The Shunned House

Providence, Rhode Island. Nicole Collins, having met with The Metropolitan, is all but ready to make her trip to the ill-rumoured seaport of death and blasphemous abnormality, Innsmouth, but she has yet one more visit to make while in Providence. Madam Vadoma has indicated that Nikki needs to meet with members of what Vadoma called the [i]Mercy Brown Society. And so, Nikki and Samantha Brook find themselves this night heading to 135 Benefit Street . . . a house that has, for a very long time, been shunned. [/i]

Dirty Snow. Snow that has lost its innocence. It’s been a day since the fall and footprints now track the sidewalks, shovels have created crusty ridges and drifts, automobile tyres have cut ruts down to the tarmac, turning to slush – grey patches of the street are exposed. The purity of the snow is now mixed with the charcoal greys and shades of brown of dirt and debris.

Except for the house on Benefit Street.

There the lawn is still pristine. No footprints have crushed through the hoary crust. No paw prints have been left by some wayward animal. Here the yellow house is shunned.

Normally the south lawn of the house, abutting Benefit Street, formed a terrace bounded by a high-banked wall of damp stone pierced by a steep flight of mossy steps. Leading inward, into a canyon-like surface, the steps ascended to the upper region of the mangy lawn . . . and the rheumy brick walls . . . and the neglected gardens. Only now the white blanket of the snow disguises the dingy, antiquated structure, masks the dismantled cement urns and rusted kettles. It attempts to conceal the morbid and sinister strangeness of the dilapidated house—which had somehow long escaped its rightful condemnation

Nikki closed the door of the Ferrari and stood looking up at the old house. Samantha, hands deep in her pockets, shivered not from the cold – but from some sense of the unwholesomeness of the house itself. As if it were a living entity—one that sat malevolent and watchful.

“This house.” Nikki says as she walks around the car to the snowy sidewalk, “This is a very, very dangerous place . . . so please stay close to me—and whatever you may see, or hear, do not say anything sarcastic—or unkind.”

Samantha smiled, “Me?”

“No Samantha—do not take this lightly.”

Samantha, also feeling the house staring at her, nods, “Yes, Miss Nikki.”

Together they mount the narrow stone steps leading up to the terraced yard. As they stepped along the walkway, Samantha’s boots crunch now in the crust of the snow, whereas Nikki’s feet seemingly do not even touch the surface, as she leaves no trace of her passing.

The neglect of the house becomes now ever more apparent as they draw nearer. As does the unkempt yard where an occasional weed stalk or a sharp spike of a broken branch stabs up through the hoary surface of the snowfall.

They approach the weather-beaten front door with its broken fanlight, the rotting Ionic pilasters, and wormy triangular pediment.

Samantha shuffles a bit closer, cowed by the house’s aura as Nikki raises a hand to knock upon the ancient door.

They wait a few long moments. Samantha’s breath escaping in steamy puffs as she looked back down to the street, which seemed now to have no traffic at all. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu – it seems much too much like the night they had visited the Metropolitan.

The door opens and a tall, thin man stands before them, his eyes are silver. The colour of quicksilver. Samantha thinks of her childhood and an old thermometer hanging outside the backdoor – the liquid inside.

“And you must be Miss Collins?” His deep voice lacking any emotion.

“Yes.”

“You are expected.” He says. “Enter, if you will.”

Nikki takes a step now over the threshold as the thin man takes a step back, but he looks circumspectly at Samantha,” You think it wise?” He asks turning to Nikki.

Nikki looks at him, “She will be granted protection?”

“She is—your liability.’

Samantha blushes slightly feeling more than awkward, “Perhaps I should wait in the car.”

“No—you are with me.” Nikki tells her.

Samantha takes a tentative step and crosses the threshold, entering now the shunned house on Benefit Street. She feels a cold draught moving through the foyer – there is no warmth at all within the house. It was as if no one living, or, cared about the living, resided here.

She is suddenly startled as the man closes the door behind her.

“This way, please.” And he leads them across the walnut paneled room toward a set of tall, wooden doors.

The hardwood floor of the foyer was scuffed and scared but looked as if it had been recently polished. The wallpapering was certainly not the original although some care seemed to have been given to find an accurate recreation of a Victorian design. A staircase leading up to the L-landing seemed rickety – full of creaks and loose boards.

But at least its steps were visible, Samantha thinks.

The man opens the door to reveal the large parlour.

It was like walking through one of those portals into the past, into the 19th-century, Samantha thought – it was a room filled with antiques with two of them siting on a low-backed black William Morris sofa. A tall woman with ash blonde hair, dressed in a mourning black dress, flowing out from her so that it was obvious she wore crinoline underneath. The other, with dark hair pulled back in a curled roll, wore a light apricot hued evening gown with a gray train decorated in soft maroon flowers.

Samantha kept close to Nikki as she slowly sauntered into the room – and she was immediately aware that this room, this house, was exerted some affect on Nikki, as she was moving now with that grace and flair Samantha knew to be so evident whenever Nikki gave way to her vampiric nature.

The women’s eyes watching them were mesmerizing –

“Miss Collins, so good of you to call.” The ash-blonde spoke, her voice soft, almost a whisper.

“You have been some time in Collinsport?” The dark-haired woman asks with a decidedly French accent.

Her bewitching eyes were a shifting hue of emerald, which had seen a world of pain and suffering, Samantha thought, most of which, no doubt the woman had inflicted.

“Yes.”

“And you just now have decided to make your way to us?”

“I learned of your society from Madam Vadmona.”

“Lucille Whipple – yes she is most invaluable . . . “ The ash blonde nods.

“But she is not a vampire?” Samantha – says, “Is she?”

“No—she is not.” The dark-haired woman says as she takes up an odd silver spoon.

“And she lives in Collinsport,” Samantha continues, “And yet she’s invaluable here in Providence?”

“Yes.” The dark-haired young woman with the French accent states.

“Eli, please, refreshments for Miss Collins.” The ash-blonde woman says and smiles – displaying the sharpen hint of her fangs. “And her inquisitive friend.”

Samantha grimaces almost as if in pain and holds her head in her free hand—she does not want to even think about where these refreshments might have come from . . ..

The tall, thin man steps over to a mahogany bar and takes up a cut crystal decanter. He carefully pours a thick red liquid into a small sherry glass. “It has been allowed to breathe very little,” The ash blonde woman explains.

“I . . . I’ll pass.” Samantha says to the thin man with the silver eyes as she settles on the chaise lounge next to Nikki.

Nikki takes the glass as it is handed over to her. She watches now with interest as the dark-haired woman carefully balances a slotted, silver trowel-like spoon on the rim of her glass. Her long fingers place a single sugar cube in the curve of the spoon. She next lifts a carafe over the spoon, allowing just enough water to dissolve the sugar, as drip by drip, the absinthe turns the milk shade of jade.

Nikki feels the warmth of the glass, the blood is fresh—she takes a sip and savours the delicate taste . . . a young woman, no more than 22 at most.

“I am Phebe Harris,” The ash blonde introduces herself, “And this . . . this is Miss Anastasie Roulet.

Nikki looks at the lovely green drink Anastasie Roulet lifts now so languidly to her lips, “I was unaware –“ she begins.

“Oh, I am certain there are many things you are not yet aware – seeing as how you were orphaned, as it were—and then, you decided to receive the edification from that sanctimonious Interfaith.” The dark-haired woman with French accent tells her and then sips her drink, “Who teaches only what they want you to know. While the blood is our only sustenance, alcohol is one of the few human pleasures that remain after our transformation.’

“Rhyaad indicates that it has to be mixed with blood.” Nikki says and takes another drink of the wonderful blood.

“He is an elf.” The ash blonde says, sardonically.

“His experience is very different, n’est-ce pas.” Anastasie Roulet, her Mediterranean good looks reflected by the coiled roll that is gently pulled back, with its loose tangled wisps of stray carbon hair; the top smoothly combed and intertwined with the hair to frame her face. “As is for us all.”

“For each of us the assimilation is slightly different.’’ Phebe Harris adds.

“Is it true, you have the talents of your mother?” Miss Anastasie quickly asks.

Nikki sits forward on the chaise lounge, long legs crossed, her forearm resting gently upon her upper leg as she languidly holds the glass of warm blood, with thumb and two fingers; aware that Samantha is doing her best not to look at the various dried blood stains on the floor, “Which mother?”

“Both.” Phebe Harris replies, “You are truly such a wonder, Miss Collins.”

“The child of a vampire and a witch.” Miss Anastasie says impressively as she takes a drink of her Spanish absinthe.

“Vampires have worked with witches for quite sometime, but to be genetically born a vampire, and carried in a witch’s womb that is quite impressive.” Phebe Harris adds.

Samantha looking at Nikki hopes this is not going to be yet another revelation regarding her parents – Nik has had too many of those of late.

“And so soon to become the necromancer and a vampire in her own right,” Miss Anastasie adds, “or so, Asenath indicates . . . and we all of course know her knack for the prediction. It is most uncanny. “

“She was very impressed with you.” Phebe Harris tells Nikki.

Samantha rubs at her temple, is this house affecting her – and Asenath? Who is Asenath?

“Very few would have ever been allowed to read nothing half so much as you were able.” Phebe Harris adds, and then looks over to Miss Anastasie. “I am surprised, Miss Anastasie —Asenath is still going by Asenath Upton? I would have thought she would have long since change to become the lovely Olivia Martense by now.”

“There is the paper work that needs to be cleared of the courts, she says.”

“I mean she so wanted her,” Phebe Harris reflects.

Nikki raises an eyebrow, “Coveted her body you mean.”

Phebe Harris smiles, “Yes—you might say that.”

Samantha now looks with a renewed sense of horror – she had a vague idea of what they might be talking about.

“But, you saw, Miss Nicole, is she not the most lovely?” Miss Anastasie says sitting back beginning to feel the absinthe.

Nikki smiles all too wryly, “Quite lovely—He wears her well.”

“Yes, he does.” She agrees.

“So—you have spoken to her?” Nikki asks—still quite uncertain as to why Madam Vadoma was so ardent in her desire to have her pay a visit to this house of the undead.

“There is a mutual connection between the Mercy Brown Society and her Resurrectionist League, yes.” Phebe Harris nods. “As there are many connections and alliances to be found through out all of New England.”

“So many connections – so much history.” Sipping the absinthe, Miss Anastasie says languorously. “For example, even you Miss Nicole – although you are from England, and recently transitioned in Paris, you too are connected to the Society?”

Samantha looks over at Nikki –

Nikki seems surprised, “I am?”

“Through Madam Phebe.”

“I am sorry?” Nikki looks at the ash-blonde quizzically.

“1796—your father. Barnabas, he had travelled to Boston and Providence as he was secretly planning to leave Collinsport. He was concerned that as he continued to plague the town, feeding indiscriminately, as he was off various women – he would soon be found out. Several people, including his own mother and father, had already learned about his true nature. He wanted to secure a place so as not to bring any more scandal to the family. We met at the Golden Ball Inn, it was a grand night . . . and he was so very, very charming – and handsome . . . and although I was married . . . “

“Are you saying my father turned you?” Nikki asks.

Samantha wants to say something but she remains silent—watching to see how Nikki was going to react.

“Yes. The epidemic was just beginning you see . . . “ Phebe Harris admits evenly, “Of course, he never returned once he went back to Collinsport.” Her voice wistful as she recalls that long ago past – the night she had asked him to turn her, with disease all around. “His family imprisoned him, as I was much later to discover.”

Nikki’s brilliant blue eyes looked at the woman in the back mourning gown; she took a sip of the warm blood – here was a woman her father had been with – a woman who knew him, perhaps more intimately than anyone she had ever met – and she suddenly felt the desire to talk to her more about him, even as she felt a pang of embarrassment. For their relationship had been one built on adultery—

“Had we known earlier, we could have . . . “

“Would have!” The ash blonde vampire corrects adamantly.

“Yes—we would have.” Miss Anastasie agrees, knowing Mrs. Harris feelings. “There is much history of Collinsport we may yet be able to share with you Miss Nicole – for even my family, though we came here from East Greenwich, sought first to relocate to your small town in Maine. There we had the mutual acquaintances – Madam du Val and her daughter Miranda. Only, it was after the time of great persecution and there were still witch hunters yet travelling throughout the Providence of Massachusetts Bay: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover, and Salem Town – even to Collinsport. Where the witch cult—which had been so recently uncovered—had left the small town suspicious of all strangers. Particularly those of us as unpopular as we – you do not know the prejudice there was against the French – and my father, fearing even more of course the discovery of our past from Caude, and the truth of his daughter, and what he had made of me, by what he had called down and could not control, the undead that entered unto me. You see, there were those that came to this New World from the old seeking to escape the religious persecutions, Miss Nicole – and there were the others you see seeking the refuge from other far more sinister forms of persecutions. Wizards and Alchemists. Witches and Warlocks. Necromancers and things even far older. Of course, my father, he claimed it was the too ardent a Protestantism as the reason for his haste in having to leave East Greenwich—and not at all the books he carried—and so, he gained of the Providence Town Fathers the sympathy – and they let him settle here, unaware that he even had a daughter – and . . . of my true nature.”

“The Witch Cult in Collinsport? You mean Judah Zachery?” Nikki asks leaning forward.

Samantha fidgets a bit, wanting to pull her feet up and curl into a ball, but remembering Nikki’s warning, refuses, and so sits awkwardly silent—not sure what all of this means

“Yes – the witch hunters, Matigan & Wiley – they had uncovered his coven during the year of the Oyer and Terminer – and he had been convicted and executed . . . and Madam du Val had been forced to send her daughter to Martinique after her testimony put her in jeopardy of not only those who still whispered witch – but of members of Zachery’s coven, dispersed now throughout the providence.”

“Did you know them?” Nikki asks, “Any of the members of his coven.”

“Only the one known as Hutchinson, he who was Madam du Val’s lover. He stopped to see my father once as he prepared to make his leave for Europe.” Miss Anastasie says, “They studied some of the old books, the diagrams my father had made.”

“Hutchinson was Madam du Val’s lover?” Nikki’s eyes narrow.

“Yes, but of course, it was he who gave Miranda to Zachery for a copy of that dread book – or so he tells to my father that night. “ She touches the lobe of her ear, “We can hear even when we do not wish, you know.”

“And so Madam du Val’s daughter – Miranda, she went to Martinique?”

Mrs. Harris turns slowly to look at Nikki, “She had turned King’s Evidence against Zachery – as everyone was far too frightened of him—even those facing death. But, he had done . . . things to her—and so she had her opportunity for revenge and she took it.”

“Who can blame her?” Miss Anastasie said, “My father, he knew of Zachery—they said of him that he was the true son of the Anti-Christ.”

“And so, the lead judge of the tribunal, Amadeus Collins, he made a deal with her – he dropped the charges of witchcraft against her in return for her testimony . . . and so they allowed her to leave – for her own good – as many knew she was truly a witch.”

Samantha knew this was very important to Nikki, but none of this ancient history meant anything to her . . . although the name Hutchison was a name she had heard.

“And in Martinique?”

Miss Anastasie sits back with a very sardonic smile, “Ah, Miss Nicole, now surely you must know –“

“If I knew for certain I would not ask.” Nikki voice now grows cold.

“She went by the name Angelique Bouchard—and she did not give up the dark arts, but rather learned of the magic of the island.” Miss Anastasie informs her.

Phebe nods, “Your mother.”

Samantha slips a hand out to touch Nikki – she feels her grow tense.

“Angelique, my mother—she was given to this Zackary for a book?”

“These are men who play at being immortals.” Miss Anastasie tells her, “They do not worship he whom Zachery was accused of worshiping.”

“The devil.” Samantha says.

Mrs. Harris’ languid eyes settle on Nikki, “You have met him who they called their god.”

“You mean—Nyarlathotep?” Samantha, her eyes widening, could not help say aloud.

Phebe Harris only smiles, and Samantha sees the sharpness of her fangs.

“You must be of the very wary Miss Nicole.” Miss Anastasie tells her, “Her name it is in his book and he so longs for you—“

Nikki is silent.

“You are the Wizard’s Daughter. You have read things that turn most men mad. You know far more than most have ever dreamed to know. He wants you – he’s wanted you from the moment of your birth. You must not do his bidding—that part of us that is undead were once his servants, but as the Shoggoths showed us . . . that shall never be.” Mrs. Harris tells her. “Once you are reconciled, come to terms with who and want you are, you will see what a mighty race we can be.”

“We are here for you Miss Nicole—you are blood of our blood.” Miss Anastasie tells her, “We will do whatever is necessary to protect you. But you must resist the temptation to do his bidding. You must not seal his deal with you.”

“I do not—“ Nikki begins, looking down into the blood that remains within her sherry glass, “I—I did not know I had a deal with him.’” Nikki tells her, “What is it I must not do?”

“It can not be by your hand that Petofi dies!”

Cue music end of episode