If you enjoyed Natalie Stewart, Lord Denbury and Evelyn Northe-Stewart from my Magic Most Foul and Eterna Files books, you'll LOVE the Spectral City as it picks up years in the future when Lord and Lady Denbury's daughter Eve begins a new adventure; leading The Ghost Precinct of mediums and ghosts helping the NYPD solve weird cases in 1899 NYC!
And other good news!
One of the most frequent questions I get is: Do you have audio books? Well, yes, I shall!
The audio rights for THE SPECTRAL CITY series have sold to Tantor and will be available simultaneously in several formats. (No, I will not be doing the narration. Not for lack of wanting to, but because the company uses in-house talent. I hope to be doing a few of my shorter works in the future, stay tuned!)
You can pre-order the eBook, print paperback and the Audio CD from any of your favorite retailers! Amazon,Barnes and Noble.
In a Book Expo America interview with the fine folks at Bookish, I discuss why I loved writing Twisted Tragedy, the lure of the Gothic, and why I can't help but use theatricality in my work.
Thanks, Jessi and Bookish, for the interview!
For my dear Barnes & Noble loyal readers, many of whom have been waiting and asking, bless you, despite a slight delay, Barnes & Noble editions are at last up and running!
Please Note: This title is not being shelved within Barnes & Noble physical stores. B&N can order it into store for you if you order it, but it won't be sitting there on shelves.
Goodreads users! DOUBLE LIFE has a Goodreads Giveaway happening right now! Put it on your to-read shelf and enter to win a signed copy!
As always, the more you can spread the word about a new work, the better chance at a full life it will have, and as this novel sets the stage for my upcoming Eterna Files, your help in it taking wing will make it fly all the higher! So Tweet, share, + and "like" away!
Cheers, thank you for reading and as always, Happy Haunting!
(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for other chapters)
Dear Readers, as we've crossed into December, today marks the last installment of the serialization to be posted on the blog, however it is not the end of the story! Free serialization has been happening weekly since March, but now that the full novel is available, the Double Life team is letting the rest of the full novel speak for itself in entire completion, in its intended form. For those who haven't already donated, we all hope you'll pick up a copy of the novel. It is now available in print and Kindle formats (Nook / Barnes & Noble links we're told will go live by the end of the week)! (To the Double Life donors who donated $20 or more to the project, your signed books and donor rewards will be shipped/arrive Mid-December). The Double Life team thanks everyone for being a part of this journey. Please enjoy this installment and then the rest, as there's still more story to tell.
Still stay tuned every Tuesday! Because Tuesdays will now become "Teaser Tuesdays" as I release a segment from a forthcoming book or novella, musings on the latest works, insight into the current creative process, or a selection from a work-in-progress. So fresh fiction will still wing its way to you every Tuesday, whatever the current project or teasers for upcoming releases, you'll have exclusive sneak peeks right here, just as you've been the first to read this novel as it's happened! Now I'm expanding the material to a greater range of work. Considering all my series have crossover characters, just think of it as spending time every week with different members of an extended family. An utterly mad and ridiculously colourful extended family...
Jonathon and I jogged up the earthen corridor, coughing. The
increasing smoke would present a problem indeed if we didn't keep moving.
My whole body ached as we finally climbed the stairs into
the cottage. The rest of our compatriots had all found places to collapse ahead
of us, draped on the edges of the bed or leaning bent against fine furniture
that our sooty, bloody, bedraggled forms looked so at odds with.
Someone had opened the front door to the night, to the
forest. Everything outside was still, save for the night sounds of insects and
birds. So quiet. Peaceful. We did not turn on more than the one lamp at the
entrance. We did not want to see the sharp details of what the night had done
to any of us. What it had taken from us.
Jonathon brought a wet towel moistened from an outside water
basin over to me and washed the inked cross from my forehead and then his own.
Reverend Blessing had laid out Maggie's body upon the bay
window where the moonlight upon her face made her lovely face even lovelier and
turned the garish pools of blood all over her dress into grayscale. Mrs. Northe
had Maggie's head in her lap, at work in the moonlight, removing the blood from
her face, neck, arms, and hands with silken kerchiefs.
I knelt upon the divan, and Jonathon drew close. As he sat I
collapsed onto his lap, resting my head in his gentle hands that were shaking
so hard. But he stroked my hair anyway. Wherever we landed, we wept. Silently.
For a long time.
Finally, Mrs. Northe stirred, gesturing Reverend Blessing
over to her side. "Reverend, I'd like to pray with you here, over my
niece, if you would be so kind." I'd never heard her speech so gentle, so
tired, so grieved.
I rose and moved with him; kneeling before the bay window
bier, we prayed over her, said thanks for her, her bravery, and sacrifice. We asked
for forgiveness of all of our sins that led to her death, Mrs. Northe having a
most difficult time with the guilt of it.
I simply took Evelyn's hand, and she held it. I was well
aware it could have easily been me upon those cushions with hands folded over
my still breast. I might have done the same, trying to buy us time, but I'd
never have thought to do what she did, not so boldly. With great sadness I
realized she probably hadn't gotten my letter. I was a fool not to have sent it
sooner.
Death brings such guilt to the living, illuminating all the
things undone and unsaid. It wasn't fair. She didn't deserve such a death. And
yet we didn't deserve such a sacrifice. But if she hadn't done what she did,
likely casualties would have been higher. She may have had no choice.
I wondered what had happened in Chicago right before Maggie left. I wondered
if she had dreams like I did. She'd shared with me, once, that the demon had
visited her dreams. What if she knew it was all as inevitable as I had known?
Somehow that gave me comfort, as her actions seemed far too calculated to have
been inspiration in the moment.
Mrs. Northe had promised there would be death. But even the
most clairvoyant, if too close to the truth, couldn't see it. Not precisely.
"I should have known, I should have seen. It should
have been me." Those words she kept repeating numbly in different
variations. I shook my head at her.
"That does no good, Evelyn," Blessing murmured. "Accept
the facts as they lie. As you live, give thanks for her life. Pray for her
undying soul, that will be rewarded in heaven for such selfless acts."
Mrs. Northe nodded and just kept stroking Maggie's hair. That
was a comfort, the idea of her reward. I hoped in heaven, for Maggie, there
would be lots of balls and pretty dresses and exquisite company, that she'd have
no need for gossip or intrigue, merely be loved and cherished by heavenly hosts
until I'd see her again in some future day and thank her soul myself. I moved
back to rest in Jonathon's arms.
After some time, Brinkman banged upon the iron door from the
other side, making us all jump. He called out to us to let him in.
"Most of the wing was saved," Brinkman said as he
entered, mopping a sweaty brow. "Thank goodness for stone frames between
wings. But you'll need a new dining room, Lord Denbury. I'm off to Scotland Yard,
friends," Brinkman said, crossing the cottage in a few stern strides. "I'll
fill out the reports and keep your further involvement to a minimum. I'll push
for an immediate trial."
"Shouldn't you rest, Mister Brinkman?" I asked.
"Not until I have my satisfaction," he said
gravely. "Those wicked bastards have my son. My child. My only joy in this
goddamn world. I'd rip out all their throats with my bare hands if I thought I
could still find him without their knowledge."
There was a terrible silence in the room at this still
unfinished business.
"Let us know how we can help," Mrs. Northe said
gently.
"Thank you," Brinkman said, burying his pain. He
glanced at Maggie's body. "I take it you knew her. I'm sorry for your
loss."
"We'll be praying for your son," I offered.
Brinkman managed a slight smile.
"Thank you. Ladies, you were very brave. I doubt the
men hidden in those walls waiting for the signal could've done all you did. If
it were up to me, I'd have the queen award you a medal, but I doubt we'll be
allowed to talk much about this, if any of it, ever again," he said with
bitterness. "I'll follow up with Knowles about the properties to make sure
any lands and assets seized by the Society are returned to proper owners. This
is your estate. You've a grateful family who have been ferried off to the
station that would like to return Rosecrest to you."
Jonathon nodded. Brinkman bowed slightly and stormed off. I
heard a cry urging on a fast horse. Hoofbeats pounded off and faded into
silence. For poor Brinkman, this was just one ongoing nightmare. Suddenly I
felt very lucky. I had my joy in this room with me. Maggie's body
notwithstanding.
I glanced from Mrs. Northe to Jonathon, to the tall form
across the room of Reverend Blessing, dark skin gleaming in the moonlight as he
remained in prayerful watch over Maggie's eternal rest, to the brave entwined
couple of Nathaniel and Lavinia who had risen to the ultimate challenge. Lavinia
was already fast asleep on Nathaniel's shoulder.
I had everyone I needed right here, except Father. Mother
lived on in my heart, having always shown herself when I needed her most. Love
was like that, taking the form of angels when faced with devils.
As the cottage had neither amenities nor staff, it was not a
place we could weather the night. The appetite we'd all lost during the battle
returned with painful awareness. But we couldn't be seen like we were.
Nathaniel gently roused Lavinia, and we each did as best we could to put
ourselves together. We hid our bloodstained clothes under cloaks and rode into Greenwich proper in
Nathaniel's fine carriage. All of us were able to fit as Lavinia chose to ride
up above with Nathaniel driving. At the back of the carriage, laid out upon
clean boards and swathed in thick layers of black fabric, Margaret Hathorn's
corpse made the journey back with us.
We went to the nearest inn, a modest establishment, and took
over a shadowed corner of the public rooms and ate everything they could lay
out for us. Something about the looks on our faces did not invite any comment.
It was late, after all. And we were a bedraggled, strange set of compatriots
that thankfully no one took exception to. Surely we looked as haunted and as at
the precipice of death as we felt.
The gentlemen took turns driving back to London, all of us dozing in and out. That night,
in Jonathon's flat, the whole motley crew remained gathered. None of us could
bear to be alone or separated because our collective trauma made us stronger.
I cried myself nearly sick. Nothing else would do. The anguish
I felt was only matched by a wave of hatred for myself, guilt threatening to
drag me under into a mental state that I wondered if I could recover from after
the progressive stages of grief. I'd been stronger when I had been trying to
soothe Mrs. Northe. Now that reality was truly setting in, I was coming undone.
Someone dying in your arms is something no one can prepare
you for.
It is the most terrible thing in the world.
It is the most incredible thing in the world.
Because never are you so aware of your own fragility, of
that precarious moment between life and death. One moment here. The next, gone.
A fleeting, breathless moment gives over to no breath ever again.
It was eerie, it didn't feel real, it felt like a thousand
knives in my heart and in my eyes, replaying her final moment. Her fine,
amazing, brave, incredible final moments. Here I thought I was brave and she
was weak. I was a fool, and she was a savior.
I threw up everything that was in my stomach and cried every
tear that could be cried and still they came. Jonathonjust continued to bring me water and hold me
tighter. But he couldn't hold this away. Sometimes we cried together, for my
tears granted permission for his.
Seeing his reanimate mother had to have been one of the
worst possible sights a person could ever see. The fact he retained his sanity
was a miracle. I was grateful I'd encountered my dead mother again as a ghost,
a beautiful spirit helping me from the beyond. Poor Jonathon had been first confronted
with his mother's desecration, and I would do anything to have taken that sight
away. At least her spirit had won out and helped us, managing to redeem that
dreadful blasphemy into a transcendent truth.
Our pain was so severe and so specific, we just held on to
each other, knowing we were all we had, companions who had been through every
level of personal hell, together, miraculously still alive to speak of it.
Though I wondered if we'd ever speak of it again. I wanted to forget everything
but the feel of his arms holding me as the sensation made life bearable.
Jonathon just held me until it was inappropriate for him to
be in the same room with me any longer. It was only a mere hour or so before
dawn. Lavinia and Nathaniel were curled up somewhere, recovering on their own time
and terms.
At some point sleep claimed me until I was roused by
something bright and cold hovering at the foot of the guest room bed.
Maggie floated before me.
I couldn't be sure if it was real or a dream, but I was very
glad to see her spirit, in whatever way it wished to see me.
"Hello, my friend," I whispered. The tears came
again. "I don't deserve you."
"Me?" Maggie scoffed. "The friend that almost
had you killed back in New York?
Of course you did. You do. This was
my penance, Natalie."
"No, Maggie—"
"It was, Natalie. It was foretold. Your mother has been
very kind to me. She's been showing me the ways of this place, this in-between
area where I'm still watching the world but above it. The Angel Walk, she calls
it, as she fancies herself your guardian angel."
"She is," I stammered through my tears.
"There are two walks," Maggie's ghost said
excitedly. "The angels walk a path. And so do the devils. That's the path
the Society was trying to carve open. From here you can see where things have
come and where things may go. One life to the next, one body, one soul to the
next… So many possibilities." Her voice was filled with a beautiful
wonderment. "When you and I meet again someday, I'd like to think we will
be better friends."
"We will be," I said through renewed tears. She
was staring at me with such calm, such care, such love, the sort of warmth I
always imagined an angel or Jesus might look upon me with, a look that knew of
terrible suffering, temptation, and pain but chose to stare lovingly instead. "I
promise you. If whatever or whoever I am is too blind to see the woman you're
capable of being, shake me out of it."
"I think you'll know, next time," Maggie said. "If
there's such a thing as past lives, well, we will have learned in the next one."
"We are imperfect creatures down here, Maggie. I'm sure
things look so much different up there."
"Perspective." She said, bobbing slightly in the
air. "Don't lose yours. There may be storms yet ahead, who knows. You have
people who need you."
"We all needed you."
Her grayscale form smiled. "It was nice to be needed
for once."
"You were never not needed, we—"
Maggie held up a ghostly hand to shut me up. "Stay
safe, Natalie Stewart. Take care of that lord of yours."
"I promise I will. If you can visit again... I hope you
will."
Maggie shrugged. "I don't know... I've a lot of
exploring to do."
"Evelyn will want to see you. Your aunt is devastated."
"In time." Maggie shrugged. "When she's
ready, she'll see me. We see what we need to see when we can best handle it,
whether it feels like it or not. I've a letter for you, back in New York. It will
explain everything."
"Thank you." I reached out to the chill air before
me. "Truly. I owe you so much more than that, but—"
"You're welcome," Maggie said, waving a ghostly
hand as if it were nothing. When it had been everything. "Truly."
Celebrate Cyber Monday by picking up The Double Life of Incorporate Things, the Magic Most Foul finale, complete, all 29 chapters in novel form as intended- not all of which have serialized here- so come join Natalie and Jonathon as their storyline resolves! Now available on Kindle and Trade Paperback!
(Nook and Barnes & Noble editions to come, there was a delay, but should be up by the end of this week.)
To my Double Life donors of $20 or more, your signed books and donor prizes will arrive by mid-December, so just sit tight!
From the back cover:
"Just when we think our nightmares are over, the Society has invented a new
horror. Around every corner a shadow, behind every whisper a demon. If we don't
end what the devils began, we will die haunted..."
The finale in the
acclaimed Magic Most Foul trilogy: The trauma and the terror of the Master's
Society has only escalated for the dashing Lord Denbury and brave, feisty Miss
Natalie Stewart, and a new terror has been unleashed in Manhattan. Together with
their stalwart friends and unlikely heroes, they take the fight directly to the
Denbury estate, where new evils have awakened. But are they prepared for all the
sacrifices that shall be asked of them? With their very lives and the sanctity
of their mortal souls at stake, Natalie and Jonathon are past the point of no
return...
Please help Natalie and Jonathon reach the stars! Your tweets, shares, reviews, it all helps so much! Once a book hits 40 reviews on Amazon, the book receives better promotion and access, so those of you who have enjoyed the serial up to its climax, I'd love whatever thoughts you'd like to leave in an Amazon review!
I'm SO excited to share this full novel with you, I've loved every minute of this Magic Most Foul journey, these characters are so very precious to me, which is why many of them will continue on into my next Eterna Files saga, so be sure to pick up this novel so you can meet the amazing heroine, Clara Templeton, who appears in the very end of Double Life.
Stay tuned this week as I'll be revealing new blog features! Tomorrow marks the last Double Life installment with Chapter 27 out of the novel's 29 Chapters, from then on we'll keep Tuesdays fresh with new Teaser Tuesdays; musings on the latest works, on the artistic process, with excerpts from forthcoming work or works-in-progress. Since all my novels are part of parallel worlds, its like visiting an extended family every week!
Thank you for being a part of my worlds, and for loving the families I've created there as much as I love writing them. You, dear reader, are why I do what I do, to bring my families to yours.
(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)
Chapter Twenty Six (Part 5)
Mrs. Northe, seeing that we had the family well in hand,
turned her attention to the wavering wall portal, staring at it with concern.
She began murmuring another iteration of numbers, but this time, from what I
could guess, it was a sequence in the proper golden ratio, as high as she could
think of and starting back again at a low number. Reclaiming the divine
patterns, wresting a semblance of peace from the grip of malevolence. The edges
of the carved wall, now cleansed of the blood tokens, flickered back into
becoming a wall once more.
I stayed focused on the shifting paintings and the
struggling possessed bodies, though I wanted to see the look of surprise on the
faces of the two conscious leaders. None of them could have possibly known we
could directly reverse one of their most consistent magics. I deserved a
self-congratulatory moment of pride, but I didn't dare take my eyes off my
targets.
Nathaniel rose to grab the little girl, even as a shot rang
out. There was a scream and a clatter of a gun. One of the Majesties was
clutching a bleeding forearm, blood all over the white tablecloth. It would
seem Vincenzi had tried to fire a weapon, trying to take advantage of the chaos
of wind, still-hovering objects, and the maddening whispers that summoning demons
produced in the air, but Brinkman got to him before he could fire, a wisp of
smoke floating up from Brinkman's own pistol.
Vincenzi was too late. The countercurse worked its magic.
There was a crackle of fire, and a fresh new screaming in
the air added to the ongoing wail of Lady Denbury's ghostly retinue. In a huge,
roaring pop, the paintings all came off their hinges and slid to the floor,
leaving tracks of greasy, bloody paint along the wall as they descended; the
canvasses were wet with indeterminate moisture. Trapped now in the frames
leaning at odd angles against the wall were horrid forms, twisted and nearly
gargoyle-like. Indistinct, demonic heads topped the fine clothes that were
warped and dripping. Only the most ugly ephemera remained; an evil imprint,
oily and greasy, a sheen of bloody perspiration bubbled up on sulfuric
canvases.
So too did the bodies fall, slumping to the floor as if
marionette strings had been cut. We knelt with the families as they began to
rouse, terrified, but as Jonathon did, having some sense.
Brinkman took one look at the horrid exhibition against the
wall and blew his whistle loud and several times, until the room crawled with
officers. He instructed them to get the Winsome family to safety and explained
in no uncertain terms who was friend and who was foe. The family was all too
happy to exit the premises. The little girl threw her arms around me. The
husband scooped up his son in his arms and seemed too ashamed to look at any of
us who had helped him. The mother collected her daughter and murmured to me as
an officer ushered her out: "I don't understand, but thank you…"
Above the din of the police, Reverend Blessing continued the
exorcism rite, and this seemed to give comfort to the pallid officers, coming
into the scene with no idea what to expect, but seemingly glad for some kind of
spiritual offset. If the officers were uncomfortable taking blessings from a
man of color, they didn't show it. I think they knew, seeing this scene, what
was right to fear and who was a mere brother in humankind.
Blessing clutched the Society's insidious '"book of
death,'" and between scriptural declamations he continued to read off
names within, bidding that the souls mauled by the claws of the Society find
their deserved rest.
"Spirits who weep here, heed me," Blessing
bellowed into the foul air, his deep, rich voice captivating and compelling.
"These men seek to gain power through methods of torturous unrest. Be
their downfall by granting your own souls the peace God wants for you."
There was still a wavering line where the portal had gaped
wide. Mrs. Northe was facing it, her arms out, her body fierce and taut,
proclaiming scripture at the portal to try to shut it at last. Wrestling
against the closing of the door, a black form darted out from the portal and
careened into the hall. A demon on the loose.
"No!" Jonathon cried and ran after the wretched
thing in the instant.
"No!" I cried and ran after him. I didn't think
twice any more than he did. I just pursued.
Dimly, I realized the force was headed for the study,
snuffing the lights out down the hall as it passed. Light by light, the vile
force plunged our surroundings into darkness. We pursued it into the study
where one gas-lamp chandelier remained dimly lit, casting the room into an eerie
glow.
But the moment we both crossed the threshold, the door
slammed shut behind us of its own accord and the gas lamp guttered into a pale,
sickly blue pilot. Now it was just us in the dark. And a raw, untethered demon.
Jonathon went to the desk and turned a lamp, which
illuminated for us that the black form stood in front of the window where
beyond, the night was cool and dark, but the demon was blacker than the black
night, its form not richly beautiful in night shadow, but empty and void of all
life.
Jonathon and I stared at one another helplessly, and in the
instant we both started crying scripture at its chasm-like form. Jonathon threw
himself in front of me as the form floated closer. I struggled to put myself in
front of him instead, but he kept me behind him. If such a thing inhabited
Jonathon again, my mind would crack under the strain.
I withdrew the sharp scissor point from my bodice. But what
a blade would do against an incorporeal force was laughable.
A wave of anger and despair washed over me, perhaps the
effect the presence had upon us. Suddenly I wanted to shove Jonathon away from
me. To be anywhere but near him. Ugly sounds gurgled in both of our throats.
Snarling, animalistic noises. It would turn us against each other. In a locked
room. While chaos still reigned in the rest of the house.
Down the hall I could hear that the wailing had resumed.
This time, it had more voices.
The siren that was dead Lady Denbury had all the officers
screaming too. It was, in the end, too much for us.
The spirits animating the corpse, the open portal, the
lingering dark magic, all the amassed horrors the Society had brought upon this
house, down into the floorboards and mortar, it was in the end too much for a
few stalwart souls to close up and shut down. We needed an army of those as
experienced as Blessing and Mrs. Northe. The rest of us were too beaten down,
our reserves tapped by so many facets of this unexpected war. We'd fought a
good fight. But now…
Our shoulders sagged as Jonathon and I both choked and
shook. We were paralyzed by the dread and horror that was the core of the
demonic presence. I felt a hand clamp around my neck. It wasn't Jonathon's. It
was my own, the terrible force eating us inward, turning our own tired selves
against us. We sunk to our knees, both of us gasping and snarling. I tried to
rally, to reject the presence. A choking "I renounce thee..."
afforded me one deep breath before the suffocating darkness threatened to
overwhelm me once more.
I clutched the small scissors in my hand. Whispers careened
around my ears. They urged me to drive the blade into my own flesh. To just
give up. To let them in. To give them room. The point of the very sharp scissor
point pierced my wrist, by my own doing. A drop of blood welled up. I remembered
the runes that the magic had carved into my flesh, and I found myself making a
line up my wrist, searing, burning pain sharpening every sensation.
"Natalie," Jonathon choked. A tendril of black
shadow sweeping out from the demon's wake was wound around his neck, manifest
evil taking shape and wielding violence.
I stared at the line of blood seeping from my wrist, my
heart racing from the burning pain of it. I couldn't give up like this. This
incorporeal beast before me was just that: incorporeal. It needed to be shot
down with a bullet of light, faith, hope, and determination.
I pulled upon everything that had brought me to this point
in one final shrugging off. I thought of all the sacrifices, Maggie's lovely,
bloodstained face flashing before my eyes as if I were praying to a saint. She
was a saint here today, and I was stronger than this. If she could take in five
of the beasts, I could take on one. The worst wretches of the corporeal and
incorporeal world always underestimated determined young women.
I remembered the cross that burned upon her, and with one
even slice of the open scissor blade, I intersected the bleeding line up my
wrist with another one, to make a cross. I lifted up my wrist, blood pooling in
the lace at my cuffs. "I renounce thee!" I cried as the black
silhouette of the demon advanced upon me, hovering.
But like Joan, I needed more armor. I looked around wildly
for something else. I picked up the inkwell on Jonathon's desk, and I plunged
my finger into it, making the sign of the cross upon my forehead as if it were
Ash Wednesday. From dust we were made and unto dust we would return. But not
today.
"I renounce thee!" I shrieked again. Jonathon was
trying to close the distance between us, and I fell to my knees before him,
using the inkwell to paint a messy cross over his brow. "We renounce
thee!" Our rejection caused a tremor in the room. Books rattled on their
shelves. The expensive trinkets from around the world shuddered on the marble
fireplace mantel. The window panes shivered.
Jonathon shook his head, as if tossing off a terrible dream.
He narrowed his eyes at the hesitating, pulsing dark form. "Upon the
graves of our beloved mothers," Jonathon bellowed, "we renounce
thee!"
A sudden burst of light had us blinking and wincing, and
suddenly between us and the horrid, silhouetted form of congealed evil, floated
the bright white forms of two beautiful women. Angels called down to the fight.
I recognized one of the angels as my own. And the second one looked a great
deal more like Jonathon than that thing wailing down the hall did.
"You leave our children alone," the spirit of my
mother said to the vacuous silhouette in a venomous tone. "This is the
end. Your kind has failed. You cannot win against such wondrous love as
this." She turned her beaming, beautiful face upon us, and tears of
amazement rolled down my cheeks.
"Did you hear that?" said the second spirit, a
beautiful woman in a lavish gown, in a vicious hiss In the name of God the
Father, of the Son, of the Holy Ghost. In the name of all the saints, the host
of angels, and everything that is holy, get out of my house!" shrieked the spirit of Lady Denbury.
Lady Denbury was not tied to that body in the dining room at
all but instead tied to her beloved son. Her spirit was resilient and made new
again in the fight. The bright, transparent form of Lady Denbury lifted an
elegant hand into the air and sharply backhanded the inelegant, tar-black form
before her, and it splintered into a spattering mess, wet ashes upon the fine
rug, nothing but ugly residue.
Jonathon seized me and stepped back so that none of the
demonic muck could land upon me, all the while staring up at the ghost of the
mother he'd never had time to grieve. The two ghostly women looked down at
their embracing children.
"Don't go, Mother," Jonathon gasped, his tears
flowing as freely as mine. "I never got to say good-bye, I—"
"I love you too, my darling, perfect boy," Lady
Denbury said with a dazzling smile. "And you needn't say good-bye. I'll
always be with you."
"I am so sorry, Mum," Jonathon said in gasping
breaths. "I should've done more, I should've saved you—" He tried to reach
out and touch her, hold her.
"You've done everything you can," Lady Denbury
replied. "Look at all you've done. You've done more than you even know, my
darling. I am so proud of you."
"Both of you," my mother added. "Don't they
make a perfect couple, Lady Denbury?"
"Indeed. She's Lady
Denbury now." Jonathon's mother smiled at me. "And I couldn't rest
happier."
"Be well, darlings," my mother said as she and her
friend in heaven began to fade. "We're never far, we live within you, and
in any darknesses, we are with you. Never forget. Live in the light."
"I love you," both Jonathon and I blurted to our
mothers simultaneously before they faded entirely. We swayed on our feet,
breathing heavily. The study door swung open again of its own accord. There was
no more screaming anywhere. Just the murmur of activity. Of cleanup. Of a
battlefield victorious.
Somewhere I could hear Moriel raving as he was being led
away, leveling threats and decrying the undeserving underclass. There was
another loud smacking thud, and I suspected Brinkman had knocked him out again.
It was admirable Brinkman hadn't killed Moriel, really. I'm sure the government
would have given him leave to do so; however, whatever secret Moriel held had
something to do with someone Brinkman loved. Human beings could do amazing,
nearly inhuman things for love. This was something the Society seemed keen on
subverting though they seemed unable to understand it. It was not something
they could overpower. That was their ultimate hubris.
I heard Mrs. Northe calling for us.
"In here," I called into the hall with the last of
my energy, allowing Jonathon to gather me up into his arms, sinking with me
again onto the floor, our backs against his beautiful bookcase.
We were bloody and drenched in sweat, ink, and water, our
clothes torn and besmirched. Bruised, battered, alive. Grieving. Joyous.
Relieved. Exhausted. Alive. Jonathon
tore his black silk cravat and made a bandage for my wrist.
Suddenly there were shouts and screams once more. Did I
rejoice too soon? I smelled smoke. And burning flesh.
The dining room was on fire.
Brinkman popped a sweaty, smeared face into the study,
standing wide-eyed at the threshold. "The corpse. The corpse of Lady
Denbury… It..."
"Went up in flames," I finished. "The spirits
will have their revenge. Let them combust the body. It's part of
resolution…"
"My men are instituting a bucket brigade from your rear
well, Lord Denbury," Brinkman said. "We'll do what we can to save the
building. You've a haven at a safe distance, yes? We should evacuate you and
your friends from the estate at last."
Jonathon nodded. "Up the earthen corridor behind the
library. A cottage."
"Go on then, quickly." Brinkman shooed all of us
into the hall and toward the library. I saw my four friends going on ahead, with
Reverend Blessing carrying Maggie's corpse in his strong arms. The sight made
tears spring forth again. Nathaniel and Lavinia directed them toward the
library, and they disappeared into the next rooms.
"Do hurry," Brinkman insisted. "After all
we've been through, I'd hate for a lowly fire to take you down. I'll join you
once I see to it the men are at work with the well."
"Thank you, Mister Brinkman, for everything,"
Jonathon called. Brinkman batted a hand in the air and ran off.
Jonathon Whitby, Lord Denbury, III, paused in the middle of
his corridor, watching flames licking out into the hall from Rosecrest's lovely
dining room. Jonathon stared at the flames of destruction.
"Sometimes," he murmured in a haunted, sad voice that was elder than
his years, "some things are best left to burn."
He grabbed me by the arm, and we darted toward safety.
--
(End of Chapter 26.5 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewartand/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.
Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)
(For previous chapters, see right side bar. If viewing by mobile, scroll down from http://leannareneebooks.blogspot.com for all chapters)
Chapter Twenty Six (Part Four)
There was smoke curling up in wisps from her bodice. Something
had ignited upon her, perhaps within her... I struggled with my bindings,
lifting the chair up behind me, managing a heavy step nearer to Maggie, but she
shoved my shoulder with preternatural strength and I nearly hit my head on one
of the table's sturdy candelabrum, a wisp of my hair catching in a candle flame.
It was a cross that burst into fire right at her sternum. A
large crucifix had been hidden beneath her bodice, and it burned free of the
layers, a solid metal pendant the size of my palm. As the cross ignited and
sizzled her flesh so did it seem the demons burned within her, broiling from
the holy water.
Jonathon jumped to his feet in the
chaos. He hadn't been tied to the chair, only bound with wrists behind his
back. He turned his back to the table and lifted his wrists over the candles on
his side of the table, burning his hands and his cuffs. I could smell these
terrible separate stenches of burning flesh and fabric. But in doing so, he
burned his bindings too. Brave man, he suffered melting flesh on the side of
his palm but snapped his wrists free. He too bounded toward Maggie, but she
tossed him off as if he were a rag doll and his body came perilously close to
the still-open portal where forces hung suspended in this precarious
battleground.
Jonathon reeled to regain his
balance and rushed back over to me. As the side of his palm wept blood and
peeling skin, he undid my bindings.
It was not only Maggie's scream that filled the room but a magnified
and horrible sound, many screams, burning from the inside out as the blessed
liquid doused the demons within. Demons who were surely killing her from inside,
as blood began pouring from her ears, dribbling from her lips, tears of blood
rolling down her cheeks.
Her still-standing body went rigid, shuddering and shaking,
the blood pouring faster. It was the most horrible sight I could have imagined.
This was after having witnessed the sallow flesh of the dead come to life. But
to see the living tortured so...
"Maggie!" I screamed amid the screams. She
staggered to the side, to me, into my arms, and I sunk with her to the floor. I
held her tight. And because I spoke now for someone else's life, somehow my
disability was no match for this fight. My tongue and speech were free.
"Maggie, listen, say with me, say to the devils,"
I cried in a choking, desperate gasp, tears streaming from my eyes as the blood
wept from hers. "I renounce thee...
I renounce thee..." Her body shuddered and shook, her blood seeped all
over my skirts and sleeves.
Margaret Hathorn looked up at me and smiled weakly, causing
another river of blood to pour forth from her lips, and there was an aura of
great white light about her, an angelic halo that took my breath away with
heavenly beauty. She seemed as though she wanted to say something.
But then she died in my arms.
I screamed a wailing sob. I closed her eyelids immediately.
Her dead, open stare would undo my mind. I held her close, her body and blood
still warm.
But there was no time to mourn. For then, another cascade of
events happened all at once. It was everything I could do to keep up.
The other two Majesties started up with the counting and the
chanting again, which made the demonic threshold active, rippling open once
more, but their incantation was stopped by Brinkman cocking the pistols. Nathaniel
had managed somehow to wrestle one of the throwing knifes into his palm and was
cutting loose his bindings and Lavinia's in turn.
Jonathon picked up a pitcher of water and threw them at the
portal, directly toward the lintel and sides, trying to wash away the blood and
ash that had activated it. Nathaniel did the same with a second pitcher.
Lavinia took up a tureen of soup and poured it over the floor, falling to her
knees and scrubbing free all the terrible things that had made this room such a
magnet for the demons. All this action against the portal caused the rectangle
to flicker. The heavy dread of the room lifted slightly. A scale sliding more
toward our victory.
But the corpse of Jonathon's mother started screaming again.
Items lifted off the table again and all of us winced, clapping our hands to
our ears. I lunged for the terrible ledger book of the Master's Society,
searching for clues in its terrible pages. We had to calm the spirits tied to the
effigy of Lady Denbury. The names of the "parts" had to be addressed
and sent to rest.
I dimly heard running footsteps in the hall coming closer. Was
it the police officers at last? But Brinkman hadn't blown the whistle… Who
else…
Yet more familiar faces ran into the room, one dark and one
fair, both looking alarmed. Reverend Blessing and Mrs. Northe! Blessing dressed
in his clerical suit and collar, Evelyn Northe in an elegant but unadorned
riding habit.
Exactly where they'd come from, I couldn't know. They likely
had traveled as soon as they could. Mrs. Northe wielded a pistol, the reverend,
a cross. My heart soared, but as Brinkman trained a gun toward them, Jonathon,
Lavinia, and I all lurched forward and shouted some variant of:
"No, they're on our side!"
Moriel, who had roused again from the punch, was aghast at
the sight of the reverend's dark skin, for he snorted: "Oh, and you dare bring a blackamoor into my sight to soil the very air around us? Your
species really is—"
Another punch from Brinkman sent Moriel back into the
pudding again, causing Blessing almost to smile, but his gaze was soon focused
directly on the more pressing matter of the reanimate corpse, and he moved near
it, knowing exactly what to do as he had done in Doctor Preston's hospital wing.
Mrs. Northe took a moment to consider the wavering, open portal but swept the
room to meet our gazes first.
"My friends," Mrs. Northe cried. "Are you all—"
That's when she saw that Maggie was in my arms. Alongside the siren-like wail
of the reanimate body, she shrieked, falling to her knees at my side. I stared
at her helplessly.
"She took them into
her," I cried. "Demons. From the portal. Five of them. We couldn't
stop her, we didn't know—"
"It should have been me," Mrs. Northe insisted,
tears splashing onto Maggie's scorched bodice. "It should always have been
me, bearing the brunt, my poor girl, no, it should have been me—"
"Right before Maggie acted," I explained, "she
looked at me, with stern resolution, as if this was the only thing she could do."
I spoke as if somehow an explanation could ease the pain. It didn't.
In the background I heard Blessing begin an exorcism rite to
untie and set to rest the collective of unseen spirits that by our experience
we knew were attached to the embodiment of Lady Denbury. The other two Majesties
were laughing and taunting the black man, calling him derogatory names, the
Society clearly based on the falsehood of racial superiority along specific
bloodlines.
But Blessing was unruffled by the racist slurs. He remained focused
on spiritual matters at hand. The Denbury body was one thing, but the retinue
of spirits, they were further unwanted company. We could all feel the chill the
ghosts carried in their wake.
"Reverend Blessing, the names of the dead are writ here,"
I declared, sliding the ledger book across the dining room table toward him,
fighting to be heard against the din of spiritual unrest.
He nodded and began addressing the spirits the Society used
in their methods to power reanimate bodies. He called them by the names listed
in the book. He bid them leave the dead flesh and promised that their remains
would be put in sacred ground. The poltergeist effects the spirits were
wreaking in the room began to settle a bit. Mrs. Northe echoed all of Blessings
words, acting as his assisting minister in the exorcism rite, though she
reiterated and enforced his scripture while still rooted to the ground near
Maggie's cooling body.
The two conscious Majesties started up with insidious
chanting again, in a tongue indiscernible to me, and as they did, the open
portal wavered, dark shadows drew closer to the threshold, as if another wave of
monsters were about to seep over. Brinkman nodded at Nathaniel and spat in one
of the Majesty's faces. Sansalme just sneered up at him. Nathaniel moved to gag
both the men on either side of the still unconscious Moriel.
"This is just the beginning," Sansalme said in a
slight accent I thought might be French. "You've really no idea." He
dabbed Brinkman's spit out of his eye with a silk handkerchief.
"Well, I'm sure you'll be telling us all about it in a
court of law," Brinkman growled.
"No…" Sansalme replied, seemingly unconcerned.
This terrified me as much as the portal. What could threaten these wretches? I
shook myself away from staring at them in disgust.
"We need to get the 'help,' the family, together,"
I cried to Jonathon, to Mrs. Northe, to Nathaniel and Lavinia, who were still
trying to repair and erase the various dark magic effects upon the room. "That's
the cue for the arrests!"
We had to settle the room, lest the police turn against the
unwitting victims, as the officers could hardly be sure who or what was doing
the damage. This was the type of horrific chaos the Society wished to wreak,
where no one could effect change and keep faith, where no one knew who was
friend or foe. Where everyone turned against one another. But the Society
couldn't know what a wonderful team we had among us.
I stared down at Maggie's corpse. My despair would not help
the dead woman in my arms who had been so brave. It was my turn to show that
kind of strength and willingness of sacrifice. I had the knowledge to wield a
countercurse, and I needed to wield it now. I shifted Maggie off my lap, and
Mrs. Northe took her into her arms instead. Her blood had soaked through my
dress, was all over my hands. I couldn't worry about that.
I darted to the elaborate screen that traditionally hid the
staff during the meal and closed off the door that led to the kitchen stairs.
And there the family stood, dazed, just behind the wooden panels. Glassy eyed, they
stood slightly swaying, waiting to be summoned. The sight of all four of them
triggered my immediate shout as I dragged the children forward first. As soon
as I moved, Jonathon was with me in the instant, following with the wife and Nathaniel
with the husband.
"Ego transporto
animus ren per ianua, Beelzebub the Devil!" I cried, and Jonathon
echoed me.
The adults struggled against us, the demons within sensing
that we were at war. Jonathon dodged a punch; I nearly had my hands bitten by
the red-eyed children. Lavinia, Blessing, and Mrs. Northe all rushed to lend
hands while still spouting scripture. The forces which sought to harm us
recoiled. Together we took up the same shout, shoving the disoriented, confused
bodies toward their respective paintings.
We said the countercurse again and again: '"sending the
soul through the door…" This had been Jonathon and my puzzle to sort
through together when we met. The words were roughly translated from Latin, but
with an Egyptian word for "soul-door" put in for an extra
complication, as the portrait frames were literally a door for the soul to be
deposited into. It had been a hard-fought mystery to solve but the countercurse
had worked for restoring Jonathon.
Jonathon, Nathaniel, and Lavinia, all of us took up the
countercurse together, utilizing variants on the Devil, Satan, the damned, any
possible name for what was supposed to be the penultimate of evil, the prince
of darkness itself. We tried to encompass all that these foul energies wished
to be, and in doing so, trap them by the title they aspired to. The power of
the name, we'd learned, was one of the eldest powers of all, and it was one the
Society seemed to take very seriously. We had our faith. They had theirs. And
now we had to play ours against theirs with everything we had.
--
(End of Chapter 26.4 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewartand/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.
Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)
The late Lady Denbury was the body. She was the amalgam of
"parts." She was the
reanimate terror. The final, desecrating insult to the Denbury legacy…
A yellowed corpse with matted, dark hair that was tousled in
what had once surely been a very lovely funereal coiffure now stood as the next
parading terror at the dining room door. She was swathed in black robes synched
by a golden belt, the flowing fabric hiding the somewhat disjointed and uneven
height of her, as her body would have been pieced together from myriad bodies. This
was done so that the unnatural creation would tether as many ghosts to the
reanimate body as possible, one ghost per harvested body part, harnessing the
most amount of life force possible to make the corpse active.
And then the corpse opened its mouth. Everything in the air
screamed in response. This was just like it had been for us in Doctor Preston's
hospital before; the unnatural tie of spirits that powered the body, the tenor
of the dark magic carved into dead flesh, made the very fabric of the air
shriek in a pitch specifically designed to undo the sanity of anyone within
earshot. As the unseen ghosts that made the room drastically chill by their
presence were worked up into spiritual frenzy in the hellish siren wail, plates
and silverware lifted off the fine linen upon which they'd been laid. The
poltergeist phenomena of the attendant spirits was now made active. One
reanimate form created myriad paranormal problems in its wake.
Lavinia and I winced, shrinking from the noise; Nathaniel
clapped hands over his ears, unprepared for this turn. Brinkman closed his eyes
and remained calm.
Jonathon stared in horror at the openmouthed creature that
bore some slight resemblance to his face. This time, this was not something
Jonathon could endure without reaction. He stood and pounded his fists upon the
marble-topped table, causing all silverware airborne by spirits' affectation to
clatter back down onto the marble. "Enough!" he shouted.
Moriel rose and went to the standing, swaying corpse, taking
its yellowed hands in his. "That's enough, dear. You heard him." The
corpse shut its mouth and turned to Jonathon expectantly. It just stood there
like a terrible statue as Jonathon's knuckles went white when he clutched the
back of his chair.
"You will not dishonor the late Lady Denbury so,"
Jonathon growled. "It is an insult to this house!"
"Well played, Lord Denbury III," Moriel laughed,
applauding Jonathon. "You did originally have me convinced. You'll have to tell me how you managed to get
yourself out of the painting, I simply must
know!" he said eagerly. "And also,
what you did, then, to one of my demons! If he is not within you, whatever
happened to him? He'd have wanted a new place to stay…"
Maggie piped up with a distant, airy voice. Amid the latest
horror, I'd almost forgotten about her sitting a seat away from me. "The
demon left Lord Denbury because he wanted to be with me. I kept him… I loved him! He became mine!" She swiveled her
head to Moriel, her eyes glassy, her lips dry and cracked. I wondered if they'd
sedated her with something, or if her mind had simply gone, all the work in Chicago for nothing.
"Ah, did he then?" Moriel asked Maggie gamesomely.
"He did!" she insisted.
"Then you do have your uses, little poppet."
Moriel laughed. "Delightful, all of this! What discoveries we make!
Sansalme, make a note of all this in the book!" The second-in-command
pulled out a fountain pen from his pocket and loomed over me, flipping to a
blank ledger page and taking notes in deep, iron-red ink…
Maggie swiveled her head back and looked directly into my
eyes. Something hardened there. She pursed her lips. She knew me. A fire
flickered there. What was she up to...?
Majesty Moriel looked at the dead Lady Denbury and back to
Jonathon with a sick smile. "I knew resurrecting Mumsy would put you to
the true test, son. I assume your friend here and your baits, then, are
plants." Moriel leered at me, then Lavinia. "But good that you
brought them. They're pretty, they'll do." Then he whipped his gaze back
to Maggie with an altogether darker intent. "Don't you think, Miss
Hathorn? You're very pretty, you've done nicely thus far, to trap a demon for
your very own?"
Maggie just nodded primly and regained that airy voice that
did not sound inhabited as her own. "Thank you, Your Majesty. All for the
greater purpose."
"You see," Moriel said to all of us. "You'll
all come around to Miss Hathorn's way of thinking. You'll see it is the only way." He looked over his
shoulder. "Isn't that right, Mister Brinkman?" Brinkman nodded. I
gritted my teeth.
"Do secure Mister Veil there," Moriel instructed
of Brinkman before turning to Jonathon. "It was good you tied up your
girls, Denbury. Less we have to do." Brinkman pulled a leather strap from
his pocket and secured Nathaniel's hands behind his back. Nathaniel started to
struggle, but Moriel whipped out a second knife from another pocket,
cautioning: "Careful, Mister Veil. I spend my spare hours testing throwing
knives on peasant flesh. I doubt your redhead there would look improved with a blade
jutting from her gullet, now would she? Let Mister Brinkman do his work."
As Nathaniel quieted and Brinkman obeyed, I questioned the
operative's loyalty. I felt everything begin to spin out of control. We weren't
going to make it out alive. The fear I'd kept in check threatened to undo me. I
tried to hold back tears, but one escaped.
The Majesty turned to the yellowed corpse hovering beside
him and instructed: "Go and tie up your son, my love. I don't want him
getting rowdy, but I'd like him to see all this. If he's a good boy, I might
even deign to adopt him as my own. He should've been mine all along."
Jonathon spit at the wretched man. If looks could kill,
Jonathon's expression would have ripped the Majesty limb from limb, slowly and
agonizingly.
The hideous form of what was supposed to represent Lady
Denbury lurched over and bound Jonathon's hands behind the back of the
beautifully carved chair. He would not look up at the thing as it tied him. I
did not blame him. I stared at Jonathon, willing him strength and if he could
read minds, telling him how much I loved him. Suddenly, for him, I felt
invincible, despite these harrowing turns. God had to be on our side. Heaven had to be watching and waiting for us to
make our move... For no one should be meant to endure such hell.
Once finished, the effigy of Lady Denbury shuffled back to
stand against the wall, leaning against the marble of the mantel, slightly in
shadow, as if it needed the corner to prop itself up. Its milky, cataract eyes
were unfocused as it stood awaiting its next orders and purpose.
I wanted to look at Brinkman, to demand, with one glance
alone, why he wasn't saying or doing anything. Surely, this was all punishable
to the death. The Majesties had damned themselves enough, hadn't they? But no,
our rule still stood. We hadn't yet done the countercurse and that had to be done to restore the Winsome
souls to their bodies, lest that hapless family be caught up in collateral
damage. We had to limit the circumference of this ever-expanding circle of woe.
"Now, dinner! Sit and watch your betters eat,"
Moriel said to the gathered company gleefully. "That's how it should be.
How it should always have been. Always
should be!"
The family came in to serve the three Majesties dinner, moving in a daze, their possessed bodies less animate
and more unwieldy than when the demon had overtaken Jonathon. Aprons were slung
over their fine clothes that had begun to tear and fray. I found I couldn't
look at the two children. It was too painful. But I couldn't look at the
representation of Lady Denbury, either; she was too horrid. So I stared at my
empty plate and prayed for our lives. I struggled to keep focused and not give
over to panic and futility.
Food was laid before us. Not that
I had any appetite. Not that we were free to eat. The laying out of food seemed
symbolic, a representative trapping. The Majesties didn't eat, either; they
merely drank a dark wine—if even wine at all, something thick and pitch black
like tar—in crystal goblets. I didn't want to know what it was. It seemed too
viscous and dark to be blood. It left a black stain upon their yellowing teeth.
I imagined all this lavish food going uneaten spoke to the Majesty's desire for
wastefulness, greed, for lavish loss at the expense of others. I could see them
just leaving this whole table to rot. But not while I had breath in my lungs
would I be that passive.
I had been given a second chance
at my voice. I was not about to lose that power now.
Bound or no, we all still had our
voices. Leveling the countercurse would set things in motion as planned. We
couldn't have figured the equation changing so horridly with the corpse of Lady
Denbury, but we couldn't let that derail us. It was up to the rest of us to
stay strong when Jonathon was doing everything in his power to maintain his
sanity. He couldn't look at the creature, either. I didn't blame him. He'd
never properly mourned. I longed for the moment he could and put all these
nightmares at last to bed, with my help.
"The lintel, please, Vincenzi,"
Moriel said, some of the dark substance dribbling down the side of his paunchy
face.
Vincenzi leaned over toward Maggie, and I saw the flash of a
silver knife and blood spurted onto the marble table as Maggie shrieked, her
finger dripping scarlet in the instant. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it
into the goblet before him. "You could have warned me," she pouted to
the large man. He sneered at her. She didn't fight him as he clamped her hand
tighter, swirling the blood in the glass. I had to remind myself she had somehow
come here of her own volition.
The third Majesty rose with the last offering. With the
bloody-tipped knife, he carved a horizontal line meeting the two vertical lines
in a tall rectangle. He poured the contents of the glass across the line,
scarlet blood dripping down the fine wallpaper in dark, garish streaks. I felt
the ground tremble a bit. Vincenzi was murmuring to the wall like his
counterpart had done. As I blinked my eyes, it seemed the wall itself rippled.
Moriel and Sansalme took up murmuring too. Numbers, in a sequence. It was what
Crenfall had been murmuring in his madhouse cell. The golden ratio, but the
divine pattern uttered in reverse. It was writ on the floor in tar and blood
and now murmured actively on their lips.
The first course was being cleared
around us. Soon the possessed bodies of the wretched Winsome family would
either be downstairs or hidden again. I tried to catch Jonathon's eye. We
couldn't delay. We needed to level the countercurse now, while all four of them were in the room. Even though Jonathon
hadn't managed to lure out the Society plan for the recorder in the wings as
Brinkman had demanded, if what that carving of the wall meant what I thought it
might, we couldn't afford a portal...
Whatever was being called or loosed in this room... The police couldn't arrest that... A mouth to hell…
But I couldn't do the countercurse
on my own, not with four souls and bodies to reunite. We all needed to do our
part and all in one concerted effort. I kept trying to get Jonathon to look at
me, but he was transfixed at what was becoming manifest behind Moriel.
A dark rectangular shadow opened
up, like a door swinging open. Where there was a wall, there was now a
corridor. Inside, just like the girding behind the walls of a home, was the
framework between life and death. It was an awesome and terrible sight that was
impossible to truly comprehend, even when staring into its abyss.
I recognized this from one of my
dreams, a corridor between life and death, between forces for light and those
for the dark. Wavering threads hovered inside, weaving and moving like a busy New York street.
The fabric of the very universe was laid bare before us, something we shouldn't
be privy to, but as the Society was tampering with the very tapestry of the world
and tearing at its threads, sticking wrenches into gears, the divine skeleton
was visible beneath the flesh.
Five black, vaguely human forms
peeled out from the ether and into our world, crossing the threshold with
horrible murmurs rising in the air like the cresting of a storm. They were like
shadows without bodies, and they whipped about the dining room like careening
ghosts.
They were visible, black holes,
obliterating chandelier light, firelight, and candlelight as they passed by it.
Fomented misery, they made the air not only frigid, but bitter and malevolent.
The taste of unadulterated evil. As Moriel laughed the forms flew faster,
dizzying in their movement. These were what possessed bodies. These were the
host demons. The sweat of panic dripped down my temples.
The corpse of Lady Denbury began
to groan again; at any moment I expected another full-fledged wail. The
silverware rattled and lifted, hovering a few inches above the table once more.
I wished I could, through force of will, like I had seen spirits do once
before, shift all the knives and forks and any pointed object. I wished I could
drive everything straight into Moriel's chest.
"Come, come," Moriel
cried to the shadowy forms. "I am here to give you life. Soon we'll
outnumber our enemies. Life by life, blood by blood. Come! Take..."
"Yes, come!" Maggie cried suddenly, pushing back
her chair, rising to her feet. "Come unto me, demons! Fill me! All of
you!" Maggie cried. "I want you..."
The shadows pacing the room suddenly turned as if dogs catching
a scent.
"No..." I murmured, wresting in my chair. My words
fumbled in my throat, my old disability threatening to halt my words as anxiety
tended to do. "No...don't…do that..."
"I want you," Maggie continued. There was a
horrific and unnatural shudder of her body as the shadows all pounced at once,
disappearing into her. The Majesties gazed on with a sick, eroticized hunger.
"I want you"—a sudden, fierce fire leaped into her
eyes as she retaliated with a scream—"to go to hell!"
From the pocket of the prim pinafore she'd worn, she
withdrew a glass bottle with an ornate cross upon it, clear liquid inside.
I realized dimly she was not cursing us to hell. She meant
the demons. The demons that had overtaken her. Or, maybe…that she had just
entrapped…
Seizing the bottle of what I realized must be holy water—why
else would there be the cross upon it?—she drank it down swiftly, emptying the
whole bottle, choking but drinking still. Her face contorted in agony. She
crumpled forward in a jerking movement. A wretched gurgle sounded in her
throat.
"No!" Majesty Moriel cried, his look of ecstasy
suddenly turning to rage. "Traitorous little bitch, what do you think
you—"
Brinkman suddenly punched Moriel in the face, and he slumped
face first into a bowl of pudding. As the other Majesties on either side rose
to fight, Brinkman whipped two pistols from his pocket, one trained on either
of the Majesties. My heart buoyed. The man was our side after all. Thank God.
He waited long enough to prove it. No. Brinkman was smart, the souls weren't
yet back in the painting, and him playing their side had bought him more
leverage, to be standing so close to the wretches, able to escape being bound
like the rest of us.
Just as I swelled with hope, Maggie started screaming.
--
(End of Chapter 26.3 - Copyright 2013 Leanna Renee Hieber, The Magic Most Foul saga - If you like what you see, please share this link with friends! Tweet it, FB, + it! The Magic Most Foul team really hopes the audience will continue to grow and it can only do so with YOUR help! If you haven't already, do pick up a copy of Magic Most Foul books 1 and 2: Darker Still and the sequel: The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewartand/or donate to the cause! Donations directly support the editorial staff.
Cheers! Happy haunting! See you next Tuesday!)
Actress, playwright and award winning, Barnes and Noble bestselling author of ghostly fiction and non-fiction such as the STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL, the MAGIC MOST FOUL, The ETERNA FILES and THE SPECTRAL CITY series of Gothic Victorian Fantasy novels for adults and teens as well as THE DARK NEST CHRONICLES and TIME IMMEMORIAL Space Opera stories for Scrib'd and Bryant Street Publishing. A HAUNTED HISTORY OF INVISIBLE WOMEN: TRUE STORIES OF AMERICA'S GHOSTS, co-authored with Andrea Janes, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist for Superior Achievement in Non-fiction. Her books have been translated into many languages and chosen for multiple book club editions. Four-time Prism Award winner for excellence in her genre. Actress (Member AEA, SAG-AFTRA), lifelong Perky Goth, vegetarian, devotee of all things 19th century, loves nothing more than a good ghost story (she works for Boroughs of the Dead tour company) and a long stroll through a beautiful graveyard. Passionate lecturer nationwide on Gothic, paranormal, women's history, ghostly and 19th century themes. As seen on "Mysteries at the Museum" and "Beyond the Unknown" discussing Victorian Spiritualism. leannareneehieber.com
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