The Children of Arnborg: the Prophecyby Rene Barry |
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Chapter 3
part 3 of 4 |
Boston District Attorney Stuart Morrow has enjoyed an unholy alliance with a group of vampires for years, but when his prosecution of a high-profile defendant goes awry, he begins to understand that it will take more than the legal system to put things right.
One night on a Boston highway, the company of a seductive vampire named Emma will plunge him deeper into the dangers of their world than he could have ever imagined and into a battle for his own survival.
Emma marched up the colonnade with Stuart, who was still in somewhat of a stupor at her side, but she had no time for him just yet. The blue varnished doors opened readily for her on her approach, and Stuart noted the slight tilt of her head up toward the security camera to her right.
She entered the large, spacious room bathed in the same bluish light that Stuart had observed back at The Coven’s hideout, but this was another hideout of sorts. This was their lair, The Coven’s headquarters. Inside the room The Coven had gathered awaiting Emma’s instructions.
“Get out!” she spoke quietly, leaving no room for protest.
They did.
Stuart watched her stand in the middle of the massive hall, a singular figure rubbing her hands together, her cold, rigid beauty becoming almost a fixture at the center of the marble room. He gazed around at the dark blue drapes that kept out the sun, at the gargoyle and angel founts that gurgled in the midst of the silence and at the monitors that whirred and buzzed, always scanning for some unknown presence.
His eyes moved across the judge’s bench and jury box, each stationed at a far corner, mimicking a human courtroom, and finally across the marble floor and up toward the arches above him that echoed Emma’s measured clip-clopping as she finally moved. But he was still anchored near the doorway.
Emma motioned for him to join her in the belly of the hall, but when he did not respond with the expected immediacy she shrugged, left him at the opened doorway and proceeded to retrieve a large black book from a nearby cabinet, leaving Stuart perplexed at her patience.
“Ah!” she uttered with a satisfied smile after running her fingers through pages of painstakingly inked foreign text. “Oh, never mind them, Mr. Morrow,” she muttered, reading Stuart’s thoughts. She had returned to lean against the door and caught him off guard with her preternatural swiftness. “They would not dare harm you. I’d kill them before they do,” she said to the jittery D.A.
He was still perusing the neighborhood for signs of The Coven who had disappeared, perhaps into the surrounding houses, perhaps into the fields that flanked them on all sides. Emma turned Stuart’s chin toward her and held the door open in a mildly exaggerated gesture of welcome, waiting patiently as he shuffled about at the threshold before finally making up his mind to enter the hall proper.
She moved from behind him with the same preternatural agility and strength as she had done just moments before and waved a pentacle to the four corners of the room, reciting the chant she had plucked from the pages of the spell book.
Let no man’s feet run hitherto or seek
this sanctuary, lest of whom I speak.
To my companions, bear them no reproach
but whither thou the bones who would encroach
unwelcome, seeking us they would do harm.
Let power rise from pentacle in palm,
and show us favor, Osiris of the deep.
Let Dead Ones rise and Living surely sleep!
She threw her trenchcoat onto a table and stripped naked.
“What are you doing?” Stuart’s voice interjected, he was edging toward the doorway again, appearing ready to run away at a moment’s notice.
“No, no, no. Come in. Come in,” she whispered hurriedly, teasing him with her body. “You must stay. You must stay,” she urged. She was holding an athame in her hand and swung it toward the doors. They slammed shut on their own.
She bit her wrist and watched the blood flow into a palm-sized clay bowl, glancing at a stupefied Stuart every now and then with a sly smile. She drew a pentagram on the floor with the collected blood, setting three black candles evenly apart inside it, repeating with each task, “I call on you, Isis, Mother of the Living. Oh Osiris, god of the Underworld, I invoke thee! Come to my aid. I invoke thee!”
Stuart watched in confusion as she lit incense and wormwood with salt inside the blood-stained clay bowl, stirring the contents with her athame. He drew in the aroma. “Emma?” he asked again but she signaled for absolute quiet. His eyes were glued to her naked feline body.
She descended upon her coat and took the file that had lain on the table between herself and Judge Grant. Inside lay nothing more than a signed paper, one typed paragraph above a familiar-looking signature.
“That’s it?” Stuart asked incredulously.
“Mind yourself,” Emma warned. “There is no room here for disbelief.”
Stuart started as he heard the sound of a car approaching. He looked toward Emma who appeared disinterested and busy with her morbid preparations. Moments later came a knock on the door. He did not move.
“Mr. Morrow,” Emma spoke, “perhaps you should open the door? Let my brother in?” It was an instruction more than it was a request.
Stuart obeyed, retreating to the door quietly. “What have I gotten myself into?” he sighed wearily.
A few seconds later Joshua emerged upon Emma’s little ceremony with Grant’s body slumped over his shoulder, making the D.A. choke at the sight of the half-dead man. Rebecca stood by holding a jar with symbols engraved on it. Two members of The Coven stood by with Woolsey and Raines slumped over their shoulders.
“Dear brother... Rebecca...” Emma welcomed them.
Joshua laid the three bodies within the pentagram to form an opposite intersecting triangle to the candles and dismissed the other Coven members soon after. On their exit, Emma swung her knife toward the doors, and they slammed shut again.
“Are we ready?” Joshua whispered, ignoring Stuart’s reaction.
“We are ready,” Emma replied.
“What about him?” Joshua nodded to Stuart.
“He is welcomed,” Emma whispered reverently, stepping into the pentagram. “I love him...”
Stuart’s stared in shock at Emma, but her attention had already moved to the ritual at hand. “What are you doing with Matt?” Stuart cried. “What are you going to do to these people!”
Joshua undressed himself as Rebecca did the same, the wounds in her shoulder already healed. “Remember what I told you,” he whispered to his companion. ‘Remember the invocations... and no fear. The gods will oblige us.” He rested the jar in the center of the pentagram.
“My God! What are you doing? Tom’s still alive! Emma!” Stuart screamed.
She violently swung the blade in his direction.
May silence reign in those who naught but watch.
May peace and still tongue linger in this wretch!
His jaw locked and something like fire streaked across his tongue, his eyes screaming the pain he could not voice. He watched Joshua and Rebecca step into the pentagram with Emma.
“Now,” Joshua grunted, holding a mirror toward Emma while a terrified-looking Rebecca kept a rambling litany of conjurations going on Joshua’s earlier instruction, “where were we?”
Emma pointed the athame at the signed page she had retrieved from the folder. “Arise, Thomas Grant! I grant thee life! Arise!” She heard the judge moan and watched his half-lidded eyes widened. She knelt over him. “Do not speak! Do you see us here? Do you recognize where we are?”
His eyes rolled in acknowledgement. He saw the familiarity of the courtroom, exactly where he had made his blood pact with The Coven and sold his soul to the gods.
“Do you realize that after all, you are the key to our freedom? I gave you a chance, Thomas. Because I spared your ancestor, I gave you the same courtesy. Look to your right. This woman is free, still free to harm us, and now this contract,” she held the page down to him, “your soul that you sold to us in the presence of the gods and goddesses, your very plea for everlasting protection, shall be your doom!” She stood up.
“Emma...” Grant groaned. “Emma...”
Emma held the knife up to the air. “Spirits of the astral world!” She pointed it downward, “Spirits of the Underworld, Osiris, Father of the Dead, I conjure thee! I call to thee! Bring us Arnborg! Bring us Arnborg!”
Stuart stood terrified, Grant groaned in desperate protest, but neither could move or fight.
“Bring us Arnborg!” Emma screamed. “Bring our mother back to us!” She darted the knife at the mirror. “Thomas Grant, I call your spirit! I conjure you! I invoke you! Leave your body! Come to me!”
Copyright © 2011 by Rene Barry
