his wrist in the blink of an eye. Something like twine, or ropes. Or rather: vines. Covered in dark, sickly leaves. And thorns.

Thorns everywhere.

He grunted, surprised as much as Nora over this turn of events. He looked from the tangle of thorny vines that bound his arm and yanked at them. Despite his tremendous, ghastly frame, and swollen mass of muscles, whatever had projected these bindings at him proved far stronger. His eyes bulged and he roared like the foul beast that he was, teeth protruding outward and bloody spittle spraying through the air. So loudly he roared that it filled all these caves and left an unpleasant ringing in Nora’s ears.

They both followed the vines to their source, a dark silhouette that stood upon the elevated platforms where Hanrahan had held Johnn hostage, just outside the sphere of the lantern’s faint glow. The flame within the lamp dimmed and nearly went out, as if it tried to conceal the presence.

A woman cackled from there. Awful, piercing, like a fork being scraped across a metal plate. The vines tugged at Hanrahan again, yanking with far greater force, and he stumbled away from Nora, now fully turning to face his greatest foe yet.

The vines constricted around the alchemist’s arm, causing pus and black tar-like blood to ooze out from the grinding cuts. He howled in pain, roared, and thrashed around, grabbing hold of the vine, and then howling yet again as its thorns pierced his fingers when he gripped it. He tugged and pulled with all his might, yanking left, then yanking right, not once managing to counter the unnatural force that had seized him.

And the cackling continued.

Gritting her teeth and stifling her own groans of pain, Nora scrambled onto her side, then back up onto her feet. She limped towards Johnn, who had fallen unconscious with the hilt of Nora’s cutlass buried underneath his hand.

Another tangle of thorny vines shot out from the darkness and enveloped Hanrahan’s ankle. He fought its pull, but it suddenly jerked towards the shadowy silhouette, causing him to lose his footing, dropping him onto his back with such weight that the stony floors quaked.

Nora’s cutlass came chopping down. His incessant thrashing prevented the blow from cutting into his neck, so it shattered his front teeth and hacked into his cheek, provoking more pained howls from his monstrous maw.

Her boots skidded against the floor as she lurched back, right underneath one of his claws swinging at her in retaliation and only narrowly missing her.

More vines shot out at him, seizing that same claw, and limiting his motion. It curbed his thrashing to the point where Nora’s next blow struck his neck, causing a violent crimson explosion to spray her own face.

Hanrahan gurgled, choking on his own blood, desperately attempting to fight back and to utter more inane threats, but Nora continued her dirty handiwork that she had grown accustomed to inflicting upon all these monsters.

The vines multiplied, pinning Hanrahan down and turning the hulking monster into a quivering ball of helplessness. Blow after blow, Nora cut deeper through his neck, until only a deformed spine held body and head together, and even that soon severed after more overhead swings of her cutlass. The same blade that had executed so many creatures before Hanrahan, adding his life to the many it had dulled itself in claiming.

His eyes had lost all light of so-called “divinity”, having made way to terror. And pleading.

No amount of thrashing or resisting helped the alchemist in the end. The vines held him too tightly, joined by more tangles from the platform, restraining his every limb and allowing Nora to end him.

Between heavy breaths and shuddering as she shrugged off the numbing pain, she spat a gob of saliva and blood onto Hanrahan’s twitching remains. The thorny vines loosened, revealing how they had ripped devastating wounds which may have slowly bled out the alchemist, had her sword not removed his head first.

Those same vines now withdrew, controlled by some otherworldly force. They slowly slithered back from whence they came, like leafy, eyeless serpents; rustling and trembling as they moved. Thorns scraped against stone, scritching and scratching.

Still consigned to death, Nora turned to see their source, ready for them to take her next. For whatever abomination had shown such force in stopping Hanrahan, it would have a far easier time in ending her life next.

She winced, clamping her eyes shut to blot out all pain, fires across her body from the dozens of cuts and bruises she had suffered. Blinking, her vision blurred, in part owed to blood flowing into the corner of her eye. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and blinked again.

Wanting to see the face of her killer, she snatched the lantern from the table, where other mysterious metal syringes clanked against each other. She ignored the alchemist’s supplies and raised the lantern high, stumbling forward. The blade of her cutlass lazily scraped across the stone as she lurched forward, mirroring Hanrahan’s final motions. Nora could barely stand.

In days past, that platform supported the slaver captain, housing a wicked little wooden throne upon which he once sat, allowing him to observe his miserable captives in their iron cages.

Whoever now perched upon that platform, Nora could barely make out any features. Though draped in a rugged, dark cloak, the huntress identified a vaguely feminine figure. Devoured by the shadows of a black hood, almost no face could be perceived. Only shriveled, gray skin and chapped lips that had curled into a devious smile. Teeth, rotten and black, glistening wet.

Hands folded serenely before her hunched figure, like a praying woman, and the vines creeping evermore back to her, shrinking in volume, and disappearing underneath her robes, with cloth so deep that no feet could be seen, only fabric sweeping the platform’s wood and the vines slithering into the void underneath the cloak.

“My pretty little birdie,” spoke the hag. A thick accent, one from up north. Raspy, riddled with phlegm, a voice rife with ridicule. “So nice to see my beautiful little monster in full bloom.”

Nora groaned but it spilled over into a clipped burst of laughter.

Another one of these self-indulgent ghouls, she wagered.

“Get in line, witch,” Nora sighed. Truly exhausted, some part of her preferred the thought of instant death over having to hear another monster ramble on. “I’m sure there are a dozen others who all want to take their pound of flesh from me.”

Nora gripped her head and wheezed with another stifled groan. Eclipsing all other pains, numbing all her senses, her head began to throb in agony. That typical invisible knife sliding into her skull again.

The hag cackled once more, sadistic, and amused.

“No, my pretty. I have all I need now, I am quite alright,” replied the hag with unsettling melody in each syllable.

“And just who the fuck are you, now?”

She cackled again in response. Frosthearte never shared her name lightly. Not even to her chosen orphan.

“I am the decay that gnaws at the roots of the world’s tree. I am the curse that haunts wicked men with eternal suffering. I—”

“Oh, bloody spare me already. If you’re going to kill me, fucking hurry it up.”

Nora spat impotently, nearly fell as she lifted her cutlass to point it at the hag. Her cry, more defiant than ever, echoed through these empty caves.

“Come on, then!”

The lips of the hag drooped down, yielding a displeased frown.

“Sparrow, or crow, my pretty. Are you the crow, or the sparrow?”

“Make some fucking sense!”

“Are you the harbinger of death, or the herald of new blood?”

Nora stumbled as soon as she launched her sword up at the hag. The blade’s metal sang as it rang out, clattering across the wooden platform and striking nobody. Nora’s vision continued to blur, never clearing. Blinking again, she saw:

The hag was gone.

“Death awaits you on your path,” whispered the hag.

Nora swiveled, losing her footing, and falling backwards and banging her previously unhurt elbow against hard stone in the process. She cringed.

But no hag had appeared behind her. Johnn lay unconscious nearby, face down in the dirt. Paces away from him, the body of Hanrahan had stopped twitching in his death throes, motionless and devoid of all life.

No hag in sight. Nowhere.

“You must face Death, the pretender,” the hag’s voice continued in creeping whispers, echoing through the halls, and invading Nora’s mind. Riding on that knife of a headache as it sank deeper into her skull.

Nora gripped her head and—unable to escape this hag’s merciless and incessant whispering—curled up into a fetal position, oblivious to all pain as the headache grew so intolerable that it muted the searing agony from dozens of bleeding cuts.

“I will uphold my end of the bargain, and you shall not see me or mine for a long, long time. But the necromancer who dares call himself Death—he shall stand in your way, and you need be prepared. Prepared to put your old ghosts to rest, one last time.”

Nora groaned in pain, almost bridging into an angry shout, but it died in her throat and she gritted her teeth to stave off the incapacitating pain. She wanted to tell the hag to shut up and get out of her head.

The words she spoke made little sense, but the warnings resonated with her.

She knew exactly what ghosts the hag spoke of.

“This is my parting gift for you, my sweet, beautiful monster.”

The last word echoed not only through the cavernous corridors but reverberated in Nora’s thoughts until it reached a deafening crescendo.

Are you the crow or the sparrow?

Those words arrived not in whispers, but echoes inside Nora’s mind. Memories. Older.

Words she had heard spoken before.

She had met the hag as a child. It all came back to her now.

Never forgotten, only buried. Things that made no sense until this very moment.

“Are you a crow or a sparrow?” The hag had sounded so much more pleasant and nice back then.

The weird witch reached out to take the little sobbing girl’s hand. Little Nora’s hand. The little girl who once stood as the sole survivor in a small village, where pestilence had taken all souls to heaven but hers. The hag looked nowhere as frightful then as she did now.

Before Nora even reached the walls of Crimsonport, huddled with the forlorn masses of all the other refugees who sought to escape the Blight, the hag’s willowy hand held hers, guiding her, and nurturing her. Feeding her soup and potions, by the many campfires, providing poisonous words that jaded her from such an early age on.

“They all abandoned you. Not out of malice but borne of weakness. All may crumble under the might of the Blight. All but you, my pretty little birdie. Eat, grow strong. Defy those who wrong you. Trust nobody. None but me. And never surrender. Never stop fighting. Slay all of them and feed the forest soil with their blood.”

I will always be watching you. The shadow in your wake.

How had she survived a plague? Nora’s mind reeled, but the crippling headache blocked the thought from reaching its rightful conclusion.

Curled up into a fetal position, just like when the hag had found her as a child, the body of fully-grown Nora unfurled again, sprawled out as she reclaimed her fading senses. The dim glow from the gas-lit lantern on the desolate table. In this hopeless, abandoned dungeon. The cold, biting air, removed from the wintry outdoors but carrying the smell of rust and sea salt with it. The smell of death all around.

More than anything else, the pain brought her back. The warmth of her own sticky blood. She winced and stifled another groan as she turned over onto her side. And then onto her belly from there. She crawled, dragged herself over to Johnn. Too exhausted to get back up again.

His shoulders heaved softly, rhythmically. Not dead, merely out of it.

Gingerly, she brushed his long, bloodstained hair from his face, curiously absorbed by the old scar that missed his now-closed eye and ran down the length of his chiseled cheek.

Crow or sparrow? Life or death?

Nora resolved to not let those words reach her. To not let them lead her astray. To do as the hag had told, but not in a way she would like. If it was defiance this hag desired, then she would happily oblige.

She refused to play some sinister game. Refused to accept the strict separation of elements thus proposed. Nora’s fingers curled into Johnn’s hair, running through them, until they found purchase on his coat’s collar, which she gripped. She softly shook him. And then again when he refused to awaken.

Seeing opposites aligned, finding together, she would defy such unnatural severance.

Crow or sparrow? Life or death?

Why not both?

Johnn gasped and his eyes fluttered open.

—Submited by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Gothic horror #gaslight romance #dark fantasy #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Victorian #Edwardian #Nora Morrissey #Johnn Von Brandt #Baxter Hanrahan #magick #sorcery #alchemy #mutation #monster #evil #vampire #demon #ghost #fair folk

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Die, Monster

The thick bank of fog split and roiled where two figures emerged from it. Tendrils of mist clawed at them, barely letting the two men go as they marched with steadfast determination and haste.

As they followed the nightly street, they kicked up tiny flurries of snow. In this artificial valley, devoid of other people, their boots rapped against the cobblestones, creating hollow echoes to bounce between the walls of the buildings all around them.

Huddled up in layers of thick clothing and standing alone by the recessed door of a block’s front entrance, a haggard man’s face gawked out from the shadows at these two men. While he observed their approach, he sucked on his pipe as if his life depended on it, causing a tiny glimmer in its burning bowels to flare up brightly and reveal his presence to them.

As the two men passed underneath a streetlamp, its gloomy light revealed one of them to be a helmeted constable and the other to be a man in black, carrying a large silver cross around his neck. The haggard man blew out a puff of smoke, studying them all the while.

The other two stopped near Hanrahan’s pharmacy and squinted, scanning the haggard smoker with suspicious glances. He locked eyes with them until they averted their gazes and focused on the abandoned shop instead.

Days ago, someone had splattered paint across the front wall and the building’s boarded up windows. The large letters they had slathered onto the edifice read:

DIE MONSTER

The man in black felt a mild sting of annoyance over the lack of punctuation in the painted phrase.

Underneath it, a torn front page from a newspaper fluttered sadly, barely sheltered from the elements where it had been nailed to a board. Its headline, in large bold letters, aimed to grab attention with spectacle, stating:

OUTER WALL REAPER CLAIMS THIRTEENTH VICTIM!

The police constable sneered at the yellowed paper with a glint of disdain for its author in his eyes. The inquisitor by his side snorted and turned to the haggard man, who still stood across the street, smoking, and continuing to watch them with growing curiosity.

“You there,” the man in black’s words cut through the night like angry little growls. “Do you live around here?”

The haggard man blew out another puff of smoke after inhaling from his pipe, bridging the time it took for the two other men to fully cross the road and broach his vicinity.

He nodded to the inquisitor and thrust out a thumb to the door behind him.

“Live right here,” he said.

“And you enjoy smoking outside in the dead of night, in the bitter cold?” inquired the man in black. The silver cross around his neck flashed for a moment in a gleam of light from the streetlamp when he come to a stop, only paces away from the lonesome man.

“Aye,” growled the smoker, then clearing his throat from the phlegm that had fueled that growl. “I like the nip in the air. Could not sleep.”

He sniffled and wiped underneath his nose with the back of his hand, adding, “S'been a long day.”

“Very well. Enough about you,” the inquisitor said with a sharp tongue, scowling at the smoker. “I am Inquisitor Virgil Armstrong, tasked by the holy church with rooting out evil and nipping it in the bud. And my esteemed colleague here,” he said, the last words dripping with contempt as he gestured to the police constable by his side—up close, a veritable giant of a man who frowned at the inquisitor upon hearing those words spoken thus.

The constable interrupted the speech and finished introductions himself, letting the first words roll out with matching contempt as he said, “Constable Todd, at your service. My colleague and I have a bit of a disagreement that you might help clear up, good sir.”

The constable, towering over both, tipped the helmet crowning his long and angular face, but he sported a similarly dour frown to rival the inquisitor’s.

Armstrong’s mustache wiggled as he wriggled his nose, emitting a short chortle.

“Mister Baxter Hanrahan, the druggist whose business closed over there,” spoke the constable, idly gesturing to the closed shop with a curt nod of his chin, “Ever since accusations of him being the Outer Wall Reaper got loud and he just up and vanished—have you ever noticed anything odd about the pharmacy? Any odd sounds or sights?”

The smoking man shook his head and the corners of his lips twitched with a feeble smile.

“I would be lying if I said I believed that bunk, even with the Reaper still at large,” replied the smoker, wiping over his lips with two fingers. “Mister Hanrahan was a true gentleman and a healer at heart—I can hardly picture him doing—no, I cannot imagine him being a murderer of so many souls. Nah, I’m more inclined to believe the rumors about the bandit ‘king’ Johnn Von Brandt being behind it.

Neither the inquisitor nor the constable looked at the smoker anymore. They exchanged a venomous glance with one another. The smoker cleared his throat and grabbed their attention by picking up again.

“Mind, I have heard a sound here and there from over there, but is that odd? No, I’d wager. I think some urchins or other poor folk might have snuck in there to plunder the place or find shelter from the cold. Odd, I think not.”

The inquisitor glared at the smoking man again and asked with a less rude swing to his tone now, “Might you be more specific? About those sounds?”

The smoker’s lips curled to match his frown and his shaven chin crinkled.

“Couldn’t really tell ya, to be perfectly honest. Sounds? Some wood creaking, a thump here and there, often in broad daylight. Haven’t heard a peep all night,” he said. Pursing his lips for a second, he continued, “Normal sounds, I suppose. Wouldn’t call them odd, exactly.”

“And you never thought to report them to the constabulary?” asked the inquisitor through gritted teeth, the air condensing before his mouth in angry little clouds. A furious fire burned in his eyes, as if he had stolen the glimmer from the smoker’s pipe.

The constable clapped a hand on the inquisitor’s shoulder.

“And waste our time when we have plenty of crime to contend with? No, friend, I think not,” said the constable. He clapped him on the shoulder again—firmly and uncomfortably, for emphasis. “I believe we’ve bothered the good citizen here for long enough. Let us investigate for ourselves.”

The constable nodded in wordless greeting to the smoker and swiveled to leave. Inquisitor Armstrong shot another glance at the lawman and then cast his irritated gaze back onto smoker.

“Good night,” he hissed at him.

The smoker nodded, keeping eyes locked with the twitchy man until Armstrong finally turned and followed the plodding echoes of Constable Todd’s footsteps crossing the street to the closed pharmacy.

“Night,” he replied in a quiet mutter once they were out of earshot.

The smoker then stifled a sigh as it escaped through his flaring nostrils, seeing the light in his pipe had gone out completely during the conversation. The cold had seeped into his fingers as they fumbled with his door and he disappeared inside his home.

The other two men returned to the front of the pharmacy. They bobbed back and forth, craning a neck here and scanning the building’s run-down exterior there with searching eyes. Looking for clues of a presence, or an easy way to enter.

Todd nodded to the alleyway leading in between the buildings, diverging from the street. He immediately walked that way. Armstrong joined him and they circled around the block, looking for another entrance into the closed shop.

The backdoor was missing, beaten down and in shambles within the entrance there. Wooden boards partially covered this alternative entryway, leaving gaps large enough for a slender person or a child to climb through.

Wood audibly splintered and cracked as Constable Todd’s meaty hands pried at a board and yanked until it snapped. He discarded the board’s chunks by tossing them into the snow-covered dirt nearby, promptly ripping out the next board with the same detached fierceness.

Having created a hole large enough for himself to enter, he stepped over one of the lower planks he had left intact and entered the building’s pitch-black insides.

The inquisitor unlatched the gas lantern from his belt and its little metal wheel squeaked in the process of him lighting it, then he followed the constable into the pharmacy.

Their breath condensed in front of their faces and the air inside the shop carried a cold so bitter and merciless that it eclipsed the bitter wintry chill outside. Glass shards crunched underneath a boot, floorboards creaked, and the gas-lit lantern cast an eerie cone of light wherever the inquisitor shone it.

The whole place had indeed been ransacked. Shelves on display were conspicuously absent of anything of use or value, and anything less interesting found itself splayed out on the floors as rubbish.

“The many rubes of this city will believe anything. Why are you so persistent about the druggist being the Reaper?” asked the inquisitor without facing the constable.

The policeman poked some books on a shelf with his club and replied without turning, “I have it on good authority that it was, in fact, not the infamous outlaw Von Brandt.”

“Ah, yes,” the inquisitor said with a sneer. “From the mouths of your invaluable sources whom you cannot endanger by disclosing, I trust.”

The constable grunted in agreement to that without warranting any further words.

“Now shush,” hissed the constable. “While I like being wrong about certain things, I’d rather not be wrong about Hanrahan hiding out in here like some sort of wounded animal.”

The stairs leading up into the second story groaned under the constable’s weight and carpets on the floors up top swallowed the hollow thumps of his footsteps. The two men explored the rooms, carefully, one by one, staying within arm’s reach of one another.

The inquisitor noted how the constable’s knuckles had turned white from gripping his club with such force that it looked like the tiny thing would snap in the giant’s hand.

Then he spotted something else—something that captured his entire attention and brought a sly smile to his lips. His eyes followed scuffmarks on the floor, where something heavy had often scraped against the wood but seemingly disappeared into the wall. Almost hidden by a pile of books that had fallen from the empty shelves there.

“See? Nothing and nobody here,” said the constable with a sigh. “Glad to be right, this night.”

Armstrong emitted a short chuckle, incapable of concealing the burst of sadistic glee underneath it.

“Even so, you might have missed the secret room right here, right under our noses, had we not risked taking a look in this ruin,” said the inquisitor. “Look.”

He lifted the lantern so it cast enough light to clearly illuminate his discovery. The constable’s eyes went wide when he followed Armstrong’s directions.

“Well, I’ll be—”

“Come, let us see what the druggist kept hidden,” urged Armstrong, placing the lantern on a table, and looking at the large set of empty bookshelves that loomed above the scuffed floorboards.

The two of them took positions on opposite sides of the shelves and grabbed hold of the heavy bookcase from where they stood. No matter how much they grunted and groaned and wheezed—even with the large constable’s considerable strength—the furniture refused to budge.

After several seconds filled with failure, the inquisitor caught his breath and let his gaze sweep through the room.

“There has got to be a mechanism attached,” he mumbled.

“What did you say?” asked the constable between heavy breaths.

Armstrong offered no reply as he stepped away from the bookshelves, calmly searching his environment for other clues. He then pawed at the bottoms of the shelves, and let his hands glide across the wood, searching for something that felt out of place.

His eyes lit up with fire once more, not furious this time around—but excited. He bared his teeth in a hideous grin at the constable and pulled on a tiny latch where his fingers had found purchase in a dark corner of the shelves below eye level.

Something metallic clicked behind the bookcase and the massive wooden structure silently lurched forward, just by a finger’s width, but enough to provoke the two men into instinctively stepping away from it. A warm and damp air spilled out from the opening, creating a sharp contrast to the debilitating cold of the rest of the shop.

The constable rounded it, picked up his club from the table and stuck it into the narrow gap between shelves and wall that the inquisitor had created, then pushed the bookcase aside, as if it were a giant, weightless door. Metal hinges emitted a high-pitched squeal once the case had fully opened to make way to a hidden chamber beyond it.

Todd stood there, peering inside, and letting his eyes adjust. The inquisitor retrieved the lantern and followed him there, and they stepped inside together.

Shadows danced from the many unstolen objects littering the desks and shelves in this narrow room, untouched by the thieves who had looted the rest of the shop. The inquisitor held his lantern higher so they could see the myriads of items more clearly, all at once.

Many tomes, covers emblazoned with arcane symbols of alchemy and demonology. Vials filled with strange fluids. Pickling jars containing what had to be human organs, warped through the bend of the glass and the ghastly juices they were floating in. Scattered on the desk, around a journal, Armstrong recognized numerous fetishes used in sorcerous traditions from around the known world.

“Occult paraphernalia,” Todd muttered. “As I said. The Reaper is no common man.”

Still holding the lantern up high above him, the inquisitor let his seeking and curious gaze wander across everything in the room, mentally preparing to catalogue every find and either submit them for safekeeping or purging in sacred fire at the local chantry.

Upon seeing another set of eyes in the corner, he froze.

Glowing red like embers, glaring with cold hatred, he could barely discern the shape of the figure hidden in the room in plain sight. A silhouette that had not budged since their entering the secret chamber, watching them, and listening, and poised to attack. Vaguely human. All too monstrous. Limbs grotesquely muscular and claws that resembled little curved knives.

Before he could drink in any more detail, the thing lunged at them and the world exploded into a chaos of muffled shouts, glass shattering, and agonized grunts.

The lantern smashed into the edge of the desk and dried parchment caught fire, spreading quickly.

“Don’t let it bite you!” shouted the inquisitor.

The only thing stopping the creature from ripping a chunk out of Todd’s neck was the club the constable had managed to wedge into a fanged maw, dripping with dark saliva as it spattered into his face. The constable growled and then yelled at the top of his lungs, in pain over claws that had sunken into his sides.

“Off, you whoreson!” he yelled as he managed to throw himself forward with the monster, smashing into the wall by the secret door.

The inquisitor brandished his silver cross in a hand like a weapon, holding it out in front of him and reciting a litany of a dead language.

The creature snarled, unimpressed, locked in a deadly struggle with the constable who shoved him away from himself, prompting another yelp in pain as those claws sliced through skin on their violent way out.

Todd yelled, “Not helping!”

The inquisitor grabbed a bottle of something he hoped to be flammable and hurled it with all his might at the creature, causing a shower of glass and something that smelled like strong spirits to quickly fill the air. Before every shard had hit the ground and Todd tossed a side table at the creature to create some distance in between them, the inquisitor grabbed the burning journal from the table and tossed it at the monster.

It shrieked as it caught fire where the fluid had doused it. The creature flailed around in a panic, snarling and howling. Armstrong identified a semblance of human intelligence in its eyes, flashing brilliantly as it slapped the small flames on its body. And in the brief flashes of burning light, the two men could see that it resembled a man garbed in shreds of what might have once been a gentleman’s attire, as if his limbs and muscles had bulged outwards grotesquely to explode forth from his clothing.

“Gun,” Todd growled, then repeated. “Gun!”

The inquisitor registered with delay what he meant, then shoved his flintlock pistol into the constable’s open hand.

Todd immediately shot the creature in its side and it stumbled outside, tripping and tumbling into the adjacent room outside the secret chamber, with wisps of fire trailing off it and embers fluttering about as it fled, leaving a trail of blood, footsteps slapping against the ground and causing it to thunder with the monster’s tremendous weight as it ran away.

The constable ducked down to grab the club the creature had spat out in its flight and immediately gave chase. The inquisitor snapped out of his momentary shock, still reeling from the ambush, then chased after the constable.

“Halt,” the constable commanded as he charged down the stairs, pausing to cringe and clutch his sides where the creature had injured him. Through gritted teeth he wheezed, “Whoreson.”

The inquisitor caught up to him and knew he had to finish what the constable started, but the giant of a lawman refused to give up easily.

Wood exploded in a shower of dust and debris as the creature burst out through the backdoor from where they had entered. Its clawed feet scraped against the cobblestone and it stopped by the corner of the claustrophobically narrow alleyways.

They all froze when they saw the haggard smoker from earlier standing at the opposite end of the alleyway, with the creature squarely in between them, looking back and forth in between its pursuers, and the innocent bystander who had nothing to do with this.

Its eyes burned with unyielding hatred. Only now did the inquisitor notice the bent frame of silver spectacles, comically hanging from one misshapen ear and a tangle of reddish hair.

Then he noticed the hideous lips parting just enough to reveal a row of blackened, jagged teeth. Despite blood dripping down its leg—from the hole which Todd had shot into it—it smiled.

With an inhuman cackle, it crossed the distance to the smoker with two sudden, feral leaps and pounced on him. Limbs flailed around, thin, and sharp claws glistening wet with reflections that caught the gloomy light from the streetlamps.

The men ran towards the struggle, trying to rescue the smoker, and the inquisitor’s mental image of what was transpiring did not match up with reality. He expected the creature to be hungrily ripping the man apart—

Instead, the constable and the inquisitor froze again, no ten paces away from the creature. It had gotten up to its feet and now held the smoker hostage. The haggard man quivered with fear for his life, his face contorted with dread and his eyes darting between the array of razor-like claws held dangerously close to his neck, and the two hunters, back and forth in what must have been subdued panic.

The constable aimed the pistol at the creature, only realizing with apparent delay that it was useless without reloading. He chucked it aside and it clattered on the hard ground.

“You’re smart, eh? Think that takin’ a hostage will let you get away? You’re one daft whoreson,” growled the constable.

The creature smiled at them, baring crooked fangs that dripped with glistening saliva.

“Not wolf-man, not vampire,” Armstrong whispered behind Todd. “Alchemical sorcery at its worst—he can be reasoned with. I think he understands us clearly.”

“Why?”

The question cut colder and sharper through the wintry air than blade or claws. A stern, surprisingly calm word that escaped the constable’s lips which then clamped shut and formed a thin white line.

“Why did you slay all those people?” asked the constable.

The thing cackled and the hostage in his arms shuddered. Claws on the creature’s feet scraped against cobblestone again as it shuffled back half a step, dragging the helpless smoker with him.

“Because,” it responded letting the world drawl out, sounding like two voices blending into one. “Because I needed their insides.”

A chill ran down the inquisitor’s spine. Not just from hearing the creature speak with such clarity but taken aback by the sinister things it said. By how sadistic it sounded.

“Because I liked seeing the life fade from their eyes,” it continued. To underline those words, it wiggled its thick fingers, letting the claws dance across the smoker’s wrinkled neck until they locked into place and clamped down. Not piercing his flesh with full force, just nicking his skin enough to draw a thin trickle of blood.

“I can almost taste the darkness inside of you,” the creature said.

Its red eyes locked onto the inquisitor and captured his full attention with uncanny magnetism. No sorcery, nothing unnatural about it. Something about the monster’s intense stare—paired with the racing of his own heart—gave him tunnel vision, caused the foggy streets of Crimsonport to blur all around him. Or it was his own dizziness, causing the corridor of the world around him to spin as he could not break eye contact with the creature.

“Would I only be so lucky to taste it on my tongue, as I chew through your innards and feast upon your blood,” the monstrous Hanrahan said. “Why? Why did I slay those people? Why do people hunt foxes in the forest for sport?”

The low baritone of the creature’s voice traveled down the alleyway, piercing the inquisitor’s mind like invasive whispers, resonating with him somehow. The only thing that broke this spell was the creature averting his eyes, locking onto the constable next.

“You will never stop me. You would have more luck trying to stem the tide with your bare hands, you lumbering oaf. You will never stop us. How do you stop the mist? How do you stop the night?”

Through a set of clenched teeth, Todd snarled, “You harm that man, and God will not be able to help you when I get my hands on you. You—”

“You what?” hissed the monster, nicking the smoker’s neck again to draw more blood as a demonstration of its might. “You don’t even have the clout to call me what I am.”

“Monster,” Todd and Armstrong said almost simultaneously.

“No,” said the creature. The wicked smile on its abhorrent face faded. Lips drooped around its fangs, its whole visage contorting with hatred. Then it opened its mouth before replying, its multitude of voices trembling as it spoke with something resembling reverence in saying, “God.”

In a flash of movement, a waterfall of vermillion shot out from the smoker’s neck, spraying across the nearby wall, and splattering onto the thin layer of snow coating the ground. The smoker’s eyes grew wide with shock and disbelief and his knees visibly buckled as he collapsed. But the creature moved with such inhuman speed that it fled down the main street before the smoker even hit the pavement.

The constable and the inquisitor rushed towards the bleeding man, breathing heavily as they paused to stop over where he had fallen. The inquisitor knelt beside him and swatted feeble hands out of the way as the smoker instinctively pawed at him in a useless effort to defend himself from his would-be helper. Armstrong grabbed hold of the man’s neck from both sides, holding up his head as he tried his best to cup his other palm around the spot where heart pumped out far too much blood in rhythmic spurts.

“Get that bastard,” Armstrong growled at Todd without looking up.

The constable rushed away and from the corner of his eye, the inquisitor saw the hulking figure of the creature gaining momentum as it leapt from cobblestones onto a stone wall ringing a house, then jump onto the side of a building where a lantern’s metal screeched as it bent under the creature’s immense weight.

From there, the monster hurled itself up onto the roof of the house and the constable uttered a string of foul profanities as he ran down the street, his footsteps echoing in a much faster staccato than when the two had arrived here to investigate the closed pharmacy.

Armstrong focused on the bleeding man, fumbling around with one hand to sling out a scarf from inside his coat and then apply it to the smoker’s slashed neck. The cloth quickly turned dark, almost black in the dim light here. The smoker feebly clutched at the inquisitor’s sleeves, trembling, and stammering something incomprehensible.

“Spare your strength, man, and shut up—you are holding on for your bloody life by a thin thread,” the inquisitor said. He grimaced and tore fabric from his shirt to reinforce the haphazard bandaging around the smoker’s dangerous injury.

Each motion accompanied by more, growing confidence, he tied a knot around the mess of drenched cloth and looked around to examine the source of footsteps quickly nearing.

The constable returned, jogging back to them empty-handed. The lawman’s face was twisted with frustration and fury.

“Whoreson got away. Moved like fucking lightning across the rooftops,” he said between heavy, labored breaths.

Armstrong nodded, harboring no ill will towards the constable.

“Pay no mind,” the inquisitor murmured, suppressing a sigh to the best of his ability as he surveyed the first aid he had provided the bleeding man. “Weak consolation, but now we know what we’re dealing with.”

He then leaned down over the bleeding man and hissed at him, “If you live, you’ll know best not to tell anybody the truth about what you witnessed this night.”

The smoker’s eyes—still wide with terror and a lingering shock that showed how he still hovered on the brink between life and death—blinked. If he could have nodded, Armstrong sensed, he might have.

“You heard how it—no—how he spoke,” Todd said, interrupting this exchange. “Hanrahan is the pawn of someone else, like I have been telling you.”

The inquisitor paid no attention to this statement, keeping eyes locked on those of the bleeding man caught in the crossfire of their secret war.

“I’ll go fetch more help,” the constable muttered, swiftly jogging off again, swallowed by the mists as they roiled through the streets, devouring all.

By the time the sun rose—or rather struggled to penetrate the heavy dark clouds in the sky—bathing the cold city in a dreary blue twilight. The two men stood by the bank of the frozen river which ran through the city like a frozen vein. Armstrong's shirt still torn, and his cold-numbed hands stained with dried blood of the man they almost failed to save, they watched.

"Will he make it?"

"Probable," said the inquisitor with a short nod.

"Lasting damage," said the constable, not poinitng it as a question.

"Barring a miracle, I doubt he'll ever speak again."

Other members of the constabulary questioned people loitering around by the edge of the river, near where claws had marked the snow-covered ice, gathering statements from the witnesses who had seen the creature murder another person in its frenzied flight through the town.

The trail it had left down the frozen river led right outside the city walls, into the outskirts.

Out of earshot from the interrogations, Constable Todd groaned and then muttered to Armstrong, "Outer Wall Reaper, bandit king, a madman from a local gang, monster, wild animal—rumor mill will churn endlessly on this one."

"We have to ensure Hanrahan won't be back to claim more victims," said the inquisitor. He then enunciated clearly, his voice trembling with a mixture of anger and reverence, hoping to drive the point home as he added, "This is my line of duty, you understand."

The constable looked Armstrong up and down, then answered, "Of course. But I think there is something you are better suited for, what, with your expertise."

The lawman leaned in for a conspiratorial whisper, "I know the right people to deal with Hanrahan out in the wild. No doubt he will hide in the Blackwood to lick his wounds."

"What on earth are you suggesting?"

Todd shrugged.

"There will be a gathering of all the wealthy and highborn at Lord Reinhold Roland's estate come tomorrow eve," Todd said in an equally hushed murmur.

"And what in God's name do you expect me to be doing there? Hobnobbing with pompous aristocrats?"

A lop-sided grin crept across Todd's face before quickly fading and him responding, "A little birdie whispered to me that there's a secret society, some sort of cabal of occultists in their midst."

Armstrong perked up at that.

"You understand where I'm going with this, yes? Yes. See, the people I know who can hunt down and kill Hanrahan, they're less suited for an environment such as Reinhold's mansion. A member of the church who all fear to be an agent of the new inquisition, on the other hand—"

"Who they'll fear too much to refuse entry despite issuing no invitation," Armstrong interrupted him with a sly smile.

Todd nodded.

"As much as it disgusts me to say this—for all the lives he took, Hanrahan is the lesser evil here. We have to divert our resources with cold calculus."

Armstrong clicked his tongue. Shook his head. He narrowed his eyes and now studied the constable, looking up at the lawman's long face, and savoring the rare moment of catching the giant man in a moment of insecurity, triggered by his dismissive reaction.

"One must never distinguish between evils," Armstrong admonished him. "Once you court the lesser of them, you will find yourself in bed with a darkness you can never wash from your soul."

Todd stared into Armstrong's eyes, remaining silent at this statement.

"The people who will hunt down Hanrahan, you said. They do not happen to be the wanted outlaws, Johnn Von Brandt and Nora Morrissey, do they? The ones who, hold on—"

The inquisitor rolled his jaw and then set it with a smirk. 

"The ones who, and let me phrase this correctly," he said, then emphasizing the next word with oozing sarcasm. "Allegedly murdered the bishop, and Earl Tyson, and a bunch of other influential people around the Red Coast?"

Todd pursed his lips. Refrained from answering. The inquisitor understood without any words uttered.

"Tut, what did I just say about different shades of evil?"

The constable's eyes narrowed, and it was him who now clicked his tongue.

"I know evil when I see it, Armstrong. That creature—that thing Hanrahan knowingly transformed himself into—he was evil. The two you call outlaws may be many things you find disagreeable, but evil? They are anything but."

An inhuman howl pierced the heavens, echoing between the valley of brick buildings and the narrows, causing everybody nearby and the two men alike to all freeze, startled. And they all stared down the length of the frozen river. A glint of sunlight pierced the cloudy veil in the sky, breaking over the horizon outside the city walls.

Todd and Armstrong exchanged nervous glances.

Despite what they had just discussed, they both knew: the monster needed to die.

Todd sprang into action, barking orders and rallying his colleagues.

Armstrong clutched the silver cross on his neck for a second, then looked at it humbly resting in his palm. Since arriving in this wretched city and traveling to the countryside beyond its walls, not once had this cross served him. Criminals, corruption, fair folk, and now sorcerers—not one of them feared the Lord's might, nor any hell that awaited them, thought the inquisitor.

What had shaken him the most on this very night was hearing Hanrahan's admission. After the spiraling maze of clues he had followed, Armstrong had always expected to find some shred of humanity to be hidden underneath it all once he peeled away at the surface. To find some motive, something he could relate to, or at least something he could remotely fathom with reason. But all Hanrahan had spoken of was bloodlust.

Joy—a deep pleasure—in carnage itself. Murder for the sake of murder.

Armstrong stuffed the cross into his coat and looked up. Constable Todd waved to him, urging him to catch up. A mental fog embraced the inquisitor's mind and drowned out all noises and shouts resounding around him. The inquisitor's feet set themselves into motion, almost unconsciously, like a machine, following the constable, mentally focused on arming himself with the resolve necessary to end a murderer's life and bargain for his God's forgiveness.

Some monsters, he believed, looked just like men. In joining his secret order, he had vowed to snuff out evil that took the form of creatures of the night. When it came to men whom one might call monsters, the lines began to blur.

But Armstrong steeled himself. Where he had been trained to mete out swift justice by means of fire and steel, he would no longer distinguish between man and monster if the only thing that separated them was the fear of a cross.

They all just needed to die.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #gothic horror #gaslight romance #Victorian #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Constable Vaughn Todd #Inquisitor Virgil Armstrong #Baxter Hanrahan #Outer Wall Reaper #creature #sorcery #magick #dark fantasy #investigation #occult #abandoned #night #cold #fog #snow

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Darkness Always Followed

The chill of winter crept through the Blackwood on ghostly tendrils of mist. Though spring awaited around the corner, leaves still refused to return to the trees.

Something howled in the forest, but it sounded not like a wolf. More human. Pained and confused, as it always had, once a month without fail, for the entire past season. And as always, a howl that pierced the sky even in broad daylight, its ring raising the hairs on the back of Jenny’s neck.

She hugged herself and sighed, regretting her decision to stay in the town of Westley till winter ended. Jenny Fisher’s fishing for Lord Josiah Bennet’s courtship had not quite gone as planned. Of course, the sap had taken the bait and bitten. Men like him always did. She had him on the hook, but Bennet turned out to be a meager little minnow, rather than a fat heavy trout.

The howl repeated, sadder than before, still provoking a shudder to run down Jenny’s spine. Always in broad daylight—unlike the legends of haunted hounds and wolf-men that spoke of creatures thriving under a silvery moon. She never believed such superstitious bunk, but the people of Westley and the King’s Hold certainly did.

They were more than superstitious enough to strand her in this town.

Carters from the city had not been showing up as of late, and all others only took passengers to Michael’s castle, refusing to cross the Blackwood. Snow, creatures, brigands, and a lack of the king’s men to patrol the roads.

Cowards, Jenny always thought.

If she had feared nothing whatsoever herself, she would have hiked through the forest back to Crimsonport on her own, months ago. Cared little for the blisters her fancy boots may inflict or breaking a sweat. Despite posing as the regal Lady Amelia Hanbury, the real Jenny came from a rough upbringing and never shied away from physical exertion.

No—her fear had no roots in toil nor fairy tales. Where others dreaded the spirits of the wood, she only worried about the ruthless bandits infesting the forest. A real and tangible threat, one a lonesome woman like herself had reason to fear. On the ride out to the Hold with Bennet last autumn, she had half-expected the carriage to be accosted by the roving brigands, but nothing came of it.

Even so, she sometimes awoke at night, breaking free from the clutches of bad dreams in which she felt watched and followed. In those dreams, hooves thundered as she sat alone in a driverless coach that rattled and shook on her journey across the country. Like her mind had long traveled far away, and only her body still lingered in this forsaken little town.

In summer, perhaps, it could be quite lovely here. Or knowing she had scored a large amount of money in swindling a wealthy man.

Instead, the winter and the damned woods kept her confined here. Each day passed at a snail’s pace. She would soon run out of interesting books to read in Bennet’s library.

Dwelling in thoughts and standing still outside, the cold fully seeped in, cutting through her thick coat and layers of clothing until the chill itself made her shudder.

Bennet’s garden betrayed a strange serenity, even as naked as winter had rendered its sculpted hedges, forming natural walls between weathered old statues of pagan gods fashioned to exude a mystic grace.

Her short walk over dark flagstone took her past the opulent fountain from which no water sprang. The mansion being so far-removed from the edge of town, and with no more howls to hail from the forest, an eerie silence draped itself over the desolate estate. Her high-laced boots shot echoes across the wide-open space, piercing that quietude. She stopped by the side of the fountain, atop which a whole flight of little stone cherubs posed resplendently, stalled for the entire season from spitting out streams of water.

In the frozen pool gathered at their feet, she stared at the muddled, foggy reflection of her own countenance. Cracks in the frosted surface obscured the vision of her own face, leaving her to wonder how many years she had left till age ate away at her comeliness. How many more saps like Bennet she could even attempt to exploit and deceive before the sands of times eroded her God-given assets.

Wrapping Bennet around her finger had been a trying experience for her. No slouch himself in terms of attractive looks and polite gestures, he had kept her fooled for far too long.

You are better than this, she thought to herself, followed by another deep sigh.

Bennet hid behind a false veil of riches, fancy attire, and proper mannerisms. Inheritor of a crumbling estate on the king’s countryside, descendant of a now-dead father and mother who had squandered all wealth by tithing it to church and funneling it into the king’s misguided war.

A swindler by trade, Jenny grimly conceded that she had fallen for a trick out of her own playbook. Though she had been angling for easy money, Bennet was simply angling for any woman who looked presentable enough to pad out the veneer of prestige that his peers would expect from his supposed fortune.

Another shudder ran down her spine, in absence of any strange howls. What put Jenny on high alert was something else entirely.

A burning gaze.

She felt watched, just like in those bad dreams. It took her moments until she registered how she held her breath, like times in the past when she searched other people’s belongings for valuable finery to pilfer. An old habit she had abandoned because there were more efficient ways of accruing ill-gotten gains.

No—she held her breath, every muscle and fiber in her body tense and taut like steel. Her breath escaped her sharply in a gasp, condensing in a little cloud before her mouth. A shadowy silhouette stood in one of the mansion’s windows. Unlike Lord Bennet or his loyal manservant, Cuthbert, this figure featured a womanly shape. An outline that fit in elegantly with Crimsonport’s latest fashion.

Hairs bristling again, heralding another shudder to run down her spine, this cut deep into Jenny’s consciousness.

For no maids nor any women beside herself had lived in House Bennet for the year past.

Under her fearful stare, the figure melted into the darkness behind the curtains. The dreary gloom of the mist-riddled day afforded too little light to reveal anything or anyone beyond that.

Jenny waited longer, to see if the mystery woman reappeared in any other doors or windows. She pondered if it would be the worst idea to just abandon her belongings in Bennet’s home and leave town immediately. A recurring thought that she regularly banished.

Now, more than ever, she found less reason to banish it. She harbored no intention of finding out what mystery woman had arrived in the secretly poverty-stricken fop’s estate and dreaded the thought that it could be someone who might challenge her masquerade.

But Jenny had braved the presence of cunning lawmen and vigilant soldiers and violent crooks alike, fooling all of them, and lying to their faces without so much as flinching. She had gotten away with so much trickery that she knew better than to let fear get the best of her.

Thus, she returned to the back doors leading into the mansion. Paused and stared through the fogged-up windows, studying the lavishly decorated interior, framed by tall arches that dizzied almost any onlooker.

Nobody inside.

Her gaze swept up the spiraling staircase of the library kept beyond those doors, searching for the mystery woman. Scanning the atrium upon which even more shelves stood, decked with books. Still, nobody about.

She entered and softly, gingerly, closed the door shut behind her. If she made too much noise, she would draw Bennet’s attention—or that of the insufferable manservant. Cuthbert always looked at Jenny with a mixture of polite tradition and utter spite. Like he knew deep down what she was but was just too proper to speak out about it.

Soft voices took turns in a distant conversation, elsewhere in the mansion. Jenny unbuttoned her coat and lifted her dress, putting no weight on her heels as she snuck through the long and vacant halls, creeping up on the two people talking. Josiah Bennet spoke with—

A girl?

A girl.

Clinging to the shadows cast by the large fire in the hearth, hidden behind the door frames between chambers and in front of the imposing paintings of Josiah’s ancestors with their vacant stares, Jenny stood and dropped some eaves, spying little glimpses of Bennet’s young guest.

Not only had Bennet fooled her for long enough to render her stranded in this gods-forsaken town—had he hidden any history of an illegitimate child?

The girl could barely have been fifteen years of age. In stark contrast to the bright red and white and blue that Jenny wore in her guise of Lady Hanbury, the young girl sported only black. Despite all the fancy frills, a veil drooping down from her hat covered a pale face, suggesting the girl had been attending a funeral before visiting Lord Bennet.

But Jenny knew of no funerals in town, nor had she seen this girl in Westley ever before.

With thin, almost gaunt hands folded in front of her in a very dainty and lady-like fashion, the girl clearly had enjoyed an upbringing far more affluent than Jenny’s. The thief had not learned such mannerisms and poise until she started working as a document-forger and swindler for the syndicate.

Something moved.

A shadow, just out of sight. Glimpsed only from the corner of her eye.

Another gasp escaped her, and she turned to look, only finding those ancestral portrait paintings to be staring past her. But her gasp had caused both Bennet and the girl to turn in response and gaze in her direction.

Jenny pursed her lips and seized the initiative. She strode out from the shadows and into the den, conjuring up as much grace and swagger as she could muster despite the adverse circumstances. All she needed to do was to think back to all her little victories. To remember the past she had overcome, the path she forged into her future, all merit of her own cunning and skill.

A defiant smile about her lips, Jenny cocked her head back and afforded Bennet barely any attention beyond a quick glance. Being ignored only fostered more of his favor for her, anyway. Instead, she focused on the girl as she approached them with a growing air of confidence.

“Josiah,” Jenny said. Melodious. Provocative. Admonishing. Feigning merriment. “How dare you keep such a secret from me? How dare you not immediately introduce me to this delightful creature?”

The girl turned fully and curtsied in greeting. A burning gaze.

That burning gaze.

Black rings underlined her big, wide, brown eyes. They glistened with something sad.

Only now did the warmth from the fireplace begin to clash with the biting cold from the outdoors. Jenny’s skin tingled with the sensation of needle pricks. She returned a swift and fanciful curtsy, locking eyes with the girl. The girl never blinked.

The air in her vicinity felt even colder than the wintry air outside.

Lord Bennet cleared his throat and smiled.

“This, my dear, is the young Miss McLachlan. Daughter—”

“Magdalene McLachlan,” the girl interrupted him. Volume as meek as a mouse, but not timid at all. Fierce like a little lion cub, yet oddly cold and calm—like a grave.

“Yes,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “Daughter of Clara McLachlan. The McLachlans are old friends of the family. From Crimsonport. What a small world, yes? I hear you’re already acquainted?”

Shit, Jenny thought. What?

Her cheeks flushed red with heat and her mind reeled. She had to take control. An unexpected and highly inconvenient turn of events. This little wench could bring her world crashing down in a matter of words—and the king had a few men-at-arms stationed in Westley. Arrest could follow swiftly; escape would prove to be difficult.

“Yes, milady Hanbury is an old friend of the family,” said the girl. “We are neighbors in the grand old city.”

Jenny had taken the name of the late Lady Hanbury. Despite the deceased woman’s standing, Jenny’s contacts had promised her that people outside the city had seldom ever seen her, let alone without layers of gaudy make-up caking her face. An easy mask to assume.

Thus, Jenny expected a smug smile. A sadistic glint in Magdalene’s eyes.

But nothing of the sort ever followed. Nothing but a cold, and curious stare, gazing into her soul and probing it. Awaiting a reaction.

Jenny kept her cool. She had been in this game for too long to blow her cover at the first sign of trouble. As long as this girl refrained from bringing out any knives, she would play nicely.

“Oh,” Jenny said, stifling a giggle and covering her mouth. She struggled, forcing to make her smile reach her eyes, just eking it out by a slim margin. “It has been too long, Magdalene.”

The girl’s face twitched around the eyes. Just shy of blinking, still glistening like windows into a dark ocean. Impossible for Jenny to read, and she normally had an easy time reading people.

“Please, it may have been long, but we have also known each other for so long. I can barely remember my youngest years, yet I recall you were already our neighbor when I was a little pup. Please, call me Maggie, milady.”

Jenny’s nostrils flared.

“Well, seeing you all grown up into a fine young woman now, I suppose we should just drop the whole frippery, and you call me Amelia from here on out.” Jenny tapped her chin in the well-timed beat, letting nobody else fill the pause. “Or—you know what? Call me Amy, love.”

She batted her eyes at the girl and held out a hand, offering to take Maggie’s.

And Maggie did. Her slender fingers wrapped around Jenny’s with an icy cold, matching the chill outside and making the swindler shudder once more.

“Come, I’m sure this lovable oaf here has not shown you around his magnificent estate yet, yes?” Jenny flashed Lord Bennet one of her most disarming smiles with a wink, knowing how easily it melted his resolve and paved the way.

Her way.

He visibly suppressed a chuckle and nodded to himself, averting his eyes.

“Please—it sounds to me like you have a lot of catching up to do. And I do have some paperwork from the solicitor to deal with,” Bennet said. He absent-mindedly pinched the bridge of his nose.

Jenny knew that phrase of his and could read him like an open book by now. Code for procrastinating in his study, wasting his time in reading those awful penny dreadfuls, rather than finding any sensible way to make the most of his dwindling inheritance.

She tried to lock eyes with Bennet, but he now stared into the fire.

Maggie quietly held Jenny’s hand and looked up at her while they awaited the lord of the mansion to elaborate on his last statement.

“Well then, shall we? Have you been here before, Maggie?”

“Oh, yes. But I—I must have been very young at the time.” The girl spoke in a dull and dreary monotone. In Jenny’s mind, that voice summoned images of the fog outside.

“I trust I will see you both at supper?” asked Bennet.

The two affirmed his question, and he called out to Cuthbert, seeking the butler as he wandered off elsewhere in the mansion.

Alone with Maggie, Jenny ushered her into the library where they overlooked the sprawling garden. With a nod and using her chin, she gestured to the stairs spiraling upwards to the second story.

“You must have seen it from the second floor before, but you absolutely need to see the Bennet family’s garden up close,” Jenny said in the most singing tone she could manage.

The girl’s hand holding her own felt so lifeless and small.

“That was not me,” said Maggie.

Another shudder ran down Jenny’s spine. She locked eyes with the girl again. Read honesty there. Maggie could have been having the time of her life, taunting her, teasing her with the power the little brat held over her like a dangling sword—but she wasn’t.

Breathed Jenny, “What?”

Maggie sidled up more closely to her and whispered, “That was not me. That was one of the old ones. When I may call, they answer. They are my eyes and ears wherever I am not.”

Jenny’s stomach knotted. She fought back at the sensation, and the heat of anger replaced it, swelling in her insides and bubbling up. She squeezed Maggie’s hand uncomfortably, ready to hiss a threat at her.

But the words died in her throat.

Gazing into those big brown eyes, framed by that oh-so-pale face and her curly dark hair, Jenny immediately regretted everything. The last thing she wanted to do with her life was bully some girl who looked to be dying of consumption, over a decade her junior.

Those big eyes glistened still, eerily calm and innocent—taking Jenny back to darker days, to a home she escaped from, from a father who struck her for no reason.

Disarmed completely, Jenny gritted her teeth to prevent her chin from crinkling too much. This girl could see through her but did nothing with it. In her eyes, Jenny recognized something faint and distant that reminded her of her own past life and tragedies—or it was just an uncomfortable mirror. She did not like that this girl refused to use such revelations the way Jenny would.

It made her feel bad about herself.

A sentiment she had severed long ago, locked away in the attic of her mind. Made her second-guess every last decision, every last time she had swindled people out of their money and robbed them of their pride, fueled less by need and more by petty satisfaction in making affluent idiots pay the toll for walking on the bloodied backs of the poor.

Or was that all she could come up with to justify her deeds?

She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes at Maggie. No—Jenny regretted nothing. She owed nobody anything. She had to always remind herself of that in cold and lonesome nights. To never forget how she had clawed her way into high societies, wearing the same fake faces and extravagant cloth as they all did.

What felt like an eternity must have passed between them wordlessly standing in the library. The girl respectfully waited for Jenny to break that silence.

Leaning in and doing just that, she loosened her grip on Maggie’s hand and whispered to her.

With more deliberate and painful enunciation, Jenny asked her, “What do you want, Maggie? I’m willing to pay you well if you help me get out of this scot-free.”

Glistening, big, brown eyes. Not a peep in response.

“Look, I don’t know what you know, but I know that you know that I am not the real Amelia Hanbury.”

Maggie still offered no reply. She just tilted her head, then removed her hat, leaving no laced veil between them to obscure her face anymore. Her skin thus looked even more pale. White as a sheet.

Or a corpse.

“I know you are not Amelia Hanbury. She tried to kill me with her sorcery, and you—like most people—know not in what shallow grave she wound up buried in.”

The blood froze in Jenny’s veins.

“The old ones whisper to me,” she whispered to Jenny. “They guided me here. To you specifically, Jenny Fisher.”

Heat flushed Jenny’s head, melting the frozen blood, then immediately draining it from her face.

“How—h-how do you know my name? Nobody knows—”

“The old ones. They know many things. Piercing the veil—you must understand, that, to the dead, there are no secrets.”

Jenny refused to buy what this girl was selling. Would not have how she worded it. Trusted not what she said and wrestled with explanations that could help make sense of it in a rational way. This was an age of science and progress.

Not one of mediums, and ghosts, and necromancy, and such hogwash.

It taxed her mind so much, that her thoughts reeled to the point of paralysis. Jenny could not as much offer up anything beyond a soft croaking sound that escaped her throat, transforming into a frustrated little growl.

“Generous Jenny, your best friend used to call you,” said the girl.

Once more, the blood froze inside of Jenny. She froze entirely. The cold grasp of the girl’s hand felt like it was a million miles away, like she was standing behind herself and watching another Jenny holding hands with Maggie.

“I’m so sorry what your father did to him. That must have been awful. You were both so young—”

“Please, stop.”

“The old ones guided me here, to you. To help you, Jenny.”

Jenny fought with tears. She had not shed any in so damned long. And here was this girl, dredging up all this old wreckage. Dumping out all the contents from the pickle jars in which she had bottled up all those worthless sentiments and all that sadness that would have always only gotten in the way.

Her vision blurred, still focused on the girl by her side.

Maggie never blinked. Never swayed. Like she was barely there. Barely alive.

“Now may not be the time to face those feelings,” the girl said. She spoke so softly. So silken, so tenderly, so filled with sympathy. “But if there is time, I would like to help, if I may. We will need your help, in due time, and the only way to ensure that is by helping you brave the threat that looms on your horizon.”

Jenny gave up. Averted her eyes, clamped them shut. Dabbed away the tears with the back of her lacey-gloved hand, soaking them up and denying them any chance of marring her perfectly painted face.

“What do you know? What is this nonsense,” she hissed in denial.

“A hungry threat, Jenny. I can play along and pretend you’re Lady Amelia Hanbury—curse her wretched, black soul—your charade is of no matter to me. Or us.”

“Us? What us? What ‘we’ are you talking about?”

Maggie remained silent.

Jenny took control again. Conjured up her resolve, stifling the storm inside her mind. Sorting out those old, abandoned feelings and putting the memories back to rest in the graves from which they had just grasped.

“Talk to me, girl. What on Earth are you talking about?”

“You are the twelfth, Jenny Fisher. We are eleven, and the old ones tell me that we will need to be twelve. A sacred number. To put the restless dead to rest and soothe the shadows. Otherwise, a darkness from beyond the stars will stir too much and swallow this world whole.”

Jenny refused to believe any of this.

This sorcery.

The nagging thought on the back of her mind dubbed it sorcery. Every other part of her thinking worked nonstop to explain it with legwork and ramblings and someone crafting an elaborate ruse to blackmail her.

Nobody alive knew her true name. Jenny Fisher was nobody. Jenny Fisher had been many people since abandoning her old life and moving up in the world.

Rachel Hunt, Marie Cook, Dame Victoria Bywaters, Louise Easton, Lady Ceridwen Reason, Naomi Gilbert, Crazy Lilly, and many, many other people. She had all worn their faces, created identities whole cloth, and played the parts with perfect precision.

“Danger is coming, milady. And you are standing in harm’s way. You must trust me; I am here to help you. I know how strange—”

“You know how strange this all sounds? You know nothing,” Jenny said. Inwardly, she snapped, but the routine of wearing all those masks kept her outward calm. “You know nothing about me. You think you know, but it’s all just words. Your ‘old ones’, whoever they are, they know nothing.”

Maggie’s gaze hardened. The cold air about her shifted, like a bone-chilling breeze that cut through the library.

“They know. Just like they whisper to me now. The danger is in Westley already. Standing at Lord Bennet’s doorstep. Right this moment.”

Soft rapping of a fist against the grand front entrance resounded through the mansion’s halls. With growing dread over the uncanny timing of this coinciding with the girl’s words, Jenny looked past her, straining to hear what transpired there.

Too afraid to see for herself, she instead glared at Maggie.

“What danger?” Jenny murmured. Then, repeating it with force, “What danger?”

Maggie answered not.

Creaking wood portended the portal’s opening, likely answered by Cuthbert the butler. Voices took turns in exchange, softened by distance and opulent architecture that swallowed sound so well throughout the Bennet estate.

Jenny shook Maggie’s hand. Almost squeezed, immediately stopping herself from doing such. She still felt bad at the idea of bullying this girl, no matter how much creeping dread that she spurred in Jenny’s insides.

Dropping all masks, all pretenses, Jenny now wore desperation on her face as she asked Maggie again, “What danger? Speak!”

Thumping footsteps heralded a group of people entering Bennet’s mansion. Too many to decipher a precise number, but far more than just two guests.

A gust of wind, carried inside from the open front door, swept through the corridors and the library. It carried whispers, strange and alien.

“A man of unspeakable evil,” said Maggie. Her brows furrowed and her eyes sparkled no longer with sadness, but fear.

Jenny squeezed Maggie’s hand. Not to bully her at all. An involuntary spasm, born of pure dread. The girl squeezed just as much, tugging softly at Jenny until she pulled her close. Whispered—her voice now trembling with fear.

“His heart is blacker than the night, corrupted by twisted ones that belong not in this world.”

Another gust of wind, stronger this time. Colder. Carrying more whispers.

The dark in Maggie’s eyes grew until it swallowed all the white in them. Wondering if she stared into the face of the devil himself, Jenny wanted to run. For Maggie’s voice, as words continued spilling from her lips, was no longer her own. Deep, androgynous, and hollow.

Uncaring.

“He has slain many and harmed many more. He covets and takes and destroys and leaves nothing but ruin and misery in his wake, which he drinks like the finest of wine and harks like the sweetest of music. And trailing behind him, in all his footsteps, a greater darkness always follows.”

The voices grew louder. At the end of a hallway attached to the library, Jenny witnessed Cuthbert stumbling into sight.

Someone had shoved him. He managed to remain standing despite the force, but the vision only nurtured the fear budding in Jenny’s bowels.

A deep crimson color streaked down the wrinkled face of the old butler, springing from a gash across his forehead. He raised his hands in self-defense, and two men stepped into sight.

Long, heavy coats. Tricorne hats, slick and dark with the dampness of winter’s cold fog from outside. Flintlock pistols in holsters and a sheathed cutlass or a boarding axe each hung from their belts. Their dirty boots thumped and thundered on the carpeted floors.

Cuthbert stammered something as he cowered before them, his voice reaching a fever pitch of pleading as the men fiercely seized hold of him.

More followed. They looked about, one of them barking orders, spreading out in every direction. Scarves masked their faces.

Jenny had been too paralyzed to react in time. To hide.

Some of the men spotted her and Maggie just standing there out in the open of the library’s wide hall, dumbfounded. One masked man pointed at them and guffawed, another uttered some crude words of amusement.

They approached.

Jenny finally acted.

She ran. Only a dozen steps, nearly tripped as she stopped. Swiveled to see Maggie standing there, forlorn. The girl’s gaze bounced back and forth between the invading men and Jenny. Her eyes looked human again. Whatever eerie calm and detached otherworldliness had possessed the girl, terror had fully taken its place and plastered itself across her face.

Time crawled to a stop and Jenny weighed the advantages of letting them get the girl—to help herself escape—against that nagging part of her that screamed at her, telling her to not leave the girl to whatever horrible fate awaited her in the company of these rogues.

Scoundrels that still only walked towards them, with plenty of corridor to traverse, not at all in any hurry to take the mansion’s denizens hostage. Behind them, Cuthbert struggled, but the two who had grabbed him by the arms wrestled him to the floor, rendered limp as a third intruder started kicking him in the ribs.

“Fuck,” Jenny breathed, dropping any pretenses of the mask of Lady Amelia Hanbury.

She ran back to Maggie, seized her hand, and yanked. The two approaching men stopped walking towards them. Then they dashed.

Jenny pulled and dragged Maggie along, regretting every glance cast over her shoulder at the pursuers as the distance between them shrank far too quickly.

She dove with the girl into the nearest room, kicking the door shut. A second too late, a hand shot through the crack. An avalanche of human bodies slammed against it, causing its wood to bend inwards under the sheer force of the assailants.

Jenny gritted her teeth and threw her weight against it, ducking under the flailing arm as a dirty gloved hand grasped at her. She sneered at Maggie.

“Help! Get a chair! Something!”

More slamming, hammering, pounding. The intruders tried to shove their way through the door to enter the music room. Jenny kept throwing her entire weight against the door to fend them off.

The grand open wing piano stood in the center of the room, in all its majesty—and all its tremendous weight.

Maggie finally scurried over to grab a chair, then doubled back to the door with it while Jenny stifled a shout of fear. She clenched her teeth and another shove against the door nearly pushed her back from it. She growled and threw her weight against it, but the arm stuck in there grabbed hold of her.

The fabric of her coat tore. Glimpsing a spot of exposed skin between glove and sleeve of her attacker, she knew what she had to do.

She bit the man in his wrist with full force.

He hollered in pain, and she gnashed her teeth, allowing just enough leeway for the door to burst inside by a finger’s width. He pulled, yanked, and pushed. She bit harder and then let go as he pulled with all his might. Withdrew his arm through the opening she had granted.

Her heart raced as she managed to slam the door shut between them, taking in only an all too short of relief at hearing the brass latch click into place. Maggie stuck the chair underneath the handle, Jenny wedged it in deeper, hoping it would help buy enough time.

The man on the other side shouted profanities and the attackers kicked at the door with greater force. The chair held for now, but its wooden legs groaned. Then emitted a dreadful crack.

With pleading eyes and incapable of coherent speech, Jenny gestured to Maggie to start pushing the piano. It was their only hope now. It could buy enough time for them to climb out a window and—

She stifled a scream in terror as the door splintered. Something pierced its top, right where her head had been pushing against it, breathless moments ago. A boarding axe had cut into the wood, leaving a crack when its bladed head withdrew.

Then, again—chop. With a heavy thud, more splinters and little chunks of wood now rained inside the room. The legs of the chair bent as one of the other men kicked at the door with unbridled anger.

Jenny backed away from the door, sensing Maggie’s presence right behind her.

Another strike of the axe. Widening the gap by a width of two fingers. Affording glimpses of the hastily dancing silhouettes of these horrible men, working at demolishing the door between them.

“Forget the piano,” Jenny hissed without turning. “We need to—”

She bumped into Maggie.

Or perhaps not Maggie.

She had bumped into someone far colder. A body that felt both like it was a pillar of steel, wreathed in damp cloth. A sickly-sweet stench permeated the air around her, reminding her of fruit long rotten in a bowl upon her mother’s kitchen table. And the smell of wet earth from the many funerals she had attended.

Another strike of the axe.

“I’m gonna make you pay, you bitch!” screamed the man wielding the blade.

The gaslit lanterns lining the walls snuffed out all at once, reminiscent of candlelight being blown out by a powerful gust of wind. The twilit grey from outside the windows now draped the room in a dreary dark gloom, suffocated by the heavy half-open curtains.

Still, she did not turn. Feared what she might see if she did. Feared it even more than these men. She had bumped into someone far taller. Not a girl of fifteen winters, that was impossible. No—a figure towered behind her. An eerie presence that filled the room.

Another strike of the axe thudded. The rift in the door’s surface expanded, the wood split. A furious eye glared at Jenny. Only long enough before it widened with surprise.

The windows opened behind her, slamming against adjacent walls. Wind blew inside, fierce, and howling. Howls of eerie things from the woods arrived with it. Desolate flurries of snow trailed in with the gust, sweeping past her and frazzling Jenny’s hair.

Whispers filled the room. Words incomprehensible, ringing in guttural tongues not of this world. Forbidden and foreboding.

She dared not turn.

The axe struck again. A boot broke the lower part of the door in twain, the chair braced against the handle went flying, tumbling away from the door. The portal’s remains exploded into the music room, and two angry men stood in the hallway, staring at Jenny.

No—not at her. At that someone behind her.

Where in the hell was Maggie? Who was this phantom standing behind her?

“Oh, look at you, mister fancy pants!” spat the man with the axe at the awful presence behind her. He raised and shook his weapon, bleeding from his wrist. “Gonna crack your skull and make you watch us bust her teeth out while you breathe your last breaths, you rich fuckin’ ponce!”

Trapped between two evils, Jenny finally turned. Wanted to know what fates to expect. She felt that something far more dangerous stood behind her. Had to know who the men were addressing.

Had to face it.

A giant of a figure, shrouded with a deep dark hood and robes, clad in a sharp-looking suit of armor that belonged in a bygone era. Crossed before its chest, two farming sickles the figure held, jutting out of the steely vice of blackened iron gauntlets.

There was no face for Jenny to see underneath that hood. Only shadow.

Yet she felt watched by that same unfathomable darkness. Taken back to her lonesome dreams, to the icy shadow that followed her, always watching.

The instincts that screamed at her to run before now whispered to her. Almost inaudible under the chorus of whispers that incessantly filled the room. The lights in the lanterns flickered as if possessed by ghosts.

She heeded the whispers. Instinctively understood them without understanding them.

Stepped aside.

Maggie stood behind the shrouded figure. No fear on the girl’s face, her big wide eyes narrowed and slanted with a fiery wrath. She stood in the center of a circle of blood, splattered on the floor. Not an accidental one, but one that displayed deliberate accuracy. Painted with her own crimson life force, still dripping from her fingertips with sickening abundance. The wintry gloom outside, glaring behind her, turned her face even paler than humanly possible.

The guttural whispering—it originated from Maggie’s mouth. Her chin clearly moved; her throat gave way to those sounds. A tongue Jenny had never heard before. Speech that should not be heard, sounds that should not flow from a young girl’s lips.

So deeply wrong and ominous that it made Jenny shiver more than the bitter cold.

“Take them,” Maggie whispered. Yet the two words sliced through the air like rumbling thunder.

The invading men charged with vigorous shouts. Right at the figure in black.

It pushed past Jenny without hesitation. Deep, baritone thumps accompanied its every step, revealing a tremendous weight that no human could possess, followed by jingling sounds from its medieval armor. The sickles twirled and slashed, and meeting the men halfway, stopped them dead in their tracks. One flew to the ground face-first as a sickle painted the music room with long streaks of blood. The other tumbled past, skidding across the slick marble floor.

The screams of the two men grew to a deafening crescendo, for even as they collapsed, the reaper stamped a heavy metal boot down, cracking a skull underneath its heel and turning brain matter and eyeballs into a mushed jelly. The other man, incapable of getting back up onto his feet due to the many of his tendons that had been slashed with ghastly precision, stammered, and begged for his life. Tears streamed down his face, but the figure in black showed no mercy as it approached him with grim and slow steps.

A sickle flew down and cut deep into the man’s skull until his blubbering pleas turned into pained gurgles. With the blade still hooked into the head, the reaper lifted him up, then swung again with the other sickle. Innards splattered the floors and the man’s body ceased its violent twitching within a matter of heartbeats.

Jenny backed away more and more from the reaper. She blindly pawed at Maggie, finding purchase and then the sensation of warm sticky lifeblood staining her hands. Jenny’s jaw quivered as she looked down at Maggie, the girl meeting her gaze with a softness that felt so utterly out of place now.

With the two men barely dead, the figure in black turned and faced Jenny and Maggie both. It crossed the sickles before its chest and bowed its entire upper body, almost as if in a display of reverence or deference.

“There are more for you to take,” said the girl, trembling with weakness, addressing the living shadow.

It rose to its full height again and turned. Each step heavy with the weight of fate and death, thudding down and jingling. Shouts throughout the mansion reached them, and the reaper followed those sounds.

Struggling to do anything beyond breathing, teetering on the brink of panic, Jenny snapped her head to glare at Maggie. Her own teeth clattered as she saw how much blood the girl was losing.

“We need to get out of here. We need to stop that bleeding.”

Without second thought, Jenny threw off her coat and tore fabric from her dress. Expensive once, sure, but things of great value only existed as tools to her. Such a thought passed in a flash, eclipsed by her concern for this girl she did not know. Maggie shuddered all over and looked even weaker than her pallid complexion already suggested, swaying where she stood like she was about to faint.

Pulling up a chair and helping the girl sit, Jenny hastily tied makeshift bandages around Maggie’s wrists. The sight of blood terrified her. It brought her back to a dark past and unpleasant memories that felt like surreal nightmares, locked behind an attic door. A door that now thumped like when the men had tried to kick in the door to the music room.

Unable to say just how deeply Maggie had cut herself, Jenny knew it must have been grievous, for the blue cloth from her skirt immediately turned dark red. What knife had she even used? Jenny spotted none.

Maggie took it all with much greater calm than Jenny could believe. Jenny, on the other hand, trembled and shook, even though she remained physically unharmed.

Screams erupted from elsewhere in the mansion. The clash of steel, sparking images of long curved sickles crossing with swords. More screams. Then the whole building went silent. No shouts, no more combat.

For the first time, Jenny considered Lord Bennet. Worried about him. Listened closely, hoping to determine where the fighting had happened, where the attackers might still be lurking, and what route to take to safely escape the estate.

Jenny grabbed Maggie by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. It helped ground herself more than anything, though her own voice still quaked.

“Please, Maggie, if you can stand. We need to run while we still can. I don’t kn—”

“There is nowhere to run, Jenny Fisher,” said the girl, wide-eyed. “This is your destiny. The evil man is here, and we need to face him. The old ones—”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear about these fucking old ones. I don’t give a shit about what they say. There is no such thing as destiny! We all make our own choices.”

She shook Maggie and pointed to the shattered door.

“Those men are armed to the teeth and they’re going to—I—I don’t fucking know what they want, but I’m not going to faff around and find out. And you are either coming with me, or you are on your bloody own!”

Fear. Not her own, for she only saw a reflection of her own twisted visage in the girl’s eyes. The fear glistened in Maggie’s gaze, a mirror in which Jenny glimpsed all her own suppressed fury and ugliness. The girl looked afraid.

Afraid of her.

It dawned on Jenny: for the first time in years, she felt real. This was her. The real her. Desperation had eroded the mask to the point of it crumbling to dust, and danger drove the real Jenny Fisher to the surface.

For better or worse.

Subdued and resigned, slumping back into the chair, Maggie murmured, “Destiny robs nobody of choice. Destiny is only the road we cannot escape. We all must make our choices whenever we come upon forks in the road. Amy could have taken the road through the Blackwood to find her next mark. But Jenny stayed here, and now you must make a choice.”

Maggie sighed and her eyes fluttered shut, looking weaker than ever and as if she fought to keep her eyelids open.

Footsteps neared from outside the music room. Wolfish howls from the woods entered the windows. Another cold gust of wind cut through the chamber, blowing Jenny’s hair about.

No sooner than brushing strands out of her face to see again properly, a figure stood in the doorway. Tall, garbed in a long coat like the other men, but his scarf pulled down and no hat upon his head to conceal his face.

Piercing blue eyes that appeared almost white in the dim light. Devil of a man, that gaze distracted from the rest of his appearance, even as his wandering eyes studied the room. Always only briefly resting upon points of interest. The broken door, the bodies of the two dead men, the circle of blood that Maggie had painted, and the two women huddled by the piano. Jenny would barely remember his scars, or his rugged beard, or what weapons he carried, or even the color of his hair.

Only that creepy gaze. Eyes of a predator.

Like a shark. But so deeply, utterly, irredeemably evil.

When she realized how long they had locked eyes, triggered by a gasp from Maggie, Jenny started breathing again. Paralyzed by this man’s baleful stare.

“Well, well. What do we have here?” asked the man. Thick northern accent. Every syllable oozed malice. “So, it was you ladies who sent me that lovely little welcomin’ gift. Did a number on me men, but I regret to inform ya—I’ve dealt with worse.”

With a hand still holding a pistol, he hiked up his left sleeve, then presented his bare forearm. Scar tissue along the length of it formed strange patterns—perfect shapes, flowing like script in form of odd symbols, resembling no language Jenny had ever seen before. Something occult. Something awful; something as foreboding as the dark presence Jenny had seen Maggie summon and tame.

Upon the shark-eyed man’s empty palm, a strange symbol had been etched into his flesh like a brand, resembling an eye framed by geometric shapes and indecipherable inscriptions.

“A little birdie chirped at me, telling me I’d find what I seek in this town, in this very mansion. And I think I’ve struck upon pay dirt. I believe we have a lot to talk about, you and I.”

The darkness shifted behind him. It melted—moved. The lights in the hall behind him flickered like they had in the music room before. Shadows danced. Took shape.

“Or rather, I will do the talkin’, and you will do the listenin’. I will say what happens, and you will do as I say.”

The corners of his lips twitched until they spread, forming a sinister smile. He held up his pistol, pointing it at the ceiling, but cradling it in his palm with a sense of security that conveyed just how easily it would be for him to sling that gun and shoot Jenny, right through her heart.

The shadows of the hall that those gas lamps projected took a more tangible form. Shaking Jenny to her core. For the shapes they cast were not human. Grotesquely proportioned limbs stretched between hunched bodies and beastly claws. Bat-like wings unfurled, and spider-like legs ending in talons quivered. Snake-like, slavering jaws unhinged and displayed rows of fangs.

“Pleased to meet ya ladies. I’m Fentin McLachlan. And you—you’re goin’ to help me bring about hell on earth.”

She ignored his words, all but one. McLachlan, Jenny thought. Her heart skipped a beat as the revelation dawned. He shared his last name with Maggie.

Arms outstretched by his side, looking up to the ceiling as if he could hear an angelic choir that nobody else could, he looked almost divine—messianic. Deranged, perhaps. But imposing. His paralyzing stare rested upon Jenny again.

She feared for her life, but her sharp wit turned to painting more horrifying outcomes upon the canvas of her inner eye. She needed to escape, and under no circumstances would she leave the girl, Maggie, alone to her fate.

Whatever that meant.

The shadows in the hallway grew and then shrank until figures emerged from the doorway, following Fentin McLachlan into the room. Their claws clicked and scraped. Their raspy, ragged breathing rang of hatred and reeked of blood and vomit. Their eyes—they had too many eyes—murder glinted in all of them.

They did not belong in this world. They circled around Fentin McLachlan like loyal hunting hounds. Poised to pounce at any moment, to strike as soon as he issued the command. Wiry and powerful in their impossible appearance, appearing impossible to outrun.

What were these demons? Jenny’s mind reeled. It was too much to take in.

Just like Maggie had said. Like the “old ones” had told her of the evil man.

Darkness always followed him.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Gothic horror #gaslight romance #Edwardian #Victorian #dark fantasy #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Jenny Fisher #Magdalene McLachlan #Lord Bennet #Westley #King's Hold #mansion #eerie #Gothic #fog #mist #winter #cold #snow

[spookyspaghettisundae]

What Came From the Impossible Corridor

As the sun shone brightly over the city, rain-drenched rooftops glittered and glowed in blinding rays of light. Thin plumes of smoke rose from the chimneys of houses and factories alike, blending in with the curtain of clouds as they parted to reveal a crystal-blue sky.

In the absence of mist and gloom, now silence suffocated the streets. Devoid of people despite the broad daylight of noon. The bustle of crowds stayed absent. A beautiful day in the sprawling harbor city, yet only one person wandered through its streets. All alone. Stranded in an otherwise empty world.

A little, confused boy swiveled, and pivoted, and stumbled his way forth, heading nowhere. Looking for others but finding nobody. Empty shops. Dead markets. Shining puddles splashed underfoot, metal hinges creaked when he pushed past ajar doors to peer inside of homes that looked like their inhabitants had all just deserted them.

Tables set with steaming food, served in plates and bowls, but nobody to eat. Shoes and jackets left by the doors even though a wintry chill still gripped the city. Fires still crackled in hearths and ovens, offering nobody warmth and with pots and pans still frying or boiling in abandonment.

The wee lad cried for his mother. Then for his older siblings. His friends and neighbors. Even for his father. He did not want to return home, but believed that having ran away from it was what had wrought this strange and empty world. He knew not where else to turn to. Even if it meant confronting the dread of facing father.

He arrived at the house of his family. The Von Brandt mansion. Vines strangled all the walls and gates that warded off the cobblestone roads from its overgrown garden. Time and weather had worn down the wood and brass of his family’s crest beyond recognition. A husk of prestige long gone, faded and forgotten and disgraced.

Silhouettes loomed in the windows, staring at the boy through sightless eyes. Barely as visible as the ghostly curtains that concealed them, swaying in the wind. They glared with contempt.

Shadows. Ghosts of the past.

High time to face them.

The boy—Johnn—approached the entrance to the old home he had spent half his life growing up in. His little arm trembled as it reached up to clutch the handle. And pushed inside. The door’s wood groaned as it gave way but yielded without resistance.

And across the threshold, inside stepped Johnn, the young man, fully grown and in his prime. No longer trembling. No longer afraid. Curious he was, more than anything. Eager to meet those shadows and bury them in the past where they belonged.

Stepping inside the center of the gaping entry hall, where a wide staircase spiraled around the room and rose to the lofty heights of the home’s upper stories, crowned by a wide-open hole in the ceiling. Water dripped from the frayed edges lining the gap where roof used to fully cover the edifice. A sheen of wet and cold had coated all the banisters and soaked all the decaying old carpets.

Ghosts bounced around and danced past him. Echoes of giggles and laughter, memories of better days. Days before things had soured between his father and himself. Days before his family fled the country, when the crown convicted the Von Brandt name of brigandry, courtesy of their youngest son.

As his thoughts turned to such places, so darkened the adjoining hallways and doorways to rooms throughout the mansion. The shadows crept from them, phantoms that converged on the entry hall, surrounding Johnn.

Nothing about this unsettled him. Everything made perfect sense.

A shadowy hand rested on the banister, gliding down its length without ever making contact. Light shone through its incorporeal form. More such phantoms joined this presence, as they slowly descended. Walking, pacing, prancing; they flocked closer and closer towards him.

His eyes fluttered open. Awake. What a strange dream. It haunted him. He wondered what had become of his family. Surely, they had found a way to eke out an existence in the new world, far from the crown’s clutches.

Then reality set in again.

He wiped his brow where hair clung to his forehead, sticky and wet with sweat. Cold and clammy, just like the caves they had hidden in.

Nora. He sat up and watched her motionless face for a long time. Studied every detail, every scar. The gentle breeze sweeping through these underground chambers swallowed her shallow breathing.

She slept so peacefully.

Wrapped in so many bandages that she almost looked like a mummy, stolen away from a tomb, from the lost desert kingdoms—were it not for the dark spots that had soaked those bandages with the lifeblood that had escaped her body from countless injuries.

With care, he unraveled the yields of first aid he had provided her with, cautiously lifting an arm to tenderly unwrap the old bandages and apply new ones. Then a leg. Even her head. She slept through it all.

No matter how tough she always acted, now she made no peep when he moved her limbs to gingerly clean and dress those wounds anew, finally wrapping them in fresh bandages. She remained unconscious despite how long it all took. Once done, he began to worry if she would ever wake up again.

To assuage his own fears thereof more than he hoped it would have any effect, like it did in the fairy tales, he planted a tender kiss on her chapped lips, then brought a tin cup to them, administering cool and refreshing water which he had collected from the underground stream.

She had slept for almost a day and a night and Johnn vividly remembered one of the former Merry Lot, an old companion of his who never woke again after suffering similarly grievous injuries.

Such grim thoughts flirted with the lingering, haunting sensations of the dream he had awoken from. He tried to ignore them and restlessly wandered. The ruminations drove him to the edge of the hidden docks where saltwater sloshed against a pier made of rotting wood. Moments passed, melting into minutes of him gazing into the bank of fog that obscured the horizon, creeping around the crags that concealed this secret pirate bay. Almost as powerful as the strong scent of the salty sea, the smell of winter and snow poured in from that cavernous entrance.

A little bit of light, piercing the fringe of these unhallowed caves, casting long shadows from the stalactites and stalagmites and the empty crates and chests that lined the walls surrounding the pier.

On his way back to her, he paused by the pile of ashes. Every time the breeze whistled by, it lifted off flurries of soot and scorched remains. What little was left over from the huge fire he had made. The embers crackling and rising from it sprung from something resembling a distant memory, even though their heat and glow had enveloped him just the day before.

He had watched that fire burn at its brightest and returned to watch it dim after consuming the shattered wooden throne of the slaver pirate, Shark-Eyes; and his collection of books, each one unholier than the other; and the remains of the alchemist who had terrorized the city in a string of grisly murders, the one dubbed the Outer Wall Reaper by the papers; and every last admixing reagent and metal syringe he had found among the monster’s belongings.

All gone. All molten slag and ashes, now taken by the wind, swept to sea, bit by bit.

Johnn left them behind and returned to the chambers where old bunks used to serve as a haven of rest for the pirate gang. Where Nora still slept, tucked away in his blanket and cloak, with his bag serving as a cushion underneath her head.

He smiled wistfully but not of joy. A short-lived relief, the feeble semblance of cheer soon faded from his mien.

Johnn turned and wandered again, exploring the now-familiar tunnels and cavernous chambers, hewn roughly by pickaxes. Space carved into the stone by the outlaws, shaped not for aesthetics but pragmatic practicality. Perhaps he might find other vile things to destroy. Anything else he could do to erase the memory of the monsters who had once inhabited this cove.

Perhaps he could drag those awful iron cages and sink them in the edge of the ocean. To remove every reminder of just how much all those men and women and children must have suffered in captivity before Shark-Eyes sold them off to distant shores.

He wandered past the private quarters of the evil captain. Metal scraping over stone and the chopping of damp wood still rang in his ears, a residual haunting of his fit of rage in which Johnn demolished fancy furniture that Shark-Eyes and his men must have stolen from elsewhere. The debris still lay there, scattered out and awaiting its own funeral pyre.

Johnn knew what chamber came next. He somehow tasted something metallic again—just like back then. Explored the roof of his mouth with the tip of his tongue, the ridge where he once bit himself. A scarred reminder of how he had survived the warlock’s paralyzing gaze and then slain him.

And a reminder of far greater loss.

He steeled himself and kept his gaze fixed upon the ground as he paced past the spot where blood had stained the stone, never washed away, even after what have must have been a year since shedding.

Broad daylight shone in through a natural opening to his left, and a table in the center, split by that same rusty axe in his hands the day before.

No anger welled up in his gut this time. Only sorrow and grief. He recalled how his friend’s body had laid there, contorted, and mangled, and with only half a face left to recognize. Slaughtered by that terrible wolf-beast.

Terry had looked so small. His empty eyes so serene.

More splotches of discoloration remained in lieu of the absent body, long-dried bloodstains now hauntingly illuminated by the light shining in through the narrow rift in the wall. Preventing any chance at forgetting the past.

Johnn’s stomach knotted. His neck hair bristled, and his hand instinctively came to rest where he could quickly sling out his knife. An instinctive and ingrained motion, a visceral response to something utterly wrong.

A new passageway had appeared. Out of nowhere. It had been there all this time, right?

A yawning, dark corridor, leading out of this room, opposite from where he had entered. Misty tendrils crept out of it. As the breeze swept through these hidden caves, whistling through its winding halls, incomprehensible whispers spilled from that twisted hallway.

It had not been here one year prior. It had certainly not been here the day before.

The mists clawed at a shape as it emerged from that impossible corridor, a shadow approaching with slow steps. It stopped right before any sunlight could lend it definition. A wavering apparition, somehow not real. Yet there.

Johnn squinted and he gripped the handle of his knife.

The shadow took one step. Then another. Always one step closer. Then stopped. Just close enough to the light to reveal a face.

Still impossible to fully fathom, the hollow and pallid countenance of Terry stared back at him. Eyes that once shone a beautiful golden in the sunlight, now empty and milky-white. A haggard figure, a shadow of his former self. The ghost’s body displayed the horrific injuries that had killed him.

It could not be. In the impossible corridor stood an impossible thing. Johnn, however, knew better. Knew ghosts were real. Phantoms could dwell in old, cold places. Wraiths and revenants could return to torment the living.

Without breaking eye contact, under watch by the ghost’s curious eyes, Johnn’s hand crept to his other dagger. The one forged in iron for such entities specifically.

Terry sighed, “How many?”

A chorus of whispers followed from the impossible corridor behind him.

Although Johnn refused to acknowledge the question, he understood its meaning.

Like the little boy’s arm, reaching out to the handle of his home’s door, trembling, so did his voice now, as Johnn asked in response, ever so softly, “How many? How many perished in our quest?”

“How many?” asked Terry again. And others. Johnn could not distinguish the other voices, but they rang familiar, and Terry spoke not as one, but as many.

The darkness emanated from him like misty tentacles, lurching, inch by inch, crawling through cracks and over jagged stone where daylight cast shadows. Creeping ever closer towards Johnn, meandering, threatening. Like a carpet of snakes fanning out.

The trembling in his voice ceased. Made way to a sterner tone. Just like in the dream, where the boy crossed the threshold into the old mansion, and inside stood the young man.

To Terry and the other ghosts, he resolutely said, “We all knew what we were getting into. We all know what we did. I will never forget that. I will honor your memory. Keep it alive.”

A symphony of gasps billowed out from the corridor behind Terry. The mist around him shuddered as if a gust of wind affected it.

“No need to hold on forever,” whispered the ghosts in unison. Almost soothingly. “You can be with us again.”

The tendrils had almost reached Johnn. Part of him had no intention of fighting back.

Hissed the wind, “Forever.”

A violent gust caught Johnn’s hair, and he slung out the iron blade. The face of Terry blended into others, different visages of suffering and death. Screaming faces, silenced long ago. Tortured grimaces frozen in time. Those he held dear, enemies he had ended, people he had never seen in his life, all together now. Souls trapped between worlds, ready to lash out at whatever doomed ones lingered in this damnable place.

The dull sheen of the dagger flashed in the slivers of light as Johnn swiped at thin air. Tendrils of shadows dispersed where the knife cut, but there were so many. They had almost overwhelmed his senses. Shrieking all around him, whipping him back and forth. Almost lulling him into surrender.

Clamping his eyes shut and fighting back blindly, before his mind’s eye, the image of Nora’s face outshone all. That serene, comatose calm of her sleeping peacefully in these caves, all alone, with nobody else to look after her as she recovered from her countless injuries. The thought of her face grounded Johnn, even as he continued to swing and thrash and fight for his life. The memory of them holding hands in a lonesome hut, fingers interlocked. Another swing, another refusal against the pull of dark powers.

The final reason he fought. Now doing his damnedest to keep the wraiths from himself. He spiraled and spun around. Pirouettes of deadly swings and jabs that would have cut flesh deeply and struck vital spots. Connecting to nothing, only dispelling singular shadows as the rest converged on him.

The wraiths formed a cloud. More and more kept pouring out from that hellmouth of the impossible corridor, the hallway that had not existed until now. The corridor that should not have existed in the first place. Where more whispers continued to spill from, underlining the enraged shrieks.

Terry’s pallid, sunken face grew as he lunged at the friend who had led him to his death. Then the faces of others. Friends and foes alike, they all attacked now in unison. Ghosts who had lost every sense of who or what they once were. Hell-bent on destroying the one person who reminded them of the horrid ways their lives all ended, bereft of any understanding as to why. Or what had followed.

Johnn’s movements slowed until he tripped, stumbled. Slipping from icy grasping hands that were no hands, staggering past shadows that existed somewhere between the real and the imagined. They would wear him down soon and drain his hope. Take his life.

Never had he encountered so many angry ghosts in one place.

He gritted his teeth and fought with every fiber of his being. Thought of Nora. Refused to give up. But the dance of the pales overwhelmed him.

The chorus of gasps repeated, swelling with excitement and subdued rage. Against the laws of nature, something that was nothing grabbed hold of Johnn’s limbs. Wrapped around them, like living shadow. Wind, colder than winter, cut over exposed skin as it swept through the corridors with each ghostly gasp. As if the caves breathed, teeming with evil. The tips of Johnn’s boots scraped against stone as the spirits lifted him off the ground.

Then the chorus exploded into pained shrieking and frenzied screams. Phantasms recoiled, gripped their nonexistent heads. Cried to heavens that they refused to enter. Agony and fear, mirroring the many ways they had all lost their lives before falling into this tortured damnation they lingered in.

Dropping him, Johnn fell to his knees, clutching his throat where invisible hands had started strangling the life from him. As he coughed and choked and retched, strands of dark mist billowed out from his mouth.

Furious, the cloud of wraiths scattered in every direction. Like a swarm of insects and vermin, the last of them, including Terry, retreated towards the shadows and cracks between the stone. Where the angry ghosts disengaged, the beams of light that sliced through the chamber intensified—or returned to their natural brightness. The cloud of living darkness withdrew farther and farther, no longer suffocating the man, nor the chamber. The cloud receded farther yet, back into the impossible corridor from whence it came.

Soft footsteps echoed through the other, opposite, original corridor.

Someone approached.

Someone tangible. Someone far more real than unreal. A tall and slender silhouette. Johnn’s vision blurred, and he first confused that figure for Nora approaching. A short-lived confusion, dispelled by how freakishly tall that figure truly stood.

Engulfed by the light shining in through the crack in the wall, not his beloved had arrived. In her stead stood an unnaturally tall man, garbed in flowing robes of garish colors, and wreathed in jewelry made of glittering gold. His features just human enough to be upsetting, but not human enough to betray their otherworldly nature.

Slung around a slender neck, a bizarre scarf framed a narrowly pointed jaw and chin, underlining a sinister smile. A leaf-riddled crown rested atop a sculpted brow. Eyes, pitch-black like those of a doe, glistening and beautiful and intelligent and malevolent all at once. A face far too long to be human and too symmetrical to be real.

Yet here he stood.

Fair folk.

Johnn choked again, catching his breath, and his eyes locked onto the dropped iron dagger before he dove for it.

Too late. The fair prince flicked his wrist with a dismissive gesture and that dagger scurried away from Johnn’s grasp, flung by an invisible force, hurtling towards the crack in the wall, and plummeting into the crashing ocean waves outside.

The fair prince stopped and stood still, hugging himself in an eerily graceful fashion. Those doe-like eyes wandered, scanning Johnn up and down, studying every detail of his countenance.

Johnn smirked and averted his gaze. He would not even bother getting up from where he knelt. Not give this being the satisfaction. He slammed the bottom of his fists into the rough stony ground. And again.

He laughed and coughed once more. The pain of being strangled by ghostly hands still lingered. The irony of escaping one death by unnatural things just to find an end with another both annoyed and amused him.

“What do you want now?” Johnn asked, through more choked laughter. “Payback for killing your fair queen?”

Without even glimpsing it, he could sense the smile growing wider across the fairy’s face.

“Why—yes. Yes, indeed. I have come to pay you back.”

Expecting to stare at the business end of a spear made of roots and thorns, instead a long, slender hand stretched out in front of him. So thin and lithe, with long, sharp nails, black as wet dirt, but with the palm facing heavenwards, offering, and inviting. Even as the eerily tall figure loomed above him, several heads taller than a man should stand, the fair prince exuded a strange air of vulnerability. So slender that he almost looked fragile.

“Please, let me help you up onto your feet again,” the prince said. His voice ran silkier than his robes. Dangerously alluring. “‘Tis the least I can do for thee. Why, I do not believe you have yet fathomed just how much I stood to gain from Queen Magnificent’s demise.”

The corners of his lips twitched with glee. Evil and beauty alike glinted in his eyes.

Johnn bit his tongue. Literally. Not as hard as he had when he had broken a warlock’s spell, but just enough to ground him. To center his thoughts. Pain, weaponized to focus his senses. He also bit his tongue in another sense, and refrained from informing this fair folk emissary that, technically, it had not been him who had killed the fair queen.

He even refrained from thinking her name. Just in case the creature could read his mind.

The bandit rolled his jaw and then set it. Grabbed that slender hand with a trembling that stemmed not from fear anymore, but restrained anger. The prince’s fingers softly wrapped around Johnn’s hand, almost lovingly. Smooth skin against the human bandit’s hand, so velvety that it could make silk blush.

With a strength that reflected his height, he effortlessly and gently pulled Johnn up until the man stood before him. Back on his feet, Johnn arched a brow on purpose, trying to project an air of superiority despite the incredible danger he still found himself in.

Even at full height—and Johnn was by no means short—the fair prince stood three heads taller than him, like a living and willowy tree.

The fairy stepped away from him and his robes fluttered, reminiscent of the living shadows, the ghosts that had just assaulted Johnn. Gemstones and gilded edges upon the unusual attire gleamed as they traveled through rays of light.

Another step away, with such long legs that the distance quickly grew, the fair prince hugged himself again. Still smiling, he bowed deeply, prompting Johnn to blink in confusion.

“I am Thalomirian,” said the fair prince. “But you, Johnn Von Brandt, you may call me Prince Charming if that rolls easier off that poor mistreated tongue of yours.”

Johnn nodded over to the impossible corridor which should not exist. The shadows beckoned there. Though the wraiths had withdrawn even deeper into its darkness, shying away from the fairy, their presence lingered.

“Why bother saving me from that? Don’t your kind revel in watching our kind suffer?”

As he turned to lock eyes with Prince Charming again, the fair prince had vanished. Warm breath brushed over the back of Johnn’s neck—pleasantly. Thalomirian stood behind him, had somehow crossed the distance without sound or motion.

“Not all of us are the same, my sweet,” Prince Charming cooed in his ear.

His arms wrapped around Johnn in what could easily be confused with a loving embrace. Warm. Breathing. Conflicting emotions wracked Johnn. His hair stood on edge and he feared the sheer might that radiated from this being. But whether or not any magick sourced such strange emotions, he also felt safe—and oddly excited.

“You see, never before have I wandered your world, as I see no good coming from any relations between our realms. If things went by me, and not by the late queen and her silly little son, then I would have severed all ties long ago.”

“What do you want,” Johnn said. Less like a question. More like a gasp.

“Like I said, I come to extend a courtesy. My gratitude. Please, understand how much it means that I traveled here, exposed to the rot of your world. I can feel myself dying with each breath, while in my world, my tale lives eternal.”

Johnn swallowed. Wanted to hear him out as much as Thalomirian seemed to enjoy hearing himself speak. But even as he melted into Prince Charming’s warm embrace, Johnn’s biting wit and defiance finally surfaced.

“Alright, job well done. Gratitude accepted and appreciated. Move along now?”

Lips like a brook’s cool water brushed over Johnn’s cheek as the prince kept him close.

“I believe I can see what Magnificent saw in you.”

Johnn swallowed the thick lump of nothing in his throat and said, “I, uh, accept your thanks. I mean, truly, thank you. Uh, I much rather live another day than die to whatever—well, whatever darkness has reached out to drag me to hell on this fine day.”

He bit his lip and the prince’s embrace loosened. Hands glided from his sides as Prince Charming let him free, sliding away as fancifully as the otherworldly robes billowed through the breeze, fluttering as the fair prince paced away from him, towards the light.

Casting a shadow upon Johnn as he stopped there, gazing out into the ocean, with his back to the bandit-turned-unlikely-hero.

“Magnificent’s court had a bad habit of mingling with your kind too much. I believe those days are long gone. It is time for us to move on to other worlds before the stink of yours seeps too deep into ours,” said the prince. “And our interim leader sees things the same way, I believe.”

Johnn wrestled with his senses. The odd attraction to Thalomirian’s vicinity, mixing with his revulsion of such unnatural creatures—well-knowing how many of his men and even his foes had fallen to the whims of gruesome goblyns and barghests and other awful fair folk that haunted the Blackwood. Johnn sorted through these clashing emotions, cutting through them with an imaginary dagger until he found the questions he truly needed to ask.

“Are you—am I understanding this right? You are saying your kind is just going to—up and leave? For good?”

The whispers from the impossible corridor had fallen dormant. The white noise of ocean waves lapping at the cliffs outside the cave filled the thoughtless silence that followed.

Then the prince broke that silence, “For good, my sweet.”

“Good, then. We won’t have to put up with you threatening our world anymore? One less headache to contend with, I suppose. A little victory, I guess,” Johnn mused, then bit his tongue again—realizing that now might not have been the best time to taunt an immortal.

Thalomirian did not turn fully, only reared his beautiful head. Shot Johnn a sidelong glance. Where the bandit expected a glowering glare, only something serene glittered in the prince’s eye. And pity.

“All of us should have withdrawn already. I came here despite Mother Frost forbidding us passage through the rings. But I had heard from Cimari of you and the little sparrow. Still alive, despite the tales of so many things out there conspiring to kill you, including our own. I came here for the first and last time, despite how much I despise your world. Just because I wanted to thank you personally. And it is rather fun to defy Mother Frost, but I digress,” said the prince.

Stunned, Johnn offered no response. Prince Charming smirked.

“In this doomed world of yours, our blood once ran deeper than the roots of your trees. Our essence saturated the veins of the earth far deeper than your kind could ever mine, even with all your greed. No, my sweet. This is not doing you any favor, as much as I am loathe to be here. As much as it amuses me to defy Mother Frost. No, my sweet. Our kind’s absence will leave a deep, dark hole. And what, do you think, will fill that void?”

Prince Charming slowly and gingerly stretched out an arm. One of those slender fingers unfurled, a sharp talon left to point at the impossible corridor—the place that should not exist.

Johnn swallowed another nonexistent lump.

He knew not the precise nature of the answer, but knew the answer, nevertheless. The prince filled in for him.

“Dark things are drawn to dark places. We are not the only kind that visits your world. There are others. Not just lost souls and misguided spirits mistaken for gods, but things. Unspeakable things you should fear more than your kind ever feared us. Things you cannot appease by giving them fanciful names or revering us in adoring tales. Things not placated by the devoted rituals of your dying tribes.”

The shadow cast upon Johnn lifted. Thalomirian had vanished once more. Johnn sensed the fair prince to be standing behind him again. Always that alluring shadow. Some part of him wanted to turn and face the embrace he expected to follow.

But none came.

Whispering behind him, Prince Charming said, “Things that do not leave behind adequate replacements for all they take. Things that covet. Things that fester.”

The fair prince’s voice swelled. Dropped to a raspy baritone, more menacing than ever before.

“Things that corrupt.”

Johnn swiveled, stone and wooden debris crunching underneath his boot’s heel. Prince Charming was nowhere in sight. A bodiless voice that filled the awful chamber.

The impossible corridor caught Johnn’s eye again. The dark mist there still clawed at him, reaching outward, held back only by the sun’s light and the fairy’s fading presence combined.

“In time, you will see how your lands twist and turn and transform. What our kind wrought—our many gifts to you—shall all be undone.”

“The nights that grow longer every year?” Johnn asked with a growl, with his defiance rising anew. The fear of the ghosts in that impossible corridor fueled a wrath that eclipsed whatever charm the fairy exuded over him. Or perhaps Thalomirian’s distance afforded him such agency. “The suffocating fog that grows thicker and more abundant with each cycle of the moon? Well, all the better if—”

“We never authored such change,” Prince Charming said resolutely and honestly, yet growing distant. “The things that I spoke of. The corrupting things. They have done that, and they will continue to do so. Wonder not if your little demesnes and houses and castles come alive with those dark things. If they twist and transform and turn against you. Walls that never let you go. Rooms that refuse to forget any transgressions—real or imagined.”

The prince’s voice shrank with each word, betraying the creeping range as it increased, leaving Johnn and this world behind.

Johnn spat, “And corridors that appear out of nowhere? Filled with droves of angry fucking ghosts?”

Not bothering any longer to spot the fair prince, he kept his eyes trained on the impossible corridor. Wary of its apparitions emerging from there again.

No answer.

A sweet and melodious laugh echoed through these unhallowed halls instead.

Then, almost like a whisper, Prince Charming said, “My sweet. My patience and my courtesy extending to you have overstayed their welcome, I reckon. I advise you make haste to leave this filthy little hole. The only thing that can hold them off was that little iron toothpick of yours that I tossed into the ocean.”

He needed not be warned twice.

Johnn fled.

His imagination ran wild with imagery of the shadows pouring out from the impossible corridor, like running from an undead tidal wave. Giving chase. He struggled to keep his emotions in check—would not feed their hunger, not slake their thirst for his fear, not offer them any energy or power by granting them as much as a glance.

Nowhere on his way did he encounter Thalomirian. Prince Charming would never show himself to the bandit ever again.

Running through the natural corridors, the rapping of Johnn’s boots against stone echoed far and wide, drowning out any ghostly whispers. His own labored breathing and the rushing of blood in his ears did the rest. He sprinted back towards the side of his beloved charge.

Almost skidding past the passageway that led inside the sleeping quarters of the long-gone pirate gang, he braced himself against the wall and stumbled inside, pushing by the rotten bunk beds, and coming to a halt where Nora’s sleeping body lay, still wrapped in blanket and cloak.

Johnn dropped down beside her. Clutched her shoulders.

Shook.

Gently at first. Then fervently. Panic gripped him harder than he held her.

“You need to wake up. Now,” he said. Voice trembling, like the boy’s little arm, reaching out to the handle of the door. Only he did not cross the threshold yet. “Please, wake up!”

Like a miracle, her eyes fluttered open.

“I know this is a lot, but we need to get out of here,” he said. The boy dared to cross the threshold and the trembling made way to certainty. They had made it this far, and the man he was now would always refuse to surrender. “Now. Something unstoppable comes and we are not safe here.”

She blinked in confusion. Understandably so.

He leaned in and pecked her on the lips with a cheeky kiss. Earned himself a slap on his cheek that stung long after the clap of her palm had finished echoing through the caves.

But like the heat of its sting, it invigorated him. He grinned. She sighed and shook her head. Grinned as well.

No second too soon had he helped her up, she stumbled onto her feet. Her legs buckled like a newborn foal, nearly giving out. He braced her before falling, then she found her footing. Nora’s fingers uncomfortably dug into his arm, painfully squeezing it.

He tugged. She snatched their bags and followed.

Unlike Johnn, Nora visibly struggled to make sense of what was happening. He ushered her down the next hall, drawing closer to the rotten pier, where they could climb back out up the cliffs, and return to the Blackwood.

Unlike him, she looked over her shoulder, past her beloved. Her eyes grew wide with fear.

He made the mistake of following suit. Curiosity did always get the best of him.

Something followed them. Something invisible and intangible, yet painfully present. And woefully furious. One by one, this force snuffed out each torch, each gaslit lantern lined up behind them.

On wings of terror, the couple ran even faster.

What came from the impossible corridor gave relentless chase.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #Gothic #Gothic horror #gaslight romance #Crimsonport #Red Coast #Nora Morrissey #Johnn Von Brandt #Shark-Eyes #caves #secret #mystery #dream #nightmare #occult #unnatural #supernatural #ghosts #phantoms #wraiths #undead

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Perhaps the Sorcerer Knew

The morning sun rose. Its blinding orange light crept over the edge of the horizon, flanked by frosted mountains and the Blackwood’s bleak forest. Heralded by the shrinking shadows, the horrible night retreated. Thick banks of fog slowly cleared, dissolving in its wake.

An icy wind picked up, sweeping the land of King Michael III land with violent gusts, blowing clumps of thawing snow from the treetops and causing many feeble trunks to groan. The crows cawed and flapped their wings.

Through beady little eyes they watched.

The king looked back at them from where he stood. The cold from outside seeped in through the cracks of the window. It clashed with the warmth shed by the large fireplace in his solar. He clutched a goblet in his hand, savoring the scent of wine wafting up from it, letting it invigorate his senses.

Behind him, a masked figure appeared. Making no sound but the soft click from closing the door to this stony castle chamber.

“Zelos the Wise,” the king said without turning, letting each syllable ooze out of his mouth with contempt. “Is that you?”

“My liege,” said the masked man.

The king could almost hear his smirk, concealed only by the wooden mask.

“Is it not too early in the day to be partaking in ales and wines?” asked the sorcerer.

Michael’s chest puffed up as he stifled a sigh. His knuckles whitened as his grip around the goblet tightened, and he took a quick swig of the wine, almost in protest.

“Never,” he decreed.

King Michael III pried his gaze away from the window to stare into the hollow eye sockets of the weathered wooden mask. Eerie in how it resembled the days of a forgotten people.

“Is it not too early in the day to be bothering me about—what is it you are here for, wizard?”

Zelos nodded slowly. Even with the cover of shadows over his eyes, hinted at only by the glint of embers from the fireplace reflected in them, the king felt his gaze resting upon him. Burning.

“Yes. I have heard from Lord Thorne that you intend to extend the invitations for a party—despite my objections. Despite the Red Death. And hold the party here, in your castle, no less,” Zelos said.

Michael squinted at him and took another swig from his goblet, rinsing his mouth with it before gulping down.

“And?”

The sorcerer raised his hands, showing the king his empty palms.

“It is only my duty to merely caution against it, with continued vehemence. But it is, as always, your decision,” he said. Then, sharply adding in condescension, “My liege.”

An affront afforded only to the court jester and Zelos. Michael III glowered at him.

“Is that all?”

Zelos nodded, “Yes. Please forgive your humble servant for bothering your highness so early in the morn. May your day be one blessed by the Good God.”

The sorcerer chuckled from behind the guise of his mask. The sinister air it carried eclipsed the cool draft slicing through the cracks in the windows, and it gave the king goosebumps.

Zelos bowed deeply and backed away to the door of the king’s solar. His hooded and cloaked figure exited swiftly, bony fingers caressing brass handles and pulling, followed by the soft click of the door closing behind him.

King Michael III clicked his tongue, spiting the sorcerer without speech.

“He is so irredeemably evil. You know that, right?” asked a sweet feminine voice from the nearby desk, startling the king with her sudden presence.

It startled him despite the familiar ring and song in her tone. A young lady, thin and frail and pale, lounged on the fine upholstered chair behind his desk. His only remaining child. His daughter, Kaya—the princess.

“I had not noticed you even enter,” Michael said, his own voice softening far beyond the sharp and hostile inflection he had dealt the sorcerer. “Are you well?”

She just shook her head but smiled dearly at him. Her eyes narrowed but the smile persisted, and the king’s heart ached with pangs of guilt.

“Do you intend to ignore the awful things plaguing your kingdom? Father?”

He clicked his tongue again—not in spite, but to downplay his mounting frustration.

“Not you, too,” he muttered, taking another swig of the swill from his goblet.

“Your wondrous knights, all but missing despite all coming home from a successful campaign at war’s end. Tales from the towns, whispering of creatures of the night prowling the Blackwood, abducting children and villagers and turning them into their own,” Kaya said.

Michael’s jaw jutted out in defiance and he looked down his nose at her.

“And where—how—pray tell, are you hearing these—this fishwife gossip from?”

She giggled.

Instead of answering his question, she continued, “And the fair folk, father. Did you know that the fair folk have all but vanished from the depths of the forests? Magicked away into these distant worlds. Like they know something is coming. Like they smell the impending doom.”

Her crystal-blue eyes stared at him without blinking.

She looked so pale, he thought. More so than ever before. Showing so few motions as she sat still, like a statue, contrasted by the many motes of dust merrily dancing in the rays of morning light from the windows.

Her stare was locked onto his eyes, piercing his soul.

“Please do not tell me you have not noticed it yet. Have not noticed how the nights grow longer every season, how the winters grow colder with each passing year?” she continued asking him.

Something crunched.

The metal of the goblet in his large hand, crushed and bent under the weight of his grip, wine spilling onto the heated stone floor.

This unconscious act of aggression had severed the lock between their gazes, had drawn his attention away from her.

Of course he had noticed all those things. Little eluded his attention over his kingdom—his family’s pride. Yet he felt more powerless than ever before in his entire life.

“And despite a horrifying plague washing over these lands, rivaling only the Blight from all those years ago, you wish to invite broken heroes to some festivities—why? Where the Red Death may take us all in one fell swoop, if we all gather in the confines of your magnificent castle?”

His sights transfixed on the puddle of wine pooling onto the floor beside him, he dared not look up to meet her gaze again.

Michael whispered, more to himself than to her, “Gathered all in one place, at one time, we may find a solution yet. Or we all perish, as death intends for us all.”

Kaya said nothing.

The crows cawed in the distance, reaching the king’s ears muffled through the windows.

“Now, my dear daughter, I have a question for you,” said the king. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “Who let you out of the tower?”

When he looked up to glare at her and await her answer, she was already gone. There had been no sound of the solar’s door opening or closing.

He swiveled, searching the room around him for a glimpse of her. But no sign. Michael dismissed the thought that he had just imagined their conversation.

The words she had spoken still echoed in his mind. The puddle of wine on the floor remained, a reminder of its reality.

The crows cawed in accusation. Michael emitted a string of profanities at the damned birds.

Had she even been there? Truly been there?

He tossed the crushed goblet into the fire, where it clanged drearily. In a rush, he left the solar to investigate the eyrie inside of which Kaya should have still been locked in.

Only the dead have ghosts who can plague the living.

Right?

Perhaps the sorcerer knew.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #dark fantasy #crimsonport #pitchforks & torches #gaslight romance #gothic #gothic horror #castle #sorcerer #necromancer #wizard #magick #mystery #red death #blight #king #michael III #kaya #zelos the wise #fair folk #ghosts

[spookyspaghettisundae]

The Darkest Knight

The front door thundered, rattling in its hinges. The sudden and loud banging noises startled Mister Sherman Hill. Inside his humble home, he stood now, paralyzed with fright. He stared at the small puddle of water he had spilled from the pot on his way to the stove.

A visitor hammered his fist against the door again. Through the fog on his windows next to the entrance, Sherman saw this visitor lean over and shoot a glance inside. The silhouette and garb of this visitor caused the blood to freeze in Sherman’s veins.

The man outside, continuing to rap at his door, wore the black robe and hat of an inquisitor. Although the dirt and fog prevented Sherman from getting a good look at his face, the rhythm and the fierceness of this knocking filled him with dread.

Instead of opening the front door, Sherman set the heavy pot down on the stove, spilling some more water onto the iron surface. Steam rose where the water fell and sizzled.

Sherman had no eyes for the precious water he had hauled from the town’s well this afternoon, and instead rushed through the rooms of his home. Sherman ripped open cupboards and drawers and hid things inside them—the various hex dolls and talismans that adorned his home.

“Open your door, man. I know you’re in there,” said a voice through the door. Muffled, but burning with anger.

Seconds later, the impatient knocking continued.

After clearing out the last bit of evidence of his family’s pagan traditions, Sherman straightened his jacket by the collar and emitted a sharp sigh.

While approaching the front door, cringing at the ferocity of the inquisitor’s knocking, the following thought kept echoing in Sherman’s mind: the inquisition has no real authority.

With his hand clutching the door handle, he paused and hesitated to open the front door to this zealot outside.

Sherman wondered without speaking out loud, “But what about the new inquisition?”

He opened the door a crack and interrupted the inquisitor’s incessant hammering. Bright afternoon sunlight from a clear blue sky caused Sherman to blink and wince. Once his eyes had adjusted, he glared at the man outside.

Pushing his fears to the back of his mind and summoning up all the indignant disdain he could muster, Sherman sneered and asked the inquisitor, “What?”

The inquisitor had a long, angular face. Wrinkled, crow’s feet, and a thin mustache framing a mouth that drooped in what appeared to be a constant frown. He looked Sherman up and down.

“I am Inquisitor Virgil Armstrong. I have questions for you, and you will please answer me them,” said the visitor. His face crinkled and he sneered back at Sherman before adding, “All of them.”

“Alright, alright,” Sherman muttered, growing wearier of this exchange by the second. “What do you need to know?”

The inquisitor pointed a black-gloved finger at the door, “It is cold outside, Mister Hill. Would you not invite a servant of the lord into your own four walls?”

Sherman groaned and stepped outside. He shut the door behind himself.

“An act of solidarity, then,” Armstrong muttered, each syllable dripping with audible sarcasm. “It’ll do.”

“Don’t know what sort of help you’d expect from me. Reckon you’ll find none with my humble self,” Hill said.

“I want you to tell me what is going on in this town of yours.”

“That’s not a question,” Hill said quickly. The inquisitor’s mien darkened instead of countering Hill’s glib remark.

Armstrong produced a folded set of papers from his bag and unfurled them. He tapped them with two fingers and held them up so Hill could see the inked writing upon them. Being illiterate, he only gave the papers a passing glance and shrugged.

“This is the written testimony of Father Simpson, who visited your town to investigate a series of disturbances in your cemetery. What happened to the priest?”

Hill glowered at Armstrong when he replied, “Buried him in the cemetery, we did. Same night after he passed away, we did.” With a smirk, he added, “Good load his faith in the good lord did ‘im, eh?”

Armstrong’s forehead turned into a roadmap of wrinkles.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Not sure I have to, sir. Last I checked, the king severed the church from the state, and this new inquisition of yours has no say in our parts.”

Armstrong lowered the papers with a painful slowness. He folded them with an eerie care and calm, then inserted them back into the bag hanging from his shoulder. All the while, he never broke eye contact with Hill, staring daggers at him.

“Did you say 'we’ buried the body? So you are admitting you’ve been in the cemetery recently?”

Hill swallowed emptily and pondered the inquisitor’s questions.

“Yes, but what does that—”

“That would make you a suspect in acts of desecrating the mortal remains of your fellow villagers. I can certainly return with men from the constabulary and recommend it to them to question you. Our cooperation with them has been very fruitf—”

“What? I’ve done no such thing. How dare you?”

The inquisitor took a step towards Hill. He stood so uncomfortably close that Hill could feel the warmth of Armstrong’s breath against his own skin. His breath smelled of meat stew and reminded him that he had wanted to make a good carrot stew of his own before this insufferable inquisitor disturbed his privacy.

“I’ve accused you of nothing, Mister Hill. But all suspects are questioned without fail. Such is the due process of criminal investigations. If you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear from such questioning, yes?”

Hill shook his head, quipped, “You bloody—”

But he stopped himself and took a step back from the inquisitor.

“Sure, fine, then. Bring the police to my doorstep. You don’t scare me.”

The inquisitor took another step towards him, provoking Hill to take another back. But he bumped into his own front door.

“Oh, trying to scare you? I would never. I would also never be involved in any sort of lynchings or mob justice. A cursory questioning throughout your quaint little town has told me that most folk here are adherents of the good god. Some of them rather zealous, I gather. T'would be a real shame if anybody found out about your pagan traditions. I could never forgive myself if anything—happened.”

Hill could feel the blood drain from his own face and a sudden gust of cold wintry wind made him shiver.

“Not that I’m accusing you of such deviltry or witchcraft or what-have-you. I don’t believe in that bunk, Mister Hill,” said the inquisitor. He leaned forward, continuously shortening the distance between their faces, inch by inch.

Using both hands, Hill pushed Armstrong away from himself, and the inquisitor stumbled back a few steps before catching himself and standing up straight as a candle. A tall, black candle, never not sneering at him.

“So what if I respect some of the old ways? Those damned traditions used to keep our homes safe in the old days,” Hill said. He puffed out his chest and crossed his arms in defiance.

He would not let this blasted inquisitor push him around in his own hometown, where generations of his family had lived in prosperity.

“Far as I’m concerned, you arriving here is the only bad thing that’s happened lately,” Hill said. He then spat on the ground, but it hit the tip of the inquisitor’s shoe.

Armstrong’s gaze wandered up from the wad of spittle until he locked eyes with Hill. The inquisitor’s eyes burned with anger.

“Ah, yes. No matter nor mind about dead bodies without faces showing up in your cemetery, and your fellow townsfolk huddling in your homes, quaking in fear of something that hides in the woods out there. Tell me, Mister Hill. How are those 'old ways’ working out for you now?”

Sherman lost his temper and threw a punch at the man in black. The next thing he knew, he was pushing himself off the ground, using his sleeve to wipe filth from his face and noticing that he had gotten mud all over his jacket.

“I think you misunderstand me,” said the inquisitor, looming over him like a dark tower. “I am here to help you. I don’t believe in some hogwash about fair folk or witchcraft or some such nonsense. I do, however, believe that some crusty old cult of pagans will cover for one another, and you might know who’s to blame for your town’s recent misery.”

Back up on his feet, Sherman turned for his home’s front door, eager to shut the inquisitor out and pretend they never met. He could feel the burning gazes of his neighbors peering out through their windows, witnessing this odd spectacle unfold in front of Hill’s house. He ripped the door open.

“Tell me where to look for the culprits, and I will make this stop,” said Armstrong, raising his voice as if Hill had trouble hearing him.

Hill slammed the door shut behind himself. He trembled with fear, rage, and other things. He had trouble identifying everything that coursed through his body right now.

“God help you, man. I cannot—if you don’t cooperate,” the inquisitor continued talking, now muffled once more by the closed door between them.

Hill’s heart raced. A distinct lack of sounds indicating the inquisitor’s departure led him to sense the man’s presence just outside his door, waiting for a response.

Every fiber in Sherman Hill’s body rebelled. He wanted to just tell this inquisitor what he knew so he would go away. So he would leave him alone.

Maybe the people from the church could truly make this terror stop?

But his grandfather had always forbidden them from speaking that name. “The roads of our village will run red with blood and entrails if we betray the ancient oaths,” old Derec Hill used to say. “Never speak the Prince’s name. For us, he is to be called nothing but the Fair Prince of Fragrant Flowers, especially to unwary outsiders.” His grandfather never explained why. Only how.

Hill opened the door a crack. The inquisitor had already turned to leave, walking towards the road through the town of Hallowglen.

“In the Blackwood is an old ruin,” Hill spoke.

The inquisitor stopped dead in his tracks and peered back at him over his shoulder.

“Old monastery or some such, don’t know. Beyond that is a dark cave, surrounded by vines and leafy trees that stay evergreen even in the deepest of winters,” said Hill.

The inquisitor said nothing. He just listened.

“That’s his lair. The one you’re looking for.”

The inquisitor’s brow arched as he asked, “Whose lair?”

A gust of wind shot through the crack in between frame and ajar door, sending new shivers down Hill’s spine.

“Prince Fainlahset,” whispered Hill.

The inquisitor sighed and continued on towards the road.

“Good day, Mister Hill,” he said without turning around to face the man.

Hill grimaced. Anger welled in his stomach. He sensed that the inquisitor now ignored him and did not believe what he had just been told. He closed door and bolted it shut.

He had been looking forward to that carrot stew and the tea from earlier had invigorated him. But this encounter with the inquisitor had left Sherman Hill weary; wearier than any of his work had ever left him before. Exhausted, even.

Removing his jacket, he sat down at the table. A jumble of thoughts invaded his mind, whispers and echoes from the past. Dispelling them in one instant, he slammed his fists onto the table, causing his lantern to jump up and fall over.

His stomach knotted. Hill felt like something terrible was afoot now. His hands trembled when he buried his face in them.

He jolted up, sitting upright in the chair at the table. Sleep must have overtaken him, as the broad daylight pouring in through his foggy windows had yielded to a suffocating darkness. The room was deathly cold now, the fire in his stove long died down without anybody to stoke and feed it.

Something strange hung in the air—a sweet fragrance. Not as strong as a woman’s perfume. More like carrots. Or wild strawberries?

Hill fumbled around on the table until his fingers found purchase on the cold surface of his gas lantern. He switched it on.

The light it cast illuminated a figure sitting across from him at the table. The unexpected and unwanted guest’s presence made Hill grip the sides of his chair lest he fall off of it.

The figure there looked human at first, but the proportions of its limbs were all wrong. Its skin reflected the light, shiny and sleek—its skin was no skin, but a silvery, metal armor, completely encasing the creature and revealing not one bit of skin. Two dots, like tiny lights, stared at Hill through a thin slit of a visor. The gauntlets of this guest rested on the table’s surface, but featured only two fingers and a thumb each, hooked and shaped like monstrous claws.

Whispers erupted from its ghastly helmet, smithed to resemble a beastly maw of sharp teeth, like that of a misshapen wolf or abominable bear.

It took Hill a moment to understand that those whispers carried words, but no words that he could ever hope to comprehend.

Scampering, skittering sounds erupted all around him, scurrying about. Hill’s head and eyes darted and flitted back and forth, trying to catch a glimpse—any glimpse—at what else had invaded his home. But whatever those things were, they were small and eluded his sight, hiding in the dark corners of his home and watching at him from the darkness.

The armored creature across from him whispered more words in a guttural tongue that Hill failed to decipher. The things around him neared, tiny claws clicking and scraping over the floorboards as they crept closer. The terror that now gripped Hill, cutting through his flesh and bone and right down into his heart, told him not to turn. To not see what lurked behind him.

Not even when dozens of needle-like pinpricks pierced his flesh. Something warm and sticky soaked Hill’s clothing. The man wanted to move, but his limbs refused to obey him now. Hill whimpered and the armored figure whispered more sentences at him.

Just one word—or a name—kept repeating. Something that sounded like, “Senethean.” Dread and hopelessness flooded Hill’s mind like a fog, drowning out everything else. Even the growing sensation of pain, flooding in from all those frayed nerve ends. He wanted to scream, but something sharp and salty lodged itself in his throat. And came out the other end, though he dared not move or look down. If he even could, now.

Although Sherman Hill could not understand a single word of this ancient tongue, he instinctively knew what he was being told.

“You have betrayed the sacred oaths.”

And that smell. That sweet, sweet smell. It clouded everything, draped itself over his mind, numbed the pain. Hill’s thoughts and suffering made way to sleep. He would sleep. He knew he needed to stay awake to live, but the combined burdens of a lifetime weighed down on his eyelids until the world turned black.

The “Senethean” in its silver armor stared at him all the while, whispering its deathly sentence.

When the inquisitor emerged from Hill’s home the next day, his face had turned pale. Town overseer Galway looked at Armstrong with sorrow in his eyes. The inquisitor shook his head.

He did not have it in his heart to describe all the grisly details.

The sight had also robbed Armstrong of the vocabulary to describe how Sherman Hill had been turned inside out, and his innards used to drape the room in almost artistic arrangements, like decorative flower wreaths.

The inquisitor shut the door behind himself and prepared to leave the town of Hallowglen.

—Submitted by Wratts

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