Evil Unearthed: Chapter 40

Chapter Forty

Stephen's head was spinning, but as he walked with Vangie down the winding tower stairs, he knew he had to remain focused at all costs. No suggestion of power came from her and great shivers ran through her body as she leaned against him for support. However, her eyes were what troubled him the most. When he looked into them, he saw nothing less than death there. They could not settle on him or indeed on anything, and there was a brightness in them which reminded him of Barrett on the last day of his life. She stumbled a couple of times as they went down the stairs, and by the time they exited the tower into one of the main corridors of the house, she was forced to stop so she could collect herself.

"Stephen," she said. "We can't go down the front stairs. They're blocked. Go to the main gallery and look down."

"But I can't just leave you here!"

"I'll be fine, now just go and tell me what you see!"

Walking slowly down the hallway and out to the main gallery above the great hall, he could think of nothing but Vangie. He had to help her, he knew, but he was not sure whether he was supposed to save her life or to let her die. She seemed so ravaged by what she had experienced that he could not imagine her living any kind of normal life after this. However, if it was his job to help her to die, he did not think he could do it. He loved her and did not want to lose her. She had survived the evils of this house, so how could she die now? She had survived for three-hundred years and still the prophecy had not claimed her. Was it fated to do so after all? He desperately hoped not, but the fear of the cave was on him again and he could not set it aside.

Finally reaching the central gallery, he paused at the banister and looked down. Chunks of stone lay in the hall below, furniture was overturned and the marble floor was cracked and broken. Moving carefully toward the main staircase, he noticed that its bottom was choked with fallen rubble which would be impossible to move without special equipment. He had a fleeting thought that this must be what the house looked like after the fire forty years before, and then a sudden shift in the floor beneath his feet recalled him and made him move quickly back to Vangie's side.

"You're right," he said, breathless and frightened. "It's not safe. Can we take the kitchen stairs?"

"We'll have to. The hall itself should be passable." She took his hand as they began to walk toward the back stairs, and he almost recoiled at her touch, for her hand was chilled.

"My God, Vangie! Your hand is so cold!"

"The fire which has sustained me is dimming, Stephen. We must see if it can be rekindled again. Come," and they moved off without another word.

In the kitchen, Stephen wanted to get Vangie something to eat or to drink but she declined it. He himself felt both hungry and thirsty, but he knew he could not stop now. There was an urgency in Vangie's glance which made him move as quickly as he could, but when they got to the great hall, he stopped and gazed around in amazement.

"The portrait's gone!"

"It is," she said. "It disappeared."

"I wish it had been destroyed," he said savagely.

"I know," said Vangie sadly, "but it was more powerful than anyone realized. It will reappear someday to haunt the Desmonds and their descendants, but I do not think it will ever return to this place."

"I don't think anyone will ever return to this place," said Stephen. "It ought to be burned down!"

"It will never be destroyed," said Vangie, "not completely. Remember that it was a palace of our people long before it was a pleasure-house for Jacques Eloi Des Mondes, and the temple still lies beneath it."

They moved gingerly over the shards of marble and splinters of vintage furniture until they reached the stairs to the crypt. These were unblocked and the crypt was undamaged, but something was missing all the same. Stephen wasn't certain what had changed, but he suddenly realized what it was and gasped audibly.

"It's gone," he said. "The capsule!"

"Just as well," said Vangie. "It was evil!"

"It was misguided, yes, but evil?"

"Evil," said Vangie.

"But where could it go?"

"Where all evil things go, Stephen, but I know that one thing has remained. Do you see the casket with Jacques's name on it?"

"I do, but I'd rather not."

"When we're done in the temple, Stephen, I want you to open that casket and look inside."

"Alright," he said, "but why?"

"Promise me you'll do it, Stephen! Never mind why just now!"

"I promise," he said, and turned toward the temple door. Straining hard, he managed to move it aside enough so they could enter the tunnel.

"We have no light," he said.

"We need none," said Vangie, and lifted the staff. From its tip came a glow which illuminated the ground ahead, and before he knew it, the glow was illuminating the strange paintings on the walls of the temple of the Great Serpent.

It lay as it had when Stephen had last seen it, and Vangie seemed to brighten as she entered its environs.

"Have you still the matches you used for lighting your incense during the ritual, Stephen?"

"They're right here," he said.

"Then will you light the candles and the brazier?"

He walked around the temple and set light to the tall candles ranged around the altar and then lit the charcoal in the brazier. Then Vangie took some incense and threw it onto the coals and a fragrant smoke began to rise in curling tongues from the metal tripod while the flames of the candles danced on the walls and cast odd shadows in the corners of the room.

"Oh Great Serpent," said Vangie, walking around the altar, Stephen following her as he had seen Barrett do in her cabin, "we come to you in gratitude for the aid you have given. We ask now to know your will for your servant called the Conjure Woman. Have you finished with her? Is she to go to her rest, to join her ancestors, or will she remain a while in the mortal world?"

Stephen saw her overshadowed by the serpent's power once more and from her fair and radiant face came unutterable love.

"I am coming to a great change, Stephen," she said. "There is something that I must do before the fire dims completely."

"What is it?"

"Just follow me and stand with me, Stephen," she said, and pacing slowly and deliberately, she traced her previous footsteps in the dust of years which lay on the floor of the temple, drawing a circle of blue fire with the staff she carried. Stephen could do nothing but follow her, mesmerized by her movements and by the strength pulsing from her.

"We have exorcised the house," she said now, turning to face the serpent image on the altar, "but the island was also cursed by Jacques Eloi Des Mondes and the evil he brought from across the sea. As I am the priestess of the Great Serpent, I must use the power given to me to cleanse the island and to purify it while I still can."

"Don't talk like that, Vangie!"

"Hush, and face me across the altar!"

Stephen did so, remembering how she and Barrett had done this in the cabin so long ago, and as she began the opening invocation, he remembered what Barrett had said and responded to her words as though he had known them all his life.

"I am she, hater of evil," she began.

"I am he whose mouth spews flames," he said, and then Vangie moved to him and took his hands.

"There's no drummer," he said stupidly, awed by the power in her and feeling as though he was grasping some ancient and primal fire.

"The island has a rhythm of its own," she said, "and in a moment, he knew that this was true, for they were swept up into a dance that neither of them could have created and that no one would ever reproduce. It was frenzied and yet reverent, sacred and yet untamed. It was the dance of life and of death, of love and of loss, and it was filled with the rhythms of mortality and eternity intertwined and comingling in ecstatic communion. He was caught up into it in a way he had never been caught up into any Christian service, and he reflected that this was because it was so immediate, so raw, so precarious. For he knew that even as she radiated strength, that strength was consuming Vangie as she held it.

"The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," he said to himself as they danced, and then the Conjure Woman embraced and kissed him more fervently than she had ever done before, and in the midst of their passion, she suddenly cried out in pain and he drew away thinking he had hurt her.

"It is done," she said. "I've done what I could. You must take the power from me, Stephen, as you did before,"

"Alright," he said, and taking the staff from her, he looked at her and again saw how the power was flowing from her. He pointed the staff at her and drew the strange energy from her slowly, wondering if he would be able to hold it. Soon, the staff was heavy in his hand and he had no choice but to set it to the floor and to lean on it, tired and dizzied with his effort.

"Good," said Vangie, all power gone from her, her face pale and drawn. "good, Stephen," and she collapsed and lay motionless on the floor. However, though her body was limp and lifeless, her mind still seemed able to function, for he heard clearly in his own mind the words:

"The altar, Stephen! Get me to the altar! It's the only way now!"

Stephen lifted her tenderly in his arms and was surprised at how light she felt, but she felt cold to him as well. No longer was she fire made flesh. Indeed, the longer he held her, he felt his own life ebbing away as though perhaps he could warm her by sheer will, but he knew as he laid her gently down on the cold stone of the altar, the serpent image gazing pitilessly at him as he did so, that nothing he could do would help. Still, he was desperate and angry, and he suddenly realized what he had to do. He had to drum as he had done before. His drumming had always called her back from the abyss, and so, tears blurring his eyes and sobs shaking his being, he turned away from his beloved who lay dying and picked up the temple's drum.

As his hands began to move upon the skin of the ancient instrument, his tears fell freely and unchecked. Still, as he sobbed and howled for his impending loss, his hands moved surely and deftly, and soon, the rhythms he was making lulled his body and mind into a strange state. Drumming and drumming, he let his mind drift away on the primal sound he was making, and a part of him began to hear other instruments and voices chanting in an unknown language. He felt and even saw people around him in the shadows, dancing and gesturing, and ever and anon, one would approach the altar and place his or her hands on the still form of the Conjure Woman, doing honour to their priestess and their guide during what he now knew must be her final transition. As his trance deepened, he thought he could see familiar faces among the unfamiliar. Martine, the servant in the Bishop's house, seemed to hover near him for an eternal moment, and then came the tall form of Michel, Vangie's guardian and protector. He wondered if the big man would reproach him for allowing her to face such dangers, but instead, he looked at him with approval and bent to the altar, his spirit's hands caressing his lady and mistress as tenderly as if she were his child. Last of all, he thought he saw Barrett himself come from one of the shadowy corners. He did not raise his eyes to look more fully upon this shade, because with him had come the cold realization that death must really be coming to the woman whom he now knew that he did not want to live without. After a while, he stopped looking around. The ghostly forms unnerved him. Instead, he just kept drumming with that strange rhythm he had first known in his dream of this place. He hoped he was a true priest at this moment. He hoped he was doing the right thing, and then, seeming far away and yet clear, there was a step behind him and a voice calling his name. The voice, however, did not belong to Vangie, both because it had an Irish lilt which he had come to know very well and because, he realized when he looked up into the beam of the flashlight now playing across the temple, Vangie was no longer on the altar. Indeed, he could see no sign that she had ever been there, save for a single perfect pearl lying there in her place. Suddenly, the fear of the cave had returned with full force upon him, and all his childhood fears of evil monsters hiding under beds and waiting to snatch wakeful children caused the goose-flesh to creep slowly up his arms and down his back.

"She was here, Kat," he said. "She was here!" He could think of nothing else to say for the moment, but then a question occurred to him.

"What are you doing here?"