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spoolsofthread · 3 years

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Beauty & The Beast

Part 2

Vincent

Central Park

To most people, Central Park was a place of recreation and relaxation. A place designed to bring a bit of nature to the concrete jungle. However, at night, it could be a dangerous place. Ruled by gangs and drug dealers, when the sun went down in Central Park anything goes, it was a place you didn’t want to linger. Which made it the perfect place to dump a body. Dark, deserted, no one would notice the dark, unmarked van creeping into a rarely frequented part of the park. It would take at least a day for someone to find her body. Anyway, it didn’t matter, they were fairly sure she was dead. If she wasn’t she would be, and if she lived, well, she got the message. They did their job.

The van opened it’s sliding door and shoved the lifeless body out onto the grassy hill and sped away. She lay there, unnoticed for what seemed like hours. Dressed in a dark coat, no one would even see her until daylight anyway, if they saw her at all..

Someone saw her.

Out of the shadows, a large man appeared. Dressed in a long, dark cloak, he created an imposing figure. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, in fact, it was his favorite time of the day. No one bothered him then. No one would dare even if they wanted to. Most people were afraid of him anyway.

He loved to walk through Central Park after dark, it one time of day when he could roam freely without worry and it always gave him a sense of peace. Until today.

He saw something lying in the grass from afar. It looked like it might be a trash bag or some kind of luggage. Until he saw a pair of women’s feet sticking out. His heart dropped into his feet. He ran towards the woman and turned her over. Fear, shock and sadness shot through his heart at the same time. Who would do something like this to a fellow human being? He felt her pulse, it was slow. There wasn’t time to waste. She needed medical attention. The nearest hospital was miles away. She’d never make it. He had no choice. He picked her up off the ground with very little effort. She very small and he carried her across the park. He walked over to a dark underground tunnel entrance and disappeared.

///////////

Cathy woke to tremendous pain and fear. She was blind. Her face hurt like Hell. She was disoriented. Where was she?

”No!” She cried out. Where was she? Still in the van? Did they blindfold her? Why couldn’t she see anything? “No!” She said again.

“You’re safe now.” A mans voice called out to her. It wasn’t the same voice as before. It was a calm and steady voice. Cathy wasn’t sure why, but she felt instantly at ease.

“A-am I in a hospital?” She asked.

“No, not a hospital. But you’re safe. No one will harm you, I give you my word.” He said softly.

“Why am I not in a hospital?” She asked suspiciously.

“There wasn’t time. Your injuries were too…”

“My eyes!” She screamed out, grabbing at her face, memories of the night before came flooding back.

“They were unhurt, thankfully.” He assured her.

“M-my face?” She asked, not sure that she wanted to know the answer. She was still so weak and weary.

“One thing at a time. You need rest. Don’t worry, you’re safe. I promise. Rest now.” He said calmly. His slow, steady voice lulled her back to sleep.

//////////

Sometime later, Cathy woke again, her head pounded and her face hurt, the bandages that swaddled her face were itchy and her body hurt. More than anything, she was terrified. Plunged into a world of darkness with only the sound of a strange mans voice to guide her. For all she knew, he was the one who did this to her. But she didn’t think so. She wasn’t sure why, she just knew.

“Hello?” She called out into the darkness. “Who’s here? Who are you?”

Nothing. She could hear soft shuffling of feet. She knew he was near, somehow, she could feel him.

“Who are you? Please.”

“Vincent.” Was all he said.

“Vincent.” She repeated back. She liked the name. She liked the sound of his voice, it soothed her frayed nerves.

Cathy moved and cried out in pain. Every fiber of her being hurt.

“Careful, you have broken ribs,” he said. “Try not to move.”

“Where am I?” She asked.

”Where no one can hurt you.” He reassured her.

”I need my phone.” She said.

“There was no phone on you. There was no purse or any identification on you at all.” He said.

“Do you have a phone?” She asked.

She thought she heard him softly chuckle. “No, I’m afraid there are no phones here.”

Cathy was confused. “No phones? Everyone has a phone these days.”

“Not here.”

“Not here? Where are we? On the moon?” She asked. She couldn’t imagine anywhere that didn’t have cell service.

“It seems like it sometimes.” He said in amusement.

“I don’t under-” Suddenly Cathy winced in pain. “Ah, my face hurts!” She cried.

”Tell me your name.” He said softly, trying to distract her.

“Cathy. I mean C-Catherine.” She said. She wasn’t sure why she wanted him to call her Catherine instead of Cathy, it just felt right in this moment.

“Catherine.” He said quietly. As if he were testing the sound on his lips. She liked the sound her name coming from him, she didn’t know why. At the darkest moment of her life, she felt a flash of giddiness go through her at the sound of her name from his lips, followed by shame. She had bigger things to contend with at the moment.

“Try to rest.” He said. “If you need anything, I’ll be close by.”

She felt him get up off of the edge of the bed where he’d been sitting and move away.

“Don’t be afraid.” He called out to her from the darkness.

A second later, she felt him move closer. “Please don’t be afraid.” He pleaded softly.

Somehow, the tone of his voice made her feel a tiny bit braver and she muttered out a weak, “I’ll try.” Before falling back to sleep.

///////////

Vincent made his way through the labyrinth of tunnels towards his father’s library. He knew he had to face the consequences for his actions. Father had shown considerable restraint all things considered when Vincent had shown up with Catherine in his arms, bleeding and nearly dying. Father said nothing, simply went to work. That’s how he was. Quiet and efficient. Always thinking of his patient first. He was a miracle worker, considering what he had to work with. He always seemed to have the right instrument or the right medicine at hand to pull his patient through at the last minute. Of course, Catherine was the most serious patient he’d had to deal with in some time, but he acted like the true professional he was and saved her life, for that Vincent was truly grateful.

Vincent slowly walked into the library, like a recalcitrant schoolboy who had been caught ditching class. However, Vincent knew his crime was far worse, the consequences for his actions could be far more monumental and could hurt a lot more people than just himself.

He had always loved Father’s library. It was warm and full of knowledge. There were books stacked high on every shelf. Shelves lined every square in of the room. There was a large, worn antique globe that Vincent spent hours pouring over. It had old names for places like Persia which is now Iran. There were maps and oriental rugs lie over the floors. Most of these things had been cast off from the world above. Things thrown away that the above world didn’t want. Down here, they were treasures. Items from museums and theaters. Everything about this world was old and theatrical and Vincent loved it. It was so different from the cold and brutal world he’d known and tried so hard to forget. He loved this life and would give his life to protect it. Which made his decision to bring Catherine here so unusual.

Father had his back to Vincent, pouring over some new medical books that were “cast off” from the world above. This was a treasure beyond words to him. Vincent delighted in his reaction to them. Father had holed up for almost a week reading the latest developments in the world of medicine.

Jacob Wells also known as Father was what was known as a renaissance man. He was a doctor to be certain. He received his doctorate at Oxford University and practiced medicine at University College Hospital for almost ten years before serving in her Majesty’s royal army as a medic. After his service was over, he disappeared for many years, his whereabouts unknown. He appeared in New York in the late eighties a shadow of the man he’d once been. Haunted and deeply troubled, Father had difficulties fitting into the real world, so he retreated once again. He found the underground world where he’d found his purpose at last. People like him, outcasts who had retreated from the difficulties of the world above, who’d found a way to coexist in harmony in the world underground. Here, he was free to practice medicine on people who really needed it. It was difficult and challenging, but rewarding. Finding Vincent, a lost soul who needed him the most was the best thing he’d ever accomplished in his life.

“Father,” Vincent called out to him from the shadows. It startled him. Vincent had a way of disappearing into the darkness. It was his way. It was hard for him to let it go, for him to remember that people found it.. uncomfortable sometimes.

“Is she awake?” Father asked without turning around.

“Yes,” Vincent answered softly. “She’s very frightened.”

Father sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, a sign he was trying to reign in his temper. “How could you. How could you bring a stranger down here, to where we live? Do you know the dangers you’ve exposed us all to? You’ve ignored our most sacred rule!”

Vincent sighed, “I know that.” He said.

“Do you know what they’d do if they caught you up there? They’d put you behind bars and make you wish you were dead.”

“How could I have turned my back on her?” Vincent asked.

Father shook his head. He knew Vincent was right, he couldn’t have left her there, it wasn’t in his nature anymore. Still, the girls presence in their world left him a host of problems. He walked over to his medical bag and pulled out two bottles of antibiotics. “Make sure she takes these to prevent infections.”

“I’ll make sure.”

“I was saving them for emergencies, in case one of us got hurt or seriously injured.” He chastised.

“Father please try to understand, how could I leave her there, alone and bleeding, she would have died?” Vincent pleaded.

Father knew Vincent’s heart was in the right place. “Alright, help her regain her strength, but the moment she’s ready to leave, get her out, and for pity sake, don’t tell her anything.”

Vincent chuckled, “Don’t worry, she’s getting stronger every day, it won’t be long.”

Father smiled, “You know, you have the heart of a doctor. You would have made one Hell of a good one.”

Father reached over and gave Vincent a kiss on the head. Vincent was like his own flesh and blood. He couldn’t have been prouder if he’d been his natural born son.

“Go on now, tend to your patient.” He laughed as he shooed Vincent out of the room. He then turned back to his medical book.

//////////

Vincent patiently fed Catherine another spoonful of soup. She tried not to let it dribble down her face. She listened to the various sounds that surrounded her.

“Vincent, tell me, where are we? Somewhere there’s an elevated train. Brooklyn? Queens?” She wondered.

Vincent laughed. “No, not Brooklyn, or Queens.

“Am I still in New York? Please, tell me, where are we?” She begged.

“I-I have to keep it a secret.” He said quietly. Vincent was torn. He could feel the fear within Catherine. In fact, he could feel her fear so strongly, it was becoming his fear. Some nights, he would wake up in a cold sweat, only to come to her room and find her tossing and turning in a nightmare. It was as if he were feeling what she was feeling at the same time. It was confusing him.

“Why is it a secret?” She prodded.

“Because. Because a lot of good people depend on this place for safety and protection. I cannot betray their trust.” He answered. He was telling her too much already, he knew that, and yet, he knew, somehow, he could trust her. He wasn’t sure why. There was so much about this woman that was a mystery to him, feelings about her that he couldn’t explain. She certainly wasn’t the first woman in his life, she wasn’t the first injured woman he’d come across, but still, there was something about her, a connection he felt to her. Like he had a responsibility for her happiness and well being, it was important to him and he wasn’t sure why. It was forcing him to behave recklessly, in a way he hadn’t for a long time.

“I’ll keep your secret.” She said as if she could read his thoughts. “A-And that tapping, it never stops.” She commented as she listened to the sounds of banging metal all around her. It frightened her.

Vincent could feel her fear. He sighed. “It’s people, talking to each other.” He said. “Tapping on the master pipes.”

“You mean like, messages?”

“Yes.” Was all he would say.

“Vincent.” Catherine pleaded. “Please tell me.”

He could hold back no longer. “We’re below the city.” He said. “Below the subways, there’s a whole world of tunnels and chambers that most people don’t even know exist. There are no maps to where we are, it’s a forgotten place. But it’s warm, and it’s safe, and we have all the room we need. So we live here. We try to live as well as we can, and we try to take care of each other. It’s our city, our own world down here. We are very protective of it.”

“What are you doing down here, why are you here?” She asked.

Vincent was silent for a moment and Catherine thought he might not answer her, then after a moment, he spoke.

“I-I lived another life, up there. Up top, in that world. A life I truly regret. It was a wasteful life, a life full of pain, hurt and anger, and so I might have continued if I had not met the man who I now consider to be my Father. He showed me a better way. Made me a better man, a gentler, kinder man I hope. I owe him a great debt. He brought me here, to this world, to a place where I know peace and purpose for the first time. Where I know love. I owe him everything.”

“I don’t know what to believe.” Catherine said. Her head was swimming with information. So much was happening to her. She didn’t know what was true anymore. She didn’t imagine Vincent would lie to her.

“Here, have some more soup.” He said from the shadows. Catherine reached out to find the spoon and felt his hand instead. A sort of electric shock shot through her and she gasped as she retracted her hand. If Vincent felt it too, she couldn’t tell. She thought she’d heard him gasp as well, but maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe all this was just a dream.

Main Page - Pt. 1 - Pt. 2

#beauty & the beast fic #fanfic

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spookyspaghettisundae · 6 years

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Portrait of Emptiness, Part 3

Magdalene’s heart pounded like a drum, for she was walking alone. In the mist-riddled streets of Crimsonport. At night.

Every sight and sound kept her on edge, almost causing her to jump out of her own skin. She strained to identify the source every time. The pitter-patter of a cat here, the dubious passerby stealing furtive glances there, and even a group of drunken men whom she feared might stop and accost her. Although none of the people whom she encountered crossing her path paid her any mind, she kept looking over her shoulder, remaining tense until they disappeared around a corner or till the thick walls of fog swallowed them whole.

Being the first time ever for her to explore the city at night, the sheer amount of people and nightlife surprised her. Still, it was not the people that frightened her—not the wayward, nor the thieves, nor the cutpurses she feared to come across. It was the creatures of the night she dreaded, hiding in the darkest corners, stalking human prey, thirsting for blood and finding it among the damned souls unlucky enough to appear in their sights at such ungodly hours.

Magdalene, a young girl, would know no more of these things than the superstitions running rampant among the people of her time and age, had she not encountered the unnatural creatures firsthand. Had she not been taught more about them by Nora Morrissey.

Nora had also taught her—at least in theory—how to trail a mark, or how to shadow a person. Most of these lessons focused on hunting prey in the wild, like the forsaken woodlands surrounding the city. Some of the lessons applied now as well, even within the monolithic walls of the dreary city.

First tack: know your prey. If you know how a beast thinks and behaves, you know how to find it more easily. If the mark is on the run, it will fall into its natural routines. Even a wild monster can fear for its life and fall into its usual ruts when in danger, retreating to places it would feel safe. Get into the mark’s mind and you shall find the mark.

In Marcel’s case, he was no beast, and Magdalene questioned how well she had gotten to know him in the weeks prior to the death of the aristocrats he was accused of having murdered. Yet she had a few things to go on—Marcel’s home, a shack in the harbor district, as well as the streets they walked together during sunny days while chatting.

Second tack: keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. Even when the mark is trying to cover its tracks, it is bound to make mistakes. These mistakes manifest themselves in clues. Broken branches in the forest, deep and unmistakable imprints in soft grounds from a misplaced step, or campfires and waste left behind.

Regarding this point, Magdalene had nothing to go on. They were in a city, after all, and she found the streets impossible to read the way Nora had described the ways to read the woodlands. But she was working on it, scouring the wide roads and alleyways alike, hoping to find a dead giveaway.

The hours Magdalene spent in search of Marcel filled her with unyielding dread. She kept imagining all the horrible things that might befall her. She suspected monsters lurking everywhere.

Yet she remained alone all this time. Her only constant companion was the sound of her boots striking the cobblestone roads at a brisk pace, turning irregular whenever she swerved to look over her shoulder or pause to investigate something odd. Clues to Marcel’s whereabouts continued to elude her.

Then, on the last road among the ones she took walks with him on, she saw a shadow in the mists that reminded her of Marcel’s silhouette. On the gaunt side, not too tall, ragged attire. She stopped and moved behind the corner of an alleyway branching from the street. The mysterious silhouette disappeared, accompanied by the creaking of a heavy iron gate.

Magdalene squinted, trying to focus her eyes in hopes of seeing if she had truly found him. Her only certainty—the figure had entered the cemetery of the Hillrise District. Her heart beat faster at the mere thought of that.

“You better stop loiterin’ around her, laddie,” said a man with disdain in his tone, speaking from her side. The corpulent man had his hands balled into fists, resting at his hips. It took Magdalene a moment to realize that he wore the clothing of gentry, as typical of the folk dwelling in Hillrise.

His eyes grew wide when their gazes met for a moment and realization set in.

“Oh, pardon, with your clothing—I thought you were some do-no-good lad, miss,” he said. Even with the nearest street lantern casting dim light on them, she could tell he turned red in the face when he asked, now with a ring of concern in his voice, “What are you doing here this late?”

Still on guard and ready to pull the knife hidden in her coat, it took Magdalene some deep breaths and moments of focus to grasp the situation. When she snuck out of her mother’s home, she had dressed up in old clothing of her father’s. Magdalene had done so out of practicality, as Nora always said that she would need to dress for function, not fashion, should she ever hunt. Only now did it dawn on her that this stranger’s misunderstanding stemmed from her attire making her look like a boy until he saw her delicate facial features. The somewhat musty smell of the clothing surfaced in her senses again and helped ground her in the here and now.

“On my way home, sir,” she replied in the volume of a mouse, while turning away from him, hoping he would not recognize her ever again. Hoping that he would not follow up on that, nor follow her on her dark path.

It took all her concentration, and her cheeks burned brightly to just walk away, contrary to her nature to talk things out when possible, though she managed to fake confidence as she strode towards the cemetery. The man she left behind snorted and followed a different path, vanishing into one of the houses.

Magdalene arrived outside the iron-barred gate to the cemetery. Eerie gargoyle statues perched on stone pedestals flanked the entrance and peered down at her. The fog had thickened, allowing her to see no further than a stone’s throw away into rows upon rows of gravestones and mausoleum entrances. The gate itself had been left ajar.

Her chin quivered until she set her jaw. She slipped through the opening between gate and fence, fearing the thought of anybody hearing its metal hinges creak the way they did when maybe-Marcel had entered. Or whoever might be lurking around here at this hour. Her mind reeled with the staggering array of possibilities. Ghouls, cryptwalkers, vampires, all such things were possible. What if Marcel was one of the ancient dead, capable of wielding sorceries? It would explain the mysterious murders, but it did not quite add up with what she knew about him, either.

The deeper she trailed into the cemetery’s confines, the more distant the city’s nightly sounds became. The thick fog and oppressive silence that enveloped Magdalene made her hold her breath and watch her every step—she strained herself to avoid making any sound at all as she crept through the graveyard in search of Marcel.

What if he noticed her first? What if this was a trap?

The questions dissipated the moment she heard a faint squeak and saw a small lantern switched on, no more than a hundred paces away, in a forest of headstones and creepy ornate monuments to the dead. As the gas-powered light grew brighter, the silhouette looked much more like Marcel. Magdalene took no time to make sure, instead choosing to duck behind a large angelic statue. The figure—her mark—descended down the steps inside a small mausoleum entrance. The light from his lantern faded as he closed the gate behind himself.

Sweat erupted from her palms, though her hands and feet turned icy cold. She shivered and re-adjusted the collar of her father’s jacket, though this summer night felt fairly mild, and her efforts to warm up would do nothing to keep the sense of cold dread from creeping into her heart. She placed her hand on the grip of the knife, feeling its outlines through the fabric of shirt and jacket. Once she ensured she still had it on her person, she inched closer to the mausoleum entrance with careful, quiet steps.

She struggled with this. With everything about this. Two parts of her clashed, underlined by her heart beating so fast that she could feel it thumping against her chest. A part of her that wanted to believe that Marcel was innocent, and a part of her that knew, deep down, that he had some connection to the dark forces of the Red Coast—or was, indeed, a monster.

Magdalene arrived in front of the mausoleum entrance. The large oaken double door loomed tall, reinforced with wrought black iron and etched symbols of graceful reapers and angels that stood watch over the deceased. The doors stood slightly ajar, just enough that she could see a glimmer of light from the depths, deep down from the bottom of a long stairwell behind the crack. A heavy padlock hung from an iron ring attached to the door’s reinforcements, unlocked, with the key missing.

Above the doors, engraved in the keystone, she read the name “Collins.” Marcel’s family name. He never did tell her about his ancestry, only about living as an orphan. Never about what happened to his blood relatives.

She could find out. She could ask him. She could enter now. Or leave and seek help. Maybe Constable Todd would help? Maybe she should alert the authorities? But would they not be lambs to the slaughter in the face of the unnatural? Then again, what could Magdalene herself, all alone, do?

She could turn back and investigate during the day. But no—Nora had once said that she would show her what Johnn had taught her about picking locks, but neither of the two adults ever got around to teaching Magdalene this particular trick. Surely, Marcel would lock the crypt doors again once he left this place.

“Kill, or be killed. When you are on the hunt, Maggie, you have to act decisively. Stop thinking. Go in for the kill before the mark can get you first. They all fight back. Cornered beasts—be they man or monster—always fight back. Act without thinking before they can,” Nora once said. The gravity of those words echoed in Magdalene’s mind now.

She pushed the door open and winced, expecting it to creak loudly like the cemetery’s front gate. These doors, however, remained silent. The dim glow of Marcel’s lantern faintly traveled up the winding steps that descended into the bowels of this mausoleum.

Whispers. It sounded like Marcel whispering.

Taking each step down the stairs with trepidation, one by one, Magdalene closed in on the source of light below. The whispers, clearer now, sounded unlike any language she knew. Alien, foreign words, guttural, clipped, and jagged. Harsh combinations of consonants unfamiliar to her ear cascaded out of his lips, though she still could not see him yet.

The whispering stopped, and so did she. After waiting a full minute before daring to breathe again, she continued on.

Certain she had made no sound whatsoever, she rounded the last stretch of the spiral down its steps and stood inside a sprawling chamber, lined with sarcophagi set into alcoves around the room. A slab of wood had been placed atop two sarcophagi at the far end of the crypt. With candles and a skull and books placed upon it, it now looked like a makeshift altar.

Marcel’s lantern stood on the floor, unattended, near what looked like splatters of blood, though they took formations too geometric and deliberate to have been shed by mere injury. Though she could not read them, she recognized them as glyphs she had seen in Nora’s journals, used in things like magickal practices or dark rituals of worship.

And beyond all of these unsettling sights, stood more portraits. They all looked like renderings of Magdalene, in different attires and situations. Surely inspired by the times she spent her days with Marcel. Though unlike the Portrait of Emptiness, these paintings were sloppier, rushed. Uglier.

Marcel was nowhere to be seen.

Magdalene held her breath as she approached the altar and the paintings set up on easels behind it. She trembled with each step, and her chest came close to exploding with the violence of her heartbeat. The paintings of herself drew her in, for they too, betrayed a brutality in their brush strokes. Clumsy lines and sludgy color compositions flowed together and revealed something about the artist.

Obsession. And hatred.

These portraits unsettled her, but not nearly as much as the sight of the tomes atop the altar she now stood before. Left open with a dozen candles shedding flickering light upon them, the pieces began to fall into place.

She swallowed, and when she reached out to flip through their thick pages, Magdalene clenched her trembling hand into a fist in an attempt to quell its quaking. It helped little, though she proceeded to inspect the ancient writings within the tomes.

Antediluvian necromancy. Not magick, not from pacts with demons, but ancient rituals. Prayers and songs to old, forgotten gods, to creatures in the void between worlds.

“No,” she whispered to herself. She knew from her research in Nora’s journals what madness overtook the poor souls reckless enough to practice these dark rites.

The first two tomes kept their secrets in a language Magdalene could not comprehend beyond the glyphs mirroring the ones in blood upon the crypt’s floors, but one of the other books was a fine little journal signed by Avery Collins, containing cleanly-written translations in the old high tongue, which Magdalene had learned from her father’s library. She understood them. She recognized what they conjured. Some part of her instinctively knew how to use them. “No, no, no.”

“Empty your heart of all desires, pour it all into works of passion, and let devotion fill that void. The Princes of Despair will hear your prayers, and bless you with miracles of death. The grass shall wilt underneath your feet wherever you wander, and your foes will succumb to pestilence and misery.” Words that Magdalene read in the tome, hearing them only in her head, until Marcel completed the rest of the final sentence. Confidence wavered in and out of his tone as the words poured out. Rehearsed, rather than sincere.

“I could not let them mar your perfection,” Marcel then added.

Magdalene felt him approaching but dared not move, dared not turn around. What should she do? Could she really kill him? What could she do?

She touched the handle of her concealed knife once more, knowing it to be there, though surprised by the feeling of her heartbeat even through all the fabric of her father’s shirt and jacket. Magdalene knew what had to be done.

“Words,” she said. Her voice trembled in harmony with her body. She pulled out the blade and turned to face him, then nearly dropped the kitchen knife when she finally saw him.

Marcel looked worse than ever before. Gaunt only began to describe his features. His visage revealed sleepless nights and days without nourishment. Blood splatters had dried upon his skin and the rags he wore. His entire hands were stained in dark colors, though Magdalene’s sinking feeling in her stomach told her that more than paint was responsible for those stains.

His otherwise lively eyes stared into hers, hollow and burnt out. Marcel was a husk of his former self, starved and more like a walking corpse.

Magdalene pressed her lips together with such force that they became thin white lines, and she mustered all her courage.

“Just words, Marcel. They mean nothing. What you created—it is a masterpiece, no matter what they say. You need not kill them, or anybody, over words,” she said while he crept closer to the beat of each word. She awkwardly held the knife out in front of her, clutching it in both hands and pointing it at his face. “Stay back, I do not want to hurt you.”

“I am so sorry, Maggie. You were not supposed to see this. Any of this. My master—my father—forbid me from ever sharing this knowledge with the world. That is why I had to take his life, too,” Marcel said. “I fear—I fear I cannot let you leave. I cannot let you live.” No uncertainty in his voice this time.

His bony arm snaked out and snatched the blade from her hands, taking her by surprise. He turned it around and closed in.

Magdalene’s eyes reddened, and she fought back the tears welling up, threatening to cloud her vision. She could not afford it now. This was the decisive moment. The time to stop thinking.

The time to act.

He lunged forward, but instead of getting out of the way, she grabbed the blade with both hands and pulled. This, coupled with his own momentum, threw him aside. He stumbled and fell over the wooden board that his pathetic altar was comprised of, crashing down onto the hard stone floor with it and knocking out the lights of the candles. The knife clattered onto the ground with a sharp, ringing sound.

The sting and ensuing pain from her palms being cut open by the sharp knife followed with a delay and finally won the battle for her eyes, causing tears to stream from them. Though she somehow expected herself to scream in agony, nothing came.

Instead, Magdalene gritted her teeth and clenched her fists till the crimson dripped from them. She sprayed the ritualistic symbols on the floor with her own lifeblood.

Sprawled and so weak from his famine and fatigue that he struggled to get back up on his feet, Marcel craned his neck to peer back up at her from the floor. The reflection of the gaslight lantern in his widening eyes was the last thing she saw before kneeling down in the prayer circles and clamping her eyes shut.

She folded her bloodied hands before her in a semblance of prayer, and prostrated herself before the powers that be. She knew not who or what would answer this desperate call, but it mattered not. She prayed for a miracle, no matter how dark it may be.

“No,” Marcel muttered in his feeble voice. He shuffled around, not closer towards her, but farther away. Then he shrieked, “No!”

Something told her to not open her eyes, for a cacophony of sinister laughter, and stone grinding upon stone, and rustling of fabric, and scraping of metal against metal, and rattling of chains, and howls of pain, and other horrendous things began to fill her mind. Then it filled the chamber, assuming a place in reality, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

She felt a presence—something not of this world. First in the back of her mind, then throughout her entire body, then in the world around her. And she dared not look. She wanted to give in to whatever shred of morbid curiosity awoke inside of her, screaming at her to glimpse the abyss she had just opened, but her sheer fear eclipsed it.

“We awaited this moment. Your awakening is now. Your destiny chosen,” spoke an unfamiliar voice in a strangely serene monotone.

Marcel screamed and panted and scurried, sounds that cut through the ghastly noises echoing through the crypt, all around Magdalene. Many presences had joined in the chamber, one darker than the other. Claws scraped over stone, not of a natural gait, but to instill dread in the hearts of its prey.

“Hunger,” said one, hissing the word in a whisper.

“Feast,” chimed in another hiss.

“N-no! I will stop you. Must stop y-you—the only way,” Marcel stammered. The metal of the knife scraped against the floor as he picked it up and his weak footsteps limped over at Magdalene, whose eyes remained tightly shut.

Only steps away from her, his panicked, labored panting transformed into a shriek, rising in pitch until it turned into a gurgle. Something shuffled before Magdalene. Something with powerful, heavy movements that thumped down onto the stone tiles like boulders, conjuring up images of legs thick as tree trunks.

The sinister laughter returned, now in front of her, laughing at Marcel, illustrating its amusement over the sounds of Marcel’s pain weaving into the gurgling sounds that escaped his punctured throat.

“Pray we return once more, seeker of the void,” whispered a feminine voice into Magdalene’s left ear. It sent shivers down the girl’s spine, and she feared that these beings would take her next.

“We accept his sacrifice,” cackled a tiny voice from a corner of the room, moving quickly.

Disgusting smacking sounds and something akin to a limb being wrenched out of its socket filled the room, just before Marcel stopped emitting sounds of hellish agony. It caused more tears to stream down Magdalene’s cheeks.

“But a child of man, yet we taste the spirit in your blood,” whispered the feminine voice. It spoke in an unidentifiable foreign accent and sounded weirdly familiar to Magdalene.

“Followed your call from beyond the veil,” said another voice.

“Our blessings—yours—until you break our laws,” said a hiss.

The scuttling, scuffling, clanking, scratching, the bouts of horrifying laughter, and the scraping, it all grew into a crescendo and then went silent. Magdalene knew better than to open her eyes. Her hands still clasped together in prayer, she trembled all over, knowing herself to be in the presence of ancient beings now.

She asked, “What laws?”

She rested her forehead against her hands and focused on the pain of the cuts in her palms.

Do not give in to the fear. Do not open your eyes. She told herself these things, yet she opened her eyes.

The crypt was empty save for the objects that had been there before, the flickering light of the gas lamp causing the shadows of the sarcophagi to dance around the room like ghosts. There was nobody there.

Nobody but Marcel’s decapitated corpse. It looked like something had torn his head off, with his head nowhere to be seen. The mystic tomes of dark rituals lay not in disarray around his destroyed altar, but now neatly arranged around Magdalene in a perfect circle, splayed out to pages littered with glyphs and writing that began to invade her thoughts.

Though the tears blurred her vision and she needed to readjust her eyes from having shut them for minutes that had felt like an eternity, Magdalene could have sworn that one of the lids on a sarcophagus just slid shut with a subtle sound of stone grinding upon stone. She shivered at the thought and decided not to investigate.

“What do I do now,” she asked into the emptiness. The emptiness that now filled her heart, and the silence of the crypt she knelt in.

No answer ever came.

The time to act had passed. The decisive moment. And Magdalene had acted.

It took her what felt like an hour to calm her nerves and bandage her hands with shreds of fabric torn from her father’s shirt, to climb out of the crypt and lock it behind her, to even just attempt to leave this dark chapter behind her. But she would never forget. Those sounds, that evil presence, Marcel’s sudden death, it all would haunt her for the rest of her life. Unsure what she had done, she only knew she had done something.

With the small stack of mystic tomes and Avery Collins’ journal under one arm, she exited the cemetery, wandering out into the foggy streets of Crimsonport, hoping to return home before dawn or before any officers might spot and stop her.

Magdalene was not herself anymore. It felt like she had been transformed. Something had irrevocably changed—both with the world and with her. It rendered her dizzy with fear, and trembling with a sense of unexplored might. She shot a glance at the reddening spot on her bandaged palm where the blood was seeping into the cloth. Then at the tomes under her other arm.

A grim realization took over. She now had the tools to act. Now, she not only knew of the unnatural things that dwelt in and around Crimsonport. Now, she held on to something that would give her the ability to deal with them—to fight them.

When she had prayed to stop Marcel at any cost, those old, deranged deities answered. She had sacrificed her desire to find a way to fight evil through her own power. She had become a vessel for something that did not belong in this world. In time, studying those tomes would yield power that she could wield against the creatures of the night. But now, she was one of them.

After sneaking back into her home through the cellar, she changed back into her night gown and silently crossed the inside of her mother’s house, hoping to return to her bedroom undetected.

She paused in the hallway, in front of the breathtaking portrait Marcel had painted of her.

The Portrait of Emptiness.

Seeing her old self, frozen in that moment, filled her with a sadness she would never be able to subdue.

That Magdalene was gone now.

—Submitted by Wratts

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