Evil Unearthed: Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-two

Kathleen woke to the sound of a light tapping on her door and the sight of the morning sun pouring through her window. She did not remember dreaming, which was for her a relief, since the last few nights had been filled with disturbing dreams of being chased relentlessly through dark woods and being pursued by faceless enemies. Now, as she heard the light knock and opened her eyes to see the bright morning light, she found it difficult to believe that she had even slept, so uneventfully had she passed the night. Still, her limbs felt strong and refreshed, and her whole body seemed suffused with a truly rich sense of well-being which she had not known for years: not indeed since she had been a girl and had spent summers with her aunt and uncle on their farm in the hills of County Down. Even despite all the worry and danger, she felt that she could handle whatever was about to happen, and she realized that this was because she was not alone. There were others here to share the danger and to fight the darkness, and until their coming she had not realized how lonely the last few days had truly been.

The knocking came again, slightly more insistently this time, and she finally sat up.

"I'm not dressed," she said, thinking it might be Stephen.

"Well, will you let me in anyway?" It was Vangie's voice.

"Yes of course," she said, and went to the door to open it.

the Vangie who greeted her as she made way for her to enter was not the same Vangie who had left her so peacefully last night. Her eyes were wild with a strange intensity and her face looked drawn and haggard.

"My God!" Kathleen gasped and quickly ushered her companion to a seat. "What's happened?"

"I'll be alright, Kat," said Vangie. "Last night was--difficult."

"Did you even sleep?"

"I'll be alright," was all Vangie's reply. "Now, if you would get dressed and washed, I need your help with something."

Kathleen dressed quickly and cleaned herself up, and all the while Vangie sat unmoving, regarding her in silent contemplation. Yet, she felt that beneath this stillness lurked something manic, something barely controllable. Something, she thought, had thrown the Conjure Woman badly off balance, and she was trying desperately not to surrender to simple, human fear.

"Alright," she said once she was dressed. "What on earth is the matter? I've never seen you like this!"

"Please come with me," said Vangie, and she moved quickly out of the room, Kathleen moving with her, trying with all her resolve not to be alarmed by her manner, though all she really wanted to do was to break down and cry. To see such a self-possessed woman as Vangie shaken so badly rocked her very confidence in this venture, and as the woman in front of her raced through the halls of this great house, she perceived that it was fear to which she had surrendered, and she longed to surrender too. Still, that sense of well-being was with her, and she found herself remembering when Vangie had lain unconscious on the path behind the French Leave Hotel and she had braved her fear of the tall Michel to insist that the Conjure Woman be brought to her own room to recover. Even then, she thought now , she had felt something for this woman, some feeling of protectiveness. This was probably transferred from Julia, because she could not be with her friend at the time, but now there was something more. Vangie had always been there, had saved her from Erica, had tried to save Julia, and now something had happened to make her frightened. This angered Kathleen beyond measure, and she resolved to help this woman in any way that she could.

This fierce loyalty was tempered, however, by the direction in which Vangie was leading her. She saw the familiar archway and a deep revulsion rose up in her.

"I--I--can't go there," she said.

"All that lies here is death," said Vangie, turning and speaking in a strained voice. "Come, please, Kat!"

"Alright," she said, and she steeled herself for the trip into the crypt. There were the coffins in their niches, and there was the ruined capsule sitting where she and Julia had left it to rest on top of the portrait of Jacques. Kathleen reflected that it had failed to keep Erica imprisoned just as it failed to confine the portrait and its mysterious and malicious power. She was standing transfixed by this strange relic of a stranger obsession when Vangie suddenly grabbed her arm.

"Further on," was all she said, but it was said in such a commanding fashion that Kathleen had no choice but to turn from the capsule and to follow the Conjure Woman to the alcove which Julia had shown her on her first night back on the island.

"Quito once slept here," said Vangie, in something like her normal voice. As Kathleen looked, she saw the sleeping form of Julia lying there, her face deathly white and her eyes wide and staring.

"Erica is weakening," said Vangie in a gentle tone. "I'm going to speak with Julia. It's taken a lot of power for me to keep her body asleep, but so long as it is, Erica is powerless to interfere."

"Is that why you're so--so nervous?"

"I'll tell you everything soon," said Vangie, "but I have to confirm a few things first."

"What am I here for?"

"She'll feel safe if she knows you're here," said Vangie. "Take my hand and I'll take Julia's." Kathleen was surprised to feel how chilled was Vangie's hand, but she decided not to comment on it.

"Julia," said Vangie now. "Will you speak to us? Kat is here as well."

Slowly, Julia's mouth opened, and her eyes began to focus. Kathleen was alarmed, thinking that Erica was reasserting herself, but Vangie gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and she relaxed.

"She's down there somewhere," said Julia thickly. "She can't see me now. Thank you!"

"It's what has to be done," said Vangie. "Now, I need you to tell me about last night. Did she do anything unusual?"

"Kat," said Julia. "Your friend, the professor or priest or whatever he is. She--she--she raped him I think. I mean, well, something happened. He was Jacques I think, and--well--Oh God!"

"I'm going to talk to Erica now," said Vangie, in an exceedingly soft and apologetic tone. "She'll be under my power and will only answer what I ask her. Alright? Go back to your sheltered place, Julia."

"No, wait!" said Julia. "You have to know something first. They talked--Erica and--and--him. Jacques. They want you destroyed! You have to be careful, Miss Abbott. You tried to warn me in the dream, and I didn't listen to you! I'm so--so sorry!" For a moment, Kathleen thought Julia was going to cry, but Vangie simply stroked her forehead quietly and suddenly, Kathleen knew that Julia was not with them anymore. The eyes had resumed their fixed stare and the breathing had slowed down considerably. Then, slowly, Vangie began to speak, and all gentleness was gone from her voice.

"Spirit from the void, you who name yourself Erica Desmond, you will speak to me."

"I hear," said Julia's voice but with Erica's inflection and with a slow and thick diction.

"Good," said Vangie. "What are you planning? What is Jacques planning for the people on this island? What does he want?"

"A new body. He wants a new body," said the voice. "I, this body I mean, we are to give it to him."

"And what has he promised you?"

"To dwell with him forever. He wants us to live as you have lived. He wants us to be immortal."

"And how does he plan to achieve this?"

"Like before," said Erica. "The mark, the sign, the curse. This world, this time, he says is perfect for him. No one cares anymore. No one will stop him, because he will be exactly what they think they want, but then it will be too late, he says. They will be his people, his slaves and slaves to the other, the one who truly brought me back from death."

"When you wake," said Vangie, "you will believe that you have dreamed this. You will not remember it clearly. Is that understood?"

"I hear," said Erica again, and Vangie let go of the hand which fell limply to the sheet.

Kathleen watched as the Conjure Woman got slowly to her feet and, seeing that she overbalanced slightly with the effort, caught her quickly around the waist.

"Look," she said, as the two stood swaying a moment and she gazed into Vangie's tired eyes, "whatever you're doing, whatever you have been doing to keep her like that," she pointed at the bed, "it's too much for you! You've got to stop it!"

"I will," said Vangie. "I will, but I want you to tell me something first. How did you sleep last night, and how did you feel when you woke up this morning?"

"I slept well," said Kathleen. "I had no dreams that I can remember. I woke refreshed and more clear-headed than I've been in--" She stopped, and looking again at Vangie's drawn countenance, felt like kneeling before her in shame and gratitude.

"I can't believe it," she said, dropping her eyes to the ground. "You had the dreams? You endured all that--for--for me?"

"Let's get out of here," Vangie said, and the two, on a shared impulse, linked arms as though they were school-chums and walked out of the crypt, up the stairs and out through the large front doors of the house into the bright, late-morning sunshine.

The first thing she noticed was the fact that Vangie had relaxed a great deal once they were out of the house, and the second thing she noticed was the quiet and the absence of construction equipment. Indeed, she saw men taking pieces of it down the cliffs in preparation to transport it off the island.

"They weren't scheduled to leave yet," she said half to herself.

"I'm sure she means to have them back when she has--" Vangie paused meaningfully, "dealt with us. Now come, and let's enjoy the day."

Kathleen followed Vangie to a stone seat set in what used to be the Desmond garden. A dry fountain in the shape of a great, coiling and winged serpent sat near, and Kathleen regarded it with some interest.

"That," said Vangie, "was an attempt by one of the Desmonds to pay homage to the islanders' beliefs. It was a misguided attempt, but at least he tried."

It looks very old," said Kathleen.

"I think it dates from the eighteen-hundreds," said Vangie. "Raxl could have told you who built it."

Kathleen looked at the fountain again. The water would have sprayed from the serpent's open and tooth-filled mouth and would have filled the basin around which the rest of the creatures long and intricately-carven body was twined. All in all, it was a grand piece of decoration, and, she thought, not out of keeping with the gloomy opulence of this strange paradise in which Julia had now made her home.

"Well," she said after a silence of about five minutes had passed, "I'm glad to see you looking better, Vangie."

"I wanted to keep you safe from her advances," said Vangie. "Erica, I mean. She wants to trap you. Can you not feel it?"

Kathleen thought back to yesterday's boat-trip across the channel, when she had helped Vangie to guide the boat through the treacherous currents and eddies between here and the main island, and she thought also of the time in her own office while Stephen was blessing it. She had felt a creeping darkness trying to suffuse her mind and she had hated it.

"Yes," she said now. "I have felt it, but you can't protect me forever."

"No," said Vangie with a sigh, "unfortunately, I cannot. I found that out last night. You'll need to learn to protect yourself, and it's this that I want to try to teach you."

Kathleen hated the thought of laying her mind open to anything nowadays, even to Vangie's comforting presence. She was afraid of the other thing, the darkness which kept reaching out to touch the edges of her mind with what felt like cold and slimy fingers. She did not want to let this thing in or even to give it a chance to find her, and least of all did she want to open Vangie's mind to it, knowing what she had inadvertently done by letting Julia handle Matthew Dawson's cross for even a short amount of time. Still, she knew that whatever had to happen here in order to drive the evil influences away from this house would require all their strength combined, and so she knew that she had to let Vangie help her if they were to have any chance at all of winning this fight.

"Alright," she said. "What can you show me?"

"Actually," said Vangie, " you know how to do it already. You've done it before. Yesterday, when I was guiding the boat across the channel, you managed to block a very powerful presence from doing harm to all of us."

"But well, at first, I knew it had--had touched you." Kathleen cast her eyes to the ground in shame. "I'm--I'm sorry."

"No, no," said Vangie, taking her hand. "You performed admirably when it counted. Can you tell me how you did it?"

"Well," said Kathleen, "I imagined my mind as though it were a castle." She looked at the great house as she said this. "I knew that the enemy was at the gate, and so I thought about soldiers. I thought that it wasn't enough to build the walls. I had to have soldiers to defend the battlements."

"This is better than I could have hoped!" said Vangie. "You fought back. You didn't just shield yourself, but you actively fought against the presence."

"I also," said Kathleen, "I also--uh--thought of you, Vangie. I found that by focusing on you, I was able to calm myself, or well, to be calmed, I guess. I wasn't sure if you were helping me, but I did feel a calming presence with me."

"As it was, I did try to help you," said Vangie, "but most of my mind was bent on guiding the boat. It wasn't only wind and wave with which I had to contend, as you know."

"Yes," said Kathleen. "What was--is that thing? It feels so cold and dark, so empty and yet so evil!"

"That is the power behind all this. Stephen would call it Satan or the devil. It is pure evil, more evil even than Jacques and Erica. They seek immortality. This immortal thing seeks death, the death of the soul of humanity."

"And it wants--it wants me?"

"It wants all of us, Kat." Vangie's voice had become very soft, and Kathleen saw tears in her eyes.

"Vangie? What is it?"

"It's this island," said the Conjure Woman. "It has lost its heart, it's soul. It lost it a long time ago, long before Jean Paul Desmond decided to bargain with the things of the dark. There used to be huts along the beaches down there, and the Temple of the Great Serpent was whole and undefiled. Fishermen fished and weavers plied their trade. Children were born and old men and women died peacefully here. It was not always named Maljardin. The people of the Serpent conquered this evil, or so we thought, but we were not vigilant enough, and now it is awake again, and this time, it wants to finish what it started all those years ago."

Kathleen listened spellbound to Vangie's words, for it was clear that she was not just recounting history, but was actually remembering the life which used to teem upon this island and the people who fished in its waters, and all at once, she too thought she could see the huts and a path which led into a deep and hidden cave. Through the cave the people seemed to travel, until they entered a labyrinthine set of tunnels, and these were filled with traps and pitfalls which only the priest and priestess knew how to negotiate, and soon, she saw the temple itself, a vast and firelit space with a great altar in the centre, and on the altar the coiling form of a serpent molded from some lustrously green stone. Then she saw another thing which chilled her to the bone. Set to the side of the altar, under the serpent's head, was an ornately-carved basin, and into it blood was being poured. She gave a sudden scream and clapped her hands to her head.

"You saw the temple," said Vangie. "You followed me that far!"

"Followed? What?" She was fighting hard to control the impulse to vomit. "Tell me, Vangie. What did I just see?"

"I'm not exactly certain myself," said the other woman. "I was thinking about the ancient temple, and there was blood in the sacrificial basin, but the rest was hidden from me."

"What I saw was--was unbelievable!" Kathleen raised her face and looked directly into Vangie's eyes. "I saw the blood being poured, and it was--" She hardly knew how to continue, but Vangie's direct gaze demanded nothing less than the truth.

"It was," she began again, "your hand that poured it, and then I saw--I saw something else."

She stopped, remembering the sight she had seen just before she had screamed.

"I saw my own body," she said slowly, and her voice seemed to come from a great distance. "It lay still on the altar, and it was--uh--drained. It was completely drained," and with that, her head reeled, the world's up and down seemed to change places, and she fell silently into the dark.