Back to the Island: Part 2

They had been sitting in the parking lot of Club Zothique in Elspeth’s 64’ Lincoln Continental.

“What about this one?” Elspeth asked indicating a tall, slender blonde, with long legs, and a high skirt she certainly could not sat in with any ease.

Nicole Collins, sitting with an elbow propped against the passenger window, a long, lazy finger impassively resting upon the frosty gloss of a lower lip, watched the sauntering hips of the young girl walking, unsteadily, further from the security of the bright illumination of Club Zothique’s entrance and further into surreal pinkness of the sodium lights of the parking lot; before, the young girl abruptly came to a halt, and opening her clutch, held it up into the eerie light, as she began searching for something within.

Silence was Nicole’s answer.

Elspeth glanced over at the vampire. Nicole Collins was not what she had expected. Of course, she had immediately detected the dangerous, predatory nature of the woman when they first met, but Collins did her best to conceal it – more so that any vampire Elspeth Ward had ever met. And amazingly, she was well practiced at the deception. Normally, no matter how much they tried, the contagion within always found a way to made its feral presence known. But then again – from what she knew, Nicole Collins was rather unique.

Her mother was Elizabeth Báthory for Christ’s sake.

Which more than just being merely amazing was something Elspeth very much wanted to talk about – but, having spoken to Nicole Collins on the phone, having finally succumbed to the curiosity piqued by Rhoby Dexter and called the Maine number, she had found Collins to be consummately business-like. She explained what had to done – and how it had to be done quickly. And yet, here was a young blonde, who apparently had been well over-served seeing as how she still could not find whatever it was that was lost in the depths of her small purse – and yet, Collins still waited.

“So—“ Elspeth Ward’s voice bearing the slightest tinge of irritation, “We’re looking for something more your taste – whereas, I thought we were looking for something decidedly more hers.”

Elspeth wanted to this done – she had the drive back to Providence and the longer this took the more her message to Perdita explaining that she had gone to Arkham to assist Sarah Waldron, of the Arkham Historical Society, research something in one of the books held in the Miskatonic University Library’s restricted area was going to be called into question, not that Elspeth was under any illusion that she would be able to keep this clandestine rendezvous with Nicole Collins a secret, nor had she planned to, it ‘s just that she did not want Perdita waiting for her when she arrived demanding an explanation. Rather, she had hoped to be able to return home with enough time to sit quietly, to take a deep breath – to no doubt stop her trembling hands. She wanted Perdita to have the book in hand, examining it, preferably in bed, leaning up against the headboard, her legs under the sheet pulled up so as to brace the ancient volume, while she idly turned one of its grotesque pages . . . looking up at her, the annoyance not completely faded, as she handed her a morning cup of coffee . . . the initial anger and of course the accompanying long and quite animated lecture—”What the fuck were you thinking? Meeting a vampire on an deserted Arkham side street? Alone! I expect something like this from Mercy. But you? Goddammit Elspeth . . . you . . . of all people should know . . . the dead travel fast. And the undead even faster“— but by then she should have finally succumbed to the intoxicating fascination with the legendary tome.

“Patience Miss Ward.”

“What’s not to like about her?” Elspeth asked as she continued to watch the young blonde still struggling with her purse as she beings to walk again, somewhat erratically, “I would think she tastes as good as she looks.”

Nicole’s eyes were a glacier. The cold blue of the arctic turned upon Elspeth Ward as she sat intently watching her, well aware of the lovely, raven-haired witch’s proclivities – which she didn’t have to read her mind to discover, since it more than evident in that first look she had given her, especially in the dress she had chosen for the hunt, a thin, light, delicate lace, with a neckline plunging even deeper, owing to several buttons left undone (there being more so than when they had first met) to expose the small, white lace strip of her bra, accented by the single strand of pearls, complimenting her complexion, warmed by the intake of the bottle of blood she had consumed on the way to Arkham, where she was to meet Mercy Ward’s sister, as well as to transact some last moment business with her solicitors – and so, there was more than just a sense of urgency in her voice. A hint of jealousy? About the young blonde? No – not jealousy – not quite, something very akin. Something just as powerful. Yes – confliction. Not about the girl, in particular. But, about her. Yes, the longer they were in the car together there was an ever mounting awareness of attraction – and, the jealousy she had felt was not Elspeth Ward’s. Rather it was an growing anxiety about the jealousy of another. Yes, heaven help those who came between her and her sister . . . and now, she understood . . . but—be that as it may, whatever Elspeth Ward’s motivation for there to be a selection make quickly so as to progress toward what had to be done, in order to hasten her return to Providence, she was not here to just grab the first young thing that exited in a dance hall daze. And, she especially wasn’t about to drink her fill of this seventeen-year-old, who, although, having had a bit too much to drink, still had the good sense to know when to walk away and leave her friends behind, all of whom were determined to score some Alko – which the girl had wisely come to the conclusion was something she did not want to experiment with – having just heard a gruesome story this morning about one of her ex-boyfriends . . . and Alko . . . and what they had found in his dorm-room.

But of special concern to Nicole was the knowledge that the drug Alko had apparently returned to the street. She thought the manufacture and distribution of the white powder and gone the way of the man who had conjured the formula, into whatever black hole of a detention facility a special agency of the Federal government had arranged for him.

Feeling the arctic gaze upon her, Elspeth looked over at Nicole Collins, “Do we even know what her tastes are?”

“I have no idea – perhaps a young man.” Nicole absently conjectures.

“Or a child.” It slipped worrisome from her lips.

Nicole nodded, “Or a child.”

Elspeth looked away, her gaze returning to windshield and the parking lot beyond.

Languidly Nicole continued to stare at Elspeth Ward, more importantly, at the temptation of her throat. The smooth, soft flesh exposed above the starched, rigid, white collar, which bore the merest hint of a make-up stain, and the tight little knot of her thin tie. It was certain – the witch had eyes that could make you swoon. “And what would not bother you?”

The darken interior of the Lincoln conceals the raven-haired witch’s expression as she once more circumspectly surveyed the parking lot to be certain they had not attracted any attention – although, the car itself was known to do so.

“So—not a child?” Nicole turned her attention away from the slender allure of the witch’s throat to gaze once more upon the young blonde in the all too tantalizing short-skirt.

“I have no room in my oven for children.” Elspeth Ward’s smoky voice said evenly.

The corner of Nicole’s mouth curled upward in the slyest of smiles: holier than thou and yet a practitioner of witchcraft—and here with me,

“Well, my dear, for you, I do so hope it all remains merely a fairy tale,” She replied sardonically. “But, I would be rather remiss in not giving you fair warning. In receiving your ancestor’s book, as compensation for . . . your assistance tonight . . . you may very well find yourself on the pathway which leads, inexorably, into those dark and haunted woods, where the house awaits—and the fair-haired children are already knocking at the door. And then, then we shall see what you are prepared to put into your oven.”

No matter how haughty and vindictive it sounded, Elspeth could not help but find herself enraptured with the lilting British accent. The cold blue eyes.

“For I can assure you the Book is not a rabbit hole into some magical wonderland. Nor is it a grimoire for a black magic woman. It is vile. It is a perverse fascination and a vicious temptation. . . and none who read it are left untouched by it’s terrible seduction.”

“Is that how . . . “

“I became what I am? No.” Nicole interrupted, “I am what I am owing to my own grievous sins.”

And then—she paused perceptibly .

Elspeth looked at her quizzically, “Sins?”

“The sins of self-delusion and hubris.” Nicole replied in a voice seemingly devoid of emotion as she continued to look out the windscreen.

The serene grace of such a vicious predator was disconcerting to Elspeth as she turned to look at the far too alluring profile of the lovely vampire.

“Would you care to hear a real fairy tale?” Nicole asked. “It’s rather a grim one.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“Once upon a time there was little girl who believed that no matter what evil she read, or knowledge she obtained, she would always be able to maintain her sense of right and wrong. Her moral compass. For she believed that no matter what blasphemy she studied, it was all for a higher purpose. A far grander call. For she believed that there was something . . . far more exalted . . . and noble . . . and pure about the universe. And so, she felt, the more knowledge she sought, the harder she studied, she would find the key to unlock what she all too naïvely believed to be only the good in all the elder magick.” Nicole’s voice becoming more reflective as she sat looking at the tender, young blonde, who having finally fished out of the purse her key; clicked it so that the Honda’s interior lights came on and the door unlocked and she was once again safe and secure from all harm within the comfortable confines of her automobile’s interior light’s illumination. Once more in her familiar little world, unaware she was so dangerously exposed to a world of darker shadows, a predatory world, where, in a 64’ Lincoln, a nightmare sat sedately watching, having decided, on this night, rather than ravishing her, to allow her to start the car and live a little longer. “For she still believed Good conquered Evil and there was a light that could shine down against the darkness – and the darkness would be held in abeyance. If only she could find it. But the further she pursued the forbidden, read the repugnant lore, learned the ancient formulas, the more she came to understand the true madness. There was no good nor evil. There was no light that could shine down against the darkness. For there is truly no exalted meaning in the universe for anything called human. All beliefs in the occult, in the supernatural, in superstitions, in alchemy, in witchcraft, and religion too, are nothing more than the mistaken interpretations of an alien technology. Just bits and pieces of a barely discernible hyperdimensional geometry, which are the underlying principles of a world owned by creatures that slithered and crawled rather than walked. For you see my dear, “ she turned to look at the Witch, “It is a haunted world in which we live – haunted by the dreams and desires of creatures which have no analogy to anything we call human – and, they have been here far, far longer. And far more importantly, they want their world back.”

“And yet—tonight . . . you would—“

“Do their bidding?” There was absolutely no emotion in her voice – reminding Elspeth that the pale, beauty sitting beside her was no longer human but one of the Undead.

The blonde’s car pulled out of the parking lot.

“You will too soon find that they are but one mistake away from coming home. That is why I serve one to keep the others at bay. If you remember, it was Mercy whom I sought rather than you.”

Elspeth could only contemplate the truth of her statement: “I do fear what Mercy is truly capable of.”

Nicole suddenly sat up as she took notice of the woman, in a black skater skirt and a grey, plaid flannel shirt, just now exiting the Club Zothique. “It’s the one you sleep with you should be more concerned about.”

Elspeth turned abruptly to look at her – but Nicole Collins was no longer in the car.

Bound to an ancient stake, Grace Duncan, finds her wrists secured above her head as she kneels before the woman in black, aware that her skirt is hiked too high and the flannel shirt, sans buttons, hangs open to expose her breasts – but, the fear and trembling was far greater than her humiliation.

Whomever this woman was in the long, black skirt and matching, slim, tight waist jacket with a stark white, high-collared shirt and thin, perfectly knotted tie, looking all the world like one of those abduction, conspiracy theory, UFO MIB’s, although she’s never heard of an MIB being a woman, but maybe she wasn’t even a woman, maybe she was some-kind-of-a hermaphrodite, because somewhere she’s either heard or read some speculations about the MIB’s being something like angels, physically, only this woman certainly wasn’t any angel because it was all too terrifyingly clear the woman had absolutely no empathy at all for her fear or her tears or the helplessness of her situation, forced to kneel on some dark mound of earth, chained to a mottled stake of petrified wood, which had been used for . . . god only knows what . . . her blouse torn, her breasts exposed, her skirt pulled high, she’s seen enough episodes of Special Victims Unit to know precisely what all this should have meant. But the damp and the cold. The ancient stones on this legendary island. The stories of black magic and witches, along with the lingering effects of four beers had her imagination running away with her – this was nothing less than satanic worship. Oh, my god, it is even worse than her being a homosexual sociopath. Some ritual black mass killer meant her immediate assumption that this was all somehow connected to Cornelia Wasserman and the Scarlet Ceremonies, and the horrid Pickman’s Necrotica, was entirely mistaken – and the sudden realization only frighten her even more since it meant there absolutely wasn’t anything she had to offer this madwoman. . . .

And then, suddenly Grace screamed and screamed again.

For beside her, to her left, she’s suddenly becomes aware that what she thought to be merely some oddly shaped tree is something far more grotesque . . . the tree it bends backward so that the moonlight now exposes what appears to be the perfectly shaped torso of a nude woman partially embedded into its trunk. It is as if some nude woman had been pressed back upon the tree’s rough bark, forced upon it just as it became insubstantial enough to somehow absorb parts of her body. The legs tapering to disappear from the knees into the tree’s trunk; the arms missing, replaced by thick limbs reaching out like the cross bar of some blasphemous crucifix; her head missing entirely. All that remained were the woman’s high, firm breasts, her slender abdomen, slopping downward into a darken pelvis that . . . oh my God, she struggled with the restraints at her wrists . . . the pelvic mound is adorned with some horrid pubic lichen . . . and she screamed again. This was not some woodcarver’s sculpture. The torso was too perfect (save for the horrifying cracks cutting through the feminine body rent there by the settlement of the tree’s hideous roots clutching deep into the island’s fetid soil) so much so that it could have only come from life. Left there as some grotesque evidence of the tragic fate of a young, woman. Kidnapped and brought to this nightmare of an island, where like something out of a Greek myth, she had been transformed from smooth flesh to sleek, cracked tree bark—

Grace pulls desperately against the chain of the manacles: “Oh dear God please—no!”

To which the Woman in Black places a finger to her lips, “Hush.”

“Let me go – you fucking bitch!” Grace says now in anger and growing terror.

“It is too late.” The woman’s reply is nearly a whisper lost to the sound of the river.

Stoically Elspeth looks away from the bound woman, continuing to ignore her tears, the litany of her pleas to be released, as she turns to look back out across the dark waters of the Miskatonic, back toward night shrouded Arkham, into which Nicole Collins had earlier slipped away – with but a vague explanation that she had something which had to be done, and done rather quickly – which of course left her with the arduous task of transporting the young woman to the island.

The wind suddenly seems to shift.

The temperature has noticeably grown colder.

“Can you feel it?” Elspeth whispers.

Grace looks up at her—

“She’s coming.” Elspeth says even as she takes note now of a thickening fog which seems to have been gathering about the island.

From the embankment there is a growing stream of mist, white, swirling, spreading forth, moving now with an almost imperceptible serpentine slowness as it makes its way across the saw-grass. Stealing forward, as if feeling its way closer toward the encirclement of stones, as if there was some sentience to the hoary mist.

Elspeth watches in fascination as the serpent of mist continues to slither forward before it begins to flow into a pool, which coalescing begins to rise – to take shape.

And from the swirl and out of its thickening fog Nicole Collins steps forth.

“Time approaches,” Elspeth informs her as she looks up to the clouds slipping past the cold face of the moon.

“Yes,” Nicole says as she languidly saunters toward the mound aware of the hapless Grace Duncan, who bears the marks of her fangs. “We should begin.”

“You!” Grace suddenly recognizes the woman who has . . . has amazingly appeared out of the mysterious pall of the mist, which must have been . . . some trick of the flickering flame of the iron lantern dangling from the sickle above her. Only–however she has appeared, it is the same woman who – as she remembers it now approached her. Yes. She was leaving the Club Zothique. She was very angry at Nelson. At Wasserman. And then—the woman had appeared. Suddenly. Almost out of nowhere — just like she did now out of the fog. Slowly sauntering toward her as she was preparing to open the car door – her voice a haunting seduction.

“Please! I don’t know who . . or what any of this is about . . . . Please, I promise you I won’t say anything . . . to anyone . . . . please, please. Just let me go. I beg you.”

Nicole casts an cold gaze upon her, before turning to contemplate the damp, upright stones. The last time she was here there had been another young woman. A student from the university. Then she had not been able to save her from becoming the last of Narcissa Snow’s ritual sacrifices – sacrifices needed in order to summon the Witch. And now – here she was about—

There was no denying, Rhyaad had been right – she should have never relinquished that bloody Trapezohedron.

“To be certain,” Elspeth poses, “You are sure it is I, you want to summon her? I mean, with all of your knowledge, you are far more powerful than I – “

“I am uncertain if she will come should I call. “ Nikki replies, her attention drawn to the glistening contours and carved symbols upon the ancient formation of stones all of which seemed oddly settled as if they have sunk into the earth, owing to their weight and the years of wind and weather. Only she is well aware they stand in this seeming peculiar disarray because it is the intricate arrangement needed for Mason’s odd geometry. “When I last met her – when she was resurrected – I failed her test. So, I think it best she should be summoned by another.”

“A witch you mean.”

Nicole looks up, “Yes,” she says as if her meaning were eminently clear.

Terrified, Grace looked down from the mound at the blonde woman – the woman who had embraced her, whom she had allowed a seductive hand to move to cup her breast, allowed to feel the soft flesh suddenly free of constraint, as the woman grasped the grey, flannel material of her shirt, tearing it open, ripping buttons free of fraying threads as they rained upon the asphalt, as the frosty gloss of her lips went first to her throat, wherein she had all but fainted in a sudden lightheadedness, so as to be only barely aware of the movement of those lips down upon her breast. This blonde who had seemingly appeared out of a mist – no, more like she controlled the mist. And the fog.

Born at St. Mary’s, an Arkham native, she had grown up hearing all kinds of strange stories . . . stories kids used to frighten one another at sleep-overs, on overnight school field trips, on church retreats (when she was much younger and attended church) crazy stories, urban legends of Arkham they had all thought, until now. Until she was bound to this stake on this horrid isle, watching a frightening blonde appear out of the mist, who, in a very pronounced British accent, spoke of the woman, who had abducted her, chained her to a stake, as a witch.

In that moment of clarity – Grace Duncan suddenly understood that the whispered legends of Arkham, all the tales of witches and warlocks, of devil worship and black masses, of ritual murders and child abductions . . . were more than mere fanciful horror stories – but in fact truth . . . she knew now there were witches . . . and even more horrifying, there were things far worse . . . and this blonde, by the deference paid to her by the witch, was most certainly one of the worse.

She struggles to free herself as she watches the witch nod to the blonde and slowly reaching down, she slips off her black boots in order to stand upon the island barefoot. Stepping over to the foot of the mound, she looks up at Grace, and the begins to speak. Her fingers moving oddly . . . as if she were folding and unfolding paper into various shapes . . . as if she where folding origami.

Grace can only watch if unimaginable fascination and growing terror as she observes lambent, cobalt rays of light begin to shine through the grooves of the chiseled carvings cut upon the stones . . . rays growing more and more brilliant as the witch’s voice rises with emotion.

And the mound upon which Grace Duncan knelt suddenly begins to tremble – as the woman in black, the witch, her fingers shifting, twisting folds more rapidly, abruptly beginning to speak in some utterly alien language – sounds which no human mouth should be able to utter.

Frightened Grace struggles as she feels her knees begin to sink into the darken earth as the ground beneath her seems to open and she is forced to pull against the chain on the manacles in order to not be pulled into what appears to be a developing sink-hole . . . from out of which there now arises a stench, foul and sickening, as the crumbling earth continues to fall away into an crevice opening about her . . . and suddenly, reaching up out of the dirt, she sees what looks like a pair of human hands . . . very tiny human hands, reaching up, clutching, clawing at the dark dirt . . .

The witch’s hands rise upward now enclosed within globes of swirling light.

There is an faint audible piping of distant flutes.

Grace screams as suddenly a wizen human face grotesquely peers up out of the earth crumbling before her, and then, a terrible mutant rat like creature which bears the human face and the tiny hands scampers out of the hole it has clawed its way through.

A violet phosphorescence glows from the opening in the darken earth of the mound.

Sharp rays of violent, violet light shining up out of the ground.

“It is done!” Elspeth declares, her raven hair bellowing about her face. “Behold . . . she comes!”

And from the phosphorescence glow, there arises a shape – as if the earth itself has begun to coalesce into a form that at first is nothing more than a rising column of moist earth. Something like a column of potters clay – that seems to be moving – bubbling . . . folding up to gain stature . . . it appears as if there is something within, something that is seeking its way out – to escape the cocoon of the muddy soil, which, suddenly seems to ooze, to drip as if it were melting . . . as it slowly shifts into a new form—the form that is unmistakably human – it is a woman . . . an old woman, who suddenly appears now as the rim of the hole the rat-like creature had dug falls away. The old woman leans forward. Her cold, cruel eyes look at Grace Duncan quizzically, “Be it ye who doth call? Nay, I thinkth not.”

Keziah Mason, whirls around abruptly to look at Elspeth Ward. “I bethinks it be . . . “ She says, as slowly she begins to walk down the incline of the mound – as she does so the small, furry creature, with the wizen face and long, dirty hair, which had clawed and crawled its way up and out of the crevice in the earthen mound, scampers over to grasp the hem of the long, brown skirt and quickly makes its way up her clothing to take up a perch upon the old woman’s shoulder, where it sat as if whispering into her ear. “. . . Tis this one who didst the summoning.”

“Young ye be to know the words – and brave to say them.” Keziah Mason pronounced in a hoarse voice, turning now a most wicked glare upon Elspeth Ward,

Elspeth, wary of a sorceress as renowned as the beldame before her, who had long ago escaped a Salem Gaol with nothing more than some red, sticky smears on the grey stone walls of her cell, nods silently and takes a step backward as the powerful witch glares at her, as the furry, sharp-toothed familiar, sitting on her shoulder, grips the lobe of Keziah Mason’s left ear with its small human hand. She watches as the rat-shaped creature leans forward its red eyes glaring at her. Its wizen human face lifting now as it begins to sniff at her. Before it turns to once more to whisper in the ancient witch’s ear.

“Is she now?” And the powerful Witch’s expression, filled with malevolence . . . . as well as exultation . . . took another step toward Elspeth, in order to sniff of her as well, “Aye. Ye can smell the blood. The blood of Joseph be in ye. Blood that be in the book. Blood of the Coven of Salem . . . but—“ She crooks her head quizzically, “Ye be not in the book. Ye be not his Childe yet of the Darkness. I smell the blood of another. He who seekth his revenge. But, ye be powerful, aye. But by his blood thou be but a Traditionalist.”

“Yes. I summoned you. But for another.” Elspeth explains wanting to change the subject, uncertain what significance the old witch would find in the fact she and her sisters were not members of any coven – and though they had heard of the book, were decidedly against relinquishing their independence. History had not been kind to those who had given others power to betray them. And besides, whatever was to transpire here was between Nicole Collins and Keziah Mason.

Swiftly turning the beldame suddenly glares at Nicole, her hand reaching out to point at her: “Tis be this one?” She snaps as she takes a step now toward Nicole Collins: “Oh, aye. Ye know of blood. The smell of it. The taste of it. The desire of it. For ye be of the subordinate race. Gar, the Damnation, it clings to thee.” And she spits suddenly upon the ground thrice. “Forever damned by the blasphemy of that insolent rebellion of thy contagion. Oh, ye are known to me. Daughter of the Undying.”

“Yes. I am—“

“I know who ye be—“ Keziah Mason cuts her short, turning her back on Elspeth Ward. She stands before Nicole Collins, her left eye open wide, the right squinting in a malicious scowl. “Ye have ears, but doth not listen. Didst I not say—ye be known to me? Ye be the one whom when last we met be not so wise. Oh, ye be cunning. Aye. And, ye be quick. As tis all of your race. For, it was by her own blade ye didst strike down the more wiser one. She of the wolfish heart, who didst slay the eleven and quote therein the words of wisdom to solve mine riddles and stratagems.”

“But it was I who relinquished the prize back to you.” Nicole reminded.

“Nay – thou shall not bear such false witness unto me. ‘Twas he who didst command I shalt take it beyond the limitless abysses and unto the distant regions of the farthest stars, and therein to do what I wilt to keep it secure . . . until he hast a need of it.”

As the beldame spoke, Brown Jenkin suddenly scurries down from her shoulder to race across the blacken earth of the mound in order to lay a hand upon Grace Duncan’s bare thigh. She screams as he grasps the hem of her short skirt and pulls himself up along the open edge of her flannel skirt, sniffing at the scent of the blood from the twin wounds on her throat and breast.

Struggling against the shackles, trying to toss the unimaginably horrible creature from her, its hands grasping even tighter upon her torn shirt, as she feels the foul breath now upon the exposed flesh of her right breast.

Its tongue reaches out to lick at the twin wounds and she screams again.

“Ye be still childe. Brown Jenkin doest have a need to slake his thirst.” And with a flourish of her hand the ancient witch suddenly silence’s Grace Duncan’s scream as she finds herself . . . mute—her voice somehow stolen.

“As do I.” Nicole replies.

“Hadst not thy fill?”

“I have a need.”

Grace Duncan writhes helplessly to throw the creature off.

The ancient witch turns from watching the hapless woman’s futile exertions and cackles, “Doest thou? Thou hadst a need? And tis be I am summoned betwixt the angles and the curves, called from beyond the spheres, to what? Attend thee?”

“Yes—“

And then, brusquely, the powerful beldame of Salem lifts a hand to silence her as she oddly takes her forefinger and places it in her mouth, and then removing it, lifts it into the air. “Feel it not? What say ye Traditionalist. Ye be strong with the elements be ye not?”

Elspeth frowns, “What?”

Keziah Mason lifts her head, her long white hair blowing in the river breeze, “Tis in the wind,” is her reply, as she looks up into the night sky for a long moment. She draws power from the island. Feels it flowing through her. Oh, aye, the time be right. And yet, his sending of this undead lovely ‘twas irksome. She cared not for her beforetimes. And now, even less so.

Turning her back on Nicole Collins, she strides over toward one of the standing stones. Her hand beginning to wipe at the rough, damp and dirty surface, as if to clean it.

Concerned from the beginning of Mason’s belligerence, Nicole steps forward to take control of the situation: “Keziah Mason, I have a need of the prize which I left with you for safe keeping . . .”

Mason glares back at her, even as she retrieves from a pocket in her long, brown skirt a piece of chalk. “Didst thou not giveth it to me do what I wilt?” Having said, she then turns back once more to the surface of the ancient stone and drying away the dampness upon it with a wave of her hand, begins purposefully scratching the chalk upon the rough surface, as if writing, but in some oddly formed characters, which Nicole Collins knew to be symbols long since forgotten on this world. It was the beginning of some multidimensional mathematical calculation.

“That was then and this is now.”

Keziah closed an eye and held her anger. Oh, aye, she is irksome. This wicked little girl who hadst so beguile him. What knowest she of time and space? “Just what didst he whisper in that pretty little ear.” The beldame mummers to herself as the friction of her writing creates a hoary cascade of chalky powder to fall as she continues her mysterious formula. “Oh, tis to be summoned by the likes of her. By Contagion. By a daughter of vile infection,“ she continues to whisper to herself as she becomes lost now in the concentration of her chalk moving rapidly across the rough stone surface, “Anon, sayth she . . . doest my bidding. Upon my oath! In the valley of the white stone, didst he not come and giveth unto me the sight to see. Aye! To make unstraight the way? And yet, I am to be summoned! Vile and wicked. And verily, she bringth her own witch!” The chalk moving over the stone leaves its intricate formulation, about which appears to be the beginnings of the outline of a rough sketch of the Eastern Seaboard. “And she be a traditionalist! She that haveth taken no secret name. Hadst not even placed her name in the book. Pah!” Scribbling still, “What matter be to me whose blood they be? Long gone. He, and they, and all those be that were betrayed, long since gone. And, what matter whether the lovely be daughter of the wizard and the Countess of Blood. Doth mine bidding! Sayth she. And whereinsoever, doth she me an honor? Nay and nay and nay. I say. Doth not even make unto me aught a sacrifice?” The beldame’s whispering becoming louder as she presses the chalk hard upon the stone, etching now the curve of the map she has drawn, her chalk moving down along what would appear to be the Florida Keys.

Nicole has no time for this evasion, “The time as come, even as you knew it would when last we met. And so, I must ask you to give it back.”

“The Shinning Trapezohedron tis be what ye be wanting.” The ancient witch looked back over her shoulder at her. “Sayth what ye mean.”

Elspeth knew that Collins was going to ask for something, but she never suspected it would be the Trapezohedron.

“Yes.”

“My prize?” Grim determination on her face.

“Yes. But, I come not in my name . . . but in his. “

“His? He hadst a need.” Keziah Mason’s chalk suddenly pauses above the stone.

“Yes.”

The beldame falls silent for a moment, seemingly lost in contemplation, and then, with a shrug of her shoulders, returns to her chalky calculations. “Even the Loup Garou beforetime fain to doth me an honor. “

Nicole steps to the edge of the darken mound of earth, upon which Grace Duncan, struck mute, shackled to the old petrified wooden stake, trembles and writhes as the small, furry creature gnaws at the wounds upon her breast.

The wizen human face of the rat-like familiar turns from the blood letting to look at her, its lips dripping blood.

“As have I. I have brought you a gift.”

“A gift ye say?”

Her chalk rubs hard to correct the odd curve of a symbol she has scratched upon the surface of the standing stone, and it breaks. The ancient sorceress of Salem straightens; and then steps back to inspect her chalk hewn calculations. “As all things be; they be for him.” She says, seemingly to the stone. “For he is master and lord. But, verily, upon my oath,” And she quickly turns around to face Nicole Collins, “He doth send ye ifsoever to vex me. Ye deceitful little loveliness!“ Her hand gripping into a fist, which he holds up to Nicole, “Be that as it wilt. What doth thou offer me in exchange?”

Nicole strides up the mound to stand beside the shackled Grace Duncan. “My gift to you?”

The beldame of Salem watches Nicole Collins and then steps away from the stone, leaving behind her intricate calculations amassed about the complex map of what appears to be a masterfully drawn cartography of the Eastern Seaboard, done in white chalk upon the face of the ancient, tilted stone. She lifts her long hem as she ascends the blacken incline of the mound and stops to look down at the frightened, trembling woman. “Gar! This be ye offering!“

The sudden scowl on Keziah Mason’s face is truly malicious. “She be but a blood cow for my Brown Jenkin to suckle! Tis this be . . . Tis be all ye fain to offer?”

Grace hears them discussing her, feels the grotesque creature as it licks at the blood running from the wounds it has opened in her breast – she so wants to scream, but her body no longer seems hers to command, as if more than just her voice had been stolen, but her will as well.

“Yes.”

“Pah! Ye think this be the bargain ye seekth to make with me?” Keziah Mason grows ever more indignant, a malevolent scowl narrowing her eyes as she looks down at the hapless Grace Duncan. She lifts a hand and with a wave pronounces her anger: “It is as befouled . . . tis but pleasure it has sought . . . what little power it ever had to offer tis lost in all its mindless fornications . . . countless copulations . . . nay and nay and nay. I sayth. Nay. Ye shall bring’st me a child!”

Elspeth looks sharply over to the vampire.

“I have no time for this!” Nicole Collins replies, her own anger rising. “There is a power that is about to be unleashed and only the Trapezohedron has the capacity to contain it.”

Keziah Mason oddly cocks her head and smiles a very wicked smile, “Oh, aye, in truth, for verily I doth feel it. It is in the stars. The moon. It rides the wind. Verily, the storm erlong it comes . . . as so long ago I prophesied.”

“Prophesied?”

The ancient beldame turned slowly to point at the map sketched upon the stone, “Tis hither. The Pearl shall open up the way.”

“Then, we cannot stand here and argue any longer, you must give it back.”

“Nay, I sayth. Nay and nay and nay! I shall have my bounty as of olde.” Keizah Mason glares at her. “So sweet and lovely doesth thou appear! But I know tis within ye, ye are corruption . . . unto the core – and so, thou shall doth my bidding! And ye shall bringth unto me my sacrifice.”

“A child?”

“As of olde.”

“And I thought it was I who was not the wise one?” Nicole’s voice fills with a barely restrained sarcasm – her eyes narrowing as they grow ever darker.

Maliciousness is written large across the beldame of Salem’s face as she glared at the impertinence of the undead. “Oh, aye, ye be as sharped-tongued as ye are sharp of tooth. But, beware, my patience, tis ever thin.” Her fingers reaching out at her claw-like and yet held in abeyance, “Irksome, lovely wickedness. Ye be too haughty by half. And far too pretty by even more. Beforetime ye mayest have beguiled his eye but best be ye warned, ye be not the sweetness he so loveth to taste—“ her voice filled with sarcastic vitriol. “For ye be now of the subservient race . . . and so, I wouldest count not long on his forbearance . . . for it can not endure . . . and then. . . then, we shalt see how yet it may be with him.”

“He says to those that hear. I will bring back the Anti-Saints.” Nicole lifts her arms as the wind begins to gust through the limbs of the barren trees, ‘That which is mine shall be mine forever.”

Keziah Mason squints and looks at her.

“It is you who has eyes and can not see.” Nicole admonishes Keziah Mason.

The beldame steps forward as she motions to Brown Jenkin, who leaps suddenly from its feast upon the exposed wounds on Grace Duncan’s breast to scamper back to his mistress. The small, furry rat-like creature’s tiny, human hands, grasp at Keziah Mason’s skirt, and climbs once more upon her shoulder, where once again it leans forward to converse into the witch’s ear.

Nicole watches now as the ancient witch’s expression begins to change from indignation to growing curiosity.

“Behold the mystery of mysteries.” Nicole’s voice cold and taunting as she lowers her arms and smiles at the ancient witch, her sharp eye teeth visible.

Mason cuts a stern glare at her.

Elspeth stares in wonder – Collins speaking thus to Keziah Mason!

“Is he alive? Dead?” Nicole continues to taunt,” “Or, perhaps awaiting your resurrecting power?”

Keziah Mason looks incredulous.

“For he said to tell the Grand Beldame of Salem: Blood seeks blood. And he marks the trail.” And Nicole’s left hand sweeps with a flourish toward the bound Grace Duncan.

So . . . they had not been merely waiting upon some random decision at the Club Zothique. She had been waiting for this one – Elspeth suddenly comprehends.

The powerful witch’s fingers suddenly begin to move and as if reaching through some unseen fissure in space, she seems to pull forth an old slate. And then, lifting a hand, generates a piece of chalk. With the screech of white carbonate upon the black slate surface she begins another furious calculation. Brown Jenkin peers at the symbols, grasping at her shawl as he sits upon her shoulder.

“Ye wouldest be most unwise to tempted me with naught, daughter of blood,” Keziah Mason admonishes as she cuts a glance over to Nicole Collins

Nicole tilts her head and smiles, “I am but the messenger’s messenger.”

With a final stroke of her chalk, the equation upon her slate is finished. And as it is completed there begins to emanate from the strange scrawl of the chalk an emerald glow. Grace Duncan sees the bright green light. No! She wants to protests. Wants to scream as loud as she can for help – but is powerless to do so. For this old hag has stolen her voice – and intends to steal even more!

Keziah Mason pays little heed to her plea and instead lifts the slate over her head. Where suddenly Grace Duncan becomes very still.

Her head lolls backward as a mist begins to flow up from the center of her forehead.

The slate drawing now everything from her mind – erasing it – Grace grows aware she is loosing her memories – can feel all of the events of her life passing away as they flow up from her and into the slate the horrible, old crone holds above her. Abruptly, she begins to convulse against the shackles that bind her. Her eyes roll back into their sockets to reveal only white orbs.

“Keziah Mason, Grand Beldame of Salem, Mistress of Time and Space —you must give me the Trapezohedron.” Nicole demands, well aware she should have never given it to the old witch to begin with.

“Aye.” Mason replies distractedly as she begins writing a second equation on the opposite side of the slate.

Nicole and Elspeth watch the glow emanating from Grace Duncan’s forehead,, originally very bright, growing dimmer, as Keziah Mason’s chalk scratches across the slate surface. The small, furry creature upon her shoulder watching intently the odd symbols being formed. When with a stab of her chalk, the equation is finished.

And with a flourish of her hand a peculiarly asymmetrical, yellowish, metal box ornately adorned – with monstrous figurings of some hellish alien design – begins to materialize at Nicole Collins feet. She stoops down and picks it up in order to slowly push back the hinged lid to view within an odd four-inch, nearly black, red-striated polyhedron with various irregular flat surfaces. At no point did the object contained within touch the yellowish metal box suspended as it was by a metal band around the center.

Grace arches her back—and expires.

“Elspeth.” Nicole says as she closes the metal box.

The raven-haired witch nods and steps forward to take a stance at the foot of the earthen mound.

“Keziah,” Nicole motions her away from limp body of Grace Duncan.

Leisurely the beldame and her familiar descend the sacrificial mound, leaving in their wake the body of Grace Duncan, dangling from the shackles about her wrists as the study the surface of the slate almost as if it were some ancient precursor to the iPad.

Elspeth takes a deep breath and begins to concentrate as her hands begin to move oddly, once again her fingers appears to be making various fold in invisible origami.

Nicole Collins observes now as sparks – growing into small burning embers – begin to appear about the young witch. The embers dancing about Elspeth appear to be growing hotter even as their number increases, transforming from the mere sparks arching from her fingertips into wisps of flame.

The most powerful of Salem’s Witches watches now with interest at Elspeth Ward’s invocation of the fire elemental draws ever more embers to float, to swirl, about her before rising to move toward the stake of petrified wood. The sparks and flaming embers floating away from her as they grow brighter, hotter, before they begin to descend upon their intended target. The limp form of Grace Duncan.

Suddenly, the body, internally combusting, bursts into white hot flame.

“Tsk tsk, such a traditionalist . . .” Keziah Mason critiques as she stands lightly stroking the long hair of the creature upon her shoulder. “But soon ye shall find a new path. Alas, be ye forewarned.”

“Forewarned?” Elspeth frowns, her fingers mysteriously moving, as she continues to contain the fire to the body of Grace Duncan.

“Aye. Be ye careful what ye call down.’ The ancient witch tells her looking up from the slate with a wicked smile.

Elspeth looks at her quizzically, only, the ancient witch, indifferently, turns her back on the body being consumed within the intense heat of it spontaneous combustion, and returns to the standing stone, in order to inspect her equation, upon which she quickly makes two last minute additions to her calculations before the whole thing suddenly lights up in an amber glow.

It remains but for a second before the bright illumination slowly dissipates and with it the chalk symbols, which begin to flake off the stone to be blown out across the island by a northern wind. “Aye, ye have really done it now.” Keziah cracks a toothy grin and suddenly cackles into the night, “Ihihihihihi!”

Nicole watches as the flakes of chalk float in the wind, feeling the powerful spell moving out now across the Miskatonic River.

Only her attention is drawn once more to Elspeth’s witchcraft and the internal combustion of poor, hapless Grace Duncan. She can not help feeling a sudden pique of pity and shame—even as she knows that Duncan’s sacrifice was necessary to stop the horror yet to come.

She holds tightly to the ornate box containing the Trapezohedron.

“And ye be forewarned,” Keziah glares at her and points a crooked finger, “Tis this be some stratagem of thou and not be a message from Him – which doth lead naught unto the path of Isaiah, ye shall have not seen the last of me.”

And with a deft whirl she turns to look upon Elspeth Ward with favor: “Whereas thee, know thou Traditionalist, ye and ye ones ye love – ye best beware the coming storm. Best ye avoid New Sweden this Hallows eve.” And she crooks her head and scowls, “And, be not allied with the likes of her. Whether or no he, whom we serve be enthralled with her sweet deceitfulness. She be undead and they be deceivers all.” And putting away her slate in the folds of her long, brown skirt she moves away from the stone upon which she had scrawled the formula, “Verily, I say unto ye, if thou has need of me, as ye shall – ye yet be unaware of all that shall be revealed unto ye by what this scourge of the undeath doth deliver unto ye – then I shall come.”

And turning to Nicole Collins and spitting trice upon the ground, Keziah Mason steps back on the mound where the body of Grace Duncan continues to burn. Her form begins to slowly crumble from the tip of her hat downward as she and Brown Jenkin disperse once again back into the earth.

“And you.” Elspeth Ward turns to look at the vampire. “You owe me.”

Only a mist has already begun to coalesce about her.

“Wait!” She yells, unable to move in order to contain the fire she has created, “You fucking—“

But Nicole Collins’ voice replies, “You will find your payment; I have already placed the Qannoon-e-Islam in your car, “as she fades into the mist which begins to dissipate across the island.

Elspeth stands watching over the burning embers of what was once Grace Duncan – well aware that the true name of her ancestor’s book was the Necronomicon.

Cue Music End of Episode

After Credit Scene:

The silvery glow of the moon, falling through the large storefront window of the sex boutique and occult bookstore, The Erotika Biblion, is disturbed by a growing number of tiny moats of dust, which seeming to be dancing on the moonlight, begin to swirl and slowly gather into some nebulous clusters.

They begin to fuse now into the form of Keziah Mason.

The beldame smiles wickedly at the slate in her hand, “And now, Grace Duncan, ye shall give up ye secrets.”