"That"s good to know...I think." A long revelation stilled her. "Wow."
"What?"
"s.e.x with you took my mind off c.o.ke."
"Let me know when the effect wears off. I"ll make sure I"m available."
She chuckled, shaking her head.
"I better go now..." The moment made him antsy. He felt as though he should say something else but didn"t know what it should be.
"All right, I"ll talk to you later," she said.
He stalked over to her, grabbed her rather roughly, and pulled. Again he was cramming her against the boxes but instead of choking her he was kissing her, while his hands couldn"t resist mauling her contours. I adore this woman, he thought. Their tongues delved; they sucked each other"s breath as if desperate for it. Fanshawe wished he could dissolve into the heat, scents, and substance that was her.
"If you bang me again like you just did," she panted, "I"ll be in a wheelchair for a week," but the prospect didn"t seem to daunt her: she reached to unbuckle his belt...
Fanshawe sucked her neck, then dug his fingers hard into her b.u.t.tocks. She sighed, flinched, then nearly squealed when he twisted her nipples through her blouse. He wanted to do it all again right there, but common sense returned.
He had other things going on besides Abbie. His awareness of the looking-gla.s.s in his pocket reminded him.
"Later," he said. "But I need to show you something tonight."
"Yeah?" she purred.
"Yeah."
"Where?"
He looked right into her eyes. "Witches Hill, around eleven-thirty."
Her eyes lit up, but then she slumped. "s.h.i.t. I can"t. Believe it or not, I"m not just an inn keeper with a secret. I"m also on the town council. We"ve got a big meeting tonight at eight. Sometimes those things go till two in the morning. It"s a big pain in the a.s.s but I signed on for it, so..."
"Tomorrow night, then."
Before she could say "Okay," Fanshawe kissed her hard one more time, then left.
(II).
Fanshawe showered, changed, and rested, nursing his carnal wounds in his room. I was choking her, he thought. I was...
He didn"t want to think on it further. Not being in control of himself was something he"d never experienced outside of his voyeurism. Images of Abbie and their primitive lovemaking kept flashing in his mind. It had been exquisite.
And now she"d agreed to leave with him, go to New York.
The prospect thrilled him, even in spite of her own much more destructive addictions. But there was something else that thrilled him as well.
He saw that Dr. Tilton had left another message, and so had Artie. They would have to wait. From the sweltering hidden room in the attic, Fanshawe retrieved Jacob Wraxall"s other diary, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading every handwritten line that had remained legible after over three centuries.
It was a demented tableau that unfolded before him. His stomach turned with each sentence he deciphered, yet the more he read the more grimly fascinated he found himself. The nighttime doings of Wraxall, Evanore, and Rood demonstrated an unprecedented exercise in systematic and cold-blooded diabolism, and in real-life atrocities that paled their 21st century counterparts. Murder, rape, and torture were mere commonplaces for these three; instead it was the nauseating intricacies of their occult regimen that placed them on so high a pedestal of evil: infanticide and patricide; the draining of blood and evisceration of live subjects, too often children and newborns; absolutely depressing s.e.xual despoilments; and the alchemical distillation of fetuses, among other even more unspeakable things. Also, the s.e.xual revelries of Evanore and her twelve coven members provided a level of moral abandon that Fanshawe simply could not conceive of. On occasions when certain coven members were thought to have lost a faith dark enough for further inclusion, the punishments they were subjected to were described to every iota that the style and lexicon of the 1600"s could convey, and to an a.s.siduity that at one point forced Fanshawe to rush to his suite"s bathroom and throw up.
This is awful, he thought when he"d finished. And it"s all real. But as disgusted as the revelations left him, the more he regretted how much of the diary remained hopelessly unreadable. He even felt gypped by what he wasn"t able to read, which seemed contradictory, given his open disgust.
At eight, he had dinner at the pub, tended to by Mr. Baxter. He made sure not to bring up the topic of Wraxall this time, so not to seem obsessed. Instead, they talked of things more innocuous, including the weather, and at one point Fanshawe said, "I was thinking of inviting Abbie to go to New York with me for a little while, if that"s all right with you."
Mr. Baxter had no problem with his daughter going to New York with a billionaire. After more harmless small-talk, Fanshawe thanked the older man and left.
By now, it felt more like instinct that any time Fanshawe meant to stroll the town, he"d wind up on the walking trails which led to Witches Hill. When he arrived at its peak, the sun was setting spectacularly.
Midnight, he told himself. It only works after midnight.
Through his pocket he felt the tubular bulk of the looking-gla.s.s...
The temptation was there, of course; there were still two hours to go before the clock struck twelve. As the sky darkened, and the stars blinked brighter, the many windows of the town began to blink as well-right at Fanshawe, baiting him to take out the gla.s.s and pursue more of his shame-laden weakness. Even this far off, with his naked eye, he glimpsed the joggers at the end of a run, entering the inn, but Fanshawe did not focus the gla.s.s on the window he knew to be theirs. And the Travelodge?
The time couldn"t have been more ripe for a good long "peep," but Fanshawe didn"t do it. He thought about it, but soon realized he wasn"t going to succ.u.mb to the cheapness of his addiction. The delicious thrill he normally experienced did not rear its head.
Instead, he waited for midnight.
He crossed paths with several couples strolling the hill as well. Fanshawe nodded, engaged in some genial chit-chat, then moved on. He paused to view the horrific barrel, then the grave-plots of Wraxall and his daughter, the latter sunken by what had been plundered from it so long ago. Then he turned and found himself standing before the Gazing Ball.
What are you? he asked as if the arcane object were a person. An orangish moon rose behind it, the angle coincidently perfect for the metal sphere to eclipse the lunar body"s glowing circ.u.mference. The spectacle lasted only a moment, but in that moment the ball gave off an aura of shimmering, thread-thin light the color of molten lava.
Fanshawe had no choice but to recall the diagnosis of his own aura...
Black...
And the words of Let.i.tia Rhodes: ...the color of one"s aura reflects the true character of their heart....
But Fanshawe knew that he was not a black-hearted person.
Before he realized it, his watch read 11:55. Back on the highest peak, he withdrew the looking-gla.s.s and raised it to his eye.
Almost time...
The town beamed in the twilight. It looked beautiful...and modern. He ranged the gla.s.s around, never once coming near the Travelodge, nor the joggers" window. Instead he found the clean white town hall. The expansive first-floor windows blazed, showing movement. Fanshawe focused and saw part of a conference table, along with several people sitting behind it. One was Abbie, her hair shining, and her lips moving as she referred to papers spread out before her. Her town council meeting, he thought. Did anyone on the council know about her problem? Fanshawe doubted it. But she"d hidden her drug addiction so well, he had to wonder what else she might be hiding. He knew the trouble he might be getting into but...
I don"t care.
Fanshawe knew he was falling in love with her.
He continued to scan the gla.s.s until movement in another window snagged his eye. It was one unit in the row of red-brick Federal Period town-style houses. The movement he detected in the window was composed of sleek bare flesh: a nude woman"s back, presumably, and slick, shining, as though she"d just stepped out of the shower. But the thrill-surge of adrenalin that would typically couple such a sight with Fanshawe"s heart...
Never came.
The nude woman turned for a moment, sporting modest, shapely b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It was Let.i.tia Rhodes.
Fanshawe slid the gla.s.s away, first out of respect to the woman and, second, he felt no interest in privately spying on her. His weakness for such sights seemed neutered. It seemed like a favorite meal he"d eaten so many times, he"d grown tired of it.
But you will succeed in defeating this weakness, he remembered another of her prophesies at the parlor.
Fanshawe kept his perfunctory reactions in check. Some of the things she"d told him during the reading were quite true but he still knew he might be subconsciously fulfilling the prophesy himself. Time would tell.
And as for time?
His watch-alarm began to beep the arrival of midnight...
Here goes. This is it. Here"s where I prove to myself what I"m pretty sure I already know...
When he put the gla.s.s back to his eye, the watch-alarm faded away, to be replaced by the floating, baritone-deep yet uncannily brittle gongs from the church bell that no longer existed.
Now the town sat huddled, as if pushed down by the midnight sky; it was half the size of the town Fanshawe had left just before dusk. Far off, the rolling vista of forest stretched, where there was no forest now. And through the gla.s.s the town"s dirt roads lay tinged by moonlight alone, not sodium light from streetlamps.
I knew it, he thought, surprisingly composed. There"s no mistake now. This looking-gla.s.s is for real, he thought, which meant- His own hands now grasped the proof of supernaturalism.
The ramifications didn"t occur to him; no deep thinking accompanied his validation. Those considerations would come later. Instead, he simply looked-and marveled at-the utterly impossible.
The town house that would one day be owned by Let.i.tia Rhodes-and whose taxes would be paid by Fanshawe himself-stood dreary and dark and weather-stained. In the closest pillory, a pitiable woman hung, her waste-blotched hair hanging nearly to the street. A sentinel in a tri-cornered hat, and with a star-shaped badge on his chest, walked rounds down Main Street, a lantern in one hand, a billy club in the other. Several horses stood still as statues while tied to their posts. From the entrance of the church, a man alighted, no doubt the bell-ringer. He walked straight from the church to the tavern across the street.
Fanshawe pulled back the focus, then swept the entire, decrepit town. Tonight, not a single window stood lit- Wait!
-save for one.
He brought the gla.s.s to bear, and closed the focus.
A figure was waving at him, from a top-floor window of the Wraxall house. By now, Fanshawe was not surprised to see that it was the very room he would rent three-hundred-plus years later-clearly a room of indescribable horrors. And just as the room was no surprise, neither was its current occupant, the Van d.y.k.ed and emerald-eyed Jacob Wraxall, dressed in a long-tailed vest and ruffled linen shirt; around his neck hung the exact same pendant his likeness wore in the portrait. The cunning grin on the necromancer"s face made Fanshawe realize this: He"s aware of me. He knows I"m looking...
On past nights, it had indeed seemed as though Wraxall and/or his daughter were personally addressing him through the gla.s.s, but this he"d dismissed as paranoia. Now, however, he knew it was nothing of the sort.
He knows I"m here. He"s back in his time, and I"m in mine but...he KNOWS I"m here...
It seemed as though Wraxall had somehow predicted Fanshawe"s use of the gla.s.s tonight. Next, Fanshawe remembered the wretched sorcerer"s epitaph: Convict"d of Sorcerie, Deviltrie, & Infernall Prophesie...
Prophesy, Fanshawe thought. Could Wraxall read the future?
It occurred to him that any man who could make such a looking-gla.s.s might well be able to read the future and quite a bit else.
Fanshawe adjusted the gla.s.s"s focus to the confines of the window. Candlelight wavered from within. Wraxall maintained the sly grin, but the disposition of his eyes changed, signaling to Fanshawe to be attentive...
In the window"s eerily-lit frame, Wraxall raised a hand, showing a sc.r.a.p of folded paper. His other hand raised an over-sized black book with what looked like gold flake on the cover. Fanshawe thought back to his first intrusion into the hidden attic chamber and the large book kept in a traycase...
Is that the same book?
Wraxall turned the book over in his hand, opened the back cover, then inserted the folded piece of paper. His smile sharpened when he reclosed the book.
Fanshawe kept staring.
Wraxall may actually have even winked back at him. Then he turned and began to climb the rope ladder, taking the book with him.
The now-familiar drone of Fanshawe"s resolve filled his head like engine-noise. He ran full speed to the inn, forewent the elevator to take the stairs two at a time up to his floor, and barged breathless into his room. He locked the door and within minutes had slid off the trapdoor, dropped the ladder, and was up into the attic room that had been known to no one but Fanshawe for over three centuries.
His vigor raised clouds of dust as his feet scuffed over the blood-scribed pentagram. Fanshawe hacked in the floating grit; he was delirious to move on and plow forward. His hand shook when he found the bookcase and then the book itself that had triggered his memory. Here it is! He shined his penlight down. The ancient traycase crinkled when he lifted it open; gold leaf sparkled back at him when he read the volume"s bizarre t.i.tle: DAEMONOLATREIA. He lifted the entire book out of the case, lay it face down, and opened the back cover. There, pressed between the book"s end pages, lay a dimly yellowed folding of paper...
Parchment, he realized when he touched it, and instantly more of Let.i.tia Rhodes"s words echoed in his mind: Rood"s diary does say that the key to the Two Secrets was written down on parchment by Wraxall himself before he died.
Fanshawe let the invaluable book clunk to the floor, then rushed back down the ladder. He felt giddy when he sat at the complimentary desk and carefully unfolded the parchment. His heart raced.
The short pa.s.sage commenced: To whosoever by Dark Providence and Adventuring Spirit shalt scruple to follow me: Make thyself sensible to these Words, Venturer, and Rejoyce! Be thy Will stalwart, and provideth thy Heart be Black... To larn ye Two Secrets-yea!-ye Unholiest Knowledge of Extream Evillness of ye sartain Rites of Transmigration and Riches unto like those of Croesus and all ye Pharaohs of Antient Aegypt putt to-gether! These Secrets wilt I make knowne unto thee, but onlie in that they maye be pa.s.sed from mine Lips to thine Ears- "Oh, for pity"s sake!" Fanshawe grumbled aloud. "Your lips aren"t gonna tell me anything! You died three hundred years ago!"
But he read on: Thou must now grasp thy Intellect as if *tis ye throat of an Unhandsome Harlot, and forge thyself Stoutly Mindfull to my Instructions, which be thus: Taketh thy Black Heart and thy Bleeding Hand forthwith to ye Bridle!
"Finally! The Bridle!" Fanshawe exclaimed, then hoped the volume of his voice hadn"t awakened anyone. But he wasn"t quite sure what to make of the arcane "instructions." Was Wraxall being subjective? Is there some riddle to this? Or did he just mean...
He looked at his hand. "Black heart and bleeding hand?"
A few more lines of the occultist"s writing remained. Afterwhilst thee must besmear ye Mystickal and Horrid Sphere with thine own Blood and then thee wilt take into thy Mouth one Driblet of ye Wretched and most Nefarious Aqua Wicce- Fanshawe"s eyes peeled open as he easily translated. Wicce-wiccan: witch! Aqua: water! Witch-Water!
And the rest: Do this, Venturer, and I shalt gladlie receive thee amidst my Parlour and reveal the Secret Inwardness of that which I knowe.
That was all.
Fanshawe darted back into the attic, grabbed one of the flasks of Witch-Water, then drifted back out into the night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
(I).
It was one-thirty in the morning when Fanshawe stood again in front of the crazily carved pedestal and the mysterious...o...b..that crowned it. Before re-ascending Witches Hill, he"d stopped at his car and grabbed a larger flashlight. All the while, he wasn"t quite sure what he was doing or what he expected.
The night was still stiflingly warm, yet when he placed his hand on the Gazing Ball-the bridle-it felt almost ice cold. He knew it was a trick of the moonlight but when he stared at the pedestal, the swaths of tiny occult symbols seemed to exude the faintest pale-green luminescence. But when the time came to do whatever it was he was going to do...he paused.
I could just go back to the inn, get Abbie, and get out of here. Start a new life...
He raised the looking-gla.s.s and aimed it precisely at his own window at the Wraxall Inn.
The creepily angled roof, gray wood slats, and black windows sat there like some hulking thing in wait.
Fanshawe, next, was examining the surface of the Gazing Ball: tarnished, encrusted, weather-pitted. But the strong white beam of light brought out a blemish that was obviously new.