Night descends on legend haunted Arkham. To some it is almost algebraic. As Salem is connected to Arkham and Arkham is to Providence, so is Providence to Collinsport. And so, furtively, word has come from those arcane powers-that-be in Providence to Nicole Collins that something she should have once taken possession of, when she had the opportunity, she much now return to the shunned island in the Miskatonic to once again bargain for – a bargain of fatal consequence.
She wishes that Perdita were here.
But then, Perdita would have never assented to the vampire’s proposition, and so neither of them would have been out here. Not on this legendary, fog-shrouded island in the middle of the Miskatonic with her fingers wrapped about the chain links of these old manacles, which date back to the Salem Witch Trials – yet another thing Perdita would have been profoundly upset about, seeing as how these manacles, infused with the preternatural power of misery and magic from the plight of innocents and the vengeful invectives of the guilty, were hers . . . valuable heirlooms from someone apparently desperate enough to have handed them over to Perdita in payment for . . well . . . for whatever she had done in order to receive them as compensation for services rendered.
Elspeth takes a moment to lift her long, black skirt in order to assure that the hem has not been caught beneath the heel of her soft, leather boot. Renewing her grip on the antique links, she pulls upon them once more. The young woman, who had decided to use this moment of respite, from being manhandled up the embankment, to fall upon the ground in some hopes of impeding their progress – owing to the fact that her tears had failed to have any impact upon the dark-haired beauty who had assisted in kidnapping her – stubbornly refused to rise.
“Get up,” Elspeth says giving the links of chain a harsh tug.
“No.” The woman on the ground tearfully protests.
With a heavy sigh she renews her grip upon the chain.
How she wished Perdita was here.
Of her sisters, Perdita was the most powerful – and by far the most discerning when it came to forming alliances. Ever cautious: “As history has proven El, in this town, it is wise to be wary, very wary, of just whom one thinks they can trust,” she once told her as she stood near the hearth, the warming fire behind her, the saucer in hand, bearing her morning coffee in her favorite china cup – the white, gossamer robe – the one she knew was Elspeth’s favorite – backlit by the flickering flames, open, so that the gossamer’s near transparency was not merely left alone to reveal her lithe, nude body. “She wants you to do what?” She would have snapped upon learning of the phone call, “No! You are – we are not going to become involved, especially with any of those goddamned Collins’. The vampire can very well live with the goddamned consequences of her actions. Or the lack there of . . . just like the rest of us. We are not here to atone for the vagaries of the Undead—no matter whatever she is willing to pay.”
And for a brief moment, she had gone silent on the call, imagining Perdita’s admonishment – with an I am sorry, but no, all but forming on her lips . . . when the vampire revealed precisely what she was willing to part with – which proved to be far too enticing.
And would have been for Perdita, too.
Still, Elspeth was more than certain Perdita was going to have more than just a few choice words for her when she returned to Providence – “I’m just saying”, hand waving, “for future reference . . . “
Of course, being not only the youngest, but the wildest of her sisters, Mercy would have had absolutely no reticence in forming the alliance with the vampire, nor would she have had any compunction about hauling this hapless woman around Arkham in the trunk of her car; then dragging her back out of the trunk; tossing her into the old, strategically moored, rowboat; rowing her out to this desolate island; struggling to pull her out of the boat and then up, and over, the steep embankment, in order to lead her along the soft, earthen path toward the stand of ancient stones.
But then again – it was Mercy whom Rhoby Dexter was trying to find when she had called.
Where Mercy was, was anyone’s guess. Most likely involved in something down in Newport with Camilla Bowden.
Irritated with the long hem of her shirt and the ever struggling woman, Elspeth wrenches the short length of chain in her hands and pulls the woman upward. The button shorn blouse, falling open to expose the trembling pale flesh of the woman’s breasts, reveals the extremely nasty, twin puncture wounds still damply crimson upon the swaying right. Elspeth leans toward the woman, and with her best imitation of Mercy, when angered, tells her, “If you do not stop fighting me every fucking inch of the fucking way, I swear, I will take this piece of chain,” which she jerks on for emphasis, “and wring your fucking neck. Now—get the fuck up . . . and walk.”
Tearfully, Grace Duncan struggles to regain her feet, balanced by the woman in black, who continues to lead her by the leash of this short length of chain between the iron cuffs of the manacles that cut at her wrists. Her eyes frantically searching now for some avenue of escape—something to use as a weapon . . . she has heard way too many strange stories about this island – of it’s horrid past, of its mysterious present, tales of strange phantom shapes arising from the misty banks, of horrid sightings of phantasmagorias shimmering eerily upon the dark waters of the Miskatonic, supposedly visible on cloudless nights from the Garrison and West Street Bridges, of rumors of fires being spotted, fires burning with unnatural, white, hot flames amid the ancient stones arranged there – and what was assumed to have been consumed within them.
But more than this island – she fears what this woman is capable of.
It had all happened so quickly.
She recalls a blonde woman approaching her in the parking lot – not at all certain what she was saying mesmerized as she was by those frosty, lightly glossed lips. She can recall thin, long fingers upon the buttons of her flannel shirt. A sudden embrace – and then a sharp pain . . . she awoke as this woman was roughly shoving her out of a small rowboat and onto the wet shore. There was mud. And mist. And dampness. And a shiver inducing chillness. They were shrouded in an intermittent darkness. The only light being the dim illumination of the moon as it shone through high cloud-breaks. She could hear the wash of waves against the shore . . . . At first she thought they were on the riverside. No. It wasn’t the riverside – it was the mysterious island in the river. And, her wrists were shackled.
Somewhere she had lost a shoe.
“Please—“ Grace appeals to the tall, raven haired woman. “I swear . . . I promise not to say anything—”
Only the women does not reply – instead she only relentlessly continues to pull her along the narrow path toward the standing ring of ancient, weather-worn rocks arising in the island’s mist.
How could a simple altercation turn into something like this—
Rarely, if ever, was it reported in the Advertiser, except perhaps in the vaguest of hints, or the most ambiguous of innuendos, obscured within some news oddity – itself nestled away as far as possible from the front page – wherein one had to read between the lines to fully understand that besides the ever-growing heroin trade and its associated Russian criminal associations, there lurked a far more mysterious and sinister underground in Arkham. One well hidden beneath the polite society of New England – long since the days before they began hanging witches. Only spoken of in whispers. Vague gossip and muffled warnings. Of people, and places, and perhaps, even things, one should not fuck around with. But she had not suspected Cornelia Wasserman to have been one of them. Fucked up – yes. Crazy – yes. But a part of legendary Arkham?
The infectious electronic drum and bass beat intro of The Super Strong Murder Girls’ latest dance release almost lured her back into the throng as she and her latest lover, Nelson Low, wove their way through the frenzy of the Miskatonic students crowded upon the dance floor. But she resisted the lights and the music and the primitive beat which had infected her snapping fingers as she pushed her way forward through the labyrinth of dancing couples, well aware it was way past time for Nelson to take a break. He was ten years older and long out of breath. Her hand reaching back to find his, she led the way through the maze of pressing flesh to the small table where their drinks awaited. Flushed, she had slipped a hand up to lift her hair from the back of her neck as she stood taking a long pull from the green bottled beer. Her hips seductively enticed by the Murder Girls, she turned with a smile to say something to Nelson, only to see through the wake of dancing bodies, bathed in the hypnotic strobe of flashing lights, Cornelia Wassermann approaching their table. Although the Club Zotheque was mostly filled with students, university as well as high school, hopefully only juniors and seniors (admitted via faked ID’s), there was as well a representation of the growing number of local, faux pop fashionistas and deck millennials, who had begun to frequent this once long neglected historical, stone church, which had so recently been repurposed into a throbbing dance venue, by the New York owner, who, owing to reasons vaguely hinting at various legal difficulties, had relocated from Red Hook to Providence.
“Grace, you are a wonder to behold upon the dance floor.” Cornelia Wasserman’s approaching compliment seemed tingled more with sensual admiration than casual politeness.
“Cornelia.” She smiled and nodded in recognition.
The owner of a small sex boutique and bookstore on the corner of French Hill and College streets, The Erotika Biblion (a small, narrow storefront filled with an eclectic mix of the usual sexual paraphernalia scattered amongst the various sections displaying pseudo-occult New Age sexology; over-sized, coffee-table Tantric picture books; your basic, and advanced, joy-of-how-to-fuck compendiums; an ever-expanding assemblage of old, polythene protected, pornographic paperback and glossy soft-and-hard-core magazine collectables; as well as a small, specialized niche containing some rather rare volumes on ritual sex magick (it being Arkham after all), of which Cornelia was a frequent customer. One whose tastes had ran toward nothing more unusual than the normal leather and restraint products.
“Ms. Duncan – and all this time I thought you preferred a decidedly different taste.” Cornelia Wassermann remarked over the driving beat of the The Super Strong Murder Girls’ as she settled her gaze upon the curve of her breasts beneath the soft, grey-plaid flannel of her shirt, before allowing it to run the long length of leg exposed from the short, black skirt.
“My tastes are pretty much those of an all too simple epicurean. I’m a bottle beer girl.” Grace replied wryly, shaking the green bottle, having begun to feeling now her fourth beer, as well as the gaze of the tall, red-head, which felt more like the appraising scrutiny she was far more accustomed to receiving from a man.
“I can see.“ Cornelia Wassermann pulled back a chair and took a uninvited seat at their table. Grace, still standing, her hand lifting up her hair, the beer bottle in hand, thinking now that for all the times they had interacted across the counter of The Erotika Biblion, it was as if she were seeing Cornelia Wasserman for the first time. Tonight she was not the prim and proper red-head that visited her shop. The one whom Grace always secretly thought of as some nasty librarian. Tonight she was dressed like a “Murder Girl” in a mix of Goth and lingerie. And she was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Her pale skin contrasting with the red-hair. Her lips plum glossed.
She could not help thinking of Alice meeting the Cheshire for the first time.
As the primitive beat goes on.
Above the dance floor the lights strobe cobalt, then white, green, and crimson.
“I really love this song?” Grace’s hips hypnotically swaying to the music
“You should hear it on Alko.” Cornelia suggested.
“That’s some new drug . . . I hear. “ Grace said over the music of the Murder Girls, “A white powder, something like cocaine.”
“It’s nothing like cocaine.” Wasserman replied knowledgeably.
“You put it under your tongue, I hear.” Nelson said, suddenly speaking for the first time since Wasserman arrived.
“You will never hear or see things the same again.” Wasserman’s voice seemed to lilt over the din of the crowd and the loud music.
“Beer’s good enough for me – “ Grace wagged the bottle.
“I heard you would be here tonight.” It was nonchalant – but all too sudden a transition, even near the end of her fourth beer.
“Oh?” Grace looked back over her shoulder at Nelson. He gave her an innocent look – but there, she caught it – there was something in the way he glanced at Wasserman.
Grace was well aware of the rumors concerning a supposedly secret sex cult in Arkham, like in that film Eyes Wide Shut . . . which was allegedly composed of members from Arkham’s Social Register . . . a kinky cult known as the Scarlet Ceremonies . . . so the rumors went, with the usual whispered tales of secret rendezvous and perverse nights of sex, and drugs, and maybe . . . well maybe, if imaginations were allowed to run their inevitable course, then, perhaps something even more sinister . . . but, she had never suspected the naughty librarian to have been a member. She seemed too prim and proper. Business like across the counter. Only now, dressed as she was and with the overt admission that she had been aware of her plans for the night, plus, the too quick, and too furtive, glance exchanged between Nelson and the red-head. Was it possible?
“I understand you have acquired something that is of particular interest to me.” The comment too sly by half. Too much like a Bond villainess.
Oh, yes it was decidedly possible.
“You could have come by the store, Miss Wassermann.” She said turning from her distracted observation of the dance floor to look at them with a barely concealed flash of anger—and deep disappointment directed at Nelson.
Where they only together because she owned the The Erotika Biblion?
“True,” Her gaze lazily lifting up to look at Grace, “But since I understand you’ve contacted a book dealer in New York, I felt the necessity to speak with you tonight.”
There were only a few people aware that during her recent trip to Ipswich for an estate sale, she had been astounded to discover, tossed rather carelessly into a cardboard box, amidst several hardbound, 8 x 13, volumes of early 1920’s pornography (one of which was a significant find in and of itself—a rare photobook, containing various pictorials of a Hollywood starlet, Vera Marie Endecott, whose acting career could not sustain the weight of Photoplay’s lurid exposés, concerning her drug abuse, purported propensity for perverse sex, (which was a barely disguised euphuism for lesbianism), flirtations with the California occult scene, pornography, and a murder charge (later dropped)) – was an exceeding rare copy of Richard Upton Pickman’s ‘Necrotica. Now the short list of those aware of her discovery included the agent for the estate sale; Nelson Low; Dean Corso, a New York rare book dealer; and herself. Those not on the list? Cornelia Wasserman. And so, for Cornelia to be aware of anything in regards to her recent acquisition – and even more importantly, any conversation she may or may not have had with a New York book dealer – most assuredly had to come from Nelson.
Grace leaned down to place the beer bottle on the table – “Not that my business should be of any concern to you Miss Wassermann —“
The woman’s hand reached out and touched hers around the green bottle. “I would much rather we come to some arrangement about Pickman’s Necrotica, Grace. It would be in all of our best interest to so do so.” Although the red-head’s voice, interrupting her, was seemingly dispassionate – there was something sinister in her eyes.
“It that a threat?”
Wasserman did not blink, “It is heart-felt wish – that you should have a seat and we can come to some arrangement.”
Grace lifted a haughty brow, “I’m sorry, but before I come to any decisions about what i want to do with that nasty piece of work, I want an appraisal.”
“I can assure you, Dean Corso is not someone to be trusted. He has his own agendas.”
“I will be the judge of that.”
“I would not be so sure.”
‘There you go again – threatening me?”
“I can assure you Ms. Duncan, I don’t make threats.”
Grace looked at her. Eyes–to-eyes and neither one blinking. She straightened: “As much as I like the music;“ and finished her beer, “I have grown tired of the company.” And then with a flourish she put the bottle back down on the table, maybe a little harder than she had intended, but, at the moment she didn’t care as she grabbed her purse and turn to inform Nelson – the spy in the house of love – she was sure Cornelia could see him home.
And then she turned and left.
The woman in black roughly jerks her forward.
The closer they approach this unhallowed ground, encircled by the ancient, moss-grown, upright stones – which to Grace appears as if they were intended to form some-kind-of obscure Arkham Stonehenge – she takes notice of a pillar on top of which rests a large silver or pewter urn (and she does not even want to hazard a guess as to what might be inside). The few trees that grew on the island, seem to grow only within the stone encirclement, and they are all horribly twisted and contorted, as if made evil by the soil in which they have been forced to take root, their bare limbs reaching out, clutching, like something out of Tolkien, as if that had been planted there to constrain anyone who happened to have stepped within the circle of the stones. The ground fog that swirls and eddies upon the island, quivers and pools, in a refusal to touch a curious mound of darken earth centered within the circle of stones. It’s a barren mound of loose dirt, which does not appear to have been either tilled nor turned. A mound upon which nothing seems to grow . . . and there upon the summit . . . what is that?
A stake?
Grace jerks back on the manacles, struggling with the woman in black as she sees now, sliced down through the crown of the ancient stake, some horrible sickle from which hangs an old, black iron lantern, swaying in the wind and fog. A flame suddenly flickers to life, glowing through the filthy glass, to dimly illuminate the mound below. And to its left– the statute of a woman, which appears so life-like, she immediately thinks of Lot’s wife, only, oh my God, this woman was not turned to salt – but to stone.
“No—please. No.” Grace begs as Elspeth, who renewing her grip on the chain, pulls her up the incline toward the slanting stake.
This shunned island has been allowed to stand here in the river mists, since . . . long before the time of the witches. They say unspeakable things have been allowed to take place here. Satanic. And this mound can only be evidence to . . . . substantiate those horrific claims. Oh, Dear God! She does not even want to contemplate what has been done here. Allowed to have been done here – by whom? The Elect of Arkham. The members of the Scarlet Ceremonies? This was no longer just legends and myths. This was a lit lantern hanging from the crook of a sickle sliced into some-kind-of-a long standing stake. Did they burn witches from it? Could someone from the bridge, their hands gripping the iron railing, leaning forward, uncertain whether they might have seen something, there, in the center of the island, was that a light? The flickering light of the lantern? Or, would they turn up their coat collar and hurry on, certain it was nothing more than something best to be ignored and hurried away from?
No: please!
Grace tries to pull her wrists through the iron shackles, freeing herself, but only succeeds in cutting her flesh.
The woman jerks her forward toward the earthen mound.
“There is no one to help you.” Elspeth tells her.
Grace screams.
Relentlessly, in reply, Elspeth wrenches the short length of chain between the iron cuffs of the manacles and pulls the struggling Grace Duncan upward over the loose purchase of the earthen mound and ever closer to the stake – which, on closer inspection appears to be petrified wood, or, something very much like . . . upon which an old iron ring has been affixed. The ring is stained with what could be rust – or, God, it could be dried blood.
Grace begins to cry, “Please. Please! Tell Cornelia . . . she can have the fucking book!”
With a deft kick of her boot, Elspeth drops Grace to her knees, while, with an antique key, which she removes from a pocket in her long black skirt, she defy unlocks one of the manacles. The cold iron cuff quickly falls free releasing Grace’s bruised left wrist.
“Listen to me. “ Grace Duncan pleads looking into the cold, blue eyes of the Woman in Black, “I swear – I swear to God – I won’t tell anyone – anything!”
Only Elspeth takes the cold, iron cuff and quickly forces it into and through the ring affixed to the petrified wood of the stake.
“She can have it.” Grace continues.
Elspeth pulls and loops the ancient links of chain of the Salem shackles through the iron ring as well and, grasping Grace Duncan’s wrist, once more clamps the halves shut once more securing her to the stake before Grace’s frightened mind could completely comprehend that of all the moments so far in her struggle, this was the moment she might have been able to pull free.
“Please—just tell her . . . . She can have the goddamned book.”
Elspeth steps back, lifting a brow as she looks down at the woman kneeling on the blacken earth of the ritual mound, arms above her head, wrists secured. “What fucking book?”
Her voice is smoky and low.
“What fucking book?” Grace looks incredulous, “Pickman’s goddamned “Necrotica!” She yells in utter frustration, “What—what this is fucking all about . . . “
Elspeth calmly straightening the cuffs of her jacket continues to look down upon her, “You don’t want to know what this is all about.”
Cue Music End of Episode